REESE LIBRARY or THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received- Accessions No.A^^.7-^- Shelf No. HUMANITY IMMORTAL; OR, MAN TRIED, FALLEN, AND REDEEMED. BY LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D.,LL.D. 65*15 v V OF THE f 'UNIVEESITT BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK: LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM. 1872. I f Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, BY LAURENS P. HICKOK, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. > -ra 3 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 19 Spring Lane. UNIVERSITY PREFACE. IN closing the work of " Creator and Creation," it was noted that the full Idea of Humanity could be compreii ended only in a history of man through his trial, fall, redemption, and resurrection to eternal Life ; and the design to give, in an anticipated opportunity, such a history was intimated. That history, as then contemplated, is here accomplished. In that speculative work we found the Universe con- stituted a Cosmos of order and beauty from essential Forces, both material and ethereal ; and such essen- tial Forces, put in motion round their creative source, worked themselves into separate spheres, and dis- tributed the spheres into revolving suns and plane- tary Systems. However other worlds may have their dead matter quickened into life, on our earth an Or- ganizing Instinct was, by the Creator, superinduced upon a portion of the ethereal Atoms as an assimila- tive life-power, communicating itself to and working in other mechanical forces to build them up in living bodies, and so from the Mineral kingdom 'were formed the plants and trees of the Vegetable kingdom ; and out of and above this were wrought the nervous or- ganisms for sentient life in the Animal kingdom ; and 3 4 PREFACE. in the union of sense with reason in Humanity, the whole creative work was crowned by installing over all the sovereign prerogatives of a Spiritual king- dom. All the former find their end in entire sub- serviency to the imperative claims of the last. The life-instinct in the vegetable kingdom never rises into consciousness ; the animal kingdom has sentient life in persistent consciousness only so long as it may hold the nervous organism in combination, and the dissolution of the nervous system is the de- struction of all sensibility ; but the spiritual kingdom has immortal life and intelligence. Absolute Reason neither begins nor ends, and the inspiration of finite reason in the human individual secures for him per- petual personality. Vegetable and animal organisms ; fall asunder and perish, for the life-power which builds and holds them in individuality is the causal efficiency of nature only ; but reason is supernatural, and wher- ever it comes it carries with it eternal rights and claims, and no power less than the creative, which first breathed rational spirit into man, can take back his immortal prerogatives from man. The primal forces, in which the individual human life begins, must be perpetuated through life to preserve its identity; and the bond which holds the identical forces in human individuality is rational Spirit, which cannot work in the sentient life it is set to control without awaking claims that forever attach sentient soul and rational spirit together; and hence every human individual must have also its immortal sentient identity. No matter how many, nor how often, ad- \pj PREFACE. 5 ventitious elements may assimilate with, and dissolve from, these primal essential forces which perpetuate the man's identity ; his spiritual individuality will hold those essential forces to be his, unless God withdraw his own in-breathing, and so himself undo his own original creating. Every human life has. thus a perpetual ongoing ex- ( perience, and as each is a propagation from an origi- nal stock by natural generation, so the primitive life sends down its connections through all, and makes for humanity a universal history. In that which is peculiar to man must human experience and history differ from other spiritual communities in other spheres ; but since the one Father of spirits is Crea- tor and Lord of all spirits, so in this one source of all authority and responsibility must all rational be- ings, in all worlds, be necessarily implicated in com- mon interests, and stand each to each in reciprocity of rights and obligations. The work now before us is to trace, in general outline, the specific History of Humanity from its beginning to its consummation in the eternal state, with the communings and collisions that may occur with other orders of spiritual intelli- gences ; taking as our guide the offered light from speculative reason, and from divine revelation, and, so far as the facts of experience may be gathered, from the records of past ages. The light shining from all these sources must give in all readings the same one meaning, since all are reflections from the one pure source of Absolute Truth and Wisdom. In the same foregoing work referred to, it was noted 6 PREFACE. that the creating Absolute Spirit cannot be an object of knowledge except as contemplated in three dis- tinct agencies, each as Will working in consciousness through its peculiar appropriation for itself of the one Absolute Keason-consciousuess. As originator of the pure ideal universe, the first is the Father; as expressing this in overt manifestation, the second is the Word ; and as holding all comprehensively in one, the third is the Holy Ghost. But not only in Creation; in governmental administration and fre- quent communication, the same threefold agency in the one Absolute Being must also necessarily be recognized. The second reveals the secret purpose of the first in such communications, and the third secures the execution, in human heart and will, of that counsel which the first has and the second publishes. The Holy Ghost has its more special dis- pensation in the later experiences of the race, but the expressing Logos is from the start the appropri- ate Mediator between God and Man, openly exhibit- ing the inner heart of Deity, and intimately commin- gling his agency with the experiences of the human / family. An exclusive Mediatorial kingdom is by him established among men, which in legislation and administration has nowhere else its parallel. Both the Word and Spirit make here their disclosures of the Mystery of Godliness in ways altogether else unpre- cedented, and greatly adding interest and importance to the spiritual history of Humanity. We proceed to re- late it as we shall carefully find it. AMHERST, MASS., 1872. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. 17 SECTION I. PRINCIPLES NECESSARILY DIRECTING IN THE TRIAL 19 1. INTEGRITY OP CHARACTER is IN THE CONTROL OF SENSE BY SPIRIT 20 2. THE TRIAL MUST BE IMPOSED AT THE OUTSET 22 3. THE TEST MUST PUT SENSE AND SPIRIT SQUARELY IN CONFLICT 23 4. THE DESTRUCTION, IF DISOBEDIENT, SHOULD BE PLAINLY ANNOUNCED 25 5. CAPABILITY FOR THE FUTURE BLISS CAN BE ONLY IN PASS- ING THE TRIAL 27 SECTION II. THE TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN 29 1. THE MANNER IN WHICH ADAM AND EVE WERE TEMPTED. 31 2. THE PROCESS AND SUCCESS OF SATAN'S TEMPTATION. . . 34 3. THE SIN OF MAN WAS WHOLLY HIS OWN ORIGINATION. . 38 7 CONTENTS. SECTION III. CHANGES INDUCED BY THE SIN OF MAN 40 1. CHANGES ON THE PART OF THE MAN AND WOMAN. ... 42 t. Sense had assumed the Sovereignty. ....... 42 ii. Their Sin induced perpetual Shame and Fear. . . 43 Hi. Their State became impotent and hopeless 44 2. CHANGES TOWARDS MAN ON THE PART OF GOD 45 i. There was manifested deep Disapprobation 45 ii. There was Paternal Compassion 46 Hi. From Displeasure and Pity came the Purpose of Redemption 47 iv. Open Communion was changed to Mediation. ... 49 v. God's Dealings changed to blended Severity and Kindness 50 8. CHANGES REGARDING HUMANITY IN GENERAL 52 ,1. Adam ceased to act as Public Head of the Race. . . 52 ii. Fallen Humanity will now perpetuate Depravity. . 