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 BS 1171 .H27 1889 
 Hare, George Emlen. 
 Visions and narratives of 
 the Old Testament 
 
VISIONS AND NARRATIVES 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 GEORGE EMLEN HARE, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1889 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 GEORGE E. HARE, 
 1889 
 
 Pressor J.J. Little & Co., 
 Astor Place, New York. 
 
TO THE READER, 
 
 Much of the substance of this little work has 
 
 appeared in articles contributed to 
 
 periodicals at various times by 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Origin of the Sabbath i 
 
 II. Sons of God and Daughters of Man ... i6 
 
 III. God Wrestling and Wrestled with ... 2^ 
 
 IV. The Sense of Right and Wrong ^\:> 
 
 V. ZiON 48 
 
 VI. Micaiah the Son of Imlah ()() 
 
 VII. The Covenant with David 80 
 
 VIII. The Lord of David 95 
 
 IX. Sufferings and Expectations .106 
 
 X. The Servant of the Lord 119 
 
 XL The Outpouring of the Spirit, the Great 
 Day of the Lord, and the Events which 
 
 Must Precede that Day 135 
 
 XII. The Kingdom to be Set up by the God of 
 
 Heaven 153 
 
 XIII. Belshazzar 176 
 
 XIV. The Messenger of the Covenant . . . .185 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 
 Genesis I. i-II. 3. 
 
 Ten parts of the Book of Genesis begin with such 
 words as these : '' These are the generations of 
 the Heaven and the Earth," ''This is the book of 
 the generations of Adam.""^ An eleventh part, 
 the first in order of place, commences with the 
 words, *' In the beginning;" and this part is distin- 
 guishable from the parts which follow, not only by- 
 its commencement, but by a difference of style. 
 The name of the Deity throughout the portion 
 ending with II. 3, is simply ** God." Throughout 
 the portion beginning with 11. 4 the predominating 
 name is either ** the Lord " or '' the Lord God." It 
 seems to be admitted that such facts make the 
 record beginning with Gen. I. i, and ending with 
 Gen. II. 3, a whole within itself. 
 
 *Gen. ii. 4, v. I, vi. 9, x. i, xi. 10, xi. 27, xxv. 12, xxv. 19, xxxvi, 
 I, xxxvii. 2. 
 
2 Visions and Nari'atives. 
 
 Several of the phenomena of this record invite 
 investigation, especially when they are compared' 
 with other parts of Scripture. The passage seems 
 to represent the stars as brought into existence on 
 the fourth day, whereas, according to the book of 
 Job," the stars *'sang" at the founding of the 
 earth. The days mentioned in the record are 
 alternations of light and darkness. If the earth 
 rotated in the first week of its existence with the 
 same velocity that it now rotates, they must have 
 been days of twenty- four hours, — and between the 
 thij'd day, until which the earth was covered by 
 the ocean, and the sixth day, on which man was 
 created, only seventy-two hours would intervene, 
 an interval too short to make rain necessary or 
 propitious to vegetation. But the statement of the 
 second chapter seems to be,t that during the 
 interval before the creation of man, every herb 
 grew not, because the LORD God had not caused it 
 to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to 
 till the ground. The whole account supposes the 
 presence of a by-stander. The language is, *' God 
 said, Let there be light," ''God said. Let there be 
 a firmament," " God said. Let the waters under the 
 Heaven be gathered unto one place." Except for 
 the sake of a person or persons present, why 
 
 ♦Job xxxviii. 7. f Gen. ii. 4. 
 
The Origin of the Sabbath. 3 
 
 address things non-existent or inanimate ? And 
 the by-stander has an idea of man, an idea of dry 
 land, so that the Divine utterance can run without 
 explanation — "Let us make man in our image," 
 ** Let the dry land appear," whereas a by-stander, 
 possessed or not possessed of such ideas, a by- 
 stander belonging to the race to be instructed, 
 neither was nor, according to the record, could be 
 present. A human by-stander was not yet created. 
 Much is made of alternations of light and darkness 
 six times occurring ; and the significance of the 
 six-fold mention of these alternations does not 
 appear if the first chapter is read (as it formerly 
 was in church worship) by itself. Remarkable is 
 the iteration of the mention of the Deity : ** God 
 created," '* God said," "God saw," "God made," 
 " God divided," " God set," " God blessed." 
 
 The curious record with which we have to do, 
 — the first record in the book of Genesis — may have 
 originated in an inspired vision, and like the reve- 
 lations of Micaiah, the son of Imlah, and St. John 
 the Divine, may be symbolic, of the nature of a 
 parable. The seer may have had a scope the same 
 as that of other visions' of which we hear in Script- 
 ure, a scope not touching the scientific domain, — 
 not taking within its range any points of chron- 
 ology, except such as were essential to the purpose 
 
4 Visio7ts and Narratives. 
 
 of the Spirit,— a scope purely theological or relig- 
 ious. On the supposition that this was the case, 
 the remarkable phenomena, mentioned above are 
 capable of a satisfactory explanation. With rela- 
 tion to the fact that between the third and the 
 sixth days— within an interval of seventy-two 
 hours — the earth previously covered by the great 
 deep had begun to want rain for vegetation, the 
 remark is obvious that alternations of light and 
 darkness, seen in vision, do not need to be under- 
 stood of periods of twenty-four hours. 
 
 If the Mosaic record is an account of a vision 
 vouchsafed to a prophet, the fact explains the 
 utterances, **Let us make man," "Let the dry land 
 appear," although these utterances assume the 
 presence of a by-stander, and that to this by- 
 stander, ''man" and ''dry land" were familiar 
 terms. At the time of the vision, though not at 
 the time represented by the vision, there was a by- 
 stander, viz., the spirit of the prophet, and to this 
 by-stander man and dry land were things well 
 known. 
 
 A vision which exhibits the sun, moon and stars 
 as beginning to be within the expanse or reach of 
 open space, in the course of the vision's fourth 
 alternation of light and darkness, hardly needs to be 
 reconciled with the probability that these heavenly 
 
The Origin of the Sabbath. 5 
 
 bodies existed previously, or with the fact that in 
 the Book of Job the stars appear as celebrating the 
 foundation of the earth. The fiat heard by the 
 inner ear of the seer, " Let there be lights in the 
 firmament of the Heaven to divide the day from the 
 night," — translate rather *' Let there come ^^ bearers 
 of light in the expanse of the Heaven to divide the 
 day from the night " — this fiat and that execution 
 of this fiat, which passed before the seer's inner 
 eyes, were compatible with the fact, if fact it was, 
 that some or all of the heavenly luminaries had 
 existed previously. 
 
 Some have transferred the facts which the in- 
 spired narrator has exhibited in their visional 
 aspect into an aspect more realistic. They have 
 said substantially as follows : 
 
 A great deep, the ocean, covering the globe 
 everywhere, was itself everywhere covered by 
 clouds altogether impervious to the rays of the 
 sun. Total darkness was consequently upon all 
 things. These clouds were subsequently rarified, 
 became penetrable by the sunlight ; became trans- 
 
 * The verb signifies " lo become " or "to come to be," and is else- 
 where translated by the word "come," Gen. xv. I The word ren- 
 dered "light " in the authorized version "at Gen. i. 1-5 and 18 differs 
 from the word so translated at Gen. i. 14. This last word is some- 
 times equivalent to " candlestick "or " candelabrum." 
 
6 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 lucent ; and this translucency continued for a spot 
 or quarter of the globe, until the globe, revolving 
 on its axis, ceased to expose that spot or quarter 
 to this beneficent influence. The lapse of time 
 which witnessed the appearance of light, together 
 with the lapse of time during which the earth was 
 again in darkness, formed the first of the six 
 periods which appear in the representation of the 
 seer as days. 
 
 At the beginning of a second period, the aeriform 
 waters, though they had become translucent, were 
 not transparent. No object could have been 
 discerned at the beginning of the second period 
 except the thick clouds, which, though they had 
 come to admit the perception of light, admitted 
 the perception of nothing else. Before the end of 
 the second period, a space intervened between the 
 " deep," which continued to submerge the globe 
 and the region of thick cloud ; an expanse, a field 
 of sight, in which objects would have been visible 
 if an eye had existed, divided between the aeriform 
 water and the waters of the ocean. This was the 
 period, long or short, to represent which the seer 
 is made to hear the utterance and to behold the 
 making told of in the words " Let there be an ex- 
 panse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide 
 waters from waters. And God made the expanse 
 
The. Origin of the Sabbath. y 
 
 and God called the expanse Heaven. And 
 
 there came to be an evening and there came to be 
 a morning ; a second day." 
 
 In the third period, the ocean ceased to submerge 
 the whole of the earth, land became apparent, vege- 
 tation rose upon the surface of the land, each vege- 
 table having within itself the means of reproduction. 
 This period is symbolically exhibited in the words 
 of verses 9-13. 
 
 In the beginning of the fourth period the expanse 
 which was to render objects visible reached only 
 to a region of clouds. The expanse could not 
 include the source of light, the sun, or the moon, or 
 the stars. Before the fourth period ended another 
 stage of things began. The heavens became 
 cloudless. Though the sun, the moon and the 
 stars had existed before, they now began to be 
 within the expanse or field of vision. The seer, 
 seeing or hearing nothing except in its relations to 
 human beings — the change and its beneficent 
 results appearing to the prophet in their religious 
 aspects simply — this inspired writer depicts the 
 appearance of the heavenly bodies in the words of 
 verses 14-19. 
 
 If such a series of conjectures seems probable, it 
 is not certain. Such conjectures are not made- 
 necessary by the representations of our passage, 
 
8 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 however they may consist with these representa- 
 tions. The language of the narrative is not that of 
 a physicist. The statement runs again and again, 
 " God said," and '' God made." The one clause 
 refers to the origin of the thing afterwards named, 
 the other to the causation by which the design was 
 effected. Both clauses bring prominently into view 
 the Divine action and leave out of view everything 
 else. That which appears to the prophet is an 
 ideal. It remains to discuss the responsibili-ties of 
 the first section of the Book of Genesis, the respon- 
 sibilities which have been falsely attributed to the 
 passage, and the responsibilities which truly belong 
 to it.' 
 
 I. The record with which we have to do is not 
 responsible for the notion of a metallic sky, or of 
 an ocean above that sky. The Bible knows not of 
 any waters above our heads, except waters in an 
 aeriform state, i, e., clouds. The firmament of 
 which our seer speaks, was a thing which, on the 
 second day, divided the waters which were under 
 the firmament from the waters which were above 
 the firmament, and a thing which, on the fourth 
 day, included the sun, moon and stars. The firma- 
 ment then — the original is better translated on the 
 margin of our Bibles, the ** expanse " — can hardly 
 be anything but the medium through which we see. 
 
The Origin of the Sabbath. 9 
 
 when we look upward. It is the reach of space 
 above our heads, the space ordinarily transparent. 
 What else could be represented as dividing the 
 waters from the waters. The notion of a metallic 
 firmament, imputed to Moses, is the invention of 
 interpreters. 
 
 2. The record is not responsible for the opinion 
 that we ought to reckon the Lord's Day, or other 
 of our days, from sunset to sunset. The words 
 ** the second day " follow the account of the work 
 of that day, and imply that the evening and morning 
 mentioned in connection with that account, were 
 the evening which followed the noon and the dawn 
 which ended the night belonging to the second 
 day. It is with strict accuracy that the revisers 
 of the current English Bible translate ''And there 
 was evening and there was morning " a second day. 
 The like may be said of similar sentences in the 
 first chapter, respecting the days. If these sen- 
 tences bind us to any special mode of computing 
 the time of the Lord's Day or other days, it is 
 rather to the computation from daybreg.k to day- 
 break. But it is hardly within the scope of the 
 vision to impose any such obligation. 
 
 3. The record is not responsible for any of the 
 different opinions advocated by interpreters, in 
 regard to the questions — whether the duration of 
 
lO Visions and Narratives. 
 
 the chaotic state was long- or short, for minutes or 
 for ages, whether there was, or was not, an interval 
 between the creation and the choas ; and if there 
 was such an interval, whether it lasted for millions 
 of years, or only for the twinkling of an eye. The 
 account is reconcilable with — and does not tie us 
 to — any of these opinions. 
 
 4. The passage is not responsible for the opinion 
 that the periods which it denominates days were 
 of equal length, each a period of twenty-four hours. 
 That they were not periods of twenty-four hours 
 has been shown from the hindrance to vegetation, 
 arising from the want of rain, mentioned in Genesis II. 
 In the latter passage the period named a " day" 
 seems to have included not less than three of the 
 days mentioned in the first chapter. It may be 
 added that within the limits of the fifth verse of the 
 first chapter '* day " first signifies daytime as dis- 
 tinguished from night, and afterwards includes both 
 daytime and night. 
 
 5. The account is not responsible for the opinion 
 that light existed before the sun, though this 
 opinion may be consistent with the account. 
 
 6. It appertains to the subject to say that the 
 sacredness given to the number seven in this 
 account belongs to this number in many other of 
 the appointments which came through Moses". The 
 
TJie Orin'ji of the Sabbath. 1 1 
 
 -^ 
 
 Passover, the great festival of the year, was to be 
 celebrated for seven days. Seven weeks after the 
 Passover the Feast of Pentecost was to take place ; 
 and this was to be celebrated with the use of seven 
 lambs. In the seventh month, and to be kept for 
 seven days, was the Feast of Tabernacles. The 
 seventh year was to be Sabbatical, and every 
 seventh Sabbatical year was to introduce a 
 jubilee. 
 
 But, not insisting on a matter comparatively 
 insignificant, and passing from negations with 
 regard to the responsibilities of the first portion of 
 the Book of Genesis, to affirmations respecting this 
 account, the account is answerable for the Sab- 
 bath. This section of the sacred book winds up 
 v/ith the declaration " God blessed the seventh day 
 and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all 
 His work which God creatively did." The catas- 
 trophe unravels the plot : the issue of the vision 
 develops the plan of the vision. 
 
 The words are such as to imply that rest is 
 blessedness, and sanctity a duty ; that it was 
 proper that a day should be set apart periodically 
 for the enjoyment of this blessedness and the culti- 
 vation of this sanctity ; and that the facts that the 
 Divine Being wrought creatively for six periods, 
 and discontinued this working in the seventh 
 
12 V/sious and Nari^atives. 
 
 period, should furnish the rule of the periodicity — 
 should, for Israelites elevate the seventh of every 
 seven alternations of light and darkness to the 
 blessedness of rest and the dignity of sanctification. 
 A large part of the Christian Church has for ages 
 celebrated the cessation of the work of St. Stephen 
 as the crowning act of his life. His martyrdom 
 was that by which he finished his course. It was, 
 as it were, the finale of his career. In a manner 
 somewhat similar, Israel was to celebrate the work 
 and character of God by setting apart the seventh 
 day of every hebdomad in memory of the time at 
 which in an inspired representation the Divine 
 Being gave the complement to His creative 
 action. 
 
 7. Another thing for which the record in Genesis 
 I. I-II. 3 is plainly responsible, is the doctrine with 
 which the account commences — " In the beginning 
 God created the heavens and the earth," the princi- 
 ple or doctrine which the writer shows to be a 
 chief thing in his mind and at his heart, by his 
 remarkable iterations: *' The spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters," *' God said," *' God 
 saw," '' God divided," '' God called," '' God made," 
 — the principle that the earth, the daily succession 
 of darkness to light, the expanse, the sea and the 
 land, the vegetable and its seed or means of repro- 
 
The Origin cf tJic Sabbath. 13 
 
 duction, the sun, the moon and the stars ; fish, 
 reptiles, birds ; last, not least, human beings, and 
 the pairs or couples in which these appear, are 
 the workmanship of God ; created, contemplated, 
 distributed, arranged for, approved by the Divine 
 Being ; therefore fit themes for praise, and, not 
 least, for Sabbatical praise. 
 
 In the books of Scripture which followed the 
 writings of Moses, no passages are to be found 
 which make the account with which we have to do 
 a ground for theories touching chronology or 
 natural science, whereas in these later books of 
 Scripture applications of the religious teaching 
 of our record abound. When Psalmists write — * 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God ; the 
 expanse showeth the work of His hands, day unto 
 day uttereth speech," "" By the Word of the Lord 
 were the heavens made and all the host of them 
 by the breath of His mouth, He gathereth the 
 waters of the sea together, . . . He spake and it was 
 done, He commanded and it stood fast," ** To Him 
 that by wisdom made the heavens, . . . that stretched 
 out the earth above the waters, . . . that made the 
 great lights, . . . the sun to rule the day, . . . the 
 moon and the stars to govern the night," ''The 
 day is thine, the night also is thine. Thoit hast 
 
 * Ps. xix., xxxiii. 6, 7, cxxxvi. 5-9, Ixxiv. 16, civ. 6-9. 
 
14 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 prepared the light and the sun," *'Thou coverest 
 the earth with the deep, as with a garment. The 
 waters stood above the mountains, at Thy rebuke 
 they fled, . , . they go down by the valleys into 
 the place which Thou hast founded for them. Thou 
 hast set a bound that they may not pass over " — 
 w^ho can fail to find Genesis I. i-II. 3 reproduced, 
 and reproduced for the purpose of kindling adora- 
 tion. The expanse, the day unto day, the word of 
 the Lord making the heavens and all the host of 
 them, the gathering together of the waters, the 
 stretching out the earth above the waters, the 
 making great lights to rule the day and the night, 
 the fleeing of the waters, are simply allusions to 
 the teaching in the first Mosaic record, and are ex- 
 amples of the use to which the later Scriptures 
 apply the representations of the first Mosaic 
 record — the use — the only use — to which those who 
 would imitate the Psalmists should apply these 
 symbolic representations of religious truth. 
 
 In brief, the creation, up to the time of the mak- 
 ing of Adam, an event of the sixth day, was a thing 
 of such nature that the knowledge of it could not be 
 acquired as the knowledge of ordmary history is 
 acquired — could not be learned except in a super- 
 natural manner. Communications of a supernatural 
 kind were, according to Scripture, often made by 
 
The Origin of the Sabbath. 1 5 
 
 means of inspired visions ; and when thus made, 
 might be reproduced by the pen of the seer in the 
 form — with nothing but the imagery — wherein they 
 had been exhibited to the inspired eye or ear. The 
 phenomena of Genesis I. i-II. 3 are such that they 
 can hardly be explained, except upon the supposi- 
 tion that the narrative is of a symbolical nature. 
 Such a supposition being admitted, difficulties dis- 
 appear. 
 
 The fact that our Lord's admonition, "■ Take heed, 
 and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," conflicted 
 with the manner and character of the Utterer, if 
 taken in the letter, i. e., of the leaven of bread, re- 
 quired and warranted the taking of that utterance 
 in a meaning deeper than that which lay on the 
 surface. So it was with the cursing of the barren 
 fig-tree ; and so it is with the first section of the 
 Book of Genesis. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MAN. 
 Genesis IV. 26-VI. 1-5. 
 
 The fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis did not 
 appear as such — viz., as a separate chapter — for 
 many centuries after the death of the writer of the 
 book. The contents of the passage are in the 
 nature of a long parenthesis, and the opening of 
 the sixth chapter connects in meaning with the 
 close of the fourth. The close of the fourth and the 
 opening of the sixth may be translated as follows — 
 in part after the manner of the revisers of the 
 authorized version : 
 
 " And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; 
 and he called his name Enos : then began men to 
 
 call upon the name of the LORD and it 
 
 came to pass, when man began to multiply on the 
 face of the ground and daughters were born unto 
 them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of 
 man that they were fair, and they took them wives 
 
 16 
 
Sons of God and Daughters of Man. \y 
 
 from all that they chose. And the LORD said, My 
 spirit will never rule in man. In their going astray 
 they are flesh. And his days shall be an hundred 
 and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth 
 in those days, and also after the sons of God came 
 in unto the daughters of man and they bare chil- 
 dren unto them. The same are the mighty men 
 which from of old are the men of renown. And 
 the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was 
 great in the earth, and that every work of 
 the thoughts of his heart was only evil con- 
 tinually." 
 
 The passage is accompanied by repeated state- 
 ments that all flesh had corrupted its way and that 
 the earth was filled with violence. With such 
 accompaniments the passage ushers in the account 
 of the deluge. 
 
 There are curious things in the passage. After 
 mention of the birth of Enos, a grandson of Adam, 
 the statement is, " Then began men to call upon 
 the name of the Lord." It seems difficult to recon- 
 cile this statement with the fact that earlier parts 
 of the Book of Genesis clearly imply that the 
 acknowledgment of the Being named the LORD 
 obtained much earlier. This acknowledgment 
 appears in the exclamation of Eve when she had 
 become the mother of Cain, — *'I ha/e gotten a 
 
1 3 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 man from the LORD," — and in the declaration that 
 Cain went out " from the presence of the Lord." 
 The exclamation and the declaration each implied 
 an invocation of the name of the Lord. The be- 
 ginning mentioned as having occurred in the times 
 of Enos may have been a nciu beginning. The 
 times of Enos lasted for more than eleven centuries. 
 Before the twelve hundredth year of the Christian 
 era, men had, to a large extent, substituted the 
 worship of the Virgin and other departed saints for 
 the worship of the one true God ; and the men 
 called Waldenses may be said to have begun to 
 call upon the One Sacred Name at the time when 
 they departed from the corruption to wdiich they 
 had conformed. Within the first twelve hundred 
 years from the creation there may have been a 
 widespread apostasy. Polytheism or atheism may 
 have taken the place of a pure theism ; and there 
 may thus have been room for beginning anew to 
 call upon the name of the Lord. Before the times 
 of Enos ended, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, 
 lived. Enoch walked with God. God took him : he 
 was translated that he should not see death. 
 According to St. Jude, this patriarch, the seventh 
 from Adam, prophesied of a judgment to come. 
 His ministrations may have been the means of 
 
Sofis of God and Daughters of Man. 19 
 
 bringing about among men the resumption of the 
 worship of Jehovah. 
 
 After the genealogy in the parenthetical chapter, 
 the narrative proceeds with the statement that it 
 came to pass " when man began to multiply on 
 the earth and daughters were born to them, that 
 the sons of God saw the daughters of man that 
 they were fair, and they took them wives from all 
 that they chose." Who were these sons of God } 
 They may be the same as had anew begun to call 
 upon the name of the Lord. The same persons as 
 had been previously described by their reformed 
 practice — their return to the worship of the one pro- 
 per object of adoration — may be designated in this 
 place by a phrase importing a second birth. 
 Throughout the Scriptures, men to whom the 
 Divine influence has given a new quality are spoken 
 of as sons of God. When persons wondered that 
 Saul the son of Kish, a man not previously known 
 as a "man of God," appeared as a prophet, they 
 exclaimed, with reference to acknowledged proph- 
 ets, " And who is their Father .-* " meaning that He 
 who had inspired prophets previously acknowl- 
 edged, could bestow a like inspiration on persons 
 who before had not been of the inspired class. In 
 the Proverbs* ''the children of the LORD " is a 
 
 * Prov. xiv, 26, 
 
20 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 name given to such as entertain the fear of God. 
 In an utterance addressed to the Divine Being by 
 a Psahnist,"'^ the ''generation of thy children" 
 describes the pious as the progeny of the Father 
 on high. In these places the word translated 
 ** children " is the same as that translated ** sons " 
 in the passage with which we have to do. It was 
 because of such Old Testament ideas that our Lord, 
 in response to the Jew who had asked, t " How can a 
 man be born when he is old } Can he enter a second 
 time into his mother's womb and be born t " could 
 rejoin, ''Art thou a master in Israel and knowest 
 not yet these things } " In the New Testament the 
 use of the phrase, " sons of God," runs throughout 
 the volume. Men in v/hom God has engendered a 
 spirit of piety are denominated children of God, as 
 if persons born a second time. It may be objected 
 that the contrast between the phrases, " sons of 
 God" and "daughters of man," implies that the 
 sons of God were not sons of man as well. The 
 contrast conveys such a meaning in seeming only. 
 A Psalmist says, when speaking of the godless per- 
 sons who were in prosperity, " They are not in trou- 
 ble, as other men, neither are they plagued like other 
 men." In that passage the phrase translated " other 
 men" is precisely the same as the phrase "man" 
 
 *Ps. Ixxiii. 15. t John iii. 4, 10. 
 
SoJis of God and Daughter^ of Man. 2i 
 
 in the place with which we have .to do. Had our 
 translators inserted the word '' other " before the 
 word men in Genesis vi., as they do in Psalm Ixxiii.,"^ 
 they would have given the sense of our passage 
 altogether in conformity with the Hebrew idiom, 
 and would have removed that appearance of con- 
 trast which to many appears so difficult. 
 
 The passage proceeds : " My Spirit will never 
 rule in man. In their going astray they are flesh.'* 
 The meaning seems to be that in the human race 
 the fleshly had so predominated over the spiritual, 
 the intermarriage of the sons of God with the 
 daughters of man had so disappointed the prospect 
 of improvement, as to make the case morally hope- 
 less unless some judgment, such as is mentioned a 
 little further on (the judgment of the deluge) 
 should be inflicted. 
 
 As to the language, '' his days shall be an hun- 
 dred and twenty years," it is the days of. the race, 
 not the days of an individual — the days which were 
 to intervene for man before the signal judgment — 
 that are intended. 
 
 The narrative proceeds in the English Bible with 
 the sentence, ** There were giants in the earth in 
 those days." The " days " meant in this part of the 
 narrative are no doubt the days when men began 
 
 * Ps. Ixxiii, 5; compare Jud. x.vi. 7, ii. 
 
22 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 to multiply on the face of the earth, and the fact 
 stated is, that in those days, after as well as before 
 the godless intermarriages, this race of men had 
 lived and were describable as the mighty men 
 which were from of old the men of renown. These 
 "giants" may have been like the Patagonian race, 
 men of unusual height and extraordinary muscular 
 development. They may have been giants even in 
 the popular acceptation of this phrase. But there 
 is nothing in the word Nephilim, the Hebrew word 
 used in the place with which we have to do, that 
 shuts us up to the supposition that the phrase im- 
 ports the idea of gigantic stature. It is true that 
 the spies sent by Joshua to reconnoitre the land 
 of Canaan say, " There we saw the Nephilim, and 
 we were in their sight as grasshoppers." But it 
 was a false report which they brought concerning 
 the land, and the falsity of the account they gave 
 seems to have consisted mainly in exaggerations. 
 The word Nephilim, if judged by cognate Hebrew 
 words, imports the notion of falling. Some of the 
 ancient translators of the Pentateuch (where only 
 the phrase occurs) translate it as meaning men that 
 fail upon you, men of violence. It is doubtful 
 whether the term ought to be translated at all ; 
 whether it ought not to be treated like proper 
 names, and to be merely transliterated. Distin- 
 
So)is of God and Daughters of Man. 23 
 
 guished Hebraists hold that the word is of the 
 nature of a Gentile noun, like the name Titans 
 among the Greeks. As this name was by ancient 
 Greeks interpreted by means of a cognate word 
 which conveys the notion of outstretchinGf/ and 
 was held to owe its origin to the fact that the race 
 so-called outstretched their arms for purposes 
 of violence, so the Nephilim may have received the 
 designation the sacred writer gives them because 
 they fell 2ipo}i their fellow-men. It seems to be 
 because the class of men which is meant needed 
 as early as the time of Moses to be identified to the 
 minds of his readers that this sacred writer 
 explains, '' The same are the mighty men which 
 from of old are the men of renown." Owing to 
 such facts, the revisers of the authorized version 
 render the sentence with which we are concerned, 
 " The Nephilim were in the earth in those days." It 
 is as if a modern historian should name the Aztecs, 
 and thinking the designation to be unfamiliar to 
 his readers, should explain that the race dominant 
 in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards were 
 the people meant by the unfamiliar name. 
 
 Thus much is certain : that oppression drives 
 even a wise man mad, and that the deluge is 
 described as having occurred because the earth was 
 filled with violence through men. Moreover, the 
 
24 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Nephilim, as well as the intermarriage of sons of 
 God with daughters of man, appear in the account 
 as antecedents to that overflowing and rampant 
 wickedness which gave occasion to the flood ; as 
 factors in bringing about that judgment from which 
 only Noah and his family escaped. The history is 
 incoherent unless the meaning is that the ante- 
 cedent and the consequent stood to each other in 
 the relation of cause and effect. This relation, 
 therefore, may be taken for granted. The Nephilim 
 were oppressors. Their oppression maddened men. 
 Violence was no doubt returned to violence. The 
 wickedness of man was great in the earth. 
 *' Every Avork of the thoughts of his heart was 
 only evil continually." 
 