54 Hi. The Promised Redemption assumed this Universal Change 58 iv. A Remedial System must have better Promise. . . 59 CHAPTER II. THE REDEEMER MUST PREPARE HUMANITY FOR HIS ADVENT 61 SECTION I. SPECIAL PROVIDENCES CURB DEPRAVED PROPEN- SITIES 63 1. THE WORLD OVERWHELMED BY THE FLOOD 65 2. SHORTENING OF HUMAN LIFE 67 3. GUARDING LIFE BY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 69 4. CONFOUNDING THEIR LANGUAGE 71 CONTENTS. 9 SECTION II. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM 74 1. MEANS FOE SECURING ABRAHAM'S FAITH AND DEVOTION. . 77 2. INFLUENCE ON ABRAHAM'S DESCENDANTS IN THE LINE OF PROMISE 79 SECTION III. EGYPT, AND THE GOING OF THE ISRAELITES DOWN TO IT 81 1. SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH OF EGYPT 83 2. THE GOVERNMENT OF EGYPT 92 3. THE RELIGION OF EGYPT 93 4. THE ISRAELITES' REMOVAL TO EGYPT 98 SECTION IV. THE EXODUS, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HE- BREW GOVERNMENT 103 1. HEBREW CHARACTER FROM EGYPTIAN EDUCATION 104 2. A THEOCRACY ADOPTED BY GOD AND THE PEOPLE. . . . 107 3. THE HEBREW THEOCRACY ACKNOWLEDGED THE TRUE GOD ONLY 110 4. SPECIAL ORDINANCES SEPARATING ISRAEL FROM IDOLATERS. 118 SECTION V. TRUTHS OF REDEMPTION UNDER A DOUBLE- SENSE 123 1. THE PASSOVER FEAST 125 2. CEREMONY OF THE SCAPE-GOAT 127 3. THE CONSTRUCTION AND SERVICES OF TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE 128 4. DOUBLE- SENSE DEMANDS CAREFUL DISCRIMINATION. ... 129 6. THE THEOCRATIC RITUAL A SPIRITUAL SERVICE 133 10 CONTENTS. SECTION VI. ADMINISTRATION OF THE THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY 135 1. THEOCRACY UNDER MOSES 136 2. THEOCRACY UNDER JOSHUA 140 3. THEOCRACY UNDER THE JUDGES 144 4. THEOCRACY UNDER THE KINGS 146 5. DIVISION AND DISPERSION OF ISRAEL, AND CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH 154 SECTION VII. FROM CAPTIVITY TO COMING OF THE MESSIAH. 163 1. THE JEWS WHILE SUBJECT TO THE ASSYRIANS 165 2. WHILE SUBJECT TO THE PERSIANS 169 3. WHILE SUBJECT TO ALEXANDER AND SUCCESSORS 174 4. WHILE UNDER THE MACCABEES 179 5. WHILE UNDER THE ROMANS 184 6. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN BAPTIST 188 . Design of John's Dispensation 190 ii. Peculiarity of John's Baptism. 192 Hi. Account of John's Life and Times. . . 194 CHAPTER III. THE INCARNATION, WORK, AND DOCTRINE OF THE REDEEMER 198 SECTION I. THE INCARNATION OF THE LOGOS .200 1. THE REDEEMER is BORN OF A VIRGIN 200 2. JESUS WAS BORN MORE THAN HUMAN 203 3. THOUGH DIVINE AND HUMAN, HE WAS ONE BEING. . . . 207 4. IN HIMSELF HE IS PROPHET. PRIEST, AND KlNG 210 CONTENTS. 11 SECTION II. THE REDEMPTIVE WORK WROUGHT IN HUMAN FLESH 213 1. His WORK OPENED IN PRIVATE CONFLICT WITH THE DEVIL. 215 2. GENERAL OUTLINE OF CHRIST'S PUBLIC MINISTRY 218 3. COMPREHENSIVE IMPORT OF HIS TEACHING 224 4. His LIFE AND EXAMPLE LIKE HIS TEACHING 225 5. CRUCIFIXION, AND RESURRECTION THE THIRD DAT 227 SECTION III. THE DOCTRINES OF REDEMPTION IN THE INCAR- NATION 228 1. GOSPEL REDEMPTION is IN NO WAY OF LEGAL JUSTICE. . 230 2. IN THE INCARNATION PENAL JUSTICE TAKES AN EQUIVALENT. 233 3. THE WORD MADE FLESH HAS MAGNIFIED THE LAW. . . . 235 4. THE INCARNATION is EQUIVALENT FOR PIETY AS WELL AS PENALTY 238 5. IT OPENS THE NEW PRINCIPLE OF OBEDIENCE FROM GRATE- FUL LOVE 241 6. REDEMPTION OPENED TO ALL, BUT APPROPRIATED ONLY BY THE RENEWED 244 t. In the Way of Pardon 245 ii. In the Way of Justification 246 CHAPTER IV. THE HOLY GHOST SEALS REDEMPTION TO MAN. 249 SECTION I. THE MANNER OF THE SPIRIT'S COMING 250 1. THE MOSAIC RITUAL PREFIGURED THE SPIRIT'S WORK. . . 251 2. His COMING WAS ANNOUNCED IN PROPHECY 252 3. His COMING PROMISED BY CHRIST TO HIS DISCIPLES. . . 253 4. His DESCENT AT PENTECOST 256 12 CONTENTS. SECTION II. THE MANNER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT'S AGENCY. . . 258 1. IT is A MORAL POWER, NOT PHYSICAL FORCE 258 2. ITS ACTION is DIRECT UPON MIND 260 3. IT PRECEDES AND TENDS TO RIGHT ACTION BT MAN. . . . 261 4. IT MAT BE RESISTED BT THE SlNNER 262 5. THE EFFECTUAL CALLING INDUCES A COMPLTING WILL. . . 264 6. THE ASSENTING WILL MUST BE TO THE TRUTH 265 SECTION III. THE WORK THE HOLY SPIRIT ACCOMPLISHES. . . 266 1. THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN INSPIRATION 267 2. THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN MIRACLES '. 271 3. THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN REGENERATION 275 4. THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN SANCTIFICATION 280 t. It is within the Human Spirit 281 ii. It secures Perseverance 282 Hi. It will perfect Sanctification only at Death 284 5. THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT is IN SOVEREIGNTY ..... 286 CHAPTER V. THE LAST THINGS IN THE REDEMPTION OF HU- MANITY ..... 291 SECTION I. SPECULATIVE VIEW OF HUMAN DEATH 293 1. ALL DEATH DIFFERS FROM NATURAL DECOMPOSITION. . . 294 2. THE VEGETABLE HAS THE LOWEST LIFE AND SIMPLEST FORM OF DEATH 294 3. THE ANIMAL is SENTIENT, AND HAS A DEATH OF SENSATION. 295 4. HUMAN DEATH DIVIDES, BUT LEAVES SOUL AND SPIRIT IMMORTAL 297 CONTENTS. 13 . SECTION II. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 300 1. CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALITY AFTER DEATH 302 2. THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 304 3. ALL RESTRICTION is FROM THE DISPOSITION 305 4. THERE is NO OPPORTUNITY FOR PURGATORIAL EXPERI- ENCES 306 6. WHERE THE SPIRIT GOES AT DEATH WILL BE ITS FINAL STATE 307 SECTION III. THE RESURRECTION 308 1. THE RESURRECTION INDICATED IN THE ANALOGIES OF NA- TURE 308 2. INSTINCTIVE ANTICIPATIONS ARE PREMONITIONS OP IT. . . 310 3. THE REASON OF THE CASE CLAIMS THE REUNION OF SOUL AND SPIRIT 310 4. REVELATION THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY FOR IT 311 5. THE RESURRECTION-BODY SPECIALLY CHANGED 314 6. THE RESURRECTION, AS PRESENTED BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 318 7. REVEALED RESURRECTIONS AND TRANSLATIONS 321 SECTION IV. THE FINAL JUDGMENT 324 1. DESIGN OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT 325 2. EVIDENCES FOR A FINAL JUDGMENT 326 3. THE JUDGMENT WILL COME SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY. 327 4. THE JUDGE WILL APPEAR IN GREAT MAJESTY 328 5. THOSE WHO ARE TO BE JUDGED 329 6. ALL SECRETS LAID OPEN 330 7. THE FORM AND PROCESS OF THE JUDGMENT. 331 8. THB GENERAL CONFLAGRATION. . ... 332 14 CONTENTS. SECTION V. ISSUES OF THE JUDGMENT FOB BOTH GOOD AND BAD 333 1. ALL GOD'S PRECEDING DEALINGS HAVE BEEN REASONABLE. 334 2. GOD WILL FOR THE FUTURE BE UNIVERSALLY REASONABLE. 338 3. REVELATION ALSO PUTS FUTURE CONDITION UPON CHAR- ACTER 341 4. PROBATION IN LIFE, ENDLESS RETRIBUTION AT DEATH. . . 342 i. Proved from Record of Providential Judgments. . 343 ii. Proved from the Feelings manifest in Inspired Teachers 344 in. Proved from Conduct of their Hearers 345 iv. Proved from plain Scripture Declarations 345 SECTION VI. THE END OF THE MEDIATORIAL REIGN 347 1. THE KINGDOM AUTHORITATIVELY GIVEN TO CHRIST. . . . 349 2. HE CONSUMMATES HIS REIGN IN SUBJECTING ALL THINGS. 351 3. PAUL SEES, AND ALONE STATES, THE RENUNCIATION OF THE KINGDOM 354 4. THE APOSTLE JOHN SEES AND STATES WHAT is BEYOND. . 359 HUMANITY IMMORTAL. THE highest elevation attained in nature is the, gratification of sentient life in the animal kingdom./ ^ But in man sense has been crowned with reason, and as supernatural, man has dominion over nature, and 'v^o*- an end of life far exalted above all animal happiness. ^** f S*xA< His highest prerogatives stand in his endowment of , reason, which renders him competent to attain moral h-yft*+r character, and in his spiritual integrity to possess that true dignity which secures the respect and ap- 'bation of all rational intelligences. The manly valor which holds all sense-appetite in subordination ' ^ to spiritual integrity, is true virtue, and this must be **-/**+** attained and persistently kept, or self-reproach and public condemnation must follow. _ ^jpn^**^ Confirmed and stable character in virtue can be attained only through full trial and discipline. From - ff* the very constitution of humanity, " the flesh lusteth pig * :.*- against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other," and from ..-> 16 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. self-conflict alone can there be found self-conquest ; and without the trial which opens a way for defeat and shame there cannot be victory and honor. It is no matter of choice, but necessity in the case itself, that humanity must be fully tested, since veteran courage and inflexible integrity can be gained and established only through the discipline of sore temp- ./ tation and intense opposition. It is not paternal faithfulness, but parental weakness, which will with- draw the child from rigorous tests to his fidelity and allegiance. The virtue which has endured the sever- est conflicts is the most precious, and the love to truth and duty, which has in its way made the most sacrifices for truth and duty, is the most strong and reliable ; while no seeming fidelity, which stands only amid favoring interests and congenial inclinations, can be trusted in the day of adversity and persecution. The sterling character is matured in the process of struggle and conflict, and the " patience, experience, and hope that maketh not ashamed," are only attained by having passed through " divers temptations." The first necessity for the newly created humanity is a fairly arranged discipline for the trial in virtue. /I / /!3, fj-t. t~t^ ! . CHAPTER I.* J ^v^l THE PRIMITIVE TRIAL OP HUMAOTTY. THE nature of the case determines the necessity for human discipline ; and if there be other orders of rational beings, the only way in which they also can be established in virtue, and maintain the integrity of moral character, is by an applied trial appropriate to;^ their constitution and condition. Many things, both . from speculation and the facts connected with the ; * Divine Revelation of the trial of man, indicate that Au.- his trial was at the same time an occasion for the dis- ^ cipline and trial of other and higher grades of intelli- c a^ gent beings; and that while some sustained the trial^ and gained confirmation in loyalty, others wilfully reW ** . volted from their allegiance, and in their fall became also direct sources of temptation and corruption to the human family. Nothing in reason or revelation contradicts, while much in both indicates, that all sin which has come into the universe found its first en- trance in connection with man's trial and primitive disobedience. Repeated irruptions of sin and rebellion in separate 2 17 18 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. orders or worlds of the divine government, making necessary varied methods of vindicating God's author- ity by retribution or redemption, can hardly be recon- ciled, by any rational speculation, with the majesty and integrity of the sovereignty ; while ready relief in reconciling the admission of sin with the divine attributes is attained, by supposing all ranks of moral beings to have stood firm in allegiance through pre- vious discipline, till, in the new circumstances occa- sioned by man's creation and trial, they came to a sharper test of fidelity, which many improved for firmer confirmation in loyalty, and some perverted the (/ occasion and fell off in rebellion. If but slight hints that this was so, be found in revelation, their plain conformity with the reason of the case would make slight intimations grounds of safe conclusion. One occasion for sin, and one interposition for divine vin- dication in permitting it, will, then, be sufficient for all y worlds through eternity. With such supposition, man is at once made the central point of moral interest for the universe, according with Scripture representation, that angels intently watch God's dealings with our small world. He is revealing himself here as he does on no other theatre, and all orders of spirits look on # and wonder. PRINCIPLES DETERMINING THE TRIAL. 19 SECTION I. PRINCIPLES NECESSARILY DIRECTING IN THE TRIAL. HUMANITY, from its constitution and relation to its Creator, presents many points from which the reason sees determining principles, relatively to the disci- pline which must be applied, and the trial it should receive at the hand of the Father and Sovereign of the human family. It does not lie open to arbitrary arrangements on the part of the sovereign, nor admit that there be any claim to consent on the part of man to arrangements divinely made. It cannot be viewed in the light of covenant-making, binding by mutual contract; but from the state of the parties, the fact and the manner of trial must be settled by the Crea- tor himself, on considerations which he shall see to be equitable and reasonable, in view of his own honor, and what also shall be seen to be the most favorable to a happy issue on the part of man. The paternal heart of the sovereign is more deeply interested in securing confirmed loyalty and perpetual safety to the human race, than any other being; and just as the divine perfections make God sovereign, so they also determine that he is to appoint the mode of dis- cipline and direct in all the trial. Absolute Keason 20 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. must control and guide himself in all his arrange- ments by eternal principles of rectitude and benev- olence. 1. THE INTEGRITY OF HUMAN CHARACTER is IN THE CONTROL OF SENSE BY THE SPIRIT. Humanity is con- stituted of sense and spirit, and to one or the other must the supreme control be given. There can be no neutral position between the ends of gratifying sense and honoring the spirit ; and the point of danger is the disposing of the spiritual activity to the end of sense-gratification, and therein incurring spiritual degradation. The alternatives presented are not at all of degrees in the same thing, but of utterly dis- tinct kinds. Gratification of sense and approbation of spirit cannot be included under any one term, as happiness, or blessedness, so that it may become a question of policy or expediency in taking that which shall on the whole give the most ; the question of vir- tue, or integrity of character, is only in taking the spiritual end, and this is wholly lost in taking the end of sense. An animal may be guided by prudential considerations in attaining highest happiness on the whole, since sentient gratification is the end of ani- mal life, and by no way can the animal attain integ- rity of character in virtue. But for man to attain the highest gratification possible, as end of his life, would be not only the missing of all virtue, as in the case of the brute, but the incurring unmitigated sin and guilt. The highest possible happiness sought and PRINCIPLES DETERMINING THE TRIAL. 21 attained against the end the spirit claims, subjects the spirit to perpetual debasement and shame. And with the spirit so subjected to sense, and self-disposed to carnal indulgence, it is also ready for all spiritual wickedness in its own high sphere of mere spiritual agency. The spirit itself has in this become alienated from the ends of all other spirits, and in its selfishness it will manifest its pride, and scorn, and hate, and envy, and jealousy, and revenge, as the devils do, who can have no carnal lusting. The birthright of hu- manity is perpetual self-approbation, securing eternal- ly God's approbation ; but in fixing on sense-gratifica- tion and self-ascendency, there is inevitable self-deg- radation and divine abhorrence. Any one appetite allowed to control the spirit will keep the door open for every appetite when its occasion comes ; and only by putting and keeping " the body under " can the man be safe, or his conscience peaceful. The fruit of the fleshy disposition is in all forms of iniquity, and the fruit of a spiritual disposing is every virtue. 