 To pass from things curious to things practical : 
 in the family no influence exceeds that of the wife 
 and mother. It usually makes or mars the charac- 
 ter of the offspring. The suasion of the maternal 
 lips, the supplications of the maternal heart, the 
 maternal example, who but God fully knows their 
 influence .^ If the wife is unspiritual, the husband 
 becomes such, if he was not such before ; and the 
 children, with such blood in their veins, such influ- 
 ences operating upon their souls, grow up with 
 characters not religious. It was the intermarriage 
 of the godly with the godless, the fact that "sons 
 
Sons of God and Daughters of Man. 25 
 
 of God saw daughters of man, that they were fair, 
 and took them wives of whomsoever they chose," 
 that brought about the Divine utterance, *' My 
 Spirit will never rule in man," and the oracle 
 which limited the days of the race to one hundred 
 and twenty years. Beware how you marry ! 
 
 It has appeared that before the death of Enos 
 there was a need that men should begin anew to 
 call upon the name of the Lord. In like manner, 
 before the deluge, all flesh had corrupted its way, 
 and in consequence, mankind, with the exception 
 of eight persons, needed to be swept away by the 
 waters of the flood. The same tendency to degen- 
 erate appears again and again in the Scriptural 
 history of men. Before the call of Abraham the 
 descendants of the family which survived the 
 deluge had so deteriorated that the call of Abra- 
 ham became necessary for the preservation of 
 religion. Before the carrying away of the Israelites 
 to foreign countries, these descendants of Abraham 
 had so degenerated as to require this signal 
 scourge — the carrying away. If the scourge had 
 the effect of reclaiming this people from their idol- 
 atry, the place of image worship, and the vices 
 which go along with idolatry, was taken by formal- 
 ity and hypocrisy before the coming of Christ. 
 Before the Reformation new shapes of image 
 
26 Visions and Nai-rativcs. 
 
 worship, with priestcraft and the making void the 
 Word of God by traditions of men, became rife. 
 
 This tendency to degenerate could not exist in 
 the race if it did not exist in the individuaL Who 
 but finds such a tendency in himself ? Whose zeal 
 does not cool ? Whose conversion does not need 
 to be repeated ? What Christians but feel as appli- 
 cable to themselves the language of an Apostle, 
 *' My children, with whom I travail in birth again 
 until Christ be formed in you ? " Beware of the 
 tendency to degenerate. We must check this 
 tendency or perish. Daily, more than daily, let us 
 call to mind our past hours. Let us not be satis- 
 fied unless we have improved. Let us by prayer 
 breathe out aspirations and breathe in the Spirit of 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOD WRESTLING AND WRESTLED WITH. 
 Genesis XXXII, 24-32. 
 
 The conduct of Jacob toward his brother Esau had 
 been atrocious, and the ferocity of Esau had vented 
 itself in the exclamation, *' The days of mourning- 
 for my father are at hand, then will I slay my 
 brother Jacob." Rebecca, the mother, said to her 
 offending son, *' Thy brother Esau, as touching thee, 
 doth comfort himself, purposing to slay thee; arise, 
 flee to my brother Laban, and tarry there a few days ; 
 tarry there a few days, I say, until thy brother's 
 wrath be turned away ; then will I send and fetch 
 thee thence." Jacob thus came to leave his father's 
 house for a foreign country, virtually an exile. He 
 continued to be an exile for twenty years, during 
 which he became the object of envy and suspicion : 
 Trouble after trouble came upon him. At a sub- 
 sequent time, when he described the condition in 
 
 which he had lived these years, he did it in the 
 
 27 
 
28 Visio7is and Narratives. 
 
 words, " In the day the drought consumed me and 
 the frost by night." 
 
 Adversity, however, had not cured Jacob of his 
 faults. When he returned to the land of Canaan, 
 Esau's purpose to slay him continued, for aught he 
 knew or had reasan to believe ; and Esau had be- 
 come far more powerful than himself ; if his mother 
 had bidden him to tarry abroad after his flight until 
 she sent him word and fetched him thence, no mes- 
 sage that his brother's wrath had turned away had 
 reached the patriarch ; on the contrary, when Jacob 
 was on his homeward way, the tidings were, "Esau 
 Cometh to meet thee, and with him four hundred 
 men." What could the "plain man" with women and 
 children to protect, with male attendants compara- 
 tively few, effect against the " man of the field " fol- 
 lowed by such a force } The danger was great, and 
 Jacob's sense of it was intensified by his conscience. 
 No means of defence being within reach, every prop 
 being knocked from under him, he had recourse to 
 Him who had promised to bring him in safety to 
 the land of his father, and who, notwithstanding his 
 demerit, had performed the promise — " God of my 
 father Abraham, God of my father Isaac ! O Lord 
 which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country and 
 to thy kindred, and I will do thee good. I am not 
 worthy of the least of all Thy mercies and of all the 
 
God Wrestling and Wrestled With. 29 
 
 truth which Thou hast shown unto Thy servant. 
 . . . Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of 
 my brother, from the hand of Esau : for I fear him, 
 lest he come and smite me, the mother with the 
 children." Night came. Both natural light and 
 the light of prosperity had disappeared, and then 
 occurred the transaction related in the words, 
 "Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a Man 
 with him until the breaking of the day. And when 
 He [the wrestler] saw that He prevailed not against 
 him, He touched the hollow of his thigh, and the 
 hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as He wrestled 
 with him. And He [the wrestler] said. Let me go, 
 for the day breaketh. And he [Jacob] said, I will 
 not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." The 
 patriarch had been an ill-deserving man. A judg- 
 ment upon his body was needed to remind him of 
 the fact. The " sinew of the hip which is upon the 
 hollow of the thigh" showed the effect of the touch 
 of ''the Man." When the sun rose, Jacob limped. 
 " He halted upon his thigh." The infliction may 
 have been prospective as well as retrospective in its 
 import. It may have been intended as premonitory 
 of the lot which caused him to say at the close of 
 his earthly existence,^ ** Few and evil have been 
 the years of my pilgrimage." Nevertheless he was 
 
 * Gen. xlvii. g. 
 
30 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 to subserve a Divine purpose in the interest of man- 
 kind. After tlie occurrence which had made the 
 preceding night forever notable, he did not sin in 
 such ways or to such a degree as he had sinned 
 previously to the signal vision, and this event may 
 have been the turning point in his career. 
 
 Who was the Man that wrestled with Jacob 1 He 
 must have been more than man, for when the scene 
 was ended, Jacob recognized Him as the Source of 
 blessing, and exclaimed, "I have seen God." What 
 was the meaning of the transaction } What of the 
 wrestling .? In what sense is it said of the Wrestler 
 that He saw that he prevailed not ? What was the 
 meaning of the touch and of the language, *' Let me 
 go, for the day breaketh V 
 
 The vision was a representation of Jacob's past 
 and present, as seen from the Divine point of view. 
 When Jacob, with unworthy stratagem, had con- 
 tended with his brother for the paternal blessing ; 
 the contest in Jacob's estimation had been with a 
 fellow-man, with ill-fortune, and on the side of 
 prophecy,* which had said of the two brothers " The 
 elder shall serve the younger." The contest had 
 been really a struggle with duty and with God. 
 When blow after blow had fallen on Jacob — the 
 peril at home, the necessity of fleeing, the discom- 
 
 * Gen. XXV. 23. 
 
God Wrestling and Wrestled With. 31 
 
 fort of banishment, the failure of the message prom- 
 ised by his mother, the tidings received on his home- 
 ward journey, the terror at his brother's approach — • 
 the blows might seem to Jacob as from chance, 
 from ill-luck or blind nature; they really were blows 
 from God. This was the thing signified, the aspect 
 which was put on Jacob's late history, when there 
 wrestled a Man with him until the breaking of the 
 day. God had contended with him as he had con- 
 tended with God. What is the meaning of the 
 statement, that "the Man" saw that He prevailed 
 not t The means the Man had used, the force He 
 had thus far put forth, had been unequal to the per- 
 sistency of him with whom the Man had struggled. 
 Going from the sign to the thing signified — God 
 had chastised Jacob, but Jacob had not been broken 
 by the chastisement. God had not prevailed with 
 the soul of Jacob, to the point of prostrating the 
 patriarch. 
 
 An expert and powerful wrestler, though he shall 
 for a time permit him with whom he struggles to 
 hold his own, may at length prove the «kill the 
 wrestler possesses by totally disabling his antago- 
 nist with a single blow skilfully directed. With 
 the thigh dislocated or strained, what can an antago- 
 nist do } '* When the Man saw that He prevailed 
 not against him, he touched the hollow of Jacob's 
 
32 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 thigh, and the thigh of Jacob was strained." Un- 
 able to wrestle any longer, Jacob clings ; he has a 
 hold upon the feet or other part of the person of the 
 Man, and will not relax his grasp, as appears from 
 the words of the Man, " Let me go, for the day 
 breaketh." This was to signify the reduction of 
 pride, the ceasing to struggle v/ith God, the cling- 
 ing to God in prayer, which took place when Jacob 
 wept and made the confession and supplication, 
 *' Oh God of my father Abraham, I am not worthy 
 of the least of Thy mercies ! Deliver me from my 
 brother, from Esau, lest he slay me and slay the 
 mother with her children." 
 
 The patriarch's true strength, which lay in con- 
 scious helplessness and dependence, at length ap- 
 peared. Day was about to dawn upon his night 
 when the night was at its darkest. Ere the next 
 twelve hours were over, Esau, marvellously and per- 
 haps suddenly changed, was to meet him, but far 
 from falling upon him with his four hundred men, 
 was to embrace him, to fall on his neck and kiss 
 him. When a turn in a man's affairs so cheering 
 takes place, it sometimes breaks the tie between 
 him and the Divine author of the turn. The m.an 
 thus blessed ceases to cling to God. To bring this 
 truth to the surface, to forewarn Jacob that he might 
 encounter such temptation, may be the thing 
 
God Wrestling and Wrestled With. 33 
 
 signified by the words of the superhuman Wrestler, 
 *' Let me go, for the day breaketh." 
 
 We have seen that Jacob had long striven with 
 God with a bad persistency. We have seen also 
 that when the Wrestler had prostrated him, when 
 Jacob piteously confessed his worthlessness, when 
 his heart gave forth the supplication, God of my 
 father Abraham, I am not worthy, but deliver me, 
 he strove with his Maker in a sense far different. 
 Henceforward Jacob's name must be new. He had 
 in the second strife striven with God prevailingly, 
 and this prevailing strife with God involved a pre- 
 vailing with Esau and the four hundred men whom 
 and whose affections God overruled. God *' blessed 
 him there" and said, *' Thy name shall be called 
 Israel, because thou hast striven with God and men, 
 and hast prevailed." The new name was com- 
 pounded of two words, one signifying strife, the 
 other signifying God, the compound importing 
 a struggle to which the Divine Being was a 
 party. 
 
 Jacob has begun to perceive the meaning of the 
 vision. The truth reaches him that the Wrestler, 
 was no other than the Source of his past troubles, 
 no other than the Source of the blessing which he 
 needs for the future. If he has had a hold at the 
 feet of Him who had given the decisive touch at the 
 
34 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 hollow of the thigh, he has asked, as if of his Maker, 
 that he may retain this hold, " I will not let Thee 
 go until Thou bless me." When he inquires for the 
 name of the *' Man " of the vision, this is only to 
 make assurance doubly sure, and the Wrestler gives 
 the desired reassurance in the significant question, 
 Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after My Namei? 
 But the place of the vision, as well as Jacob, must 
 receive a new designation. It must take the name 
 Peniel (presence or face of God), because after the 
 vision Jacob could and did testify, " I have seen God 
 face to face and my life is preserved." His life had 
 been preserved with a preservation so surpassing 
 that he met his injured brother with forgiveness on 
 the part of the latter, and with more than safety to 
 himself. He in whose hands are all human hearts 
 delivered Israel not only from harm and the appre- 
 hension of harm from his brother, but from even the 
 desire to inflict harm, in the soul of the wronged 
 Esau. What wonder that Jacob should provide 
 that the place and its name should from age to age 
 call to the minds of the future occupants of the 
 land the signal events which the locality had wit- 
 nessed — God striving with the patriarch, and long 
 striving without prevailing in the strife — God at 
 length reducing the patriarch so that this person 
 began a new kind of strife, viz., the strife in 
 
God Wrestling and Wrestled With. 35 
 
 which the striver rejoices in having- and keeping 
 
 a hold on the feet of him with whom he strives 
 
 — God at last prevailed with and pronouncing, 
 
 Thou hast striven with God and men, and hast 
 prevailed. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG 
 Genesis XXXVII., XLII. 
 
 The brothers of Joseph were envious, mah'gnant 
 
 and murderous. Yet when one of their number 
 
 said, *' Let not our hand be upon him, for he is our 
 
 brother and our flesh," the rest were moved. A 
 
 chord within them answered to this touch. When 
 
 disaster came upon them, conscience proved its 
 
 existence in the exclamations, "We are verily 
 
 guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the 
 
 distress of his soul when he besought us ; and we 
 
 would not hear ! Therefore is this distress come 
 
 upon us. Behold his blood is required. God hath 
 
 found out our iniquity." Such ideas of guilt and 
 
 penal consequences are familiar to us. But what is 
 
 the source of such ideas ? Are they an outcome of 
 
 revelation, or does revelation take their existence for 
 
 granted, and build upon them the structure it rears ? 
 
 Many persons do not care to enter into such in- 
 
 36 
 
The Sense of Right and Wrong. yj 
 
 quiries, but to others they seem fundamental, and, in 
 this age of scepticism, important to be met. 
 
 I. The words " paternal," " maternal " and " filial " 
 originally denote relations merely — the relation of a 
 father, of a mother, of a son ; but they pass into a 
 secondary meaning ; they import a conduct becom- 
 ing to the relation of a father, mother or son. This 
 passage into a secondary meaning obtains in lan- 
 guages otherwise very different, as if men however 
 unlike in most respects concurred in the feeling 
 that a duty grows out of such relations. A man 
 cannot be a father or a son without incurring obli- 
 gations in virtue of this fact, and the perception of 
 this truth is so general that it affects the applica- 
 tion of words. 
 
 In like manner " right," a word originally signi- 
 fying perpendicular or horizontal straightness, and 
 *' wrong," a word allied to " wring," and having the 
 idea of distortion for its original meaning — these 
 words and their synonyms in foreign languages 
 are with remarkable unanimity applied to things 
 invisible, the one to moral rectitude, the other to 
 moral obliquity. The words *' beauty" and '* ugli- 
 ness " are used in a similar manner in the languages 
 of mankind. From denoting what is outward and 
 bodily, they come to mean a thing not to be seen 
 by the outward eye, viz., a quality inward and 
 
38 Vis WHS and Narratives. 
 
 spiritual. If it is plain that the unanimity exhib- 
 ited in the speech of races which never meet each 
 other cannot be of a conventional origin, whence 
 does it come ? The same question may be asked 
 with relation to other facts. All human beings 
 have a consciousness of freedom, of freedom to do 
 or leave undone an act to which they are tempted. 
 And they have a sense of responsibility or con- 
 sciousness of qualification to be called to account. 
 When told a tale, they feel dissatisfied if the story 
 " ends badly ; " and by ending badly, what do they 
 mean } 
 
 The facts tend toward the belief that the soul 
 has perceptions which are not dependent on the 
 eye strictly so called. It perceives ugliness in 
 character somewhat as the outward eye is sensible 
 of ugHness in faces or forms, and thus it is that 
 men in different ages and countries unite in using 
 one and the same word in a twofold acceptation. 
 Seldom is it that the history of a phrase is insignifi- 
 cant. Human beings possess in virtue of the con- 
 stitution of their nature an internal sense — com- 
 parable to the external sense of stench or fragrance 
 — a sense which could hardly exist if it had not 
 been communicated by the creative power ; any 
 more than a man could recognize in a thing the 
 quality of sweetness or bitterness, \i the man were 
 
The Sense of Right and IVrong-. 39 
 
 without a palate. A perverted taste may put 
 bitter for sweet or sweet for bitter, but no person 
 is to be found who does not perceive a character 
 of bitterness or the contrary as resident in some 
 things, alike in the physical and in the spiritual 
 domain. If there are tribes of men who hold that 
 it is wrong for a woman to survive her husband, 
 and right that she should immolate herself in 
 honor of him, this fact shows that these tribes 
 concur with the sentiment of mankind generally, 
 viz., the sentiment that a quality of rectitude or 
 its contrary resides in human actions. It shows 
 also that they have a sense of the truth that 
 the conjugal relation involves a duty devolving 
 upon persons who are parties to this relation, 
 although it exemplifies the undeniable truth that 
 the sentiment may express itself in an exaggerated 
 way. It is to be confessed that other phenomena 
 make it undeniable that such moral sentiments are 
 everywhere counteracted by adverse influences 
 belonging to our nature, and that to a most melan- 
 choly extent. It cannot be denied that the sense 
 of right and wrong requires to be educated, in order 
 to reach an elevated condition. It is in this 
 respect like the reasoning power, a power inborn in 
 man generally and absent in idiots only. Processes 
 of instruction are requisite to develop and fortify 
 
40 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 both the moral and the intellectual faculties, but 
 neither the one nor the other of these faculties 
 could be fortified or evolved if it had not existed 
 previously. Could you engender conscience in an 
 ox ? 
 
 If the above representations are true, they are 
 important. Inasmuch as they prove that men 
 have a nature which makes them susceptible of 
 being called to account, they render it probable, 
 antecedently to revelation, that there is a judgment 
 to come, and they confirm the revelation when it 
 arrives. The inborn tendency to recognize con- 
 duct as worthy of reward or punishment, of appro- 
 bation or disapprobation is that which makes us 
 capable of religion. But for this ivature, we could 
 see no impropriety in predicating righteousness of a 
 machine ; we should not feel the want of such a 
 word as righteousness. 
 
 2. There are Christians — strange to say — who 
 controvert the main position of this chapter on Bib- 
 lical grounds. They allege that the Scriptures 
 teach that men are by nature in darkness. In this 
 allegation there is an element of truth, but let it 
 be remembered that there is scarcely any outward 
 darkness so thick that it is equivalent in its effects 
 to a want of ej^es. Where total darkness exists, no 
 man who stumbles can be punishable or blame- 
 
TJlc Sense of Right and Wrojig. 41 
 
 worthy for the stumbling. Su:h is the case in the 
 inward, the spiritual sphere. Otherwise, how could 
 Christ declare " If ye were blind, ye should have no 
 sin." ** They seeing, see not, and hearing, hear 
 not." Devout men sometimes allege that to hold 
 that men originally possess a moral sense is to 
 dignify human nature, and that the Bible, on the 
 contrary, degrades this nature. The truth is, the 
 Bible often dignifies the human nature. What is 
 the tendency of the utterance, *' Let us make man 
 in our image, after our likeness, and let them have 
 dominion over the fowl of the air and over the 
 cattle," unless the passage means that human 
 beings were to be qualified for dominion over other 
 beings by the possession of a God-like nature } 
 What means the utterance, " Thou hast made man 
 a little lower than the angels " ? and what means 
 the exhortation, *' Quit you like men " .? It is in 
 dignifying human nature on one of its sides that 
 the Bible degrades it in another of its aspects. 
 
 It is in attributing to men faculties which the 
 book does not attribute to beasts, faculties less, but 
 only less, than angelic, that the Scriptures bring 
 down the self-justifying spirit, and draw from 
 human breasts the confession of guiltiness. Jurists 
 hold that idiocy makes a person incapable of com- 
 mitting a crime. If idiocy is pleaded for a man- 
 
42 Visions mid Narratives. 
 
 killer, you must deny the truth of the plea, and so 
 doing must dignify the culprit, before you can bring 
 him to the gallows. A British officer known to 
 story felt that a principle analogous to this 
 appertained to the moral as distinguished from the 
 legal sphere. Moved by compunction for a life of 
 sin, he exclaimed on seeing a dog enter a room in 
 which he sat, " Would that I were that animal ! " 
 The man believed that an animal had no sense of 
 right or wrong and no consciousness of responsi- 
 bility, was in this respect his inferior, and therefore 
 was better than himself — better and deserving to 
 be better off. 
 
 The existence of a natural moral faculty underlies 
 the fact that Scripture uses moral principles, without 
 first revealing those principles. An example of 
 such use — of an appeal to a moral principle not pre- 
 ceded by a revelation of the principle — occurs in 
 the earliest parts of the Book of Genesis. Think 
 of the language to Cain, ''What hast thou done } 
 the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me 
 from the ground ; and now art thou cursed from 
 the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive 
 thy brother's blood from thy hand." What means 
 this iteration of the word brother } It assumes 
 that it was already well understood that to shed 
 the blood of a brother was something peculiarly 
 
TJic Sense of Rig Jit and Wrong. 43 
 
 atrocious. Yet this moral principle had not been 
 matter of revelation. A little further on in the 
 Scriptural narrative, the Divine Voice declares, 
 " At the hand of every man's brother will I require 
 the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by- 
 man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of 
 God made he man." I do not dwell upon the facts 
 that this language conflicts with the opinion that 
 the Divine image in man ceased at the fall of 
 Adam, that this remarkable utterance was made 
 many centuries after that fall, and that the substance 
 of the apothegm is given anew in times as late as 
 the age of St. James.* Significant as these facts are, 
 let me at present limit myself to the question — it 
 m.ay seem too simple to require an answer and yet 
 it ought to be put — How can life be required when 
 it has been destroyed t \' is plainly implied that 
 the life of a slain man would be required in an 
 equivalent, that is to say, in a penalty. If a truth 
 nowhere revealed in express words, namely, that 
 sin must be paid for, is here assumed, the case is 
 the same throughout the Scriptures. " His mis- 
 chief shall return upon his own head. His violent 
 dealing shall come down upon his own pate." 
 "We must all appear before the judgment seat of 
 Christ, that every one may receive the things done 
 
44 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 in his body." *' He that doeth wrong shall receive 
 the wrong that he hath done." " In which last 
 place the English Bible introduces the word *' for " 
 without warrant from the original, and to the detri- 
 ment of the significance of the passage. Passages 
 of this description go upon the supposition that ill- 
 doing and suffering belong together, and that this 
 truth is evident of itself. But it is not thus evident 
 unless it is a primary truth, that is to say, unless 
 the soul has a sense which perceives this truth 
 immediately, without waiting to be apprised of it, 
 or to learn it by a process of reasoning. Moreover 
 the doctrine of a moral sense underlies the Script- 
 ure praises of God. " God is good ! true and 
 righteous are His ways ! " '* True and righteous 
 are thy ways, O King." "Thou only art holy." 
 Such language abounds throughout the Bible. 
 Does it not imply that there is a standard of good- 
 ness and truth with which the conduct of God may 
 be compared, and that the soul has a sense of this 
 standard, somewhat as the palate has a sense of 
 taste, and the nose a sense of fragrance ? Still 
 further the existence of a moral sense underlies the 
 doctrine of Scripture respecting the heathen. t 
 " When the Gentiles which have not the law do 
 by nature the things contained in the law, these 
 
 * Col. iii. 25. t Rom. ii. 14, 15. 
 
The Sense of Right and Wrong. 45 
 
 having not the law are a law unto themselves, 
 which show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their consciences excusing or else accus- 
 ing." It is here plainly taught that if by nature 
 we are children of wrath — if men have a lower 
 nature, through the power of which they yield to 
 temptation, they have also a higher nature ; that 
 this is the case even with the Gentiles, the 
 heathen ; that the word of the law is written on 
 even pagan hearts ; in other words, that there is a 
 universal conscience, although the beings who 
 have this conscience find a law in their members 
 that warreth against the law of their mind. It 
 may be owing to the universal sense of the repre- 
 hensible and its contrary that the public sentiment 
 is sometimes better than that of a tempted individ- 
 ual, that the voice of even a heathen community is 
 to be taken into consideration, when one would esti- 
 mate his duties ; that an apostle when writing to 
 Christians who lived in the midst of paganism, 
 could say, * " Whatsoever things are honorable, 
 . . . whatsoever things are of good report, think on 
 these things." Some have thought it strange that 
 what is of good report in the world should be com- 
 mended to the thought of Christians. But consider 
 when a prospective hardship does not tend to 
 
 * rhilip iv. 8. 
 
46 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 deter, when the hope of gain does not attract, 
 when passion does not infuriate, the voice of con- 
 science is most able to make itself heard. These 
 deterring, attracting and infuriating influences are 
 often absent from the heart of the public in junc- 
 tures at which they are present to the feelings of a 
 member of the community, and for these reasons 
 an apostle could recommend to a disciple perplexed 
 between " the law of his mind " and " the law in 
 his members," that he should consider what was 
 ** honorable and of good report." The general 
 sentiment even if in ordinary cases not so good as 
 a man's own sentiment, might at times be better, 
 might deserve to be at least thought upon, and 
 when thought upon, might come to be echoed in 
 himself. Do not despise the public conscience. 
 
 A distinguished sceptic said to a friend whom he 
 had invited to dinner, "Try this mutton, you will 
 find it very virtuous." What he meant was plain 
 enough. He did not believe in any virtue distin- 
 guishable from utility, or tendency to produce 
 certain consequences. He held that merit and 
 demerit were but names. Does not the unperverted 
 human soul revolt at scepticism of this description } 
 Did this philosopher in all his moods fail to distin- 
 guish between merit and palatableness } Did he 
 always confound the obligatory with the politic .? 
 
TJie Sense of Right and Wrong. 47 
 
 Would he deny that the ring of truth sounds in the 
 quaint aphorism, " Honesty is the best poHcy ; but 
 if a person deals honestly out of policy only, he is 
 not an honest man " ? Let me beware of the con- 
 jecture that all ideas of blamableness and approva- 
 bleness are merely factitious, manufactured, coined 
 for the sake of their consequences. Their ten- 
 dency to produce desirable consequences is undeni- 
 able ; but this tendency can hardly produce its 
 best effects, if the ideas are held to be mere con- 
 ventionalisms. Recognize the ideas as outcomes of 
 the structure of your minds, the spontaneous issues 
 of the work of the Creator, the likeness of God in 
 man. The Divine Being has not left himself with- 
 out witness in the make of my soul. Show me the 
 tribute money. Whose image and superscription 
 is this } If the image and superscription stamped 
 on a coin showed in what authority it originated 
 and to what quarter it might allowably go as 
 revenue, the image and likeness stamped on my 
 soul is no less significant. The former thing 
 showed that the coinage was merely human, im- 
 ported no religious obligation and might be 
 rendered where the powers that existed demanded 
 its payment. The latter thing, the sense of right 
 and wrong imprinted on the inner man, '' the law 
 of my mind," binds me to pay unto God the tribute 
 of adoration and well-doing. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ZION. 
 I Chron. XI. 5-8 ; XIV. i ; XV. 1-3. 
 
 ZiON is the highest of the hills, or rather mountains, 
 on which Jerusalem is built. It was next to im- 
 pregnable and was inaccessible to Israel for cent- 
 uries subsequent to the age of Moses. Its name 
 occurs so frequently in the utterances of Psalmists 
 and Prophets as to make it important to attend 
 to the history of the place and to the aspects and 
 associations in which the name appears. 
 
 The first of the passages indicated at the 
 head of this chapter states that David cap- 
 tured the mountain and built for himself a house 
 thereon, as also that the hill came accordingly to 
 be known as " the City of David." The place was 
 largely occupied by houses ; but it could be de- 
 nominated a city without regard to this fact — any 
 place which had the character of a stronghold being 
 in the dialect of the Bible, from the time of Cain 
 
Zion. 49 
 
 onward, describablc as a city. Moreover, the name 
 Zion is often used with such latitude as to include 
 the whole of Jerusalem. 
 
 For centuries after the time of David the de- 
 scendants of this monarch continued to occupy the 
 hill which in the stricter acceptation was called 
 Zion. Zion was the seat of the palace of David's 
 successors for some twenty generations. There 
 these descendants of David held court. On Zion 
 they were born, and there they gave birth to their 
 children. This use of the hill as the seat of the 
 Davidic dynasty certainly obtained in the time of 
 the Prophet Micah. Nevertheless Micah does not 
 describe Zion as destined to be the birthplace of 
 that great scion of the dynasty whose kingdom was 
 to begin in the land of Israel and therefrom to ex- 
 tend. After describing Zion as subjected again 
 and again to vicissitudes, and after proceeding to 
 address the citizens of the kingly hill as needing to 
 put themselves on the defensive, as moving in troops, 
 beleaguered by enemies and insulted in the person 
 of their judge or king, the prophet brings Bethlehem 
 into view — Bethlehem, to which the family of David 
 had belonged before any of its members had risen 
 to a royal condition. Micah, "^ while addressing 
 
 * Micah V. I, 2, revised version, which is the translation mostly fol- 
 lowed in these chapters. 
 