1 The entire moral man is in his disposition, and out of it, as carnal or spiritual, come all the vices or virtues of his life. To be complete, then, the trial need not be made in reference to every sensuous appetite, nor any more in regard to every spiritual claim ; when fairly made in reference to some one opening for sensual indulgence, it will be conclusive for all, and the test will need neither repeating nor varying. The trial must be, or the virtue cannot be 1 Gal. v. 19-23. 22 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. confirmed and established, but fairly and fully to put the man between the ends of the flesh and the ends of the rational spirit, for the issue of his sense-dis- posing or his spirit-disposing, is all that is needful ; and as the disposition which he shall there give to himself may be, such will be his radical character ou his own responsibility. In some way the trial and the issue must come, and the only question is, whe'ther the trial shall be left to a fortuitous occurrence, or whether it shall be divinely and thus paternally ordered. The first must be unreasonable, the latter must every way be desirable. 2. THE TRIAL MUST BE IMPOSED AT THE VERY OUT- SET. Were humanity left to its own way, and the first man started upon his practical course under the light and influence which daily experience alone might give, the issue between sense and spirit in his constitution would be soon joined and the disposi- tion taken. Appetite would immediately prompt to gratification, and reason must soon assert its claims, and the occasion come for a conflict between passion- ate impulse and conscious obligation ; and the dispos- ing of the spirit in servile compliance with the appe- titive impulse, or the imperative behest, would form and fix the radical character accordingly. But for the sake of God and man, such fortuitous trial should be prevented. God's love to righteousness, and his kind care for his intelligent creatures, will certainly secure that the most favoring conditions and influ- PEINCIPLES DETERMINING THE TRIAL. 23 ences for the integrity of the spirit, consistent with the completeness of the trial, shall be interposed. And such divine arrangement and interposition must be at the start, for the discipline immediately commences with the opening experience, and any delay will endanger the issue in a fixed disposition before the paternal arrangements are made. If, in such delay, an issue should be disastrous, although man would have fixed his character by his own act, and on his responsibility, yet must there ever be the unhappy reflection that the prompt benevolence of the Creator had failed in doing for human holiness all that full equity and justice would have allowed. To satisfy his own fatherly heart, and show to man- kind forever his earliest love and regard for human welfare, God will infallibly begin his dealings with humanity by putting man amid arrangements for discipline and trial as salutary and kindly influential as possible, consistent with its necessary strictness. The very first point in human history must, therefore, be the account of God's arrangements, under which he wisely determines that the character of the first human pair shall be formed. This, and the general facts of the process and result, will stand upon the very first page, and all subsequent pages of human history must transmit the hue which colors the trans- actions of this earliest record. 3. THE TEST MUST PUT THE SENSE AND SPIRIT SQUARELY IN CONFLICT. In many cases appetite will 24 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OP HUMANITY. stand in accordance with obligation ; or if at variance at all, it may be remotely and obscurely, and some- times the motives may present themselves in a blended form, as partly sensual only, and which may plausibly be taken as wholly spiritual ; and while in any position the man would be bound to carefully dis- criminate, and act upon his full responsibility to the honor and dignity of his spirit, and could acquire no virtue except as he was spiritually disposed, yet would not any mixed and confused appeal appear reasonable, as an appointed and formal method of trial. If God should interpose and put his own arrangements in order for human discipline, and test the human spirit the most fairly and decisively, it is manifestly reasonable that the issue be directly joined, and the sense and the spirit be set clearly and squarely one against the other. Any constitutional appetite may be taken, and the desire of gratification strongly excited, and in fact but one act of tried gratification can occur at one time ; and over against this there may be put, and strongly pressed, any claim purely spiritual, and be- tween such conflicting appeals the issue will be fairly joined, and the strength and integrity of the spirit directly put upon trial. The claim of reason, in the end and honor of the finite spirit only, might lack both in clearness and strength for a fair and favorable issue ; but if the finite spirit be thrown directly upon its allegiance to the Absolute Spirit, and made to stand under the pressure of positive PEINCIPLES DETEEMINING THE TRIAL. 25 divine authority, the utmost clearness and strength of spiritual claim may thus be applied. When a positive command, a known " thus saith the Lord," stands over against an excited sensual impulse, and is put at the time as a known occasion for testing the fidelity and strengthening the virtue of the finite spirit, there then comes out an unmistakable spirit- ual behest against a sensuous appetite, and the trial is plainly and unavoidably secured. If appetite pre- vail, and the spirit consent to serve the sense in such a test, there can be no apology made, that the highest possible spiritual obligations were not pressed upon the conscience for the preservation of its purity and integrity. 4. THE DESTRUCTION IN SUBJECTING THE SPIRIT TO THE FLESH SHOULD BE STRONGLY ANNOUNCED. The good gained in holding the sense subject to the spirit did not need to be formally announced. The intimate immedi- ate communion with God and his fostering presence with the first pair on their opening consciousness at creation, secured the first exercises to be spiritual con- fidence in and obedience to their Creator. The daily life had the consequent peace and conscious self-appro- bation, inseparable from this original trust and love. This was their opening experience, all tending to- wards perseverance and confirmation in virtue. But the strong guard needed 'as a warning was, -the dis- closure of the evil necessary upon spiritual subjec- tion to sense. The terrible consequences of yielding 26 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. to excited appetite, and taking on a carnal disposition, should be most emphatically announced in connection with the statements appointing the trial. Man's de- basement and defilement in the indulgence of sense and dethronement of reason, and God's deep abhor- rence of such moral pollution, are required vividly to be set before him. All this was intended and effected in the primeval threatening to man, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The act of self-indulgence would carry in it the spirit's consent, and fix a radical sensual disposition. Self-gratification would hence- forth be dominant, and the debasing of the spirit and depraving of the character become entire and lasting. The spirit would henceforth be in bondage, and though still the alternative to persistence in sensu- ality, in a return to spiritual recovery and supremacy, would be open, yet would not the defiled spirit choose it, but would basely cleave to its shameful servitude. In sinning, it goes down assenting, and then has nothing in it which dissents ; and so, in its own choice, its bondage, because free, is final, and hopeless of all selfemancipation. Such was the helpless and dread- ful condition disclosed in the warning against trans- gression, and was all involved in the death so peremp- torily threatened. The bare dissolution of the body was not the evil primitively intended j that may be a sentence subsequently pronounced in mitigation of the first threatening ; the warning designed in it was that of endless shame in the spirit itself, and eternal PRINCIPLES DETERMINING THE TRIAL. 27 abhorrence in the sight of God. Nothing was arbi- trary in the trial or the penalty, but all ordered and announced in kind fidelity to human interest, and necessarily putting the issue upon human responsi- bility. b. THE CAPABILITIES FOR AN ETERNAL STATE OF BLESSEDNESS CAN BE ATTAINED ONLY IN PASSING THE HAZARD OF SUCH TRIAL. While virtue can be ac- quired and confirmed only amid conflicts and trials, so, moreover, the very use of the immortal faculties, freely and completely, can be attained only in the exercises of the spiritual life, which find their source directly in the spiritual disposition. In the specula- tions followed out in the work of " Creator and Crea- tion," we found life to be an instinctive want superin- duced upon ethereal forces, and thus the life literally uses the light. In this use the material forces are also assimilated and organized into living bodies. The instinctive life- want builds up the organisms of the Vegetable kingdom, and in further completeness of sentient life the organisms also of the Animal king- dom ; and only by the control of the rational spirit can the " fleshly mind " be disciplined and governed. The human spirit controls the human appetites, and thereby constitutional inclinations are held in moral restraint. And as this subjects the mortal body to the free determinations of the spirit, so, when " the mortal shall have put on immortality," the " spiritual body " shall much more be subject to the directions 28 PRIMITIVE TEIAL OF HUMANITY. of the reason ; and only as the spirit has reigned in time can the resurrection-body be made the ready instrument for spiritual employment in eternity. There is a perpetual balance of combined forces, which perpetuates the identity of the individual body amid all its changes of elements in the present proba- tionary state, and this will be still held in balanced unity by the comprehending spirit in the experiences of eternity ; and so the same body in perduring es- sence, which was ruled by the spirit here, will much more be the spirit's flexible and facile instrument, in the world of triumphant glory. But only as the spirit has ruled the flesh on earth, can it control the essential organism which accompanies it in eternity. Its fleshly sympathies and propensities remain when its dissolved and cast-off elements are left behind ; and these will go earthward, and not heavenward, if not guided and used by spiritual affections. The spirit which has bowed in bondage to the flesh here, can never carry the resurrection-body to the cen- tral source of light and glory there. The employ- ments can only be as the character and disposition of the spirit permits. In the distinctions of sensual and spiritual disposition the great separating gulf is " fixed." TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN. 29 SECTION II. THE TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN. HUMANITY, in the persons of the first man and wo- man, continued for a time in allegiance to the Crea- tor, and the sense in subjection to. the spirit. On the part of God were paternal care and nurture, and on the part of man were confiding docility and rev- erence. The communion between them was as Fa- ther and children ; and as the parent helps the child in opening speech and knowledge, so the Lord God brought beast and fowl to Adam " to see what he would call them, and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was its name." The abode of man was prepared by God as a Garden in a warm climate ; and dominion was given to him over all animals ; and the herbs, and plants, and fruits of Paradise were his food. The occupation of the first pair was the dressing and keeping the garden in which they dwelt. As above noticed, it is most reasonable to assume, that during the period of human innocence, and from before till the temptation of Eve, there was sin in no part of the universe. All moral beings may best be considered by us as having hitherto stood in unbroken & 30 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. loyalty and blessedness. The sacred history gives fair intimation, as we may soon note, that sin began in connection with the trial and fall of humanity. An older and higher spirit than man found his first in- ducement to sin, in connection with man's creation and God's primeval dealings with him. Other exalted spirits were induced to join in his rebellion, and he also was the direct tempter to the first human trans- A/ gression. Ever before an angel of light, and promi- nent among the heavenly host as the morning star ; the new experience opening before him in witnessing the creation in flesh and blood of human beings, and of a grade below his own, and they yet receiving the special intimacy and fostering patronage of the cre- ating Logos ; and especially, if we suppose him to have been commissioned by the Logos to watch and serve the best interests of these first parents of an inferior race, we may readily see, might become the provocative to feelings of envy, and jealousy, and growing hate unknown before in his bosom ; and which at length induced that arrogant ambition and lifting up of pride, which the apostle has affirmed was " the condemnation of the devil." The malignity towards man, and the quenchless spite and enmity towards man's Mediator, everywhere exhibited sub- sequently by fallen angels in all the revelation made concerning them, is best interpreted through such intimations, as that their depravity originated in their new acquaintance with this lower order of moral beings, and witnessing their Creator's special TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN. 31 interest in them, and perhaps their own required ministry to them But we follow the intimations of the introduction of sin in the universe, and in human- ity, through the Mosaic account of the trial, tempta- tion, and disastrous fall of man. 1. THE MANNER IN WHICH ADAM AND EVE WERE TEMPTED. The trial of man, eventuating in his first transgression, had all its particular steps, and suc- cessive events, as actual occurrences ; but the mi- nute record of the facts have not been given. The inspired account by Moses is general and summary, .particularizing only in the items important for the instruction of future generations. This account in Genesis is not to be interpreted as myth or fable ; nor yet as truth in poetic figure ; but as veritable fact, and occurrence according to sense-appearance and apprehension. Nothing is recorded which was not phenomenally observed ; yet many of the ap- pearances have a deeper truth and meaning than was recognized by the human agents at the time, and which became fully disclosed only in later periods. The serpent was the tempting agent im- mediately appearing, and yet the prime agency of Satan as the responsible tempter, invisibly present, is repeatedly afterwards noted. As up to this period in holy allegiance, the devil here became an apostate and rebel, and began his sinning in the deception and destructive temptation of the new-made human pair. It is to these specific transactions that the Saviour 32 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. refers when he calls the devil " a liar and the father of it," and "a murderer from the beginning." 1 And from the issue of this successful temptation he is said to have " the power of death." 2 And from his crafty use of the serpent's subtle instrumentality in this deadly work, he gets the emphatic name of " the Dragon," and the " Old Serpent." 