50 VisioJis and Nan-atives, 
 
 Zion, writes : ** Now shalt thou gather thyself in 
 troops ... He hath laid siege against us. They 
 shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the 
 cheek. But thou Bethlehem Ephratah which art 
 little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of 
 thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be 
 ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth are from of old, 
 from everlasting." The fact that the assurance is 
 given to the family of David as having its homestead 
 at Bethlehem and not to the family as having its pal- 
 ace on Zion, is significant. And the significance ap- 
 peared when hewhich"wasmadeof the seed of David 
 according to the flesh " was born in comparative 
 poverty. The condition of the house of David at 
 the time of the birth of the great member of this 
 house, bore such a comparison with the condition 
 which the family had enjoyed in the time of the 
 prophet Micah, as a country town inhabited by none 
 but subjects bears to the kingly city — to the capi- 
 tal of the monarchy to which the town belongs. 
 The family had come down to the condition of 
 private citizens. Bethlehem reached a dignity 
 among *' the thousands" of Israel, which it had not 
 previously possessed, but reached this dignity be- 
 cause a manger belonging to it was the place 
 where the infant Messiah was laid, and because of 
 nothing else. 
 
Zion. 5 1 
 
 To proceed from thoughts which arise from the 
 comparison of Zion with Bethlehem, think of the 
 sacred mountain as compared with Shiloh. If the 
 first of the historical sentences indicated at the 
 head of this chaptc^r shows how Mount Zion came 
 to be the civil capital of the Israelitish tribes, 
 the second and third of the passages show how 
 it became their ecclesiastical capital, and could 
 be called by Prophets and Psalmists,* ** the city of 
 our solemnities," "the city of God." When the hill 
 was made the seat of the Sanctuary, it became 
 " the place which God had chosen to put His name 
 there, "t the spot where worship conducted by means 
 of sacrifices should be offered, the central spot 
 whither three times in every year all the males of 
 Israel must go. The city Shiloh had been for much 
 of the interval between Joshua and David the spot 
 thus honored. But Shiloh in the latter part of this 
 interval lost this sacredness. Hence, when prophets 
 would predict such loss of sacredness on the par 
 of Zion ; when they represent the Israelites of their 
 time as regarding the possession of Zion in the light 
 of a safeguard to them in the midst of their sins ; 
 when seers announce that the place upon which 
 the people reposed their trust was destined, because 
 of the people's sins, to be deserted by the Divine 
 
 * Isaiah xxxiii. 20; Psalm Ixxxvii. 3. f Deut. xii. 5, 6. 
 
52 
 
 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Being and to become a ruin ; — these prophets com- 
 pare the destiny which was to befall the sacred hill 
 to the allotment which had befallen Shiloh — " Go 
 ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where 
 I caused my name to dwell at the first ; and see 
 what I did to it for the wickedness of my people 
 Israel. And now, because ye have done all these 
 things, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising 
 up early and speaking, but ye heard not ; and I 
 called you, but ye answered not, therefore will I do 
 unto this house which is called by my name, wherein 
 ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you 
 and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh." "^ 
 
 The principle which lies at the basis of such Old 
 Testament utterances is that the Divine Being is 
 always the same, and so the same when a new 
 cause for desecrating a sanctuary occurs, as he was 
 when an old cause for conduct of this sort took place. 
 Is not this principle the thing taught in the remark- 
 able name, "I am that I am.?" Would not this 
 title run, if exhibited in full, " I am at all times that 
 which I am at any time — ever faithful to my ante- 
 cedents — ever sure to develop myself in the future 
 as I have developed myself in the past } " If the 
 wickedness of Israel made its Sanctuary an object 
 of disgust to God in one age, like wickedness of the 
 
 *Jer. vii. 12-14. 
 
Zion. 53 
 
 people could not but produce a like result in another 
 age, on the supposition that God was to be consist- 
 ent with Himself. This is the moral of the Old 
 Testament history. This was the moral taught by 
 the reproduction of the ruin of Shiloh, which occurred 
 when, under God, the Babylonians in one generation 
 and the Romans in another laid waste the hill of 
 Zion. Jeremiah pointed this moral in advance, by 
 the comparison of Zion to Shiloh. And in nothing 
 do the prophets more abound, than in the represen- 
 tation that the past must revive in the future, under 
 the administration of the God of Israel. They with 
 especial frequency represent that if in His dealings 
 with His people He vouchsafed to make a place both 
 His and theirs, then if they profaned the place by 
 their abominations, He must profane it in another 
 sense. " Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the 
 pride of your power, the desire of your eyes."* 
 
 To go back to the times when Zion had not come 
 to be eclipsed by Bethlehem or to incur the lot 
 which Shiloh had suffered. The hill, after becoming 
 the site of the Sanctuary, is often represented as 
 having become a home, a home common to God 
 and to Israel. It is spoken of as the Divine dwell- 
 ing-place ; for example where it is said : f "I am 
 the Lord your God dwelling in Zion." In other 
 
 *Ezek. xxiv. 21. tjoel iii. 17. 
 
54 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 passages the sacred mount is represented as the 
 dwelling-place of God's people ; for example, in the 
 utterance "O my people that dvvellest in Zion." "^ 
 The representation — God dwelleth in Zion— co- 
 exists with a less figurative statement — to the effect 
 that God is in Heaven and His people upon earth ; 
 and the two things, the more figurative and the less 
 figurative exhibition of the dwelling-place of God, 
 are sometimes to be found within the same Psalm — 
 Psalm xiv., for instance, where God is spoken of, both 
 as looking down from Heaven upon the children 
 of men, and as expected to give the salvation of 
 Israel out of Zion. The conception of the place of 
 the Sanctuary as a spot where the Divine Being 
 domesticated Himself with Israel, and where Israel 
 might be to God as guests, met the spiritual wants 
 of an age and race which needed outward signs and 
 symbols ; and the conception was authorized and 
 invited in the words addressed to Moses, when this 
 law-giver and the race which he headed were yet 
 on the journey to Canaan. t *' Let them make me 
 a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them . . . and 
 there I will meet with the children of Israel." 
 Psalmists seize on this idea, the idea of the Sanc- 
 tuary as the House of God, wherein themselves and 
 their children are entertained. Zion is the spiritual 
 
 *l3a. X, 24. t Exod. XXV. 8; xxix. 43. 
 
Zion. 55 
 
 home, and the true Israelite is the inmate of this 
 home. The worshipper domesticates himself with 
 the Lord of the Sacred Hill, and from this Person, 
 as from a hospitable host, he obtains safe keeping 
 and nourishment.^^ " Surely goodness and mercy 
 shall follow me all the days of my life : and I will 
 dwell in the house of the Lord forever." " Who shall 
 ascend into the hill of the Lord .? Or who shall 
 stand in his holy place .? He that hath clean 
 hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted 
 up his soul unto vanity." *' One thing have I 
 asked of the Lord, that will I seek after ; That I 
 may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of 
 my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to in- 
 quire in His temple. For in the days of trouble He 
 shall keep me secretly in His pavilion : in the covert 
 of His tabernacle shall He hide me ; He shall lift me 
 up upon a rock." " Thou hast been a refuge for me, 
 a strong tower from the enemy. I will dwell in thy 
 tabernacle for ever. I will take refuge in the covert 
 of thy wings." In these passages the presence 
 meant is hardly personal. On the part of the peo- 
 dle it is a presence in spirit, and on the part of God 
 it is a presence in power and efficacy. 
 
 From the time when the highest of the mountains 
 on which Jerusalem was built became identifiable 
 
 *Ps. xxiii. 6; xxiv. 3-6; xxvii. 4-6; Ixi. 3, 4. 
 
^6 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 with the worship of Jehovah and with the promises 
 vouchsafed to the seed of David, the Sacred Hill, 
 inasmuch as the whole of its new quality had come 
 from God, could be conceived of as a site whereon 
 the system of religion founded by the Lord was 
 built, as a spot preferred by Him to the ordinary 
 dwellings of His people, and as destined to be 
 ultimately the spiritual birthplace of heathen 
 nationalities in so full a sense that these tribes would 
 become describable as born in Zion. Such is the 
 glowing representation made in a Psalm * which 
 looks forward to a census of mankind, a census which 
 Jehovah is to take. God is to " write up " the races 
 of men and the principle of the enrolment is to be 
 the spiritual nativity of this and that of the races 
 concerned. *' His foundation is in the holy moun- 
 tains. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than 
 all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are 
 spoken of thee, O city of God. I will make mention 
 of Rahab and Babylon as among them that know 
 me. Behold Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia. 
 This one was born there. Yea, of Zion it shall be 
 said, this one and that one was born in her ; and 
 the Most High Himself shall establish her. The 
 Lord shall count, when He writeth up the peoples, 
 this one was born there." When heathen men and 
 
 * Ps. Ixxxvii. 
 
Zion. 57 
 
 women in the time of the apostles were regenerated 
 by the Gospel, they became, by their second birth, 
 members of the chosen family — people belonging to 
 Israel. The second birth might be figured as having 
 taken place in Zion, with imagery not much bolder 
 than that which occurs when America is described 
 as the birthplace of republicanism. 
 
 This 87th Psalm is one of the Old Testament 
 passages in which — if you exchange the sign for the 
 thing signified, the figure for the thing figured — 
 you perceive it to be written that repentance and 
 remission of sins were to be preached unto all nations, 
 beginning at Jerusalem. A thing, the same sub- 
 stantially, was taught when Mount Zion appeared 
 in prophecy r,3 a place where a banquet for man- 
 kind, an unveiling of the eyes of the nations, a vic- 
 tory over death, were destined to occur.* " In this 
 mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all 
 peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the 
 lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the 
 lees well refined. And He will destroy in this 
 mountain the face of the covering that is cast over 
 all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all 
 nations. He hath swallowed up death." A thing, 
 the same in substance, was predicted when Zion of 
 Jerusalem was exhibited as the place whence should 
 
 * Isa. x.w. 6-8. 
 
58 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 issue the word of the Lord, and whither, as to a 
 point of confluence, all races should come.* " In 
 the latter days it shall come to pass that the moun- 
 tain of the Lord's house shall be established in the 
 top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above 
 the hills, and peoples shall flow unto it. And many- 
 nations shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up 
 to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the 
 God of Jacob ; and He will teach us of His way, 
 and we will walk in His paths ; for out of Zion shall 
 go forth the law, and the w^ord of the Lord from 
 Jerusalem. And He shall judge between many 
 peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off; 
 and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, 
 and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall 
 not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 
 learn war any more." 
 
 In the New Testament the earthly Zion is super- 
 seded. Neither in Jerusalem nor on any mountain 
 elsewhere are men to worship the Father with that 
 ritual worship of which Zion in Jerusalem had been 
 the appointed place. The type is eclipsed by the 
 antitype — Zion has .yielded its name to the place 
 where Christ has sat down at the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high — the place whither Christians have 
 gone in spirit. If those who have become converts 
 
 * Micah iv. 1-4. 
 
Zion. 59 
 
 to the s}-stem of relii^ion of which Rome is the cap- 
 ital, may be said to have gone to Rome, what won- 
 der that all those who have acceded to the system 
 to which the heavenly Jerusalem is as the capital, 
 are addressed as persons who have come unto Mount 
 Zion. The Zion on high has become the metropolis 
 of the Christian commonwealth, as the earthly Zion 
 had been the capital of the commonwealth of Israel.* 
 "Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city 
 of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to 
 innumerable hosts of angels." The new capital of 
 the dynasty of David takes the name of the older 
 seat of the sway of the race. Byzantium did anal- 
 ogously when, having become the place of the im- 
 perial sceptre, people began to give it the name of 
 Rome. 
 
 To return to the Old Testament field. The 
 seat of that system of institutions which, from the 
 time of David, characterized religion ; the centre to 
 which, three times in every year, the men of Israel 
 converged ; the spiritual dwelling-place or home of 
 all who were Israelites indeed, is often personified, 
 although in the midst of the personification the 
 thing — the place meant — often appears. The literal 
 and the figurative are interchanged in a manner dis- 
 allowed by modern rhetoric. Zion is personified as 
 
 * Ilcb. xii. 22. 
 
6o Visions and Narratives. 
 
 a mother — a mother exiled from her home, wander- 
 ing to and fro, bereaved of her older children, and 
 thinking herself forgotten by her husband. An off- 
 spring, however, has been engendered for her. 
 They gather to her in haste and in such numbers 
 that her devastated land is too narrow for the new 
 inhabitants.* ZIon said, ''Jehovah hath forsaken 
 me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman 
 forget her sucking child, that she should not have 
 compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, these 
 may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I 
 have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy 
 walls are continually before me. Thy children make 
 haste ; thy destroyers and they that made thee 
 waste, shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes 
 round about, and behold : all these gather them- 
 selves together and come to thee. As I live, saith 
 the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them 
 all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, 
 like a bride. For, as for thy waste and desolate 
 places and thy land that hath been destroyed, 
 surely now thou shalt be too strait for the inhabi- 
 tants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far 
 away. The children of thy bereavement shall yet 
 say in thine ears, The place is too strait for me : 
 give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt 
 
 *Iiia. xlix. 14-22. 
 
Zion. 6 1 
 
 thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me 
 these, seeing- I have been bereaved of my children, 
 and am soHtary, an exile, and wandering to and fro ? 
 and who hath brought up these ? Behold, I was 
 left alone ; these, where were they ? " If in the 
 NewTestament two mothers appear, viz.: the Jeru- 
 salem that now is and is in bondage with her chil- 
 dren and the Jerusalem above, which is the mother 
 of us all, the imagery differs from that which presents 
 itself to view in Isaiah xlix., where Zion is the only 
 mother mentioned, and the former of the two fam- 
 ilies of children to which this mother had given 
 birth is spoken of as lost. But if you pass from the 
 figure to the thing figured, the meaning is the same 
 in both cases. The idea is that of Jews repudiating 
 their obligations, and, in consequence, suffering re- 
 pudiation — Gentiles accepting the later revelation, 
 and accepted as members of the household of faith. 
 The natural branches of a good olive tree 
 are cut off, and branches of a wild olive tree 
 are grafted in. Children by adoption supply the 
 place of such as had been children by descent from 
 Abraham. 
 
 There is a pesonification of another kind. The 
 phrase daughter of Zion often appears. The 
 connection in places where the phrase occurs is 
 enough to show that it exhibits the Israelites in 
 
62 Visions a?id Narratives. 
 
 their collective capacity. The phrase daughter of 
 Tyre exhibits the nation so called in the aspect of 
 a population to which the soil of the Tyrians had 
 given birth, and the case is of the same kind when 
 the Israelites are addressed in a corresponding man- 
 ner. They are accosted as a people, a people affili- 
 ated to the land of which Zion was the capital. 
 Among the passages where Israel receives this title, 
 is the remarkable place : "^ *' Rejoice greatly, O 
 daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: 
 Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just and 
 having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, even 
 upon a colt, the foal of an ass. And I will cut off 
 the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jeru- 
 salem, and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he 
 shall speak peace unto the nations ; and his domin- 
 ion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the 
 ends of the earth." Every part of this remarkable 
 utterance ought to be compared with history. The 
 sentence which concludes the utterance ought to be 
 contemplated in connection with the fact that the 
 territory of Israel was, according to Moses, to ex- 
 tend from the Mediterranean Sea to the River 
 Euphrates. With evident allusion to these bound- 
 aries (which are often named elliptically, the one as 
 the Sea, the other as the River), the territory of the 
 
 * Zech, ix. 9, lo. 
 
ZioJi. ^i 
 
 King destined to come to the daughter of Zion is 
 described as reaching from the Mediterranean to 
 every other sea, and from the Euphrates to the ex- 
 tremities of the earth. The boundaries of the old 
 territory are to become the Hnes whcrefrom the new 
 territory stretches. Such extension of the domin- 
 ions of a dynasty hardly occurred in the time of 
 Zechariah — hardly occurred in any ancient age — 
 except by means of war. War was in those ages 
 carried on by the chariot, the horse, and the bow of 
 battle. The employment of these instrumentalities 
 for warfare was to be cut off from the tribes of Israel, 
 as in history it was cut off from them by Israel's 
 ceasing to be a commonwealth, and v/ith this in- 
 capacity for war on the part of the people of Zion 
 there was to co-exist a dislike to war on the part 
 of the King to come. He was to approach Zion of 
 Jerusalem seated not upon an animal suitable for 
 purposes of war, but upon a colt, the foal of an ass. 
 He was not to declare war, but to speak peace to 
 the nations. That Jesus Christ conformed to Zech- 
 ariah's anticipations need not be said. When a mul- 
 titude of the population born and bred on the Sacred 
 Hill or its territory issued from Jerusalem, took 
 branches of palm trees and proceeded to meet the 
 great descendant of David ; when the multitude of 
 them that went before and them that went after Christ, 
 
64 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 shouted '' Hosanna : "^ Blessed is He that cometh 
 in the name of the Lord ; Blessed is the kingdom 
 that cometh, the kingdom of our father David ; " this 
 multitude or many of the number, were unconscious 
 of the full significance of the transaction in which 
 they were engaged ; viz.: that they were responding 
 to the call which had been spoken by Zechariaht 
 " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O 
 daughter of Jerusalem." These things understood 
 not the disciples at the first ; but when Jesus was 
 glorified, then remembered they that these things 
 were written of Him, and that they had done these 
 things unto Him. 
 
 It was owing to the fact that the multitude which 
 uttered these acclamations was but a small minority 
 of the whole population of Zion, to the fact that the 
 period during which Christ had visited, or was to 
 visit, the once sacred place, was well-nigh ended, 
 and to the fact that the destiny which the conduct 
 of the mass of the people of the place had called 
 down upon themselves was scarce forty years dis- 
 tant, that Jesus, within an hour after the acclama- 
 tions, when He beheld the city, wept over it and 
 said, "If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, 
 the things which belong unto peace ! The days 
 shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast 
 
 * Mark xi. 9, 10. \ Zech. ix. 9, 10. 
 
Zion. 65 
 
 up a bank about tlicc, cind compass thcc round and 
 keep thee in on every side, and shall not leave in 
 thee one stone upon another ; because thouknewest 
 not the time of thy visitation." In the time of its 
 visitation by a power which unconsciously avenged 
 Zion's ignoring its visitation by the Messiah, the 
 city came to be ploughed as a field, and subse- 
 quently to be reduced for whole generations to the 
 condition of a ruin. Armies of Rome erected 
 mounds, beleaguered the city, demolished its houses 
 and massacred its inhabitants, some two score of 
 years from the day of the piteous forebodings uttered 
 by Jesus Christ. All the Divine dealings are types, 
 if by a type you mean an expression of a principle. 
 God is at one time what He was at another. The 
 desolation of Shiloh foreshadowed that desolation 
 of Jerusalem which took place six centuries before 
 the Christian era ; and the second desolation of 
 this privileged place, which occurred Anno Domini 
 70, was but a new expression of the principle of the 
 earlier devastation of the capital of the Holy Land : 
 *' You only have 1 known of all the families of the 
 earth : therefore I will visit upon you all your in- 
 iquities." "^ 
 
 * Amos iii. 2. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MIC AT AH, THE SON OF IMLAH. 
 I Kings XXII. 1-37. 
 
 The account of the ministry of Micaiah, the son of 
 Imlah, is helpful to the study of the prophets. It 
 brings into view several of the characteristics of 
 prophecy, and throws some light upon the nature 
 of the ** vision" which the prophets claimed. 
 The facts of the account are as follows : 
 . Jehoshaphat, of Judah, is in Samaria as a guest 
 of Ahab, King of Israel. A city east of the Jordan, 
 Ramoth-gilead by name, has been captured by 
 Syria, and is now possessed by the latter power. 
 Ahab proposes to undertake an expedition for the 
 purpose of recovering Ramoth-gilead to his king- 
 dom. He invites Jehoshaphat to join in his enter- 
 prise, and by way of recommending the undertaking 
 to his guest, invokes counsel from the '* prophets" 
 of the court. One of these prophets is especially 
 
 zealous. The horn is, with animals which possess 
 
 66 
 
Mica? ah, the Son of Tinlah. 6^ 
 
 a horn, the seat of power and implement of offence. 
 Hence it becomes a frequent figure of speech to 
 import the idea of might. But the "prophet" 
 Zedekiah, not content with naming the thing, 
 manufactures its Hke in iron. Zedekiah made him 
 horns of iron, and said to the king Ahab : " With 
 these shalt thou push the Syrians until they be 
 consumed." 
 
 Jehoshaphat is suspicious. He asks that he may 
 hear a prophet who has not been of the company 
 of Zedekiah. There is a prophet of this descrip- 
 tion. This man, Micaiah by name, is sent for. 
 The messengers, creatures of Ahab, while Micaiah 
 is on his way, inform him how Ahab wishes to be 
 counselled. There is a way of exposing wishes or 
 faults, by seeming to adopt or encourage them. 
 This way may be used under certain circumstances 
 and for a brief time, even when the thing meant is 
 the opposite of the thing said. This ironical course 
 was taken by Micaiah ; but so soon as Ahab had 
 shown himself too obtuse to perceive the iron}^ the 
 prophet, faithful to his office, passing to good 
 earnest, tells of a vision which had been vouchsafed 
 him. " I saw all Israel scattered upon the moun- 
 tains, as sheep that have no shepherd ; and the 
 Lord said. These have no master ; let them 
 return every man to his house in peace." The 
 
68 Visions and Narj'ativcs. 
 
 king understands, and perceiving that Micaiah has 
 by his parable taught that the projected expedition 
 will terminate in death to himself and in disband- 
 ing to his army, repeats the complaint he had 
 before uttered : *' I hate him because he speaketh 
 not good concerning me, but only evil." Where- 
 upon the prophet gives utterance to another vision 
 he had had ; a vision which taught as by a parable 
 under what promptings, and with what concur- 
 rence on the part of the Divine Being, Ahab's 
 counsellors had acted, and how, without knowing 
 the fact, they were enticing the monarch to his 
 destruction. " I saw the Lord sitting upon his 
 throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his 
 right hand and on his left, and the Lord said, 
 Who shall entice Ahab that he may go up and 
 fall at Ramoth-gilead t . , . and there came forth 
 a spirit and said, ' I will entice him ... I will be a 
 lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' " The 
 Spirit who thus ''came forth and said," was no 
 doubt the same as in the Book of Job is called 
 Satan. The moral was taught when the prophet 
 added, "And now behold ! The Lord hath put a 
 lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy pro- 
 phets." 
 
 To pass from the facts to some comments there- 
 upon. 
 
MicaiaJi, tJic Son of Lnlah. 6g 
 
 In a manner visible to the ordinary eye, Israel 
 had not been " scattered upon the mountains as 
 sheep that have no shepherd." The scene had 
 been intuitionally perceived, and was, as it was 
 understood to be, of the nature of a parallel, rather 
 mystical than "realistic." The like is true of the 
 second seeing Micaiah tells of, the sight and hear- 
 ing of the scene laid and the speeches made in 
 heaven. It is denied^ in express negations or in 
 significant questions to be found again and again in 
 Scripture, that God consults or advises with other 
 beings. The scene or speeches had not been visi- 
 ble or audible to Micaiah's outward organs of sight 
 or hearing. They had not occurred except to the 
 inspired mind of Micaiah. A prophet owing to 
 the fact that he claimed and was believed to be 
 divinely gifted with extraordinary power of mental 
 sight, took, in common with the class to which he 
 belonged, that singular title, "the seer." The 
 import of the representation made by Micaiah, 
 though not misunderstood, was contemned. When 
 it was vindicated by the event, men came to know 
 that the influence which had inspired Ahab's 
 prophets was an inspiration from the spirit of evil, 
 and that the effect of the influence comported with 
 the divine plans. Micaiah was thereby accredited 
 
 *Job xxi. 22 ; Isa. xl. 13, 14, 
 
70 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 for other teachings which he might learn from 
 *' vision." 
 
 This was the course of things for which Moses "^ 
 had provided. The prophet was to predict some- 
 thing for the nearer future, and if such a prediction 
 should be verified by the event, then, and not other- 
 wise, his statements regarding the more distant 
 future and his teachings of a doctrinal kind were to 
 be reverenced as authoritative. 
 
 As a people advances in cultivation, figures of 
 speech become less common. Multitudes become 
 capable of comprehending abstract ideas without 
 being assisted by analogies ; and figures, which are 
 nothing but analogues, become unnecessary. When 
 used, they sometimes subject a speaker to con- 
 tempt, as a mere rhetorician. But utterances of 
 North American Indians bear witness to the fact 
 that figures oi speech are no invention of rhetoric. 
 In the rude ages in which the prophets of the Bible 
 spoke and wrote, symbols addressed to the eye, as 
 well as metaphors addressed to the ear, were useful, 
 and for the purpose of impression scarcely less than 
 indispensable. Counterfeits copy realities. Be- 
 cause the counterfeit prophet Zedekiah was willing 
 to do what real prophets did, he made for himself 
 horns of iron. Ahijah, the Shilonite, had done the 
 
 * Deut, xviii. 21, 22, 
 
Micaiah^ the Son of I ml ah. yi 
 
 like. He had rent his garments into twelve pieces, 
 and given Jeroboam ten of the fragments, by way 
 of signifying to the sight, the assurance which he 
 gave to the ear, of the man who was to become the 
 king of ten-twelfths of the empire of David. In a 
 more cultivated age traces of the custom remained ; 
 for example, in the case of Agabus : "^ " There 
 came down from Judaea a certain prophet named 
 Agabus ; and coming to us, and taking Paul's 
 girdle, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, 
 * Thus saith the Holy Ghost. So shall the Jews at 
 Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, 
 and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gen- 
 tiles.' " 
 
 With regard to the first utterance Micaiah made 
 before Ahab, such irony as the seer used therein 
 should be recognized elsewhere in the prophets. - 
 What but irony is present when Israel is reproached 
 in the language, t " Come to Bethel and transgress. 
 At Gilgal multiply transgression ; for this liketh 
 you, ye children of Israel ; " or when Isaiah says to 
 the people, X " Hear ye, indeed, but understand 
 not, and see ye, indeed, but perceive not ; " or 
 when the same prophet is told, *' Make the heart 
 of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, lest 
 they hear with their ears, and understand with 
 * Acts xxi. lo, II. t Amos iv. 4, 5. % Isa. vi. 9, lo. 
 
72 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 their heart, and convert and be healed." The 
 same mode of speaking is used occasionally by the 
 Saviour. " The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 
 seat. All, therefore, whatsoever they command 
 you, that observe and do, but do ye not according 
 to their works, for they say and do not." ^ It could 
 be only for the purpose of giving point to the 
 sarcasm, " They say and do not," that observance 
 of every bidding of these religious teachers is re- 
 quired, since on other occasions, for instance in the 
 matter of the Corban, \ Christ represented the 
 teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees as immoral, 
 and making void the Word of God by their tradi- 
 tion. The antithesis between the Pharisaic saying 
 and the Pharisaic doing is among the principal 
 things condemned in the discourse introduced by 
 the precept, " Whatsoever they command you, that 
 observe and do." 
 
 That it was by an intuition that the prophets 
 were believed to perceive the truth to which 
 they were to give utterance, has already been 
 said. This faith was sanctioned by Obadiah and 
 Isaiah, when these prophets severally entitled 
 their books, " The Vision of Obadiah," '* The Vision 
 of Isaiah which he saw." If you inquire whether 
 the seers took steps whereby they invited commu- 
 
 * Matt, xxiii. 2, 3. f Mark vii. 9-13. 
 
Micaiah, the Scm of IinlaJi. 73 
 
 nications from on high, or whether these communi- 
 cations reached them without being sought, your 
 question does not admit of an answer applicable to 
 all the cases. In the case of Micaiah there is no 
 intimation that the things which had been '' seen " 
 by him had been made present to his intuition in 
 consequence of a seeking of his own. Different 
 were the cases of Elisha and Habakkuk. The 
 former, when consulted by his king, sought the 
 help of music to bring his soul into a condition of 
 receptivity."^ "Bring me a minstrel; and it came 
 to pass when the minstrel played, that the hand of 
 the Lord came upon him, and he said, Thus saith 
 the Lord." Habakkuk t contemplates a Chaldean 
 potentate as invading and ravaging Israel. This 
 invasion scandalizes the mind of the prophet, be- 
 cause, ill-deserving as the Israelites are, the Chal- 
 deans are no better, but are even worse. The 
 prophet complains of his ignorance. By and by he- 
 learns the destiny of the wicked that swalloweth 
 up the man who is more righteous than he ; of the 
 haughty man who enlargeth his desire as hell, who 
 cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all peo- 
 ples, who, because he has despoiled nations, shall 
 be himself despoiled for the violence he has done. 
 Habakkuk is to write this destiny upon tablets, and 
 
 * II Kings iii. 15. f Hab. i. r, 2; ii. 8. 
 