3 All these are personal, permanent characteristics of the devil, as if meant to indicate that he began to be a devil and satan, a deceiver and an adversary, in these very tempting transactions ; and that " the beginning " from which he was a liar, and a murderer, was in the deceptive and destructive work of the temptation and fall at man's beginning. The perpetuated malice of fallen spirits towards man, and the malignant en- mity towards the Saviour of men, which the devil so bitterly exhibited in the days of his flesh, and the complete destruction of the works of the devil by the Saviour in his incarnation, evince a one great con- flict, commencing on occasion of man's creation, and forever settled in the triumphant issues of man's redemption. And so the principle in the parable of " the lost sheep " has here its broadest application, that all heaven rejoices more for the recovery of one lost world, than for all others that have needed no re- pentance. And still further, the one short but ex- plicit declaration is given by the apostle, that our r John viiL 44. 2 Heb. ii. 14. 3 Rev. xii. 9 and xx. 2. TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN. 33 redeemed race is enough to vindicate God in the in- tegrity of his wisdom before the Universe, and that the mystery of Christ was " to the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God." l The sin of devils and of men stands in one view to the moral universe ; and the redeemed church of human believers, through Christ, God meant should settle his truth and authority in dealing with all sinners. The subtlety of the serpent in its power of fascina- tion seems designed to represent the devil's crafty insinuation to Eve, and here with Eve was the devil's first use of the serpent's instrumentality. The human victim did not know that there was an assault from any spiritual adversary. Later revelations determine that the responsible agent was the devil, and this serpent-like power of fascination had here its earliest satanic exhibition. It is remarkable that not until so late as the time of Job, and then successively in the times of David, Ahab, and Jehoshaphat, 2 do we have any recognition of demoniac interference with mankind. The ministry of good angels was abundant in the age of the Hebrew Patriarchs ; and prohibitions of necromancy and witch- craft in the Mosaic law refer to the spirits of dead hu- man beings ; but not till beyond the writings of the Pentateuch do we hear of fallen angels. This is quite 1 Eph. iii. 10. 2 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ; 2 Chron. xviii. 21, 22. 3 34 PRIMITIVE TEIAL OF HUMANITY. conclusive for the antiquity of these books, for any writers of a later age would have recognized a devil. 2. THE PROCESS AND SUCCESS OF THE DEVIL'S TEMP- TATION. The primitive permission and prohibition to man was, " Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 1 The direct and kind intent of God, here, was to set the man and woman directly between an impulse of sense and a dictate of conscience, giving the necessary al- ternative to either a sensual or a spiritual disposing, in which permanent character would rest. So plain a test, and the act so deliberately taken, would in- evitably carry along the spirit in it, and become a disposition of the proper selfhood of the person in a governing state of will, henceforth controlling the subordinate executive volitions. We have noted reasons sufficient for believing that the sin of the devil originated in connection with the trial of man, and shall further on find still more conclusive proof for it ; and we need here only see the fitting occasion for trying with man the loyalty of other than human spirits. Angels are not, as human beings, creatures of sense, and could not be tested by any appeals to sensual appetite. Their selfhood stood directly over against other personalities, whether of fellow-crea- tures or of God, and their trial must be in the alterna- 'Gen. ii. 16,17. TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MAN. 35 tive of subjecting the selfhood to the clear claims of others, or arrogating to self against another's right. Up to this point, we may believe, all had subordinated self to others' rights, and remained holy ; but here in man's lower state, and God's requisition in behalf of man, opened the occasion for scorn, and jealousy, and envy, and hate, towards man, and impatience, and haughty resistance, and even arrogant defiance, towards God; and so angels stood here upon their personal responsibility, as well as men. But our at- tention is specially to man's trial and its reasonable- ness, leaving the devil's tempting interference to his own responsibility. It was not sinful in man to see the forbidden fruit to be good for food, nor to apprehend it as desirable to make one wise, nor yet to have the appetite stimu- lated by it ; nor any more was it yet holiness to have the conscience excited to the obligation of persistent integrity. Such awakened impulse of sense and claim of the spirit were alike necessary in the case, that there might be probation or discipline. This quicken- ing of appetite and of conscience in conflict was con- ditional for any trial, and wholly constitutional on the part of man. But at just this point opened the oc- casion for temptation. An influence from a malign source might here be intentionally exerted upon the complex agency of sense and spirit, stimulating the former and stupefying the latter, and thereby intensi- fying the discipline and augmenting the efficacy of the trial. It can be at once seen ; that the tempting 36 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. influence must be at the responsibility of the tempter ; the tempted is no further responsible than for the act of resisting or yielding. The pressure of the tempt- ing solicitation upon the sensibility brings no guilt to the tempted till the spirit yields its own consent. It only becomes an occasion for more firm endurance in " letting patience have its perfect work." The devil had already learned human nature suf- ficiently to calculate the hopeful result to him, in in- flaming appetite and stifling conscience ; and this process he most cunningly pursued, that thereby he might induce a perverse disposition, and fix the race in a fallen state at the opening experience of the first progenitors. .The woman was the more susceptible and the less suspicious, and he carefully directed his approach to her when alone ; and although now his spirit had disposed itself in malicious enmity to God and man, and was secretly and artfully plotting the ruin of the new race, yet from what has been before seen it is safe to assume, that here was his first overt act of rebellion against God, and determined injury to man. The first angelic sin was the deviPs tempt- ing, and the first human sin was the woman's listen- ing and consenting. On the devil's approach, he had already a rebellious and malicious purpose, but she was loyal and innocent. The tempter's first aim was to remove the pressure of obligation and acquiescence to authority, by suggesting some severity and over- strictness in the just announced prohibition of the fruit of a particular tree. This was skilfully done TEMPTATION AND FALL OP MAN. 37 with the least possible alarm to an innocent mind, awaking no suspicious apprehensions, yet effectually lodging the insinuation there of a somewhat rigorous exaction on the part of God. As if in surprise and doubt whether such a prohibition could have been made, he asks, " Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden " ? The answer of the woman clearly evinces that the poisonous insinuation had at once taken, and the designed course of thought and feeling had been already started, Yes, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the one conspicuous tree u in the midst of the garden " rs for- bidden ; " ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." We can hardly help connecting with these words an impatient look and querulous tone, which abundantly evinced a discontented spirit. The tempter could have had little hesitation in following up his purpose, by saying to such a ready temper, " Ye shall not surely die." The direct contradiction to God's declaration neither shocked the woman's sensitiveness, nor dispelled her easy delusion, but rather emboldened her rising presumption. How fully prepared had Eve now become for the devil's next suggestion ! There has been a selfish- ness on the part of God, that has made him unwill- ing you should attain the elevation and wisdom you might, lest you approach his position too nearly. " God doth know that in the day ye eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." In all this the devil at- 38 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. tained what he wanted in stifling conscience and blinding reason to authority, by awaking hard thoughts of God, a vain curiosity, and selfish am- bition; and then the fair fruit presented to her passionate desire, unchecked by spiritual control, prompted at once to sensual gratifications. " When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and did eat." The woman's sin made her at once the tempter of the man. Satan, through the serpent, had finished his temptation ; he retires, and the woman takes up his deceptive work. She so persuaded Adam that he also yielded. " She gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat." As in every sinful gratifica- tion since, so here in the first transgression, " Lust, or sensual appetite, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 1 3. THE SIN OF MAN WAS WHOLLY OF HIS OWN ORIGI- NATION. The devil was the first sinner, and his sin, in connection with the opening history of humanity, was at his sole responsibility. His defiance of God and malice towards man make his tempting act al- together another and darker sin than the forbidden gratification of sense by his victim. The curse upon the serpent race is to be taken as the index of God's 1 James i. 15. TEMPTATION AND FALL OP MAN. 39 direct retribution upon the devil as the responsible agent. His first sin was not man's sin, though in close connection with it. The malicious temptation was demoniac ; the yielding to sense-gratification was human ; and sin entered humanity in the latter only, not at all in the former. Other spirits with the devil, and through his instigation, followed in rebellion against God and malignity towards man; and the terrible conflict here began between man's tempter and man's Deliverer that is finally to issue in the destruction of the devil and his designs; but the fall of humanity was sense-gratification against con- scious obligation. The first human sin was woman's, incipiently in her listening and leaning to temptation, and fully con- summated in the outer act of eating the fruit which God and conscience prohibited. The sin of inducing Adam was Eve's, but that of assenting and eating was his, and in the deliberate transgressions of both the entire humanity was ruined. Conjunct humanity, created male and female, conjointly sinned and de- based itself in its primitive stock. The spirit sub- jected itself to the sense by its own act. Its trial was a necessity in the case itself, and required as a special formal arrangement by the best interest of man and the benevolence of God ; paternally super- vised and ordered by Jehovah, in a way that opened the best and freest occasion conceivable for confirma- tion in virtue, and yet eventuating in a sensual in- stead of a spiritual disposition. The essence of the 40 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. sin and fall of humanity was in this primitive dis- posing of itself upon the end of sense-gratification ; and this could not be from any other agency than the human itself. The devil did not, and could not do it, for humanity ; God did not originate it ; man only did or could make himself a sinner. The mystery of ori- ginal sin does not lie in the subject who committed it, but in the Creator who made the being capable of originating it. And this can find its solution only in the consideration that, to have beings capable of vir- tue, involves also capability of sinning ; and, as reason demands the former, it must, even in sadness for the issue, leave the door open to the latter. SECTION III. THE CHANGES INDUCED BY THE SIN OF MAN. SIN has entered humanity and debased it, and in connection with man sin has also first reached the world of higher spirits, and the ruin is both wide- spread and dreadful. How God deals with lost angels we do not here inquire, although as their sin was in connection with his, so there is full evidence that God's dealings with man were designed to throw their influence upon other worlds. God's moral -universe is one as truly as the material, and what occurs in one CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. .41 part is to have its bearing on others ; and to angelic spirits, confirmed in virtue or fallen, the field of hu- manity is doubtless more fully in their view, than the spheres in which they move are to us mortals. We therefore cannot learn from them, as they learn from God's way with us; but to us, gleams of revealed light disclose that good angels rejoice in man's recov- ery, and sinful angels are confounded at his redemp- tion. Principalities and powers in heavenly places read the manifold wisdom of God in what through long ages he is doing for his Church, and for the lost world in the extension of his mediatorial kingdom. The single world of human inhabitants is a spectacle for all intelligences. But while we leave other worlds to learn, as they may and do, from God's interpositions towards us, we turn with strong and saddened interest to con- template the changes which the introduction of man's sin has induced. The very knowledge of the fact carries wide changes with it. The conscious sinner is debased and ashamed in his own conviction ; and a disturbing blast spreads through the ranks of those yet steadfast. No moral personality stands as he be- fore did. That has come in which all know ought not to have been ; and conscious feelings and solicitudes arise which were never stirred before. A loathing and abhorring of the intruding abomination seizes upon all the good, who would fain repel the moral pollution from all approach to them. Anxiety arises as to what is to come of it, and how God will deal 42 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. with it; while the remorse and forebodings of the guilty are still more direful. God himself is so affect- ed by it that he cannot stand towards his creation as when no sin was in it. The change is universal and deplorable, and no good being can contemplate the sin and its consequences without rebuke and displeas- ure. We shall note these changes more in detail, having reference to the parties affected. 1. CHANGES ON THE PART OP THE FALLEN MAN AND WOMAN. 1. Tlie radical change is the domination of sense over spirit. The gratification of the forbidden appe- tite was not a passionate impulse, suddenly breaking out in vehement intensity, and surprising to a desul- tory assent while the radical disposition was itself unchanged, but it carried the assent of the spirit, and so the perversion of the disposition, along with it. It had been a deliberate rejection of a conscious spirit- ual claim and a purposed acceptance of sensual indul- gence as the chosen good, and such a disposing of the spirit fixed its voluntary state and settled into perma- nent personal character. This, is the comprehensive change in Adam and Eve ; they have become carnally- minded ; persistently inclined towards sense-indul- gence, and a renunciation of the self-respect and conscious peace which, spiritual ascendency perpetu- ates. The animal part of humanity tyrannizes over the rational, and the spirit consents to the servitude, while every fresh indulgence leaves the spirit poor and CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 43 empty, and so fleeing from one gratification to another in constant unrest, continually deluded, and necessa- rily never satisfied. And such a soul has already in it the baseness, malignity, and desperate hate and enmity infused by the depraved spirit. There needs only the check and stern rebuke of righteous author- ity, 'and the "earthly and sensual" soul will manifest in the fisndishness of its spirit that it is also " devil- ish." The entire selfhood is alien from God, and de- termined solely to self-serving and indulging. 