74 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 make the writing so large and legible that no per- 
 son shall fail to decipher it. But no more than a 
 deciphering can be expected at first. The inscrip- 
 tion is to be like a modern catechism, printed in 
 bold type, and intended to be read and remembered 
 from the first, but hardly expected to speak its 
 sense until maturity of age has arrived. The 
 thing seen by the prophet will have to be waited 
 for ; the intuition bides its time, will not be behind 
 its time, and will take significance for the reader 
 when this time (the time for fulfilment) shall have 
 arrived, and not before. This period occurred when 
 the ravagers of Israel became a people ravaged, 
 when the scourge sent by God became a person 
 scourged, when Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, 
 was slain, his dynasty destroyed and his kingdom 
 given to the Medes and Persians. The vision then 
 took its meaning. In the time appointed to it, it 
 spoke. And, to reach the point which is especially 
 to my purpose, disentanglement from the prophet's 
 mental difficulties, or capacity to administer hope 
 to his hearers, did not come ; a vision did not 
 arrive, even in an enigmatical form, until he 
 ascended to a higher spiritual position ; until the 
 inquirer, in order to descry the dawn of day, 
 climbed, as it were, to an observatory, and put 
 himself upon the look-out. Then first he perceived 
 
MicaiaJi, the Son of Imlah. 75 
 
 how his complaint was to be met : " I will stand 
 upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and 
 will look forth to see what he will speak with me, 
 and what I shall answer concerning my complaint. 
 And the Lord answered me and said. Write the 
 vision, and make it plain upon tablets, that he 
 may run that readcth it, for the vision is yet 
 for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward 
 the end, and shall not lie ; though it tarry, wait 
 for it ; because it will surely come, it will not 
 delay." 
 
 The feet of Asaph the seer had well-nigh slipped; 
 he had been in danger of falling from his faith in 
 Providence, owing to his having seen the ungodly 
 in prosperity and the godly in adversity. But he 
 did not speak thus — he did not give utterance to 
 his misgivings — before he received the spiritual in- 
 sight which he could and did express in a psalm ; 
 the psalm which rising above the creed recognized 
 in his age, does not end without the confident 
 ebullition, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, 
 and afterward receive me to glory." The insight 
 which inspired the seventy-third psalm did not 
 come until the seer had ''gone into the sanctuary 
 of God." Is any interpretation of these remarkable 
 words more probable than that sense which does 
 not need an interpreter } In order to still his mis- 
 
^6 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 givings, to encourage his spirit to rise to a higher 
 level, to woo the Spirit of God and obtain for him- 
 self the spiritual vision which his sacred ode ex- 
 presses, this psalmist had betaken himself to the 
 temple, and there, in the midst of its sublime associ- 
 ations — at night and in solitude perhaps — had 
 received the power from on high, which enabled 
 him to write with relation to his previous doubts,^ 
 ** So brutish was I and ignorant : I was as a beast 
 hefore Thee." *' Nevertheless I am continually with 
 thee : Thou hast holden my right hand. Thou 
 shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward 
 receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but 
 Thee } And there is none upon earth that I desire 
 beside Thee." 
 
 ** Prophecy," in modern speech, hardly occurs 
 except as expressive of prediction ; of a revelation 
 respecting the future. How far this restriction of 
 the word to utterances respecting time not yet 
 arrived is distant from, the Hebrew mode of speak- 
 ing, appears in the insulting address of Jews to our 
 Lord, " Prophesy unto us, thou Christ. Who is he 
 that smote thee } " The vision of Micaiah which 
 exhibited a scene as if occurring in heaven, explained 
 time present, viz., how it came to pass that Ahab's 
 counsellors were counselling him to his destruction. 
 
 * Ps, Ixxiii. 22-2?. 
 
Micaiah, the Son of Imlah. jy 
 
 Similar as to time is the case in some other pro- 
 phecies. A vision mentioned by Ezekiel * tells of 
 things which were passing contemporaneously with 
 the vision, although it differs from the representa- 
 tion made by Micaiah in this respect, that the 
 vision obtained by Ezekiel tells of things disallowed 
 by God which were taking place in an earthly 
 country foreign to the country where Ezekiel at the 
 time resided ; whereas the vision obtained by 
 Micaiah told of things divinely suffered and allowed, 
 which at the time were taking place in the world 
 of spirits. Sometimes prophecy relates to time 
 past, as when the design leads the writer to turn 
 up to view the hidden side of things ; to exhibit 
 the divine aspect of facts already known in their 
 more profane aspect. This is certainly the case in 
 the Book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, t 
 where the woman giving birth can be no other than 
 the Israelitish people, the man-child no other than 
 the Christ, the dragon no other than the power of 
 darkness, and the taking up into heaven nothing 
 else than our Lord's ascension. In a merely secu- 
 lar aspect the persons meant had already come to 
 belong to history. 
 
 We have seen that in the words Micaiah sub- 
 joined to the parable which he had " seen," (the 
 
 * Eze.v. viii. i-8. f Rev. xii. 1-7. 
 
78 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 words ** Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put 
 a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, 
 and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee,") 
 Micaiah draws the inference which his vision had 
 involved, and thus interprets the import of the 
 vision. In some other cases the imagery of an in- 
 tuition is reproduced without mention of its mean- 
 ing, like Christ's curse of the barren fig-tree.* 
 
 In most of these cases the meaning was known 
 to the writer, but the last vision given in the Book 
 of Daniel is not only without an explanation, but is 
 followed by a distinct acknowledgment that the 
 writer needed an explanation for himself, and that 
 when he asked for such relief to his mind, he was 
 told not only that the thing meant was intended 
 for times other than those then present, but that 
 until the period called "the time of the end" 
 arrived, the record of the vision was to be like an 
 instrument of writing carefully enveloped and 
 secured from inspection by wax and signet ; so far 
 like an instrument of writing thus inclosed, that the 
 record would fail to disclose its import either to the 
 recorder or to other men, until the generation for 
 whom it had been vouchsafed should have come. 
 If modern men fail to understand the closing chap- 
 ters of the Book of Daniel, the same was the case 
 
 * Mark xi. 12-14. 
 
Micaiah, the Son of Imlah. 79 
 
 with Daniel himself. Habakkuk may have been 
 able to expound his vision as early as the time 
 when the vision was given, but to Daniel was 
 granted neither the ability to expound nor the 
 ability to understand. "^ ** I heard but I understood 
 not ; then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the 
 issue of these things } And He said, Go thy way, 
 Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed till 
 the time of the end." 
 
 * Dan. xii, 8, 9. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE COVENANT WITH DAVID. 
 11 Sam. VII. 12-17. 
 
 The *Mast words of David" exhibit an ideal. 
 They describe a conception of what the head 
 of a people should be and of the benign influence 
 upon others which a ruler answering the descrip- 
 tion would exercise. The words proceed to an 
 acknowledgment that the house of the speaker, 
 head and members, failed at the time then present 
 to realize the ideal. The words proceed further to 
 tell of a covenant, a covenant which the dying 
 man could describe as the thing to which the 
 desires of his soul converged, although this cove- 
 nant was at the time like a plant stunted in growth 
 or only in its germinal stage. 
 
 ** The spirit of the Lord spake by me. 
 
 " And His word was upon my tongue. 
 
 " The God of Israel said. 
 
TJic Covenant ivitJi David. 8 1 
 
 *' The Rock of Israel spake to me. 
 
 " One that ruleth over men righteously. 
 
 " That ruleth in the fear of God ! 
 
 ** He shall be as the light of the morning when 
 the sun riseth, 
 
 ** A morning without clouds, 
 
 "When the tender grass springeth out of the 
 earth, 
 
 " Throug^h clear shinincf after rain. 
 
 " Verily my house is not so with God. 
 
 " Yet he hath made with me an everlasting cove- 
 nant, 
 
 '* Ordered in all things and sure. 
 
 " For it is all my salvation and all my desire, 
 
 ''Although hemaketh it not to grow."^ 
 
 The questions. What was the tenor of the cove- 
 nant which had been made with David } What 
 notices of this covenant are to be found in the 
 prophets who lived in ages subsequent to that of 
 this monarch .•* What expectations from this cove- 
 nant for the two periods of which most of these 
 writers speak (the earlier and the latter days) do 
 the sacred seers entertain } What is the doctrine 
 of the New Testament with respect to the hopes 
 which the prophets cherished and expressed ? — 
 these are the questions to be now met. 
 
 *II Sam. xxiii, 2-5, revised version. 
 
82 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 I. The answer to the question respecting the 
 tenor of the covenant which David when about to 
 die prized so highly, may be found in the historical 
 passage indicated at the head of this chapter ; a 
 passage repeated in substance at I Chronicles xvii. 
 1-15. The case may be stated as follows : 
 
 The divine Law-giver had declared that when 
 Israel should have come into the possession of 
 Canaan, there should be a place chosen by the 
 Law-giver Himself, where and where alone the sacri- 
 fices of the law should be offered. Jerusalem had 
 in the time of David been appointed as this place. 
 The sanctuary had accordingly been transferred 
 thither. But the sanctuary of the time was a tent, 
 a movable tabernacle. Ought the sanctuary to con- 
 tinue to consist of a movable tent now that the place 
 of the sanctuary had been made permanent.? To 
 David it seemed incongruous, after he had erected for 
 himself a stationary palace, that the symbolical resi- 
 dence of his God should be a structure less stable. 
 The monarch said to the Prophet Nathan, '* Behold, 
 I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of the cove- 
 nant of the Lord dwelleth between curtains." 
 Touching the inquiry implied in this speech, Nathan 
 had no commandment of the Lord. He gave 
 advice with such authority as was to be respected, 
 but was not final. In the night which followed, the 
 
The Covenant with David. 83 
 
 word of God came to Nathan, and it was to the 
 effect that David had done well in cherishin^^ the 
 desire which had been in his heart, but that the 
 gratification of the desire was not to be allowed 
 him. An honor higher than that which the mon- 
 arch had sought was at the same time promised ; 
 the honor of becoming the founder of a dynasty 
 which would be of everlasting duration. This cove- 
 nant was made in phrases in which the word 
 *'seed" conveys the principal idea. "Seed" ex- 
 presses the notion of a posterity rather than the 
 notion of a single descendant. The covenant was to 
 be fulfilled with regard to the building of a temple, 
 by one and another of the individuals of the seed ; 
 in one generation by Solomon and in another by 
 Zerubbabel. With regard to other particulars, the 
 promise might be forfeited by descendants of the 
 forefather in age after age, but could not fail for 
 one and all of these descendants. The race of 
 David could not be set aside as the race of Saul had 
 been. According to the covenant one or other 
 of the members of the race of David must succeed 
 this monarch in the headship over Israel which had 
 been given to the family. If these statements are 
 correct, the phrases of the promise, in order to be 
 true to the facts, ought to be translated as follows : 
 ** When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep 
 
84 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, 
 which shall proceed out of thy bowels. And I will 
 establish its kingdom. It shall build an house for 
 my name ; and I will establish the throne of its 
 kingdom forever. I will be its father and it shall 
 be my son. If it commit iniquity, I will chastise it 
 with the rod of men, even with the stripes of the 
 children of men — but my mercy shall not depart 
 from it, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away 
 before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall 
 be made sure forever. According to all these 
 words and according to all this vision, so did 
 Nathan speak unto David." 
 
 The doctrine of the Psalter construes the promise. 
 Forfeitures of the covenant might occur, but the thing 
 covenanted could not but arrive. David, in the per- 
 son of one or other of his descendants, must reign 
 from river to river and from sea to sea. If the moon 
 in the heavens bears witness in its disappearances and 
 renewed appearances to the dependableness of its 
 Maker, so will the things covenanted to the seed of 
 David bear witness to the dependableness of the 
 Maker of this covenant* " Thou spakest in vision 
 to thy saints. And saidst, I have laid help upon 
 one that is mighty ; I have exalted one chosen out 
 of the people. I have found David my servant. 
 
 * Ps. Ixxxix. 19, 20, 27-37, 
 
TJie Covenant ivitJi David. 85 
 
 With my holy oil have I anointed him. I will 
 make him my first-born, high over the kings of the 
 earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore. 
 And my covenant shall stand fast with him, and 
 his seed will I make to endure forever, and his 
 throne as the days of heaven. If his children for- 
 sake my law, and walk not in my judgments : if 
 they break my statutes, and keep not my command- 
 ments ; then will I visit their transgression with 
 the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. But my 
 mercy will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer 
 my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not 
 break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my 
 lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness ; I will 
 not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, 
 and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be 
 established forever as the moon, even the faithful 
 witness in the sky." 
 
 2. What notices of the covenant made with 
 David do we find in the prophets } To understand 
 these notices, it is necessary to bear in mind the 
 well-known fact that in the diction of the Bible the 
 name of the progenitor becomes a name common 
 to the progeny. As Israel, a name originally given 
 to the individual Jacob, comes to be used of the 
 Israelites contemplated collectively, so Levi, orig- 
 inally the name of the forefather of the Levites, is 
 
g5 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 sometimes used as a designation of the whole tribe, 
 when considered in their tribal character. The 
 same is the case with the name David. It is 
 applied to the race as well as to the founder of the 
 race. It may include both the one and the other. 
 Such a use of the word appears in the remarkable 
 passage of Isaiah* (written centuries after the 
 individual David had died), *' Incline your ear and 
 come unto me ; hear and your soul shall live, and I 
 will make an everlasting covenant with you ; even 
 the sure mercies of David. Behold I have given 
 him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and 
 commander to the peoples. Behold, thou shalt call 
 a nation that thou knovvest not, and a nation that 
 knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the 
 Lord thy God." 
 
 Here David is the prominent figure throughout. 
 What is meant by the everlasting covenant, the 
 sure mercies of David ? " Everlasting " points back 
 to the " forever " which is iterated and reiterated in 
 the covenant as uttered by the mouth of Nathan. 
 " Sure" is applicable to the mercies of David, if the 
 things meant were mercies had by David in 
 promise. " Sure " was a word which would tend to 
 recall Nathan's sentence, "Thy house and thy 
 kincrdom shall be made sure." But how can the 
 
 * Isa. Iv. 3-5. 
 
The Covenant with David. g»^ 
 
 covenant with David be promised to peoples at 
 large, to persons who, though inclining the ear and 
 coming to God, w^ere not of Davidic lineage ? It 
 can be thus promised if this covenant, besides im- 
 porting dignity for the Davidic dynasty, implies 
 blessedness for the subjects of this dynasty — 
 as the promise of your daughter to a man 
 may imply a benefit to her as well as a favor 
 to him. The offer of the covenant to people at 
 large construes the covenant and exhibits it as 
 involving blessings for mankind generally, provided 
 they accept the conditions on which the offer is 
 made. 
 
 When the divine statement proceeds in the 
 words, " I have given him for a witness," " him " 
 can hardly refer to any party but David, the party 
 just before mentioned. But how had the race of 
 David been "given for a witness to the peoples"? 
 The race witnessed to peoples in the person of its 
 founder, in the sweet Psalmist of Israel. His 
 psalms bear testimony to the wants of the human 
 soul, a testimony to which thousands of souls in 
 countries distant from each other, and in all ages 
 since the writing, have been responsive, and from 
 which these souls have taken example and imbibed 
 consolation. What writings are so true to nature } 
 Wliat words so genuine an expression of contri- 
 
8S Visions and Narratives. 
 
 tion, of thankfulness, and of homage to God as the 
 Psalms of David ? If Daniel was '' of the king's 
 seed," * the race bore witness in the writings of this 
 prophet. Daniel lived in an age when king after 
 king had so conducted himself as to incur for the 
 *' seed " the forfeiture provided for in the declara- 
 tion, *' If it commit iniquity, I will chastise it with 
 the rod of men, even with the stripes of the children 
 of men." Babylonian men, agents unwittingly 
 acting for God, had applied the rod and inflicted 
 the stripes. They had deprived David's descend- 
 ants of succession to their ancestor. The mon- 
 archy was in abeyance. The inheritance poten- 
 tially existed, but did not rest because a proper 
 owner did not appear. Daniel testified to the 
 inheritance as awaiting its proper owner in the 
 person of a *' Son of Man," t who should ascend in 
 the clouds of heaven to the ancient of days, and to 
 whom should be given a kingdom, that all peoples, 
 nations and languages should serve Him. Most of 
 all, in a greater than Daniel, in the intended owner 
 of the inheritance, in Him in whom the seed of 
 David culminated, the race testified to peoples con- 
 cerning God's rights and man's duties. It not only 
 testified but invited. In the person of Christ the 
 ** seed " gave calls to nations which the race in the 
 
 * Dan. i. 3. ] Dan. vii. 13, 14. 
 
The Covenant with David. 89 
 
 time of Isaiah knew not, nations which both at that 
 time and for ages afterwards knew not the race, 
 have run unto it In response to its calls and in fulfil- 
 ment of the word of Isaiah. 
 
 3. For days remote from the time in which 
 Isaiah wrote — "for the latter days " — the prophets 
 expected glorious consequences from the covenant 
 which had been made with David and his seed. 
 Not such were their expectations for the period 
 which was to intervene before the arrival of ** the 
 latter days." In the earlier days of the future, the 
 habitation of the Davidic race was to be a mere 
 tabernacle, and this with fissures which needed to 
 be repaired. It was to be a ruin requiring to be 
 built anew in order to be serviceable. This imagery 
 was suggestive of such a condition as that Into 
 which the family fell before the birth of Jesus 
 Christ. This imagery as well as its counterpart — 
 the closing of the fissures, the building up of the 
 walls, the restoration of the structure — is exhibited 
 in the last vision of the Book of Amos. In this 
 passage the future of Israel appears under the name 
 of a ** day." The day is to bring a destruction to 
 this people, which will be short of total but not far 
 short. Nevertheless this day will not end without 
 bringing blessings, blessings which shall redound 
 from the house of David to whole nations. ** The 
 
90 Visions and Nan^atives. 
 
 eyes of God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will 
 
 destroy it saving that I will not utterfy ^"^ 
 
 destroy. ... In that day will I raise up the tab- 
 ernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the 
 breaches thereof, and I will raise up his [David's] 
 ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old ; that 
 they [David] may possess the remnant of Edom, 
 and all the nations which are called by my name, 
 saith the Lord." ^ In other places the race gets its 
 name, not from the founder of the dynasty, but 
 from the father of this founder ; as if to betoken the 
 fact that the family, before its eventual exaltation, 
 was to return from the royal condition to the con- 
 dition which had belonged to it before its elevation 
 to royalty. 
 
 The reader found in an earlier chapter this 
 destiny for the dynasty implied by language of 
 Micah, in a manner similar, though not altogether 
 the same with that to which we proceed. Jesse 
 the Bethlehemite (the father of David) is a tree 
 which has been disbranched and felled. The stock 
 has been cut down. Only a stump remains. But 
 from the roots of this stump comes a shoot. This 
 sucker (so you may call a shoot from a felled 
 stock) is filled with the Spirit, and so conducts his 
 administration that at length through his influence 
 
 *ix.8-i2. 
 
TIlc Covenant ivitJi David. 91 
 
 the knowledge of God covers the earth.* " There 
 shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, 
 and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit ; and 
 the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit 
 of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel 
 and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear 
 of the Lord ; and his delight shall be in the fear of 
 the Lord, and he shall not judge after the sight of 
 his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his 
 ears : but with righteousness shall he judge the 
 poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the 
 earth : and he shall smite the earth with the rod 
 of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall 
 he slay the wicked. They shall not hurt nor 
 destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth 
 shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the 
 waters cover the sea." 
 
 If in the utterance last quoted the expectations 
 from the covenant which had been made through the 
 instrumentality of Nathan appear in their climacteric 
 stage, and exhibit an individual descendant of 
 David as introducing an era of blessedness — if the 
 stock of David becomes less conspicuous, and a sin- 
 gle scion of the stock becomes the prominent thing 
 — the case is similar in Jeremiah. " Behold, the 
 days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that 
 * Isa. xi. 1-4, 9; compare x. ^iZi 34' 
 
g2 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 good word which I have spoken concerning the 
 house of Israel. In those days, and at that time, 
 will I cause a branch of righteousness to grow up 
 unto David." '^ The case is the same in Zechariah, 
 who styles the expected person " The Man whose 
 name is ' The Branch.' " 
 
 4. That the covenant and the predictions based 
 thereon had given rise to an expectation that the 
 headship of David's seed would revive — that the 
 beneficent administration of the ancestor would 
 come again in the administration of a scion of the 
 stock of that ancestor — is plain from many parts 
 of the New Testament ; and so much of the expec- 
 tation as was free from the merely secular quality, 
 was never gainsaid by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Did this incomparable person correspond to the 
 ideal depicted by the last words of David, the 
 sweet singer of Israel — One that ruleth over men 
 righteously, comparable in the benign character of 
 his influence to the sunrise of a cloudless morning, 
 a morning when there is clear shining after rain "> 
 Has this descendant of David, in accordance with 
 the covenant, become the head of a kingdom which 
 began with Israelites, extended from Israel to 
 foreign nations and is destined to universality } 
 There are Christians who joyfully acknowledge the 
 
 * xxxiii. 14, 15, vi. 12. 
 
TJie Covenant with David. 93 
 
 whole of this as true of Christ in his nature as the 
 Son of God, and yet fail to recognize the truth as 
 appHcable to the Saviour in his nature as the 
 descendant of David. The New Testament, how- 
 ever, represents " the Son of man " — a title which 
 describes Christ in his assumed nature — as ascending 
 to heaven in the body, with a mouth which at the 
 time was uttering words. And whereas the name 
 Jesus was not applicable to the Saviour independ- 
 ently of his incarnation, the New Testament de- 
 scribes the ascension as having been followed by 
 the promise,"^" *' This same Jesus which is taken up 
 into heaven shall so come even as ye have seen him 
 go into heaven." Years after his ascension St. Paul 
 could write in the present tense, *' In him t 
 dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 
 ** There is one % mediator between God and man, 
 the man Christ Jesus." In the nature which He had 
 vouchsafed to assume, and without which He could 
 not die,§ the Father raised Him from the dead and 
 set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly 
 places, and put all things under His feet and gave 
 Him to be head over all things to the church. 
 And He has done this for the whole interval be- 
 tween His first and second comings. When inter- 
 rogated by Pontius Pilate, " Art thou a king .? " 
 
 * Acts i. II. f Col. ii. 9. X I Tim. ii. 5. § Eph. i. 20-22. 
 
94 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Christ answered in the affirmative, though a nega- 
 tive answer might have averted his crucifixion. 
 " I am a king." ^ Because veracity required such an 
 answer, (though he explained, "■ My kingdom is not 
 of this world,") he added, '' To this end have I been 
 born and to this end have I come into the world, 
 that I might bear Avitness unto the truth." 
 
 To be a king one needs to be supreme over all 
 persons and things within one's realm, and needs 
 no more. But to be the King foretold in the Old 
 Testament, the claimant of this kingship must, after 
 dying, live in a body raised from the dead, must sit 
 at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, must 
 minister as a priest while administering as king, 
 and must be capable of extending His earthly king- 
 dom in the midst of obstacles, until it becomes 
 universal. This session, ministry, administration 
 and capacity the New Testament ascribes to the 
 one mediator between God and man, the man 
 Christ Jesus, man v/hile more than man, born of the 
 seed of David, yet declared to be the Son of God by 
 resurrection from the dead. 
 
 * John xviii, 37. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LORD OF DAVID. 
 
 Psalm CX. 
 
 The Psalm consists of two addresses, One address 
 is directed by the Universal Father to a person whom 
 the 'writer calls his lord. 
 
 ** Jehovah saith unto my lord, Sit thou at my right 
 hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 
 Jehovah shall send forth thy rod of might out of 
 Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 
 Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of 
 thy power. In beauties of holiness, from the womb 
 of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth. 
 Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a 
 priest forever after the description of Melchisedek." 
 
 The other address seems to be responsive. It is 
 directed by the Psalmist to the Universal Father and 
 speaks of, rather than to, the writer's lord. 
 
 *' The Lord at thy right hand shall crush kings in 
 
 the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the 
 
 95 
 
96 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 nations : He shall fill places with dead bodies. He 
 shall crush the head in many countries. He shall 
 drink of a brook in His way. Therefore shall he lift 
 up his head." 
 
 I. Who is meant by the writer's lord } Of the 
 answer to this question, the inquirer cannot judge 
 until he has scanned the traits which the Psalm ex- 
 hibits as belonging or destined to belong to the lord 
 of the writer. If the Psalm had been written during 
 the life of Saul, Saul might be conceived of as the 
 lord of David, since David was during that time a 
 subject and Saul his king. But the mention of Zion 
 in the sacred ode, as the place whence is to proceed 
 the sway or sceptre of the person at first addressed 
 (not to insist at present upon other facts) proves 
 that the Psalm must be referred to that period of 
 David's life in which he was an independent sover- 
 eign, viz.: the period in which the city Zion had 
 come into the hands of the Israelites, and been made 
 the place where the king of Israel held court. Saul 
 cannot be the lord — the master or superior — of 
 David, in the sense of this ode. 
 
 The person addressed by the Universal Father is 
 to have a day of power, which implies that he is to 
 have or has had a day of comparative weakness or 
 ineffectiveness. There is to be a day of his wrath. 
 This implies a day of grace which is to follow or 
 
TJlc Lord of David. 97 
 
 has preceded. He is a person then in the history 
 of whom there are two states or stages. The orna- 
 ments of his people and his people themselves arc 
 peculiar. The ornaments are not those of soldiers 
 or courtiers — they are sacred — are beauties of holi- 
 ness. The origin of his people is so described as to 
 import that a new day is about to dawn upon man- 
 kind — no doubt the same as just before is called the 
 day of his power, and that the coming daybreak is 
 to bring forth this people as the womb of a mother 
 may give birth to offspring : The youth who come 
 forth from this womb, the people belonging to the 
 person whom the Psalm celebrates, array them- 
 selves on his side, are had by him as his own, and for 
 their numbers or refreshing influence are compar- 
 able to drops of dew. The person exercises sacer- 
 dotal as well as royal functions. He holds "the 
 rod of empire," a sceptre. This fact marks him as 
 a king. Nevertheless he is declared to be a priest. 
 A priest is, in the language of the Bible, a negotiator 
 who transacts on behalf of another. Except in the 
 few cases where the word imports the notion of such 
 an officer as transacts for people at the side or in 
 front of a human king, it expresses the idea of an 
 officer w^ho intervenes on behalf of his fellow-men 
 before God, by making expiation. When the 
 priestly function is ascribed to a monarch not 
 
98 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 subject to another monarch, it can be under- 
 stood of nothing but the practice of the negotiator 
 who intervenes before God by sacrifice. Such a 
 king, a king uniting in himself both the ^sacerdotal 
 quaHty and the regal, had been nondescript in the 
 biblical history, except in the case of a monarch who 
 had reigned at a place called Salem, centuries before 
 the time of David, a monarch named Melchisedek. 
 Nevertheless the lord of David is in our Psalm de- 
 clared to be a priest and the ancient Melchisedek is 
 brought into view as a precedent or type. The 
 brief notice of Melchisedek in the book of Genesis* 
 embodies the ideal in accordance with which the 
 Psalm contemplates the priest king addressed. The 
 priesthood of the person is perpetual, and the assur- 
 ance of perpetual priesthood to the king, as if im- 
 plying a gift hardly to be expected by those for 
 whom the priesthood is to be exercised, as if imply- 
 ing a promise too good to be easily believed — is 
 ushered in by a double guarantee, by an oath and 
 by an appeal to the Divine unchangeableness : 
 " Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent. Thou 
 art a priest forever, after the description of Mel- 
 chisedek." If the place of the sceptre which David 
 swayed was Zion of the earthly Jerusalem, this 
 sceptre or the sway which it betokened was in the 
 * Gen, xiv. i ;-20. 
 
TJie Lord of David. 99 
 
 hand of the person celebrated to go therefrom in 
 such manner as to reach the hands of his adversaries. 
 However the case may be in the earUer career of the 
 lord of David, this career is not to end before he 
 has reduced all powers adverse to his rule. He is 
 to inflict a widespread massacre, to break the power 
 of potentates, to crush the head in many countries, 
 and so doing to become ruler among his enemies. 
 That the priest king will not fail nor be discouraged ; 
 that successes will make his head erect in cases 
 wherein it might be expected to droop ; that a re- 
 viving influence is to be imbibed by him while his 
 conflict with his enemies is in course, may be the 
 thing intended by the prophecy, " He shall drink 
 of a brook in his way : Therefore he shall lift up his 
 head." Such are the traits which mark the quality, 
 — such the lineaments which constitute the portrait 
 ' — of the person of whom the iioth Psalm makes 
 mention. 
 
 2. The question arises, Did these traits belong to 
 any person who lived in Old Testament times ? 
 There are those who answer this question by the 
 allegation that the person meant was David him- 
 self, and that if he was the writer of the Psalm, he 
 wrote it that it might be sung by the congregation 
 in homage to the writer : the lord addressed by 
 Jehovah was simply the sovereign of the Israelitish 
 
lOO Visions and Narratives. 
 
 territory. The sanctuary was in one part of the 
 hill Zion, David's house was in another part of the 
 same hill, and therefore David could be spoken of 
 as called to sit at the right hand of God. This is 
 much to assume. It seems like saying that a man 
 who resides in the neighborhood of a church, sits at 
 the right hand of God. Moreover the hill of Zion 
 (so called) was considerable in extent. It was 
 largely occupied by houses. Its palaces^ were to 
 Israel a matter of exultation. The many occupants 
 of these palaces might, for the reason assumed, be 
 equally with David, represented as persons invited 
 to sit at the right hand of God. Moreover, as we 
 have seen, the person divinely addressed is declared 
 to be a priest, and David, notwithstanding the much 
 to the contrary which has of late been said, never 
 appears in the Scriptures as possessed of the priestly 
 quality. Under the constitution of things which 
 obtained in his time, if the biblical accounts which 
 have come down to us are in any wise trustworthy, 
 the regal and the sacerdotal offices could no more 
 meet in one individual than under the American 
 Constitution the executive and the judicial func- 
 tions can thus meet. Does it follow from such con- 
 siderations that the sacred ode with which we have 
 to do involves by implication the exchange of the 
 
 * Ps. xlviii. 3, 13. 
 
The Lord of David. I or 
 
 Mosaic economy for a system in some respects dif- 
 ferent ? Nothing short of this is involved. Nothing- 
 less than the inauguration of a new order of things 
 is implied by the positive oath and the negative 
 declaration which succeeds the oath — by the two- 
 fold utterance, the Lord hath sworn and will not re- 
 pent. Either the assurance thus introduced is preg- 
 nant with meaning, or the introduction de- 
 serves the sarcasm, " Parturiunt montes, nascetur 
 ridiculus mus." A member of the Davidic dynasty 
 could not be a priest without a change of dispensa- 
 tion. A change of dispensation is a thing of which 
 the authors of the theory here rejected will not ad- 
 mit as within the contemplation of psalmists. It 
 follows that even if David could be represented as 
 sitting at the right hand of God for the reason that 
 his house was in the neighborhood of the sanctuary, 
 David could not be the person meant in this Psalm. 
 The person celebrated was in David's time ideal. 
 The thought was either a play of fancy or it was a 
 vision vouchsafed to the writer by his Inspirer. 
 
 If the portrait involved in the ode contains linea- 
 ments inconsistent with the Mosaic economy — if 
 the portrait involves the prophecy that a priest non- 
 descript in the law and of a quality inconsistent 
 with the law, was to arise — if involving this, the por- 
 trait involves a superseding of the covenant made 
 
I02 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 at Sinai — nothing stranger was thus implied than 
 was afterwards expressly said in Jeremiah : "' " Be- 
 hold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
 make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 
 with the house of Judah, not according to the cov- 
 enant I made with their fathers in the day that I 
 took them by the hand to bring them out of the 
 land of Egypt, which my covenant they brake, al- 
 though I was an husband unto them, saith the 
 Lord." By those critics who can think that the i loth 
 Psalm was to be sung in homage to David within 
 the courts of the sanctuary the objection is made 
 that the ideas we have attributed to the ode lie out- 
 side of the range of Old Testament thought. The 
 truth is that the lord of David is a conception which 
 in different aspects appears again and again in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, and those Christian scholars 
 who concede the contrary, surrender more than 
 could have been captured. As the change of cov- 
 enants appears in Jeremiah, so the priest king ap- 
 pears in Zechariah.t By this prophet, the unique 
 scion of the stock of David — '' the man whose name 
 is the branch " — is exhibited as wearing two crowns 
 and as giving forth from the two capacities denoted 
 by these crowns, the sacerdotal and the kingly, *' the 
 council of peace." The day of power appears in 
 
 *Jer. xxxi. 31, 32. f Zech. vi. II-13. 
 
TJic Lord of David. 103 
 
 Isaiah,"" the day of wrath in the second Psalm, f the 
 universal rule in Daniel.:): 
 
 3. To turn from the Old Testament to the New. 
 That Jesus Christ recognized David speaking; in the 
 Spirit, as the author of this sacred ode, and recog- 
 nized the lord therein described as being the Mes- 
 siah, plainly appears from the question the Saviour 
 addressed to the Pharisees, § " What think ye of the 
 Christ } Whose son is He t " They answered, *' The 
 son of David." The rejoinder was, " How then doth 
 David in the spirit call Him lord, saying, ** The Lord 
 saith unto my lord, sit thou on my right hand till I 
 put thine enemies underneath thy feet : If David 
 calleth Hi;ii lord, how is He his son .^ " Such a ques- 
 tion from the lips of Him who commonly denomi- 
 nated Himself the Son of man could have but one 
 meaning. It could not disclaim a human ancestry 
 for the Christ. It imports a claim to transcend 
 David, as a lord transcends a vassal, and it alleged 
 the Psalm in proof of the claim. 
 
 With regard to the "day of power." The earthly 
 ministry of our Saviour was a day of comparative 
 ineffectiveness. Those who subjected themselves to 
 His rule were comparatively few and were far from 
 having decided and persistent confidence. Nicode- 
 
 *Isa. liii. II, 12. t Ps. ii. 12. 
 
 % Dan. vii. 13, 14. § Matt. xxii. 42-45. 
 
I04 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 mus could come to Him for enlightenment, but only 
 at night : Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple, yet 
 secretly, for fear of the Jews. Some of Christ's fol- 
 lowers on occasions could withdraw, and walk no 
 more with Him. When our Lord's person was seized 
 all the disciples forsook Him and fled. But a new 
 day dawned. Exalted to the Father's throne, the 
 ascended Christ shed forth that inspiration which at 
 the following Pentecost men in Judaea saw and 
 heard in its effects. Christ's people offered them- 
 selves willingly ; with prejudices uprooted as by a 
 mighty rushing wind, with an enlightenment and a 
 glow significantly figured by the tongue-like flame 
 which sat upon each of the apostles. Beauties of 
 holiness, sacred ornaments, miraculous powers, 
 weapons of warfare mighty through God to th^ 
 pulling down of strongholds, qualified them for the 
 work they were to perform. To the Messiah's cause 
 they were as dew is to the earth, so reviving, so 
 fertilizing, so productive of fruit. 
 
 With allusion to our Psalm, the New Testament 
 argues, '' If, after the likeness of Melchisedek, there 
 ariseth another priest, who hath been made, not 
 after the law of a carnal commandment, but after 
 the power of an endless life, there is a disannulling 
 of a foregoing commandment because of its weak- 
 ness and unprofitableness (for the law made nothing 
 
TJic Lord of David. 105 
 
 perfect), and a bringing in thereupon of a better 
 hope, through which we draw nigh unto God."* 
 
 Other parts ofthe vision revealed in the iioth Psahn, 
 the parts concerning the day of the wrath of the 
 lord of David, the parts which imply opposition to 
 vhe Christ as offered by earthly potentates, and tell 
 of the crushing of these powers by Him who is head 
 over all things to His church, are exhibited by the 
 New Testament as biding their time, as awaiting 
 their fulfilment. Time yet future is to hear the cry 
 of kings ofthe earth to mountains and rocks, " Fall 
 on us and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." 
 Gog and Magog are to be crushed. A man of sin, 
 a son of perdition, is to oppose himself against all 
 that is called God or is worshipped, and him the 
 Lord Jesus is to slay by the breath of his mouth. 
 The cry of kings, the crushing of Gog and Magog, 
 the slaying by the breath of them^outh — these, alas , 
 will interpret '' the day ot His wrath." 
 
 * Heb, vi. 15, 16, iS, 19. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUFFERINGS AND EXPECTATIONS. 
 
 Psalm XXIL 
 
 Several questions propound themselves to a 
 thoughtful reader of this Psahn. Not the least of 
 these are the inquiries, what is the " eating " attri- 
 buted first to the meat and afterwards to the fat, an 
 eating which connects itself with a turning to the 
 Lord on the part of all the ends of the earth ? 
 What is the significance of adding to the prediction 
 " all they that go down to the dust shall bow be- 
 fore Him," another, a subsequent prediction, viz., 
 "a seed shall serve Him"? The former prediction 
 may seem to include the latter, and render it super- 
 fluous. 
 
 Consider the contents of the sacred ode. Inquire 
 what was its origin. Afterwards compare the 
 Psalm with the Gospels. 
 
 The person who speaks is at the time of speaking 
 without countenance from on high. Nothing in the 
 
 108 
 
Sufferings and Expectations. 107 
 
 circumstances which surround him goes to show 
 that God is with him. Though he prays, he has to 
 drink the cup of misery which has come to his lips. 
 This state of things co-exists with holiness on the 
 part of the God who has promised to answer prayer; 
 but it is not apparent how these co-existing things are 
 consistent with each other. The lot of this member 
 of the race of Israel contrasts with the lot of his 
 ancestors. They trusted in God and were not put 
 to shame, but he is despised and trodden upon. In 
 his case, while trouble is near help is distant. How 
 is this to be reconciled to the fact that God has not 
 only been, but has been felt to be his dependence 
 throughout his life, from his very birth } 
 
 The Sufferer is surrounded by persecutors. They 
 are one while called a sword, another while are de- 
 nominated hounds, bulls, lions. Nevertheless they 
 are human beings, as is plain from their being de- 
 nominated an assembly of evil doers. In their bru- 
 tality they cast lots before the eyes of the sufferer in 
 order to determine to which of their number this or 
 that part of his raiment shall belong. They shake 
 their heads in derision. They laugh him to scorn. 
 They say, ''Commit thyself to the Lord. Let God 
 deliver him, seeing he delightcth in him." Mean- 
 while every bone of the sufferer makes its severalty 
 to be felt — as it were, asks attention to its own 
 
I08 Visions and Nai-ratives, 
 
 ache. The juices of his body are dried up. His 
 tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. His flesh 
 is about to return to the dust of which he was 
 made. 
 
 Abruptly the sufferer becomes jubilant. His 
 sufferings cease to be mentioned. His utterances 
 become thanksgivings. The plaintive exclamation, 
 ** My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ! " 
 is exchanged for the grateful acknowledgment, 
 *' He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction 
 of the afflicted man, neither hath he hid his face 
 from him, but when he crieth unto him he heard." 
 The speaker will declare how God is describable, viz., 
 as a being who in the event forsakes not, but hears and 
 heeds. The speaker will direct the declaration unto 
 his brethren of the raceof Isarel. Amida congregated 
 people he will utter and invoke praises to the God 
 whose servant he is. He had made vows and these 
 he vv'ill perform. The vows had involved the giving 
 of a feast, as is plain from the subsequent mention, 
 made more than once, concerning persons who eat. 
 Can the feast be the same as that which was after- 
 wards predicted by Isaiah,^ the feast accompanied 
 or followed by the removal of the veil which ob- 
 structs the sight of the peoples of the earth, the 
 feast accompanied or followed by the swallowing 
 
 *I.sa. XXV. 6-8. 
 
Sifffcrino^s and Expectations. 109 
 
 up of death ? With regard to the acceptance of 
 the feast, the speaker is not confident that the 
 acceptance will from the first be universal. It is 
 from the meek, from them that already seek the 
 Lord, from the class whom he apostrophizes in the 
 words *' Let your heart live forever," that his ex- 
 pectations are highest. Nevertheless, soon or late, 
 all they that be fat upon earth (by '* the fat " does 
 the speaker mean the fastidious .?) will eat and 
 worship. Universal conversion will come at last. 
 All they that go down to the dust will bow before 
 the Lord. So soon as the speaker had been able 
 to praise his God because this being had not de- 
 spised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted man 
 — had not hidden his face from the sufferer, but had 
 heard him when he cried — it had appeared that the 
 forsaking plaintively inquired about in the first ex- 
 clamation of the sufferer had been but temporary 
 at the most. The answer to the "why" of the 
 inquiry " why hast thou forsaken me 1 " appeared at 
 this later stage of the development. The motive 
 of the temporary forsaking which the speaker had 
 suffered had been to bring about a turning of all the 
 ends of the earth to the worship of the one true 
 God. 
 
 The closing words of the Psalm arc, " A seed 
 shall serve him. It shall be counted unto the 
 
no Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Lord for the generation. They shall come and 
 shall declare His righteousness unto a people that 
 shall be born, that He hath done " the righteous- 
 ness. Such is for the most part the translation 
 given in the authorized version. The principal 
 difference is that the English Bible gives "a gener- 
 ation," where the Hebrew reads *' the generation." 
 The question comes up, what is meant by *' the 
 generation " ? In the Bible this phrase is not 
 always used of a class of men distinguished from 
 other classes by its time of living. It sometimes 
 distinguishes a class from other classes by its moral 
 qualities. Thus we hear of the generation of the 
 righteous,^ the generation of them that seek Him, \ 
 the generation of thy children, % the generation of 
 the upright. § If such is the use of the word in the 
 passage with which we have to do, the prediction 
 is to the effect that a seed or race rendering 
 services to God will be reckoned to Him as a class 
 peculiarly His own ; that this seed will appear 
 sooner or later, and will declare to people not born 
 at the time of the writing of the Psalm the thing 
 which the sufferer declares in person, viz., the right- 
 eousness God had shown to him who at first had 
 seemed to be forsaken to the will of his enemies. 
 The utterance intimates that a seed or class des- 
 
 * Ps. xiv. 5. t xxiv. 6. X Ixxiii. 15. § cjcii, 2. 
 
Snjfcrings and Rxpcctatloiis. in 
 
 tined to be credited to Jehovah as peculiarly the 
 divine property, the seed or class elsewhere named 
 " the generation of the righteous," will become to 
 posterity declarers of the faithfulness the Universal 
 Father had shown to the sufferer, and, so declaring, 
 will pave the way to the universal conversion. 
 Thus understood, the closing sentences respecting 
 service to be rendered to the Lord by " a seed," 
 make an addition to the meaning of the prediction 
 previously made, to the promise that the whole of 
 mankind should become His worshippers. The 
 sentences tell of the means or instrumentality 
 whereby the tidings concerning the sufferer would 
 reach people of a future period. The conclusion is 
 not superfluous or tautological. It differs from 
 predictions before made within the ode in this, that 
 it provides for the publication of the righteous vin- 
 dication of the sufferer, its publication to people of 
 a future time. The '* seed " may be the " holy seed " 
 which another prophet ^" compares to the substance 
 of a tree, a perennial substance remaining to a trunk 
 or stock when from year to year in the autumn the 
 tree loses its leaves. The seed meant is no doubt 
 the godlier part of Israel. 
 
 2. Whence came the very peculiar ideas which 
 this twenty-second Psalm imports t If no meaning 
 
 * Isa. vi. 13. 
 
112 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 ought to be imputed to the words but such as can 
 be got out of them, and if all the meaning which 
 resides in the words ought to be acknowledged, 
 interpreters are bound to admit that the sufferings 
 the Psalm tells of, and especially the high expecta- 
 tions it represents as destined to be realized from 
 these sufferings, were beyond the range of things 
 which David could mean to ascribe to himself, and 
 therefore that the writer of the ode and the person 
 who speaks therein ought not to be assumed to be 
 the same. The sufferings and expectations told of 
 might be those belonging to the race of Israel. 
 But it cannot be the race that speaks, because the 
 race appears in the ode as that which is to be 
 spoken to. They to whom the speaker is to declare 
 the name or quality of his deliverer are described as 
 the speaker's brethren, '' them of the seed of Israel." 
 Moreover there is nothing within the Psalm which 
 goes to show that the speaker was in the time of 
 the writer either existent or historical. He may at 
 that time have been an ideal person, the case being 
 similar to that with which we meet in another 
 Psalm. If the last words of the sweet singer of 
 Israel, '' The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and 
 his words were on my lips," were uttered with 
 truth, the writing before us may draw a portrait not 
 identifiable at the time of writing, even by the 
 
Siiffcruigs and Expectations. 113 
 
 writer of the Psalm. The portrait may have been 
 made for suspension in the Old Testament gallery 
 with view to the benefit of a subsequent age. 
 Concerning a thing mentioned in another Psalm, * 
 the writer expressly says, "This shall" be written 
 for the generation to come." Moreover, the person 
 intended by the Inspirer of David might prove to be 
 a king, a priest, or more than either, without being 
 exhibited in every vision vouchsafed to this Psalmist, 
 with such robes or titles as would bespeak kingly, 
 priestly, or superhuman qualities. 
 
 My father may have told me of a brother of his 
 whom he had not seen for years and I had never 
 seen. I am now grown to manhood. A stranger 
 appears at the homestead and declares himself to 
 be my father's brother. Does his appearance corre- 
 spond with one and another of the portraits hanging 
 in the old house, one exhibiting my uncle as a boy, 
 another exhibiting him as he was when grown to 
 adolescence } Are there scars on the face of the 
 stranger and the like in the portraits .? These 
 facts will have a weight in determining the stran- 
 ger's claim to identity, and if accompanied by other 
 proofs may be conclusive. The question who sat 
 for a portrait may be indeterminable until the man 
 presents himself in person, and in that event may 
 
ri4 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 become altogether determinable. Such a passage 
 from the quality of a thing latent and inexplicable 
 to the quality of a thing manifest and capable of 
 being made cognizable by the heathen is attributed 
 to the mea-ning of the Old Testament, when the 
 preaching of Jesus Christ is described as the reve- 
 lation of a mystery,* "a mystery kept in silence 
 through times eternal, but now manifested and by 
 the Scriptures of the Prophets made known unto 
 all the nations." 
 
 3. To pass from the prophetical to the historical. 
 The New Testament history exhibits Jesus of 
 Nazareth and the sufferer who describes himself in 
 the twenty-second Psalm as answering the one to 
 the other, in the manner of type and antitype. In 
 the account given by the gospels Christ appears as 
 the Son of man not less than as the Son of God. 
 When his death approaches He shudders, and for a 
 little time prays that it may be averted : " Father, 
 if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Now is 
 my soul troubled. And what shall I say t Father, 
 save me from this hour. But for this cause came I 
 unto this hour." The Saviour is exhibited as 
 *' delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- 
 knowledge of God," "delivered into the hands of 
 men," " delivered for our offences," and, by conse- 
 
 * Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 
 
Sufferings and Expectations. 115 
 
 quence as being forsaken to the power of his 
 enemies by the Universal Father, ** forsaken," 
 though ** not despised nor abhorred." 
 
 A coincidence is sometimes so extraordinary that 
 it is di^cult to believe it to be accidental. A case 
 of this kind occurred when fifty years ago two ex- 
 presidents of the United States, both of whom had 
 been signers of the Declaration of Independence, 
 died on the same day, and that day the anniversary 
 of the signing. The coincidence between the con- 
 duct attributed in our Psalm to the assembly of 
 evil doers and the conduct pursued by the soldiers 
 who attended the crucifixion appeared to the Evan- 
 gelist John to be of this extraordinary description. 
 He writes, " The soldiers, when they had crucified 
 Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to 
 every soldier a part, and also the coat. Now the 
 coat was without seam, woven from the top 
 throughout. They said therefore one to another. 
 Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall 
 be." As if the realization of the idea of the twenty- 
 second Psalm might be conceived of as the motive 
 which prompted the soldiers, the evangelist adds 
 to his statement significantly,* " that the Scripture 
 might be fulfilled." In like manner another evan- 
 gelist writes that persons near the place of cruci- 
 
 * John xix. 23, 24. 
 
Ii6 Visions and Nai^ratives. 
 
 fixion, brutally, as if willing to identify themselves 
 with the " assembly of evil doers," the lions, bulls, 
 and dogs of the Psalm, or as impelled by an impulse 
 of which they were unconscious, derided the pre- 
 tensions of the sufferer in words, a part of which 
 they unwittingly took from our Psalm: ''They 
 wagged their heads and said. He trusted in God 
 that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him if 
 he will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God." 
 *' Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama 
 sabachthani — My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me ? " 
 
 For what did He make this exclamation, except 
 for the sake of them who stood by, that they might 
 ponder the *' Why," and compare it with the conse- 
 quences which the sufferer in the Psalm expected 
 to come from the temporary forsaking of which he 
 spoke. If the reason of the exclamation was differ- 
 ent, for what cause was the cry made in the same 
 Hebrew words with which the Psalm begins } 
 Christ did the thing in order to identify Himself with 
 the sufferer the Psalm exhibits. 
 
 With regard to the discontinuance of the forsak- 
 ing, the not despising nor abhorring the affliction of 
 the afflicted man, and the large expectations of the 
 sufferer — after Christ's death the disciples, dis- 
 heartened, slow to understand the "Why" of the 
 
Sufferings and Expectations. 117 
 
 forsaking, say one to another, " We hoped that it 
 was He who should redeem Israel," as if this hope 
 had perished or well nigh perished with the cruci- 
 fixion. But on the third day Christ is raised from 
 the dead, and the rising is ascribed to the power of 
 the Father, the power of Him who at the cross had 
 seemed to desert the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 On the day of the rise He appears among His people. 
 They are troubled, because they think that what 
 they behold is a spectre. To displace their trouble 
 He shows His disciples His bodily hands, which had 
 been perforated by nails. His fleshly side, which had 
 been pierced by a spear. He says, " Handle me, for 
 a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have." 
 He had said, " I am the living bread which came 
 down from heaven. The bread which I will give is 
 my flesh for the life of the world." He had at a 
 later time exchanged this figure of speech for a 
 figure of action. In the evening which preceded 
 His death He took bread, blessed, brake it, and said, 
 "This is my body." Of the bread which had thus 
 been given, first in promise, afterwards in symbol, 
 and on the cross in more than either promise or 
 symbol, the three thousand of the day of Pente- 
 cost, a number which soon became five thousand, 
 and not long after many ten thousands, all within 
 the single city Jerusalem, ate and were satisfied. 
 
1 1 8 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 They accepted Christ crucified for the strengthen- 
 ing and refreshing of their souls, as bodies are re- 
 freshed and strengthened by bread and wine. 
 
 With regard to "a seed," which was to serve the 
 Lord and to be reckoned to Him as His generation, 
 the seed which was to come, and to people not 
 born in the times of the sufferer was to become the 
 declarers of the righteous vindication wrought by 
 the Universal Father for His misconstrued represen- 
 tative ; it hardly needs to be said that this seed or 
 class appeared in such of Israel as accepted the 
 Messiah ; in apostles and evangelists, in pastors 
 and teachers, who each serving in his appointed 
 time have brought the gospel of the life, death and 
 resurrection of the sufferer to us, the people of the 
 present century. 
 
 The twenty-second Psalm was a lock of unusual 
 wards. For a thousand years it served as a safe- 
 guard for the truth it was intended to secure. In 
 due time the key appeared in the history of Jesus 
 Christ. The inference that the lock and the key 
 had had the same origin and had been intended the 
 one for the other, from that time forward spoke for 
 itself. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD. 
 Isaiah XXXIX.— LXVI. 
 
 Isaiah lived in the reiga of Hezekiah, King" of 
 Judah, some seven centuries before the Christian 
 era. So much appears from the historical passage 
 in the middle of the prophet's book. Most of the 
 remainder of the work answers entirely to the de- 
 scription with the mention of which the work begins, 
 ** The Vision of Isaiah." The business of the book 
 lies with things invisible to the outward eye at the 
 time of the writing. Even the historical passage, 
 chapters xxxvi.-xxxix., inclusive, contains visional 
 parts. It contains prophecies within itself, prophecies 
 concerning events which were to take place in time 
 near to the time of the utterance of the prophecies. 
 These events, predicted within the limits of the 
 historical passage, were to have the effect of guaran- 
 teeing for the contemporaries of the writer the 
 
 truth of his visions concerning times comparatively 
 
 119 
 
I20 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 distant, and so, of enabling the prophet to say, 
 " The former things are come to pass, and new 
 things do I declare. Before they spring forth I tell 
 you of them." The new things thus spoken of, things 
 merely germinant in the age of the speaker, relate 
 largely to a " Servant of the LORD." A person thus 
 named appears many times in the third of the prin- 
 cipal portions of the book. 
 
 I. Who is this '' Servant of the Lord } " Often it 
 is Israel, the Israelitish people, that is denominated 
 the servant of Jehovah : * "Ye are my witnesses, 
 saith the LORD, and are My Servant whom I have 
 chosen." Israel is spoken of as the Lord's messen- 
 ger, as elect to the functions of witnessing and serv- 
 ing, in the persons of its ancestors, Abraham and 
 Jacob, and as performing such functions for the bene- 
 fit of others, even when the functions profit not the 
 functionary. Being thus doers of the work of the 
 Lord, they are entitled to be called '' the Lord's 
 servant." They subserve the Lord's cause. But 
 Israel is blind ; none are more deaf than he. If he 
 sees he does not observe ; if he opens the eyes of 
 others, he does not open his own eyes.f " Hear, 
 ye deaf, and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who 
 is blind, but My Servant, or deaf as my messenger 
 that I send .'' " Because the deafness and blindness 
 * xiiii. lo. t '"^l"' 18-21. 
 
The Servant of tJie Loi^d. 121 
 
 of Israelites are guilty, and because of the trust which 
 is deposited with them, are guiltier than they would 
 be otherwise, God will magnify the law and make it 
 be honored by judgments on this people. He will 
 accomplish His ulterior purpose, the making Himself 
 the object of universal worship among men, by tak- 
 ing others to assume their place : * '* Ye shall leave 
 your name for a curse unto my chosen ; for the Lord 
 God shall slay thee and call His servants by another 
 name, so that he who blesseth himself on the earth 
 shall bless himself in the God of truth, and he that 
 sweareth on the earth shall swear by the God of 
 truth." 
 
 The servant of the Lord is sometimes a people 
 distinguishable from Israel considered in the bulk, 
 distinguishable as the kernel of a nut is from the 
 shell, as the invisible church is from the visible. 
 Within the nation there is a select part. This select 
 part is chosen in a higher sense than the race at 
 large and is not to be cast away. Their seed and 
 name are to remain. They are compared to the 
 valuable juice contained in grapes, for the sake of 
 which the cluster is to be kept from utter destruc- 
 tion. *' As the fruit is found within the cluster, and 
 one saith. Destroy not the cluster, for a blessing is 
 in it ; so will I do for My Servants' sakes, that I 
 * Ixv. 15. 
 
122 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 destroy not all." This part of the people is to be 
 joined by persons foreign to the Israelitish race. 
 God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, saith, 
 yet will I gather others to him, beside his own that 
 are gathered." These members of Israel, elect from 
 a body itself elect, are to scatter all hindrances, 
 mountainous as the obstacles in their path may be, 
 and to vindicate their quality as the servant of the 
 Lord, by effecting His purposes, not only with sin- 
 cerity, but with eventual success."^ " Thou shalt 
 thresh mountains and beat them small, and shalt 
 make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and 
 the wind shall scatter them, and thou shalt rejoice 
 in the Lord, thou shalt glory in the Holy One of 
 Israel." 
 
 Occasionally the title ''Servant of the Lord" is 
 applied to a party hardly the same with either the 
 bulk or the select portion of Israel. Remarkable 
 are the utterances which appear in a speech ad- 
 dressed to heathen nations. A speaker who repre- 
 sents himself as addressed by God under the title 
 " My Servant," and as addressed also under the name 
 "Israel " — this speaker strangely represents himself 
 likewise as having had for his vocation the function 
 of recovering Israel, of bringing Israel back to his 
 God. An Israel is to be the restorer of Israel. The 
 
 * xli. 15, 16. 
 
TJic Scj'va?it of tJie Lord. 123 
 
 speaker invites distant peoples to listen to him. His 
 penetrating speech was comparable to a sword or 
 arrow, though in his earlier life the sword had been 
 in a scabbard, the arrow had been hidden in a quiver. 
 The speech, penetrating as it was, had, after becom- 
 ing public, not reached the heart of the bulk of Israel 
 or recovered this straying people. He complains 
 that he had labored in vain. The complaint is an- 
 swered by the reassuring declaration that a far 
 higher vocation has been assigned to him in the 
 counsels of the Universal Father, the vocation of re- 
 covering to duty, to God, and to well being the be- 
 nighted among mankind at large.^ *' It is too light 
 a thing that thou shouldst be my Servant to raise 
 the tribes of Jacob. I will give thee for a light to the 
 Gentiles, that thou mayst be my salvation unto the 
 end of the earth." Thus saith the Lord to him whom 
 man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth : 
 Kings shall see and arise ; princes, and they shall 
 worship. Who can this speaker be — this Israel who 
 was to recover Israel } Is he a plurality or a single in- 
 dividual t In places in which Israel is a people, a 
 plurality, the fact discovers itself by the intermixture 
 of plural with singular forms of speech ; for example, 
 in the address, t *' Ye are my witnesses and my Ser- 
 vant whom I have chosen." " Ye " in this passage 
 
 * xlix. 1-9. t Isaiah xliii. lo. 
 
124 Visions and Nari^atives. 
 
 stands in a place where '' Thou " might be expected, 
 and '' witnesses " appears in the diction where " wit- 
 ness " could not but be the phrase, if an individual 
 were meant. There is nothing of this sort in the utter- 
 ances with which we are now concerned. The 
 parties to be restored appear as races, but the re- 
 storer exhibits himself in the aspect of a person 
 simply and solely. Consider the title of honor 
 which had been solemnly given to an ancestor of 
 the chosen people. Reflect that Israel had been the 
 name of the progenitor before it became the name 
 of his progeny. The title had been given to the 
 ancestor in token of the fact that he had wrestled 
 with God and wrestled prevailingly. The progeni- 
 tor had received for himself and his progeny the 
 promise that he and they should be the channel of 
 benediction to the races of mankind, and thereby 
 of glorification to God — the promise t " In thee and 
 thy seed shall all the families of the earth be 
 blessed." If this promise was to reach its highest 
 realization in a single member of the progeny, and 
 this person was to be an intercessor, what wonder 
 that this incomparable individual should appear, in 
 the ideal exhibited to the mind of Isaiah, as ad- 
 dressed in the words, '' Thou art My Servant Israel, 
 in whom I shall be glorified .? " If the restorer of 
 
 *Gen. xxviii. 14 ; xxxii, 24-28. 
 
TJie Servant of the Lord. 125 
 
 mankind could with allusion to the ruiner of the 
 human race be denominated, in New Testament 
 phrase, the second Adam, what the wonder if, with 
 allusion to an antecedent promise, a second Israel 
 appears in an Old Testament vision as embodying 
 the conception of such a restorer ? Something- 
 mystical, something in the nature of a germ requir- 
 ing development, lies in the fact that both the 
 party to be restored and the party restoring appear 
 under the name of Israel. The same mystical diction 
 appears in passages written after the death of David, 
 in which a future member of the dynasty founded 
 by the son of Jesse bears this monarch's name. 
 " Afterward shall the children of Israel return and 
 seek the Lord their God, and David their king . . . 
 in the latter days." * '* I will set up one shepherd 
 over them . . . even my servant David." t David 
 is plainly the name of both the nadir and the 
 zenith of that dynasty which the prophets conceive 
 of. Is not the name Israel used analogously } 
 
 It is with traits which suit a person rather than a 
 people, that "the Servant of the Lord " appears in 
 another representation made by our prophet,:}: a 
 representation which must be meant of a time inter- 
 mediate between the failure in the land of Israel and 
 the success in lands of the Gentiles. In this passage 
 
 * Hosea iii, 5, f Ezek. xxxiv. 23. f xlii, 1-8. 
 
126 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 judgment — ^judgment in the earth, judgment to truth, 
 judgment to the Gentiles — is the prominent thing 
 the servant is to bring about. But the connection 
 is such that the judgment meant can hardly be any- 
 thing but one of redress to the Gentiles and to the 
 truth on the one hand, and a judgment consisting in 
 retribution to graven images on the other hand. 
 The judgment proceeds from a judge who is such in 
 character that he breaks not the bruised reed nor 
 quenches the smoking flax, and the outcome of the 
 judgment is that the isles await his law. Discour- 
 agements may meet him, but he will neither give up 
 nor despond until he has succeeded in the work of 
 redressing the wrongs men and the truth have suf- 
 fered from idolatry. Whatever the opposition he 
 may encounter, he will not be loud or boisterous ; 
 he will pursue his end without tumult or outcry. 
 Noiselessly, and without either failure or discourage- 
 ment he will prosecute the duty assigned him in the 
 counsels of the Universal Father. 
 
 In a similar manner, with qualities which belong 
 to an individual rather than a people, the subject 
 of discourse appears in another of Isaiah's visions. I 
 mean the remarkable vision * of eventual exalta- 
 tion and antecedent suffering, the '' report " of which 
 has for ages attracted so much attention and touched 
 
 * lii. 13-liii. 12. 
 
The Servant of the Lo7'd. 127 
 
 so many hearts. Here the subject of the prophet's 
 utterances is called by the Lord " My righteous Ser- 
 vant," though the contrary of righteousness is else- 
 where in Isaiah the thing attributed to Israel as a 
 nation. He is denominated " a man of sorrows," and 
 there is nothing to indicate that this " man " is in any 
 sense a plurality: He has a susceptibility of being 
 cut off out of the land of the living, and is consigned 
 to a grave — a susceptibility and consigning often 
 and emphatically declared to be things from which 
 the select portion, if not the whole, of Israel must 
 as a race be always exempt. The ** seed " must ac- 
 complish its mission before it can expire. The tree * 
 may from time to time cast its leaves, but the trunk 
 will keep its substance. Think of the utterance : t 
 ** If heaven above can be measured and the founda- 
 tions of the earth searched out beneath, I will also 
 
 *Isa. VI. 13. 
 
 t Jer. xxxi., 37 The disruption into chapters began more than a thou- 
 sand years after Old Testament times, and is not recognized in the syna- 
 gogue lessons. It often mars the connection. Chapter lii. 13-15 in Isaiah 
 reports for the servant an eventual influence upon whole nations, which 
 influence shall contrast with the earlier effect of his appearance- Chapter 
 iiii. 1-9 proceeds to tell more fully of this appearance, and of its effects, 
 viz.: of disesteem, misconstruction, suffering and death. These come 
 to the Servant, seem to belie the report and cause disbelief. Chapter 
 Iiii. 10-12 iterates the report, and declares that the suffering and death 
 will be not only an antecedent to the exaltation, but its cause. 
 
128 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have 
 done, saith the Lord." 
 
 The Servant reaches the highest elevation in the 
 minds of men. He is extolled, nations and their 
 kings acknowledge him, but acknowledgment is 
 not rendered him immediately. He does not reach 
 such results except by the road of ignominy and 
 suffering. In the earlier stages of his career he is 
 like a root rising from dry ground, a thing not 
 sightly. Men avert their eyes from him. He is de- 
 spised and rejected. Far from regarding the griefs 
 and sorrows which are upon him, as caused by the 
 sins of others, mortals regard these sufferings as an 
 infliction deserved by himself. Under oppression, 
 when on his way to be slaughtered, the Servant of 
 the Lord (as in the scene we lately contemplated) 
 abstains from loudness in the streets. He opens 
 not his mouth ; he dies ; his body is interred in a 
 grave ; his soul has become an offering for sin. 
 And it is after he has thus suffered that the pleasure 
 of the " Lord prospers in his hands. It is because 
 he had entered into the lot deserved by trans- 
 gressors and had poured out his soul unto 
 death that he enters into the category of the 
 victorious, becomes a conqueror, has the great of 
 the earth allotted to him as captives, apportions 
 among his people the avails of his victories and 
 
TJie Servant of the Lord. 129 
 
 attains to homage far and wide in the regions of 
 the world. 
 
 2. To draw to a close. The notion of the Servant 
 of the Lord, variously as it is exhibited by Isaiah, is 
 resolvable into one idea having different phases or 
 stages of development. Moreover, all of these stages 
 have in history been brought to realizations, either 
 consummated or incipient. Israel in the mass an- 
 swered and now answers to the characterization ex- 
 pressed in the remarkable address, *^ Ye are my wit- 
 nesses." The race testifies to the books of the Old 
 Testament, and the invaluable contents of those 
 books. The race has been and is a *' messenger " to 
 the nations, opening the ears of people foreign to it, 
 yet a messenger not hearkening to the tidings which 
 it carries, the keeper of prophecy, the living fulfil- 
 ment thereof, yet having a veil upon its own eyes. 
 
 When the "Servant of the Lord" describes the 
 better part of the race, the select of Israel, the con- 
 ception has its counterpart in Psalmists and Prophets 
 of the Old Testament. Especially it has its coun- 
 terpart in the twelve, the seventy, and the one 
 hundred and twenty of whom the New Testament 
 makes mention. These and other Jews like-minded 
 answer the description given when Isaiah tells of an 
 Israel not cast away and joined by sons of the 
 stranger. They were a nucleus to which people 
 
130 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 gathered until the nucleus reached the dimensions 
 of the present Christendom. 
 
 Does the vision concerning the ** Servant of the 
 Lord " take a further development ? Does the pyra- 
 mid reach its apex in an individual ? The prophecy 
 came to its verification in Jesus, the person thus 
 named before He was conceived in the womb. Dur- 
 ing the first thirty years of His earthly life the Found- 
 er of Christianity had been as a sword within a 
 scabbard, as an arrow within a quiver. He had been 
 but little known. Subsequently He announced Him- 
 self, with speech how penetrating ! Nevertheless, 
 when near the end of His public ministry He could 
 speak of the comparative fewness of the Israelites 
 whom He had gathered for the Father in the lament- 
 ing words, ''Jerusalem, Jerusalem!* Thou that 
 killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent 
 unto thee ! How often would I have gathered thy 
 children as a hen gathereth her brood under her 
 wings ; and ye would not." Penetrating as was His 
 word, Christ rarely used loud speech ; He avoided 
 publicity in cases where publicity and loudness were 
 not indispensable for the prosecution of His work. 
 In a synagogue on a Sabbath, the Saviour had by 
 word of mouth caused a withered hand to become 
 as healthy as the other hand of a sufferer present. 
 
 ■X Matt, xxiii. 37. 
 
The Servant of the Lord. 131 
 
 This use of the sacred day roused the wrath of 
 zealots belonging to the congregation. The Phari- 
 sees took counsel against Him that they might de- 
 stroy Him. Knowing the fact He withdrew from the 
 neighborhood. Great multitudes followed Him. He 
 healed them all, as He had healed the man in the 
 synagogue. These multitudes consisted, to a large 
 extent, of persons who expected to find in the Mes- 
 siah a secular deliverer. They were people of the 
 same sort as on another occasion proposed to take 
 Jesus by force and make Him king.* A war cry on 
 his part would have been enough to bring about a 
 rising on the part of the multitudes. He not only 
 continued to be away from the disturbed neighbor- 
 hood, but charged the multitudes that they should 
 not make Him known ; in order, says the historian, 
 St. Matthew,t that it might be fulfilled which was 
 spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying : " Behold ! 
 my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in 
 whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit 
 upon Him and He shall declare judgment to the Gen 
 tiles. He shall not strive nor cry aloud, neither 
 shall any one hear His voice in the streets. A bruised 
 reed shall He not break and smoking flax shall He 
 not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory, 
 and in His name shall the Gentiles hope." 
 
 ^Johnvi. 15. t Matt. xii. 18-21. 
 
1^2 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Christ's original disciples in the time of His tribula- 
 tion were staves which gave way under the weight 
 laid upon them ; they were lamps, the wick of which 
 smoked or failed. The Saviour did not throw away 
 these reeds, did not extinguish these smoking wicks. 
 When the Lord's person was seized in the garden 
 of Gethsemane, all the disciples forsook Him and fled. 
 He had mercy. He so bound up or bandaged these 
 broken reeds as to make them worthy depend- 
 ences to His cause. He refilled and relighted 
 these smoking lamps. He did not repudiate the 
 disciple who had thrice denied Him. 
 
 With regard to the vision which exhibits the Ser- 
 vant of the Lord as expiring by and for men, dying 
 by their hands and for their benefit — the representa- 
 tion speaks for itself. By language which our Sa- 
 viour used at different times during His life, He put 
 Himself under the necessity of verifying the prophecy 
 in His own person, uninviting to human instincts as 
 this verification was. The hypothesis of modern 
 Jews (a hypothesis not more contrary to the appli- 
 cations of the passage made in the New Testament 
 than inconsistent with the meaning ascribed to the 
 place by the traditions of this remarkable people. *) 
 is to the effect that the Servant is the Israelitish 
 race ; some say the whole race, others say the race 
 
 * Hengstenberg's '-Christology," Edinburgh Ed. Vol. II. pp., 310-313. 
 
The Servant of the Lord. 133 
 
 in its select part. This theory might reach a real- 
 ization if the race should in both the one and the 
 other of these pluralities pour out its soul unto 
 death in expiation for human sin ; but what in that 
 case would befall the Old Testament doctrine,* that 
 this people shall not cease to be of the races of man- 
 kind until the sun and nxjon shall depart from the 
 heavens ? 
 
 Jews ask the questions ** At what time did Jesus of 
 Nazareth conquer in a battle ? when did He receive 
 captives taken in war, as His apportionment ? when 
 did He allot to His soldiery the spoil taken from a 
 conquered enemy ? But the questions make no dif- 
 ficulty for the Christian. The reason given for the 
 victory and for its results, viz., the fact that the 
 Servant had poured out His soul unto death, had 
 been numbered with the transgressors and had thus 
 borne the sin of many, makes it plain that neither 
 the contest nor the victory nor the captured spoil 
 belongs to the secular sphere. Isaiah's visions con- 
 cerning the Servant of the Lord have hitherto 
 escaped frustration, although frustration was at the 
 time when they were uttered, and for ages after- 
 wards continued to be the fate likely in human 
 probability to become their lot. The Messiah is ex- 
 tolled far and wide, already. He now besprinkles 
 
 •Jer. xxxi. 35, 56, 
 
134 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 nations with an influence which, in proportion to 
 their susceptibility thereto, raises them above other 
 nations and causes their kings, with a devoutness 
 greater or less, to do Him homage. Some of the 
 visions of Isaiah predict that His moral conquests 
 will eventually extend to the "ends of the earth." 
 Christians ! Be confident respecting the future of 
 the nations upon earth. '* The Ides of March have 
 come, and have not gone." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT, THE GREAT DAY 
 
 OF THE LORD, AND EVENTS WHICH MUST 
 
 PRECEDE THAT DAY. 
 
 Joel II. 28-32. 
 
 There 13 to be an unusual effusion of the Holy 
 
 Spirit ; an outpouring of inspiration which will 
 
 come upon the young as well as the old, upon 
 
 servants, male and female, as well as their masters. 
 
 Further on in time there is to be a day so signal, so 
 
 surpassing all previous days, so different from days 
 
 in which the human element seems more prevalent 
 
 than the divine, that it can be described as the day 
 
 of the Lord, ** the great and terrible day of the 
 
 Lord." Antecedently to the coming of this unique 
 
 epoch, bloodshed, war and conflagrations which 
 
 cause cities to ascend in columns of smoke, and, 
 
 contemporaneously or subsequently, fearful sights 
 
 in the heavens are to appear. In the interval 
 
 which is to elapse before the great and terrible 
 
 135 
 
136 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 day, and perhaps before the obscuration of the 
 heavenly bodies, the knowledge of Jehovah the God 
 of Israel will reach the heathen, and among these 
 pagan races will bring about the invocation of His 
 name. Effecting this result the knowledge will 
 work deliverance for the persons enlightened and 
 converted. Whosoever shall call upon the name 
 of the Lord (Jehovah) shall be delivered, delivered 
 from the mastery of sin, delivered in the great and 
 terrible day of the Lord. If there is to be this sal- 
 vation in countries distant from the country where 
 the name of Jehovah had been before known and 
 worshipped, the country of which Jerusalem was 
 the capital, the people by means of whom the 
 name of Jehovah is to be carried to foreign climes 
 must escape extirpation, must continue in the 
 quality of a remnant, if not as a whole, until it has 
 wrought its work as God's messenger to the 
 nations, and this escape from extirpation must in- 
 clude such of the individual inhabitants of Zion and 
 of other parts of Jerusalem as shall be divinely 
 called to the errand. 
 
 Moreover, the escape of a remnant when judgment 
 after judgment seemed likely to bring about the 
 extinction of the whole of the race of Israel is so 
 guaranteed by prophecy, and a universal invocation 
 of the name of Jehovah is so guaranteed by the 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 137 
 
 same authority, that the fulfilment of the one guar- 
 antee when witnessed by the ages will assure the 
 hope of the fulfilment of the other. The escape of 
 a remnant in Jerusalem will warrant the expecta- 
 tion that Jerusalem will survive until its people 
 shall reach their destination, viz., the pf*opagation 
 of the name of Jehovah and the deliverance of wor- 
 shippers of this name. 
 
 I. The foregoing statements take the second 
 chapter of the Book of Joel, as that chapter stands 
 in the revised version. The statements are a para- 
 phrase of this version. Several events answering to 
 these statements have already occurred. That out- 
 pouring of inspiration which began in the Pente- 
 costal season told of in the Acts of the Apostles ; 
 the response to St. Peter's call, ** Save yourselves 
 from this crooked generation," a response made by 
 three thousand of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, three 
 thousand which within a short time became five 
 thousand, and afterwards many ten thousands ; 
 the fact that these Israelites went everywhere 
 preaching the word of deliverance ; the consign- 
 ing of places far and near, and among these 
 places the city of Jerusalem, to bloodshed and 
 desolation ; the recurrence of wars and devasta- 
 tions, from age to age in history — have fulfilled a 
 large part of the prophecy of Joel. If other parts 
 
138 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 of the prophecy, the great and terrible day of the 
 Lord, and that turning of the sun into darkness and 
 the moon into blood, which is to precede the com- 
 ing of the great and terrible day, are in the nine- 
 teenth century of the Christian era still future, 
 this fact accords well with utterances of Christ,"^ 
 which are so similar to Joel's utterances that the 
 similarity can hardly be accidental : " The sun 
 shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her 
 light .... and then shall they see the Son of 
 man coming in the clouds with great power and 
 glory." 
 
 2. To pass from the verifications which the pro- 
 phecy of Joel has received or awaits, to other points 
 of interest, let me premise that throughout the 
 prophecy the proper name of the God of Israel, 
 the peculiar name ** Jehovah," stands where our 
 translators have placed the appellative phrase 
 " the Lord." In the sentence concerning deliver- 
 ance, the original runs, " Whosoever shall call 
 upon the name of Jehov-ah shall be delivered." As 
 the prophets denounce insincere worship, I assume 
 that the " calling " meant in Joel is such an invo- 
 cation as comes of a practical faith. It is plain 
 from the connection that by the being '* delivered," 
 a deliverance in the great and terrible day of the 
 
 * Mark xiii. 24-26. 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 139 
 
 Lord is the thing intended. When Joel proceeds, *' In 
 Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those 
 that escape, as the Lord hath said, and among the 
 remnant" shall be ''those whom the Lord shall 
 call," he introduces this statement by the word 
 *' for," as though the statement was meant to be 
 understood as confirmatory of the promise just 
 before made. But where are we to find the revela- 
 tion referred to in the clause *' as the Lord hath 
 said," the clause annexed to the utterance "There 
 shall be those that escape." If the escape meant is 
 an escape from the extinction with which the 
 calamities mentioned in other predictions had 
 threatened the race of Israel, the revelation is to be 
 found in Old Testament declarations, some of 
 which make mention of the beneficent result in- 
 tended for the escape. Take, for example, declara- 
 tions of Isaiah,* that the cities of Israel were des- 
 tined to be deprived of inhabitants, and that not- 
 withstanding the desolation of the country and 
 the massacre of its occupants, this people would 
 compare with a tree, the stump of which remains 
 when the trunk has been felled, the tree and the 
 people resembling each other in this : that in cir- 
 cumstances which threaten to be deadly to them, 
 both may survive and be productive of an outcome, 
 
 *Isa. vi. 11-13. 
 
140 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 the tree of shoots, the people of a godly progeny. 
 Elsewhere * the same prophet, after renewing his 
 predictions of devastation to the cities of Judah, 
 writes, ** The remnant that is escaped, of the house 
 of Judah, shall again take root downward and bear 
 fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth 
 a remnant, and out of Mount Zion they that shall 
 escape. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall per- 
 form this." " I will send such as escape of them 
 unto the nations .... that have not heard of 
 my fame, and they shall declare my glory among 
 the nations, f In days to come shall Jacob take 
 root ; Israel shall blossom and bud. And they fill 
 the face of the world with fruit." :|: Such utterances 
 serve to show how Joel could speak of the escape 
 of a remnant of Israel as an escape which the Lord 
 had destined. The declarations are plain to the 
 point that the race of Abraham could not become 
 extinct until it had accomplished the end for which 
 it was elect, the blessing of all the families of the 
 earth. 
 
 These utterances tend to show, also, how the 
 prophet after the promise, "Whosoever shall call 
 upon the name of Jehovah shall be delivered," 
 could think it necessary to add the declaration that 
 the remnant destined to survive the calamities of 
 
 * Isa. xxxvii. 31. f Isa. Ixvi. 19. |xxvii. 6. 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 141 
 
 the race was to include persons ** whom the Lord 
 their God should call." A class of persons not 
 divinely called neither would nor could so blossom 
 and bud as to fill the world with fruit. Joel's 
 promise and the declaration annexed thereto are 
 coherent, if the latter indicates the agency by the 
 instrumentality of which the name of Jehovah was 
 to become known and invocable — known and invo- 
 cable by the " whosoever " in the interest of whom 
 the utterance going before had been made. Other- 
 wise the discourse is incoherent, and the word 
 "for" in the thirty-second verse is futile. 
 
 3. The interdependence of the prophets is a point 
 of interest. No prophet seems to have been inde- 
 pendent of other prophets. The Spirit spake by 
 David, yet David sought counsel from Nathan. It 
 was through the writings of Jeremiah that the 
 prophet Daniel came to know that the Lord would 
 accomplish seventy years in the desolations of 
 Jerusalem. In consonance with such facts the 
 prophecy of Joel does not give a plenary statement 
 concerning the inspiration which was vouchsafed 
 on the first Whitsunday ; that is to say, does not 
 include in his statement the great things which 
 this inspiration involved — the uprooting of the pre- 
 judices of the apostles, the enlightening of their 
 minds, the "disannulling of the commandment 
 
142 Visions mid Narrati^'es. 
 
 going before and the bringing in of a better hope." 
 The prophet tells so much as had been revealed to 
 him, and tells no more. Joel may have been with- 
 out the knowledge that on the great and terrible 
 day of which he writes the Messiah would be the 
 judge, and that the judgment then to take place 
 would bring about consequences belonging to 
 another stage of existence. Certainly Joel's pro- 
 phecy is not explicit to such points. The like of 
 this acknowledgment ought to be made with 
 respect to other prophets. No prophet claims to 
 know everything, though each, when he says 
 ** Thus saith the Lord," speaks with divine author- 
 ity. In the representations concerning the future 
 which the planner made by means of Old Testa- 
 ment seers, the case is as when an architect exhibits 
 several draughts, one showing the inside of the 
 edifice which he proposes to erect, another showing 
 the outside, one showing how the building will 
 look when seen from one point of view, another 
 showing its aspect from an opposite standpoint. 
 Joel says much of the glories of the time to come, 
 nothing of the Mediatorial Person who is to wield 
 the sceptre of the coming kingdom. Jeremiah 
 predicts the king as well as the kingdom, but says 
 nothing of the suffering of the king. A psalm 
 describes a sufferer who on the coming of relief from 
 
TJie Great Day of tJic Lord. 143 
 
 suffering, will make a banquet which will be ac- 
 cepted by the meek from the first, and soon or late 
 will be accepted in all parts of the world ; but this 
 psalm says nothing of expiation as wrought, or of 
 priesthood </,s exercised by the sufferer. Another 
 psalm recognizes a personage who is both a king 
 and a priest, but does not disclose the fact that 
 this priest would offer up himself. A vision of 
 Zechariah represents the king as coming to Jerusa- 
 lem seated upon an ass colt. A vision of Daniel 
 represents him as coming to the ancient of days 
 upon the clouds of heaven. No vision combines 
 the two exhibitions. Even in the New Testament 
 analogous facts occur, as when St. Paul says,* 
 ** Now go I to Jerusalem, not knowing what shall 
 befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witness- 
 eth in every place that bonds and afflictions await 
 me." The history seems to show that the witness- 
 ing meant is not from within the apostle, but is 
 such as reaches him through the medium of con- 
 temporary prophets. Nay, this apostle declares 
 that the knowledge he possesses, prophetic as it is, 
 compares with the knowledge to which he looks 
 forward, as that which is in part compares with 
 that which is in whole — as the partial compares 
 with the perfect — as the thought and understand- 
 
 * Acts XX. 23 . 
 
144 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 ing of a child compares with the thought and un- 
 derstanding which the child reaches when he 
 arrives at manhood.* If a Christian apostle's pro- 
 phetic knowledge was to be thus eclipsed in the 
 life beyond the grave, what wonder if the knowl- 
 edge of a single Old Testament prophet needed 
 to be collated with the knowledge of fellow pro- 
 phets, in order to form the mind to the true con- 
 ception of the things of the New Testament time ? 
 If the gift of prophecy had come'of the will of man, 
 one or other of the prophets would no doubt have 
 depicted the things of the future with that com- 
 pleteness in which men delight. If, on the con- 
 trary, the holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost, and no further, if they 
 spake in such a way that when not thus moved 
 they abstained from prophesying and sought in- 
 formation from other prophets, David from Nathan, 
 Daniel from Jeremiah ; no prophecy of Scripture is of 
 private interpretation ; no prophecy admits of being 
 interpreted by itself. We must compare Scripture 
 with Scripture, Zechariah with Daniel, Jeremiah with 
 Isaiah, in order to obtain such a conception of the 
 scheme of the Inspirer as will approach to compre- 
 hensiveness. We must compare Joel's mention of 
 the great and terrible day of the Lord with the revela- 
 
 * I Cor. xiii. 9-12. 
 
TJie Great Day of the Lord. 145 
 
 tion made by a prophet who lived much later in the 
 Old Testament time, viz., the tidings that many of 
 them that slept in the dust of the earth should 
 awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame 
 and everlasting contempt. Bring together the 
 draughts of the prophetic draughtsmen, in such 
 manner that you may collate the papers one with 
 another ; judge of no aspect of the structure with- 
 out taking other aspects into contemplation ; 
 think of the kingly, the suffering, the witnessing, 
 the priestly sides of the edifice which was to rise, 
 if you would reach that conception of New Testa- 
 ment times which the Old Testament authorized. 
 Failing to use this collating method, you will as an 
 interpreter be in many dangers. 
 
 4. With regard to time. It has been said by 
 writers that time is not an element in prophecy, 
 and that prophets saw the events of the future as 
 the naked eye beholds the stars, descrying their 
 existence and the severalty which obtains among 
 them, but not their distance from each other. The 
 former part of this statement is not universally true. 
 Joel makes express mention of time when, passing 
 from the secular blessings which he had predicted 
 for Israel, he writes, *' It shall come to pass after- 
 ward that I will pour out," etc. " Afterward " cer- 
 tainly imports for the outpouring predicted a pos- 
 
146 Visions and Narratives, 
 
 teriority in time, viz., a posteriority to the rains, 
 fertility and plenty he had just before (within the 
 chapter) promised to the Holy Land. In like 
 manner he tells of a priority in time, when he 
 places the obscuration of the heavenly bodies 
 before the coming of the day of the Lord. 
 
 Nevertheless much of the statement is borne 
 out by the phenomena with which we meet. 
 In '* The Burden of Babylon " * little or nothing is 
 said of an interval destined to elapse between the 
 conquest which was to befall the place and the total 
 desolation which was to consummate its sad lot. 
 The prophetic eye sees only the beginning and the 
 completion of the decline of the city ; although 
 many centuries intervened between the downfall of 
 Babylon under the power of Cyrus, King of Persia, 
 and the total subversion which the desolations of 
 the great city now exhibit. Babylon, the glory of 
 kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldean's pride, is as 
 when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. For 
 generation after generation it has not been dwelt 
 in. Its site is a ruin, but it did not become such for 
 many hundreds of years after the downfall the city 
 suffered at the hands of Cyrus. Its downfall paved 
 the way for the restoration of Israelites to their 
 native soil. Its total ruin accredits Isaiah's other 
 
 * Isa. xiii. 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 147 
 
 predictions. The occurrences which intervened did 
 not come, and for his purposes did not need to 
 come, within the purview of the prophet. 
 
 Similar was the purview vouchsafed to Joel ; similar, 
 certainly, was the purview he gave to his readers, 
 when he wrote the prediction we are considering. 
 He tells nothing in relation to the length of the 
 time which was to intervene between the gift of the 
 secular blessings and the gift of the widespread in- 
 spiration. Eighteen hundred years have elapsed 
 since the outpouring of the Spirit, which took place 
 a few days after Christ's ascension : The coming of 
 the great and terrible day of the Lord has not yet 
 occurred. Yet Joel makes no mention of a difference 
 in time between the two events (the inspiration and 
 the coming), except the statement that the out- 
 pouring and the events next told of were to take 
 place antecedently to the transcendent day. A man 
 standing on ground comparatively low may see in 
 the prospect which presents itself mountain after 
 mountain, one more distant than another, the sec- 
 ond higher than the first, and the third transcend- 
 ing the second. He may see them all, and yet fail 
 to see and even fail to imagine the plains and 
 fruitful fields which lie between the several ridees. 
 Joel's vision of time may have been like such a 
 man's vision of place. 
 
148 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 That prophets had revelations to the effect that 
 their ministry was not for their own benefit, and 
 that these seers were curious concerning the chron- 
 ology of the future is expressly said by St. Peter.* 
 " The prophets searched diligently, searching . . . 
 what manner of time the Spirit of Christ . . . did 
 point unto, when it testified beforehand the suffer- 
 ings of Christ and the glories which should follow. 
 To whom it was revealed that not unto themselves 
 but unto you they did minister." 
 
 5. Something needs to be said with regard to 
 the treatment the apostles give to *' that which is 
 written by the prophet Joel." That St. Paul, in the 
 passage f where he quotes the place in Joel with 
 which we have to do, interprets the "deliverance " 
 as the Christian salvation, the "' whosoever " as 
 including the heathen as well as Israelites, and the 
 invocation of the incomparable name as a thing 
 which must be preceded by the hearing and conse- 
 quently by the preaching of this name, hardly needs 
 to be insisted. 
 
 But what of the treatment % which St. Peter 
 gives to the passage of which I am writing } On the 
 day of the outpouring of the Spirit he declared the 
 outpouring to be the thing which Joel had spoken ; 
 and the apostle proceeded to quote sentences of 
 
 ♦IPeteri. 10-12. f Rom. x. 11-14. J Acts ii. 16-21. 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 149 
 
 the prophecy. In so quoting he substituted *'/;/ 
 the last days it shall come to pass " in place of the 
 words, " it shall come to pass afterward!' The 
 substitution is easy to be accounted for, if the days 
 meant are to be reckoned from the times in which 
 Joel flourished. The prevailing custom of the Old 
 Testament prophets was to predict an event or 
 series of events due in the nearer future, and to 
 proceed from the mention of these occurrences to 
 the mention of events which were to occur in the 
 more distant future. The passage from the one 
 mention to the other is commonly introduced by 
 the phrase *' the last days." This phrase serves to 
 distinguish the ultimate from the ulterior, the latest 
 from the later of the periods which came within 
 the vision of the prophet. Joel, after foretelling 
 rain, fertility, and plenty for days comparatively 
 near to the time at which he wrote, distinguishes 
 from these days other periods, periods compara- 
 tively remote, by prefixing the phrase " afterward " 
 to the mention of the latter series of days. Thus 
 this phrase and the phrase *' In the last days " 
 came to be convertible terms. 
 
 The New Testament writers regard the ultimate 
 future announced by Joel and other seers as having 
 already begun in the first age of Christianity, though 
 not as having been brought in that age to its close 
 
150 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 or culmination. An old phrase sometimes con- 
 tinues to be used after it has ceased to be strictly 
 appropriate. A corporation keeps its original title 
 long after this title has ceased to be descriptive of 
 the business to which it now devotes itself. A firm 
 retains its old name when no person mentioned in 
 that name survives. So the old phrase, ** the last 
 days," sacred by reason of its origin, and venerable 
 by reason of long use, continued to be employed 
 even when the days meant were identical with the 
 period in which the speaker lived. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the diction at II Tim. iii. 1-6. 
 
 Here Timothy is given to know that the times 
 for which so much of blessing had been predicted 
 by prophets were not to be in all respects halcyon 
 days ; that, on the contrary, grievous times were to 
 coincide with these days ; and this intimation in- 
 troduces a precept to the effect that Timothy 
 should turn away from the evil doers the last days 
 were to produce, and the precept is followed by a 
 characterization of contemporaries of Paul and 
 Timothy, as belonging to this class of evil doers. 
 One cannot see how the precept and the character- 
 ization connect with the introductory intimation, 
 unless the writer of the epistle, the person addressed 
 and the persons characterized, lived within the 
 period of *' the last days ; " that is to say, unless 
 
The Great Day of the Lord. 151 
 
 the last days, however long they might continue, 
 were considered as being already present when 
 Paul and Timothy lived. ** Know this, that in the 
 last days grievous times shall come . . . men shall 
 be lovers of self, lovers of money . . . from ^ these 
 also turn away ; ... of these are they that creep 
 into houses and take captive silly women." Joel's 
 '* afterward" introduces the whole period from the 
 Pentecostal inspiration to the great and terrible 
 day of the Lord, and St. Peter's " last days " cover 
 the same ground. The interval meant had begun 
 when the apostles spoke and wrote. It will not 
 end until time shall be no more. 
 
 In answer to the inquiry which the crowd at 
 Jerusalem addressed to St. Peter at the end of his 
 speech, the apostle said, " To you is the promise 
 and to your children, and to all that are afar off, 
 even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto 
 Him."t The apostolic speaker must have meant by 
 " the promise " the outpouring of the Spirit spoken 
 of by Joel, and the " receiving the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost," just promised by himself In declaring 
 that the promise extended to so many as God 
 should call, the apostle had in mind the prophetic 
 assurance that among the remnant in Jerusalem 
 there should be ** those whom the Lord should 
 
 * Revised version. f Acts ii. 37-40. 
 
152 Visions and Naj'ratives. 
 
 call." In the exhortation, ** Save yourselves from 
 this crooked generation," the apostle characterizes 
 the bulk of the Israelites by means of a character- 
 ization* applied by Moses to this people, and either 
 has ceased to make use of the prophecy he has 
 quoted or he explains the deliverance expressed in 
 the clause, " Whosoever shall call upon the name 
 of Jehovah shall be delivered," as meaning no less 
 than salvation, a salvation in character from the 
 category of the crooked or untoward ; that is to say 
 the salvation which is to be made consummate in 
 the great and terrible day of the Lord. 
 
 When the author of the Acts of the Apostles 
 appends to his account of the day of Pentecost, and 
 of days which followed, the statement, *' The Lord 
 added, day by day, those that were being saved," f 
 he means that persons in Jerusalem were compliant 
 with the exhortation ''Save yourselves from this 
 crooked generation," and, complying, ceased to be 
 participants in the character and lot of the mass of 
 Israel. So ceasing they were made constituents of 
 the infant church of Christ. They experienced the 
 deliverance of which Joel had written ; a deliver- 
 ance which, after beginning in their own souls, was 
 to be preached by them in countries where the 
 name of Jehovah had been unknown. 
 
 * DeiiU xxxii, 5, 20. f Actsii. 47, revised version. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE KINGDOM TO BE SET UP BY THE GOD OF HEAVEN. 
 Daniel II., VII., IX. 
 
 The Kingdom of Heaven is often understood as 
 meaning- simply and solely the future condition of 
 the people of God. But the phrase is sometimes 
 insusceptible of this signification, as, for example, 
 Avhen the kingdom is compared to a net cast into 
 the sea, gathering things worthless to the fisher- 
 man as well as fish of the kind desired — a net from 
 which when drawn to shore the worthless contents 
 were cast away. The history of the phrase, " the 
 Kingdom of Heaven," will do much toward the 
 illustration of its meaning. 
 
 I. The history is as follows : 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has a vision. 
 
 A colossal statue stood upon feet composed partly 
 
 of iron, partly of clay or earthenware. The legs 
 
 were wholly of iron, the belly and thighs of brass, 
 
 the breast and arms of silver, the head of gold. A 
 
 153 
 
154 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 stone cut out without hands struck the fragile feet 
 of the statue and demolished the whole. The iron, 
 the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold were 
 broken in pieces, became chaff, as it were, and the 
 wind carried them away. No place was found for 
 them. The stone that smote the image became a 
 great mountain and filled the whole ea.th. The 
 prophet Daniel resided in Babylon at the time. 
 Nebuchadnezzar had been troubled by the dream, 
 but was unable to state its particulars. Daniel 
 recited the particulars. The monarch seems to 
 have readily identified the statement and the vision, 
 the one with the other. The thing seen had come 
 back to his mind, and the main point now was the 
 meaning of the thing. To this, the interpretation, 
 the prophet proceeded without discrediting the king's 
 belief that the dream was symbolical. Monarchies 
 were to follow one another in time, as in the statue 
 metals followed one another in place. In the days of 
 the kings belonging to this succession of mon- 
 archies, the days of one or other of these kings, the 
 God of Heaven was to set up a kingdom which 
 should never be destroyed, and in which the sov- 
 ereignty should never be relinquished to a foreign 
 dynasty. The new kingdom was to be world- 
 wide and everlasting, though not erected nor 
 extended by human hands, and in its beginnings 
 
TJic Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 155 
 
 comparable rather to a little stone than to a 
 rock. 
 
 In the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel 
 another vision is mentioned. The sea, the waves 
 of which are in Scripture an image of the "mad- 
 ness of the people," is the scene which first presents 
 itself to the view of the prophet. From the 
 agitated sea four beasts, one after another, emerge. 
 A judgment ensues. Under this judgment the 
 mastery the beasts had possessed comes to an end, 
 and another figure, not a mere animal, but a person 
 with human qualities, appears upon the scene. A 
 mastery which is destined to become universal is 
 consigned to this person. '^ I saw in the night 
 visions, and behold there cam.e with the clouds of 
 heaven one like untoa son of man. He came even 
 unto an Ancient of days. And there was given him 
 dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all the 
 peoples, nations and languages should serve him. 
 His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which 
 shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which 
 shall not be destroyed." Much in the vision may 
 require future developments in history to serve as 
 a key to parts of the prophecy, especially to the 
 parts which speak of outgrowths from the head of 
 the fourth beast. The judgment told of, seen as it 
 was by a seer, may in its realization run through 
 
156 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 ages, some of which have not yet begun. Never- 
 theless one thing is incontestable, viz., that a new 
 kingdom, a new system of persons and things, 
 headed by a king, was according to Daniel to arise 
 under the action of the Ancient of days. The rep- 
 resentation concurs with that which had been made 
 by Daniel in the exposition of the future which the 
 seer had given to Nebuchadnezzar, viz., in the 
 mention of a kingdom superhuman in its origin and 
 destined to fill the whole earth. But the later 
 vision goes beyond the earlier in this, that it intro- 
 duces a person intermediary between the Universal 
 Father and the nations of mankind ; a person de- 
 scribed as like unto a son of man ; thus described, 
 perhaps, because it was intended to give him a 
 characterization which would contrast his qualities 
 with those of the previous kings, who had appeared 
 in the vision as beasts. He appears to be the 
 same as is exhibited in Daniel's ninth chapter as 
 "the anointed one (Messiah), the prince." 
 
 The Book of Daniel, as quoted above, warranted 
 the expectation that a kingdom to be established 
 by the Divine Being would arise. A similar ex- 
 pectation was authorized by the many passages of 
 the Old Testament which represented the headship 
 of David over the chosen people, as about to revive, 
 or more than revive, in the person of a descendant 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 157 
 
 of David, a headship destined to extend eventually 
 over the whole world and to last until the end of 
 time. Such an expectation was current in Israel 
 when Christ came. The ministry of John the 
 Baptist began in the early part of the Christian era, 
 and a principal part of this ministry consisted in 
 the announcement, "The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand." The fact that the Baptist does not explain 
 his phrase — that he says the kingdom — implies that 
 an order of things which might be thus denomi- 
 nated was an idea known to the people addressed. 
 Shortly after John had made this announce- 
 ment, Jesus came preaching, ** The time is fulfilled 
 and the kingdom of God is at hand." The expec- 
 tation thus taken for granted as already existing, 
 appears on Jewish lips in the exclamation, " Blessed 
 is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." 
 Christ was asked " when the kingdom of God 
 should come," and on one of His approaches to 
 Jerusalem the inhabitants of the neighborhood 
 " thought that the kingdom of God would immedi- 
 ately appear." These things occurred in circum- 
 stances' which hardly allow us to believe that the 
 kingdom meant was the future state of human ex- 
 istence. Such facts make it plain that the estab- 
 lishment of a kingdom was expected ; that this 
 idea was familiar to the Jewish mind ; and that 
 
158 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 it was embodied in the phrases, '' The kingdom 
 of God," '' The kingdom of heaven." The two 
 phrases seem to be identical in meaning, and both 
 of them to be abbreviations of Daniel's utterance, 
 ♦' The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which 
 shall never be destroyed." " The kingdom of 
 heaven " is the usual phrase in St. Matthew, and 
 occurs in the first Gospel only, other evangelists 
 in the parallel places using as their phrase " The 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 It is no less evident that the kingdom to be 
 established was looked for with a kind of expectation 
 which needed to be rectified. Though the kingdom 
 never to be destroyed was to be set up by the God 
 of heaven ; though the stone which was the symbol 
 of this regime had been cut out without hands, a 
 representation which could mean hardly less than 
 the absence of human agency ; though the like 
 unto a Son of man approached the Ancient of days, 
 not as upheld by men, but upon the clouds of 
 heaven, in order to receive investiture with the gift 
 of dominion ; the multitude after the miracle of the 
 loaves and fishes, were about to come and " take 
 Jesus by force to make Him king."* A general 
 belief seems to have obtained that when the head 
 of the kingdom appeared His presence on earth 
 
 *John vi. 
 
The Kingdovi to be Set Up by God. 159 
 
 would be uninterrupted by death or other cause. 
 When Christ, * " signifying by what manner of 
 death He should die," said that He would " be lifted 
 up" from the earth, the multitude answered, "We 
 have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth 
 forever. How sayest thou the Son of man must be 
 lifted up } Who is this Son of man } " Even the 
 disciples of our Lord needed to be apprised of the 
 fact that he was to become invisible. They needed 
 to .be told, "■ The days will come when ye shall 
 desire to see one of the days of the Son of man and 
 shall not see it." t Jews seem to have believed that 
 *' the kingdom " when Christ preached was still in 
 every sense future, and would be of observable com- 
 ing ; that it would be consummate from the begin- 
 ning ; that the Christ's first arrival on earth would be 
 with supernatural exhibition of supremacy, such as 
 will attend the second coming of Jesus ; or that the 
 presence begun by the first and only arrival would 
 be with the state and circumstance which attend 
 the potentates of the earth. 
 
 That the dominion of the Christ would include 
 at first but a few disciples, and would be co-exten- 
 sive with mankind in the event only ; that it would 
 be for ages exercised invisibly in heaven, at the 
 right hand of the Father, the Jews seem not to 
 
 * John xii. 32-34. f Luke xvii. 22. 
 
i6o Visio7is and Narratives. 
 
 have imagined. Though the symbolic stone grew 
 to be a mountain in the event only, not at its 
 original appearance — though in vision Jehovah had 
 said unto the Lord of David, " Sit thou at my right 
 hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool," 
 Jews appear not to have believed that such repre- 
 sentations authorized an expectation that the Lord 
 of David would be withdrawn from the earth — 
 would be invisible and in heaven — during an inter- 
 val of time which would reach its end when the 
 Father had put His enemies under His feet, and not 
 before — r.n interval which might last for centuries. 
 
 Unless you bear in mind that the kingdom was 
 conceived erroneously — was expected with error in 
 the mode of conception — you will not comprehend 
 the parables in which small beginnings contrast 
 with a large outcome ; for example, the parable of 
 a grain of mustard seed which grew to be a tree, 
 and the parable of leaven which a woman hid in 
 three measures of meal. Nor will you compre- 
 hend how the statement * that the word of the 
 kingdom would depend for productiveness upon 
 the state of the soul which it reached, like seed 
 which depends for productiveness upon the charac- 
 ter of the soil where it is sown, how this statement 
 could be represented as belonging to the category 
 
 * Matt. xiii. 10-19. 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. i6i 
 
 of the mysterious, as among '' the mysteries of the 
 kingdom of heaven." A teaching of this descrip- 
 tion requires no explanation for those who have been 
 brought up under Christ's doctrine. But if such state- 
 ments were made to a people to whom they were 
 the opposite of obvious, and to whose long cherished 
 conceptions they were irreconcilable, they might 
 well be denominated mysterious, in the sense in 
 which this word is used in the Scriptures, viz., with 
 the intention to characterize a thing as unknown, 
 unexpected and requiring to be revealed — rather 
 than as having the quality of incomprehensibility. 
 
 2. There remains the important question, How 
 is the kingdom set up by the God of heaven ex- 
 hibited in the New Testament .-* How ought the 
 dominion given by the Ancient of days to the Son 
 of man to be conceived of.? 
 
 A kingdom is a system of persons and things in 
 which an individual is supreme. The persons are 
 the king and his subjects. Among the things are 
 the realm, enactments to regulate the conduct of 
 the subjects, and such a management of events and 
 influences as brings about a regime. ** The king- 
 dom of God and of Christ " is simply the Christian 
 system. But *' the king " seems to be never absent 
 from the biblical idea, not even in the apothegm, 
 *' The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace." 
 
1 62 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 The identity implied in this utterance is an iden- 
 tity in effect or the like of effect, as when we say, 
 ** Knowledge is power." So Scripture says, *' This 
 is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the 
 only true God," although life and knowledge are 
 not identical in all respects. The Universal 
 Father appears in the New Testament correspond- 
 ently with the appearance of the Ancient of days 
 in Daniel, as the person who originates the suprem- 
 acy of the head of the kingdom ; the Son of man 
 as the person to whom the supremacy is given and 
 by whom it is exercised. The supremacy is medi- 
 atorial, and is to continue '* until He shall deliver 
 up the kingdom to God, even the Father "* — a goal 
 perhaps the same as that which will be reached 
 when the mystery of God shall be finished," and 
 " time shall be no longer." t 
 
 In the declarations " All things are delivered unto 
 me by the Father," *' All power is given unto me 
 in heaven and in earth," *'My Father hath ap- 
 pointed ]me a kingdom," the Son of God, in His 
 incarnate capacity, claimed individual supremacy. 
 In various ways He exercised this supremacy. By 
 the tidings *' the kingdom of God is come nigh 
 unto you," He invited persons to become His 
 subjects. By baptizing persons He recognized 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 24. t Rev. x. 6, 7. 
 
TJie Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 163 
 
 them as having the quality of membership in the 
 system He erected. By the declaration, " The law 
 and the prophets were until John : From that time 
 the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached," 
 He pronounced the ministry of St. John the 
 Baptist to be the goal at which the Old Testament 
 regime had ended its career and whereat the regime 
 predicted by Daniel had begun. Accordingly He 
 legislated anew. He pronounced *' Not that which 
 goeth into the mouth defileth a man," " The hour 
 now is when neither in this mountain nor in Jeru- 
 salem shall men worship the Father," and by these 
 edicts He annulled for the people of His system 
 the Levitical distinction between clean and un- 
 clean meats, and annulled the command that all 
 male Israelites, three times in every year, should 
 worship at Jerusalem. He ordained a like* ''dis- 
 annulling of the commandment going before," when 
 he said," Moses, for the hardness of your hearts, suf- 
 fered you to put away your wives, but I say unto you 
 that every one that putteth away his wife, save for 
 the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress." 
 There were other things appertaining to the new 
 system ; not the least of these things was the ordi- 
 nance which instituted a supper commemorative of 
 the 5ufforing which was declared by the Head of 
 • Heb. vii. 18. 
 
164 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 the kingdom to be His destination in the early- 
 future. 
 
 That the kingdom was to have an existence 
 before its glorification, and that the system was to 
 exhibit the church, the company of subjects of the 
 King, as one of its component parts, were truths 
 implied, not only in the parable of the net cast into 
 the sea, but in the comparison of the kingdom to a 
 field in which the owner had sown good seed only, 
 but an enemy had sown tares ; a comparison, the 
 moral of which is declared in the statement, " The 
 Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they 
 shall gather out of His kingdom all stumbling- 
 blocks and them that do iniquity." How can per- 
 sons be gathered at Christ's second coming out of 
 His kingdom unless this kingdom exists before His 
 second coming } Not only the antagonism of the 
 new system to the powers of darkness, but the 
 manifestation of this system as a thing already 
 present at the time when Messiah the Prince minis- 
 tered upon earth, was taught when Christ said, ** If 
 I, by the Spirit of God, cast out devils, then is the 
 kingdom of God come upon you." The God of 
 Heaven had erected the kingdom which should 
 never be destroyed — Christ declared it ready for 
 accessions — the regime had begun and invited 
 aliens to become participants in the hope it held 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 165 
 
 out, when Jesus said to the men of his time, " Take 
 my yoke upon you." 
 
 As to the territory of the King, it is not geo- 
 graphical. When the head of the system said 
 •* The kingdom of God is within you," He de- 
 scribed the domain of His supremacy as being in 
 time present, rather a sphere than a territory ; He 
 declared the inner man to be already, at the time 
 of the speech, a circuit wherein the supremacy 
 meant existed and was to be recognized. The 
 breast of the human being was its focus or point of 
 concentration. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the spiritual quality attrib- 
 uted by this apothegm to the present domain of 
 the kingdom, utterances co-exist with the apothegm 
 which import not only that the kingdom was to 
 have a manifestation in the visible church (a truth 
 implied in parables already quoted) but teach that 
 the people of the King were to come ultimately 
 into the possession of an outward territory. One 
 while the Saviour exhibited the kingdom as a 
 system to be entertained in the boson. Another 
 while He exhibited it as a domain and company, 
 which were (in the issue of things, but not before 
 this issue) to be made accessible, to ingress. He 
 made this twofold representation in a single sen- 
 tence when He said, ''Whosoever shall not receive 
 
1 66 VisioJis and Narratives. 
 
 the kingdom of God as a little child he shall in no 
 wise enter therein." The system appears in some 
 cases, in one of its aspects, in other cases on a 
 different side ; in some connections as incipient, in 
 others as advanced in power or extent, in a third 
 class of utterances as consummated. Its ultimate 
 stage is once ^ distinguished from preceding stages 
 by being described as " the everlasting kingdom of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." If it seems 
 strange that such distinctions are not often made 
 thus in express words — strange that one and the 
 same chapter contains both the prayer '* Thy king- 
 dom come " and the notification " The kingdom of 
 God is come upon you " — the case has parallels. It 
 is with the word kingdom as it is with the word 
 manhood. The latter with truth and propriety 
 may be used of an infant newly born, as when a 
 mother is said to rejoice because a man is born into 
 the world. Yet the phrase is more frequently and 
 even distinctively used of an adult, as when an 
 apostle says, '* When I became a man, I put away 
 childish things." The kingdom or supremacy of 
 the Son of man was potentially all that it was to 
 become, when Christ in His earthly ministry pro- 
 claimed it as present ; but its future phases would 
 so throw into the shade its earlier development, 
 
 * II Pet. i. II. 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 167 
 
 that only the later development came to be com- 
 monly denominated the kingdom of God. A 
 corresponding use of the words "salvation," 
 "adoption" and " redemption " occurs in the New 
 Testament. An inward salvation already belongs 
 to Christians, and is often attributed to them as a 
 thing at present existent ; yet salvation is fre- 
 quently spoken of as future. Believers are declared 
 to have received a spirit of adoption ; nevertheless 
 they are said to groan as waiting for adoption. 
 Redemption took place in an important sense when 
 Christ laid down His life as a ransom ; yet our 
 Lord, after mentioning antecedents to His second 
 coming says, " When these things begin to come 
 to pass, lift up your heads, because your redemption 
 draweth nigh." In most cases the connection is 
 sufficient to determine whether it is the realm 
 within, the company of persons who subject them- 
 selves to the monarch, the territory which the 
 Sovereign is ultimately to assign for inhabitation, or 
 the regime according to which the head of the 
 kingdom both sways the inner man and provides 
 for the man thus swayed, the new heaven and the 
 new earth. As for the parts of space - thus de- 
 nominated, the "earth" is of course the planet 
 which we inhabit, and heaven, or the heavens, is, 
 
 * II Pet. iii. 13. 
 
i68 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 in the diction of the Bible, the name of the regions 
 which men contemplate when they look upward. 
 To be a heaven and an earth, the localities meant 
 must be in some sort analogous to the parts of 
 space humanly known by these names ; and to be 
 new, these localities must in some respect differ 
 from the heaven and the earth which now are. 
 
 When St. Paul writes,* *' Flesh and blood can- 
 not inherit the kingdom of God," the connection 
 shows that he speaks of the kingdom as it is to 
 exist when it reaches its final stage. Does he 
 mean that in order to enter this kingdom men 
 must be without bodies } This cannot be his 
 meaning, because ''rising," "being raised up," 
 " resurrection," is the subject of discourse from the 
 beginning to the end of the chapter in which he 
 writes the momentous sentence concerning which 
 we inquire. After alleging that the rise of the 
 Redeemer from the condition of the dead, the 
 resurrection which occurred in the tomb of Joseph 
 of Arimathea, was a specimen and earnest of a 
 raising or resurrection which is to come to Christ's 
 people universally, the sacred writer proposes the 
 question, " With what body do they come .'* " He 
 meets the question by declaring that there are 
 bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial ; classes of 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 50. 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 169 
 
 bodies differing from each other in kind. He writes 
 that the grain deposited in the ground, though in 
 some respects the same as the plant which comes 
 up is in other respects different thereform, and he 
 thus gives it to be understood that a human body- 
 interred may differ from the body which shall be 
 raised up. "As was the earthy [Adam], such also 
 are the earthy, and as is the heavenly [the second 
 Adam], such are they also that are heavenly. As 
 we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall 
 also bear the image of the heavenly." It is after 
 such statements that the apostle writes, " Now 
 this I say, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God." The remarkable declaration is 
 followed and explained by statements to the effect 
 that at the second coming of our Saviour mankind 
 shall undergo a transmutation. "We shall all be 
 changed." Not a mere transformation, but a change 
 amounting to a transubstantiation ; that is to say, 
 a change in the very material of the bodies belong- 
 ing to the persons spoken of, must be meant ; if 
 these statements are coherent with the theme of 
 discourse and tend to explain or confirm the al- 
 legation that " flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God." On the supposition that the 
 statements are possessed of coherence and such 
 tendency, the allegation must import not that 
 
I/O Visions and Narratives. • 
 
 corporeity will in the issue of things be exchanged 
 for incorporeity, but that our present corporeity 
 will be exchanged for a corporeity not fleshy nor 
 sanguineous, but of a sublimer sort — such a cor- 
 poreity, perhaps, as some have imagined to belong 
 to angels. Body and flesh are words not precisely 
 the same in meaning. " Body " points to the 
 frame, the system of organs. '' Flesh," [especially 
 when conjoined with " blood," and when interpret- 
 ed in the sequel by '' corruption " or the " corrupt- 
 ible "] points to the material of the bodies which 
 men have by nature. *' There is a natural body 
 and there is a spiritual body." 
 
 What the spiritual body may prove to be we know 
 not at present. Disembodiment does not appear in 
 Scripture as a thing desirable in itself. It appears as 
 having been from the first a penal thing. It involved 
 a penal return to the dust of which man had been 
 made. Disembodiment deprives us of sensation — 
 that is to say, of such impressions on the mind as 
 come through the medium of the outward senses. 
 The dead* "live to God." They are not extinct. 
 But the deceased are beyond the reach of parents, 
 children and husbands, and, so far as we know or 
 have reason to believe, are destitute of organs by 
 which they might touch, hear or see these persons 
 
 * Luke XX. 38. 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 171 
 
 if present. They may have blessedness in their 
 reminiscences, their prospects, their consciousness, 
 and the felicity such things are capable of impart- 
 ing ; but where in Scripture do they appear as 
 possessed of the entirety of their nature, or as hav- 
 ing reached their culmination ? Re-embodiment, 
 on the contrary, appears distinctly in Holy Writ as 
 matter of promise. If Christians are to have a 
 corporeity in systems of organs more homogeneous 
 with the Holy Spirit, and more helpful to the spirit 
 of holiness which may have come to reside in them- 
 selves, if they are to possess organs of sight, of 
 hearing and of other sensation, analogous to such 
 eyes, ears, and the like, as we at present possess, 
 but better tending to sanctity ; these organisms 
 may realize for them the idea of the *' spiritual 
 body." *' Behold ! I show you a mystery. We 
 shall not all sleep," [the sleep of death] *' but we 
 shall all be changed — in a moment, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, at the last trump. The trumpet 
 shall sound and we shall be changed." Capital 
 which we possess may exchange its form of invest- 
 ment, as, for example, hovels may by possibility be 
 exchanged for palaces ; so human souls will have 
 an investiture in bodies incapable of death, insus- 
 ceptible of mortality. Decease, dissolution, death, 
 is to be engorged by an adverse power, a power 
 
1/2 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 annihilating to death. ** This corruptible must put 
 on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. So 
 when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
 tion, and this mortal immortality, then shall be 
 brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
 swallowed up in victory." "As by one man 
 came death," * '* so death passed upon all men, in 
 that all have sinned." ''But now is Christ risen 
 from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep, 
 for as by man came death, by man came also the 
 resurrection of the dead" t — that is to say, came in 
 the potential. The fruit of the principle of resur- 
 rection ripened first in the person of Jesus Christ. 
 The whole crop will ripen later, in the persons of 
 them that shall be Christ's at His coming.J " We 
 look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 shall CHANGE our vile BODIES, that they may be 
 fashioned like unto His glorious BODY, according to 
 the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue 
 all things unto Himself" 
 
 To insist. An insect has a severalty in its condi- 
 tions. It is at one time a caterpillar, at another time 
 a butterfly. A like severalty may be predicted of a 
 human being. He is now an infant, then a youth, 
 subsequently a man ; at first in the nursery, sec- 
 ondly in the school, thirdly in the broad world. 
 
 _ * Rom. V. 12. fl Cor. xv. 20. % Phil. iii. 20, 21. 
 
The Kingdom to be Set Up by God. 173 
 
 So is it with the kingdom set up by the God of 
 heaven. It has different ages, states and spheres. 
 And, as in the order of nature, it is in the infant 
 and adolescent stages that a person requires the 
 most care, so is it in the earlier phases of the life 
 from above. When the kingdom takes the form 
 of a sway within the breast, and when the empire 
 assumes an appearance and shape as the church, 
 then it is that the regnancy requires the most 
 sedulous cherishing. This cherishing is the duty 
 present and pressing. On the other hand in your 
 zeal for the truth that the kingdom set up by the 
 God of heaven for the Son of man has already 
 come, do not deny the truth that this kingdom is 
 still to come, or the truth that the future regime 
 is to be an outcome of the present. Both things 
 belong to the same supremacy. The acorn be- 
 comes an oak ; the seed sown in the ground rises 
 above the ground a plant. As in these cases, so 
 in the order engendered for human beings by the 
 supremacy of the Son of man — the potential is to 
 become actual. 
 
 The potential was conveyed in the assurances, 
 " If the Spirit . . . dwell in you, He that raised 
 Chris-t from the dead shall also quicken your 
 mortal bodies by- His Spirit.""^ ''It is your 
 
 *Rom. viii. ii. 
 
174 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." * 
 The actual is to take place when Christ shall 
 appear the second time. At or before this second 
 appearing all obstacles to the complete accomplish- 
 ment of His work are to be put under His feet. 
 What would not submit to Him with good will is to 
 succumb with or without good will.f ** He must 
 REIGN till He hath put all enemies under His feet. 
 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
 Death having been destroyed, the whole, the in- 
 ception and the consummation, the kingdom in- 
 choate and the kingdom perfected, the King 
 crowned with thorns and the King coming in the 
 glory of the Father with the holy angels, will turn 
 out to be a unit planned before the world was, 
 partially made manifest eighteen centuries ago, and 
 carried to its ultimate stage at the second advent. 
 If your King is to be such in the ideal, you cannot 
 but be members of His kingdom when this reaches 
 the ideal. If the kingdom of God is within you, it 
 will resemble the germ within a seed ; it will be 
 evolved, first the blade, then the ear, then the full 
 corn in the ear ; last of all, the crop harvested and 
 ingathered, the garner being the new heavens and 
 the new earth. That which as a regnancy had 
 entered the souls of the people of Christ, will as a 
 
 * Luke xii. 32. f I Cor. xv. 25, 26. 
 
TJie Kingdom to be Set i'p by God. 175 
 
 realm be itself entered, when this Person, the Son 
 of God, incarnate, shall say to them on His right 
 hand, *' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
 the world." He who reigns not only over the 
 persons but within the hearts of his subjects, who 
 reigns likewise with immeasurable beneficence, 
 infinite power and indestructible life, can hardly 
 fail to endow his people with the new corporeity or 
 to colonize them in the everlasting territory, with 
 view to which He took upon Him their nature, 
 underwent their death and gave them an earnest 
 in His resurrection. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 BELSHAZZAR. 
 
 Daniel V. 
 
 Belshazzar'S banquet has bearings which are not 
 always observed. The account of the feast may be 
 expressed as follows : 
 
 Belshazzar, a Chaldean king, was a successor of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. The latter had captured Jerusa- 
 lem, carried away many of its principal inhabitants 
 to Babylon, and removed thither the silver and gold 
 vessels belonging to the temple of the captured city. 
 Belshazzar made a feast for a thousand of his lords. 
 In his wine he sent for the sacred vessels of the 
 despoiled temple. It would be a triumph to his 
 idols if he coupled with his hymns to these deities, 
 the use of the vessels which had been consecrated to 
 the God of Israel. The king and his company drank 
 wine therefrom, withal praising the gods they idola- 
 trously worship. Within the hour which had begun 
 
 with the introduction of the consecrated vessels into 
 
 176 
 
BclsJiazzar. 
 
 m 
 
 the hall illuminated for the great supper, there came 
 forth fingers of a man's hand. The fingers wrote. 
 The writing was done upon the plaster of the wall. 
 Belshazzar was terror-stricken, the joints of his 
 knees were loosed, and his knees struck one against 
 the other. He cried aloud for his wise men. He 
 neither knew the thing meant by the inscription nor 
 could decipher the writing. He promised that 
 whosoever should read the writing and show the 
 interpretation thereof, should be invested in purple, 
 have a chain of gold put about his neck and be the 
 third ruler in the kingdom. 
 
 The wise men failing either to interpret or to read, 
 Daniel, one of the captives from Judaea, was called 
 in at the instance of the queen-mother. He pro- 
 nounced the inscription to be the Chaldean words, 
 Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin — words equivalent to 
 the English phrases ** numbered," '* weighed " and 
 *' divisions." This, he said, was the writing in- 
 scribed. And this is the interpretation of the writ- 
 ing, "God hath numbered thy kingdom and brought 
 it to an end. Thou art weighed in the balances 
 and found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and 
 given to the Medes and Persians." The four words, 
 when pronounced by Daniel, seem to have been 
 identified by the monarch as the words written on 
 the wall. The deciphering and the power it im- 
 
1^8 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 plied attested the interpretation. The king, per- 
 haps for the purpose of obtaining the prophet's 
 prayers, performed his promise. Belshazzar com- 
 manded, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a golden 
 chain was put about his neck, and he was pro- 
 claimed the third ruler in the kingdom. In that 
 night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain. 
 
 The narrative proceeds to tell that in the parti- 
 tioning of the Chaldean empire, the partitioning 
 foretold in the words " Thy kingdom is divided and 
 given to the Medes and Persians," the central por- 
 tion, with its capital, the city of Babylon, fell to the 
 share of the Medes. So much is implied in the words 
 translated " Darius, the Mede, took the kingdom." 
 It is true these words have been understood as mean- 
 ing that Darius captured the kingdom of Belshazzar. 
 But the statement to be found elsewhere * within the 
 Book of Daniel, that '' Darius of the seed of the 
 Medes was made king over the realm of the Chal- 
 deans," corresponds with the fact that Darius was 
 not the chief person in the conquest of Babylon, and 
 with the probability that the possession of that city 
 was conceded to the Mede by the Persian conqueror, 
 Cyrus. Writers seem to agree that the words of the 
 original mean that the kingly authority in Chaldea, 
 when it had departed from Belshazzar, was taken 
 
 *ix. I. 
 
Belshazzar. 179 
 
 by Darius in a sense rather passive than ac- 
 tive. 
 
 The Revised Version removes the danger of mis- 
 construction by substituting the word ** received " 
 in place of the word " took," viz., by saying " Dari- 
 us, the Mede, received the kingdom." There are 
 other places where the Revised Version, while as 
 true to the original as the current English Bible, 
 gives a similar relief from difficulties. To say our 
 conversation is in Heaven,* hardly expresses to the 
 mind of the modern reader the idea that we are 
 aliens residing away from the city to which we be- 
 long, viz., the Heavenly Jerusalem, though this is 
 the meaning of the Greek. f To say, " I know noth- 
 ing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified," seems 
 incongruous, because in the English of the present 
 day (different from the English of two centuries 
 ago), knowing nothing by oneself hardly imports any 
 idea except the want of a knowledge gained inde- 
 pendently — a thought which does not suit the con- 
 nection. The thing meant in the passage would be 
 expressed in modern English by substituting the 
 word "against" for the word *' by." The writer 
 means that he is not accused by his own conscience. 
 To say with reference to the day of judgment, " Then 
 shall every man have praise of God," % hardly agrees 
 
 *Phil. iii. 20. t I Cor. iv. 4. J i Cor. iv. 5. 
 
i8o Visions and Narratives. 
 
 with other teachings of the Bible with regard to the 
 great day. You feel the want of something to show 
 that the praise meant is the praise due to the man. 
 The Greek warrants the insertion of a word to this 
 effect. In the English of the age of those great 
 scholars, the makers of the current version, ** By 
 and by" meant immediately. You require ''straight- 
 way," or some such word, in several places where 
 "by and by" occurs. These ancient phrases long 
 since became inexpressive of the meanings intended, 
 and their continued use in places where they are 
 now inappropriate, and tend to obscure the sense, 
 is to be regretted. Why not have the Scriptures in 
 a tongue " understanded of the people } " Would 
 not the Bible be more read if it were more intelligi- 
 ble } Ought not the Church, the witness and keeper 
 of Holy Writ, to present the sacred book to the 
 more unlearned of her members in the most com- 
 prehensible condition into which her pastors can put 
 the volume } 
 
 The history of Belshazzar's banquet illustrates the 
 curious co-existence of liberty and dependence 
 which obtains in human beings. Belshazzar, as we 
 have seen, neither understood the import, nor was 
 able to read the words of the inscription upon the 
 plaster of the wall. The Chaldean wise men had 
 given him no help to the meaning or even the de- 
 
Bclshazzar. iSl 
 
 ciphering. How came it then that the king un- 
 hesitatingly believed Daniel's statement of the sense 
 of the writing ? He may have believed the inter- 
 pretation because the deciphering had been credible. 
 But how had the monarch verified this deciphering } 
 It may be that some remembrance of the movement 
 of the fingers which had written slumbered in the 
 mind of the king and was awakened by the decipher- 
 ing of the prophet. Memory is often dormant and 
 is aroused in a way as singular as this. It may be 
 that some marks made by the hand which had 
 written were still discernible upon the "plaster" 
 (the lime whitewash) of the wall, and became 
 readable when their connection with each other had 
 been indicated, although not readable before. The 
 monarch could compare the reading given by Dan- 
 iel with the impressions on his mind and the marks 
 upon the wall. His knowledge had been insuffi- 
 cient to discover the truth, but was sufficient to 
 test the statements of the discoverer, especially if 
 his conscience testified to the statements. On sup- 
 position that the case was such, the facts were analo- 
 gous with the experience of mankind in relation to a 
 thousand matters. The mass of mankind did not dis- 
 cover for themselves the principle of gravitation, 
 or the doctrine of the circulation of the blood. Nor 
 did they of the mass invent for themselves the steam 
 
1 82 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 engine. In like manner mankind could not of them- 
 selves discover the great truths of Divine Revela- 
 tion, and after these truths were revealed, they con- 
 tinued to need reiterated instruction with regard 
 thereto — so true it is that men are dependent. On 
 the other hand, after Newton, Harvey and Watt had 
 published their discoveries or inventions, there was 
 no want of criteria by which these discoveries or 
 inventions could be tested. Similarly, when Jesus 
 Christ had made His revelations, these revelations 
 could be compared with man's moral sense, and with 
 the life and death of the Revealer. After the 
 amount of the revelations had been written, people 
 could compare the instructions given by their clergy 
 with the tenor of the Bible. So, though dependent, 
 they possess a liberty. In accordance with these 
 facts, we find it everywhere taught in the Scriptures 
 both that we need a teaching priest, and that we 
 ought, " of ourselves, to judge that which is right." 
 When the revelations made by St. Paul at Berea 
 are mentioned, it is added, in commendation of his 
 hearers, that these were more noble than those in 
 Thessalonica, in that they searched the Scriptures, 
 whether those things were so." Therefore many of 
 them believed. Prove all things and hold fast that 
 which is good. 
 
 *Acts xvii. II, 12. 
 
Belskaszar. 183 
 
 Belshazzar's feast has a bearing on the difficulties 
 of Scripture, even such as appear in the original. 
 
 More than one thing in the narrative is curious. 
 The account implies that Belshazzar was king in 
 Bab}lon, and was there killed, whereas all other 
 history is distinct to the point that Naboned was 
 the king reigning over the Chaldeans at the time of 
 the capture, was at this time absent from Babylon 
 and was not slain. For more than sixteen hundred 
 years this discrepancy was keenly felt by believers. 
 It was an enigma which troubled inquirers as early 
 as Josephus and later than Sir Isaac Newton. The 
 difficulty was first removed by a decipherment of 
 the present century. In the year 1854, the English 
 explorer, Sir Henry Rawlinson, discovered a cylin- 
 der, an inscription upon which made it manifest 
 that Naboned of Babylon had associated with 
 himself a son of his, named Bilsharuzur, and had 
 given this son the title of king. This discovery, 
 besides clearing up the difference between biblical 
 and profane history, explained the fact that he who 
 should decipher and interpret the writing on the 
 wall was to be third ruler in the kingdom, the third 
 rather than the second. 
 
 Our knowledge in the future state will compare 
 with our present knowledge as the thoughts of an 
 adult compare with the thoughts which he enter- 
 
184 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 tained in his boyhood, as personal knowledge com- 
 pares with knowledge gained intermediately, as 
 perfect knowledge compares with knowledge which 
 is partial. So says St. Paul when he writes : * 
 
 When I was a child, I thought as a child, I 
 understood as a child, I spake as a child, but when 
 I became a man, I put away childish things. Now 
 we see by means of a mirror, in an enigma [such is 
 the most literal translation of those apostolic words] 
 but then face to face. Now I know in part, but 
 then shall I know even as also I am known." The 
 joy which will come when we shall thus exchange 
 puerile and partial knowledge for the knowledge 
 which comes of ocular demonstration, is but poorly 
 figured by the satisfaction which came to believers 
 by Sir Henry Rawlinson's discovery. Until the 
 time of adult and perfect understanding comes, let 
 us be patient, and if theories for the purpose of rec- 
 onciling discrepancies are proposed, let us leceive 
 them as hypotheses which may at last be over- 
 turned by discoveries better than it entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive. ''Behold, the half was 
 not told me." 
 
 *l Cor. xiii. 9 — 12. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MESSENGER OF THE COVENANT. 
 Malachi III. I. 
 
 In the promise, '* The Lord whom ye seek shall sud- 
 denly come to His temple and the messenger of the 
 covenant whom ye delight in," the phrase " the 
 messenger of the covenant " is curious. What cov- 
 enant is intended ? Who could be meant by the 
 messenger ? 
 
 With regard to the former of these questions, the 
 answer must be this. Inasmuch as the prophecy 
 came through a prophet of Israel and was addressed 
 to the Israelitish people, the phrase ** the covenant," 
 used without limitations or explanation, could hardly 
 import any covenant but that which was familiar 
 to the minds of this prophet and this people, viz., 
 that system of promises and conditions which had 
 been given to the forefather of the Israelitish race 
 and renewed to Israel through the instrumentality of 
 Moses. A British statesman addressing a British as- 
 
 185 
 
1 86 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 semblage, if he spoke of the Constitution, could not 
 but mean the British Constitution, and a prophet 
 of Israel writing a book which from beginning to 
 end addresses the Israelitish race, must be construed 
 analogously. The covenant meant in Malachi 
 must be that which had been made with Abraham 
 and had by means of Moses received modifica- 
 tions. 
 
 With regard to *' the messenger," a person will find 
 himself on the track to the meaning, if he shall con- 
 sult an English dictionary of the larger sort, such 
 as those of Worcester and Webster, where it will 
 appear that the words angel and messenger were 
 in the older English equivalent phrases. The word 
 angel, in the time of our translators, was not so re- 
 stricted as it is in modern English, but was applied 
 to any being who goes forth upon an errand. The 
 terms could be used interchangeably. With this in 
 mind and with the remembrance that the phrase, 
 the messenger of the covenant may mean either 
 the messenger covenanted to the chosen people or 
 the messenger covenanting to that race, an inquirer 
 will find in the earlier books of the Old Testament 
 enough to show that the messenger meant by 
 Malachi could be no other than the person who, 
 when the covenant with Abraham was made, acted 
 as the medium through whom this covenant came, 
 
The Mt'sscJigcr of the Covenant. 187 
 
 viz.: the person called ** the angel of the Lord " in 
 the statement *' the angel of the Lord called out of 
 Heaven unto Abraham and said : * By myself have 
 I sworn, saith the Lord, that in blessing I will bless 
 thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed," 
 etc. The person meant in Malachi could be none 
 other than the person who covenanted with Abra- 
 ham, unless he was the messenger or angel cov- 
 enanted in the promise, t '' Behold I send an angel 
 before thee to keep thee in the way . . . provoke 
 him not, for my name is in him." It matters little 
 whether you take the one or the other of these al- 
 ternatives. But it is material to observe in both of 
 these promises of the books of Moses, that the He- 
 brew word translated " angel " is the word trans- 
 lated " messenger " in Malachi. The Hebrew phrase 
 means a person sent on an errand, neither more nor 
 less. If you have '' the angel of the Lord" in Gen- 
 esis and Exodus, you ought to have *' the angel of 
 the Covenant " in Malachi — and vice versa. Having 
 this identity of phrasing, you would require nothing 
 besides to enable you to identify the message- 
 bearer intended. 
 
 It seems strange that in a passage quoted above 
 from the Book of Exodus (the passage where the 
 "angel" appears as covenanted) the Divine Father 
 
 * Gen. xxii. 15-17. f Exod. xxiii. 20, 21 
 
1 88 Visions and Nai'ratives. 
 
 declares, in relation to the benefactor promised, 
 " My name is in Him." Nevertheless, the like of this 
 strangeness appears again and again in the Old 
 Testament. The phenomenon displays itself with 
 especial vividness, if you remember that when the 
 phrase '' the Lord " in the English Bible is printed 
 in capital letters, the phrase in the original is 
 ** Jehovah." For example, the angel is alleged by 
 Jacob to have given commands to this patriarch 
 and as having announced himself — how remarkably ! 
 *' The angel of God '' said :***... I am the God 
 of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar ; where 
 thou vowedst a vow unto me. Arise, get thee out 
 from this land and return unto the land of thy 
 kindred." An angel of God hesitates not to say 
 " I am the God of Bethel," hesitates not to announce 
 Himself as the being who had, at Bethel, appeared 
 at the top of the symbolic ladder and declared Him- 
 self to be Jehovah.t The same patriarch, when ex- 
 pecting death as near at hand, blessed the sons of 
 Joseph in the words, J " God, before whom my fathers 
 Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed 
 me all my life long unto this day, the angel which 
 redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." Similar 
 was the case at the call of Moses, § " the angel of the 
 
 *Gen. xxxi. 11-13. f Gen. xxviii. 13-19. 
 
 X Gen. xlviii. 15, 16. § Exod. iii. 2-14. 
 
The Messenger of the Covenant. 189 
 
 Lord appeared unto him, in a flame of fire, out of 
 the midst of a bush," When tliis angel spoke, he is 
 represented as saying : *' I am the God of thy 
 father." Moses is represented as having hid his 
 face, because he was afraid to look upon God. In 
 answer to the question what was the name of the 
 speaker, the voice from the midst of the bush, the 
 voice of the angel, said unto Moses : " I am that I am 
 . . . Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 
 Jehovah, God of your fathers . . . hath sent me unto 
 you. This is my name forever, and this is my memo- 
 rial to all generations." To warrant such language, 
 the angel must have been of Divine nature. In all 
 these passages of the books of Genesis and Exodus, 
 the word translated angel is the word translated 
 messenger in the utterance made through Malachi ; 
 *'The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come 
 to His temple, and the messenger of the cove- 
 nant." 
 
 Has the phenomenon reappeared } Has the mes- 
 senger of the covenant — the angel who covenanted 
 with the patriarchs, the angel who was covenanted 
 to Israel — made a new advent t It was some four 
 hundred years after the time of Malachi that our 
 Lord appeared. Jesus came to the temple of God 
 at Jerusalem. He treated this temple as His.* As 
 
 *John ii. 14-21. 
 
190 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 though the owner of the sanctuary, he twice ex- 
 pelled therefrom the money changers who profaned 
 its sacredness by their traffic. When He was asked, 
 What sign showest Thou, seeing Thou doest these 
 things ? He made the answer, ''Destroy this temple, 
 and in three days I will raise it up again." Since 
 the evangelist tells us that in thus saying Jesus 
 spake of the temple of His body, His language was 
 scarcely less than equivalent to a declaration that 
 His person enshrined the Deity, as the temple of 
 stone and cement enshrined the Deity. The New 
 Testament describes Him as Mediator of a New 
 Covenant : * He declared Himself a Messenger, a 
 person sent, in the words, t " The living Father hath 
 sent me." Add to these facts the claims which 
 Jesus made for Himself in the utterances, J *' All 
 men should honor the Son even as they honor the 
 Father," "I and my Father are one."§ Does the 
 New Testament represent our Lord as the declarer 
 or revealer of the Father 1 For example, in the sen- 
 tences : *' No man hath seen God at any time, the 
 only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the 
 Father, He hath declared Him," " No man 
 knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom 
 the Son shall reveal Him." || Perhaps it was because 
 
 * Heb. ix. 15. t John vi. 57. |John v. 23 ; x. 30. 
 
 § John i. 18. II Matt. xi. 27. 
 
The Messenger of the Covenant. 191 
 
 of the fact that with us the word of mouth is the 
 thing by which we reveal or declare our meaning, 
 coupled with the fact that the Christ appears in the 
 New Testament as the declarer or revealer of the 
 meaning of the Father, that this incomparable per- 
 son is sometimes, in the writings of the New Testa- 
 ment, called the " Word" ; for example, in the pas- 
 sage * " the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
 us." At any rate there is no room for doubt as to 
 the question whom the evangelist means by this 
 phrase, " the Word " — no ground for doubt that the 
 evangelist intends to designate the only being who 
 could, in the New Testament, be represented as be- 
 coming incarnate ; and as if for the purpose of teach- 
 ing that the Word and the Messenger of the Cov- 
 enant were one and the same — plainly with the in- 
 tention of teaching that such a severalty from and 
 identity with God as belonged to the Angel of the 
 Covenant, belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 evangelist writes, " the Word was with God and 
 the Word was God." 
 
 If the Messenger of the Older Covenant could be 
 distinguished from his sender, and yet assume the 
 prerogative of this sender, so could and so did the 
 Mediator of the Newer Covenant. If the phenom- 
 enon is mysterious, if its rationale is beyond human 
 
 ♦John i. 1-14. 
 
192 Visions and Narratives. 
 
 explanation, if the phenomenon is nowhere in the 
 Old Testament applied to practical uses, it is never- 
 theless incontestably existent in the statements of 
 that ancient volume ; according to Malachi it was 
 destined to reappear in the history of Israel, and 
 according to the New Testament it did appear at 
 the rise of Christianity. 
 
 Two or three remarks require to be annexed to 
 the foregoing. 
 
 St. Stephen describes Him with whom Moses held 
 converse on the Mount as the ** Angel." Though 
 Exodus * says, " Moses spake, and God answered 
 him by a voice," Stephen t says, concerning Moses, 
 "This is he that was with the ^;/^^V which spake 
 to him in the Mount Sinai." 
 
 As regards the mysterious quality of the revela- 
 tions with which this chapter is concerned, the 
 manner of the Divine existence passes comprehen- 
 sion. With relation to a Being whom we have not 
 seen, and cannot liken to anything that we already 
 know, every theory which we can form must be 
 most imperfect. We have not seen God ; we know 
 with knowledge, strictly so called, no Being with- 
 out change or end, no uncaused cause. We cannot 
 liken such an idea to anything with which we are 
 acquainted. How true is the thought implied by 
 
 * Exod. xix. 19. t-A-Cts vii. 38. 
 
The Messejigcr of the Covenant. 193 
 
 the Divine question,* " To whom will ye liken or 
 compare me." How true and how apposite ! If a 
 being is such that he cannot be comprehended with- 
 in the grasp of our minds, if he is invisible and of a 
 nature to which there is nothing analogous, if he 
 cannot be likened or compared, how great is the 
 reason which lies in the saying, Can I, by searching, 
 find out God ? Can I find out the Almighty unto 
 perfection ? What wonder if the conception of a 
 person who possesses both a severalty from and an 
 identity with the Universal Father is beyond us. 
 Christians are like multitudes of those who go to 
 sea. Many of these know nothing of the principles of 
 navigation, nothing of the compass, nothing of the 
 nature of the steam engine, yet their confidence 
 in the ship, though unaccompanied with a knowl- 
 edge of the philosophy in accordance with which 
 the vessel proceeds, is justified by experience ; 
 they reach the haven where they would be. 
 They believe, they trust, and they come safely to 
 land. 
 
 With regard to the connection between the older 
 and the newer parts of the Bible, let me say that 
 the Old Testament is the basis of the New in par- 
 ticulars which are not always recognized. The New 
 Testament has much use for the truth that the Son 
 
 * Isa. xl. iS. 
 
194 Visiojis and Narratives. , 
 
 of man is superhuman, is divine, since this book 
 teaches that the Son needs omniscience and omni- 
 presence ; the doctrine of the volume being that 
 the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all 
 judgment unto the Son, and that where two or three 
 are gathered in Christ's name, there is Christ in the 
 midst of them. He of whom such statements are 
 true — He who is to be the arbiter of human destinies 
 — must be capable of discerning motives, of reach- 
 ing the recesses of the inner man, of searching the 
 heart and trying the reins. He who can fulfill the 
 promise to every two or three, must be capable — in- 
 asmuch as His people live in countries distant from 
 each other and often assemble at the same time — of 
 vouchsafing His presence ubiquitously. We cannot 
 reconcile the different parts of the Gospel unless we 
 recognize Jesus as Divine. For the purposes of the 
 Old Testament a plurality in the Godhead was not 
 so necessary to be known. An explicit statement 
 of this plurality might obscure for the ages for which 
 the Old Testament was made the monotheistic 
 principle which for those ages seems to have been 
 deemed the most important point. Yet in Moses 
 and Malachi we have this Angel of the Lord, this 
 mysterious Messenger of the Covenant, told of 
 How can this fact be accounted for except upon the 
 hypothesis that the existence of a plurality in 
 
TJie Messenger of the Covenant. 195 
 
 the Deity was a truth, and was in after times 
 to be a basis for an ulterior revelation ? 
 
 When a building is to be altered and enlarged, 
 if no new foundation is necessary, if on removing 
 the soil which has accumulated on and about the 
 old foundation, the discovery is made that the sub- 
 structure suffices for the new superstructure, and 
 had more than sufficed for the old, the presumption 
 will be that an alteration and enlargement, such as 
 are now intended, has been within the intention of 
 the original architect. In like manner, when going 
 beneath the surface of the Old Testament, we meet 
 with ''the messenger or angel of the covenant," we 
 conclude that Moses was intended for a witness to 
 things which were afterwards to be spoken. He 
 put a veil upon his face, the face of his writings, and 
 this veil is in Christ done away. The Gospel may 
 be described as a mystery which had been kept 
 secret from the time that the world began, but by 
 Christ and his apostles was, by means of the Script- 
 ures of the Prophets, made known for the obedience 
 of faith. 
 
 The two parts of our Bible bear witness to each 
 other, the Old Testament testifies to the New. 
 Christ is the incarnation of the Angel of the Cov- 
 enant. This Saviour is both human and divine ; so 
 human that He could die and that you may 
 
196 Visions and Nm^ratives. 
 
 be confident of fellow feeling on His part ; so 
 divine that you may feel authorized to address 
 to Him your prayers, and may feel certain that 
 His mediation on your behalf must succeed. Take 
 the voyage of life in this ship : be confident that 
 it will land you at the haven where you would be. 
 
^