2. Self-respect and divine trust has changed to shame and fear. The spirit knows its own baseness in con- senting to serve the flesh, and in this is essentially the blended shame and remorse of a guilty conscience. The spirit infuses its own bitterness into the sentient soul, and bites back in self-torment with every repeated in- dulgence. The new gratification stings with a new conviction of vileness. and awakens also the fore- boding fears of deserved retributions about to come. The intrinsic excellency and dignity of the spirit, standing in personal responsibility and integrity, Adam and Eve have both manifestly lost. They con- sent to give up personal prerogative and free self- possession and full responsibility for what they know to have been respectively their own acts, and which personal prerogative is above all price, and both admit that they have let another control them. " The woman whom thou gavest to be' with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat," says Adam ; and " the ser- pent beguiled me, and I did eat," says Eve ; and so 44 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. both plead the baseness of renouncing their own self- hood as an excuse for their sinful sensuality. In all that ennobles personal action and character they have confessedly changed, and they manifestly carry with them the consciousness of their degradation, and are their own witnesses to the world of their folly, guilt, and madness. For self-approbation and universal re- spect they have taken self-reproach, divine displeasure, and the contempt even of the devil, their deceiver, and they still anticipate worse yet to come. 3. They have fallen to a state of impotence and hope- lessness. The free perversion of their disposition determines this. The spiritual is supernatural, and should control the sense, which is nature. Where there is only sense, from the necessary connections of cause and effect, the strongest impulses to gratifi- cation must prevail ; but the endowment of man with the rational, which is spiritual, takes his agency out of the necessities of cause-and-effect connections, and capacitates to resist the impulses of appetite, and yield to the imperatives of reason and integrity of spirit. Brute-will has no freedom, and must follow the stronger appetite ; but human will is in liberty, and should, as it can, comply with the claim to self-respect and moral worthiness. In the case of our first par- ents, the will has already yielded, and the personal spirit has taken self-gratification as the end of life, and so has basely bowed to the flesh and become car- nal ; and the carnal mind, restrained and rebuked, be- comes malignant, implacable, and incorrigible. The CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S 8JJK OF4SHE K *+. .JJNIVEKSITY, perverse inclination or bent of the soulixpecpmes ~ and steadfastly fixed by the disposition given to it, and in its own way persists in plishment of its own purpose. The whole energy is intent in this one direction, and it has made itself im- patient to action in another direction, and therein it has become hopeless to any self-recovery. It chooses madness and folly, and will not seek, and so cannot / find, the paths of wisdom. The man has enslaved himeelf in his self-determined degradation to sense, 'and his self-restoration to his abdicated dominion over the flesh is most hopeless. His very liberty lapses in chosen impotence, 2. THERE WERE CHANGES TOWARDS MAN ON THE PART OF GOD. 1. There was manifested deep disapprobation. Till now there had been nothing to move divine displeas- ure ; but immediately upon the fall came God's ar- raignment and conviction of the guilty. Their own consciousness of the shameful change made them attempt to hide from his authoritative arrest, and forced to the acknowledgment of fear and naked- ness, which was itself a clear disclosure and confes- sion of sin, and was followed at once by stern, vindic- tive retribution. God is Absolute Reason, and his treatment of a sinner must be reasonable exactly. No passionate anger may be on one side, nor fond indul- gence on the other. The exposed shameful guilt of man was regarded by God with precisely deserved 46 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. abhorrence. There was admitted nothing of. pallia- tion in the apologies presented. The disobedience had been wholly inexcusable, and the sensuality was strictly condemned just in accordance with its exact demerit. The man and the woman had each the same disposition which would gratify appetite at the ex- pense of conscious disapprobation, and God revealed his equitable hatred of it. 2. There was paternal compassion. The change, just noticed, from precedent approbation to subse- quent disapprobation, had also this important modifi- cation, that it was the disapprobation of a friend ex- clusive of all enmity. God was still their Father, though they had lost the disposition of children; hence the deep disapprobation was mingled with deep paternal pity. They were the creatures of his power, and their being had its source in his creative will, and there was more and other than sovereignty offended ; there was fatherly goodness grieved ; and this last could only find an expression in ways of compassionate regard. The strict condemnation for violated authority had with it also the yearning of fatherly tenderness. There was no extenuation of man's guilt in the acquired carnal disposition, nor any allowance for it, as if it had been an unfortunate calamity merely, and. not determined apostasy ; but with all the known guilt and debasement, there was the pity which prompted to the interposition of all that might help the case, or open any measures of relief and deliverance. The very Reason, which in CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 47 its own end had made and tried humanity precisely as it behooved reason to do, and which was saddened by man's delinquency and apostasy, moved to com- miseration in even its intense disapprobation. 3. From this displeasure and compassion came the purpose of redemption. God was both offended Sovereign and compassionate Father, and the sin of man put this double relation of God to him in such conflict that both could not peacefully stand together. The former demanded justice, the latter asked mercy. Absolute Reason alone saw in its profoundest depths the one way to put them both in harmony. As Sove- reign he abhors and condemns, as Father he pities and would spare ; and he can stand to man in no posi- tion which can abolish this double relation. What Absolute Reason, must find, for his own tranquillity in view of man's apostasy, is some expedient to mark his sovereign abhorrence of sin. together with the full flow of fatherly compassion for the sinner ; and in the- disturbance which sin everywhere introduces, even within the bosom of Absolute Reason himself, we may well expect the plan of human Redemption to be a mystery too deep for the race to receive, until many of its generations pass through special processes of divine instruction. The indications in inspired Scripture are clear, that antecedently' to man's creation, in the eternal ages, a peculiar relationship was purposed between the Logos, as Son of God, and the humanity yet to be constituted; and that an unprecedented covenant 48 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. transaction, on the part of the Father and the Son, sealed to the Son complete satisfaction for a coming travail of spirit he was to undergo, in the possession of a seed that should arise, and in whose prosperity the pleasure of the Lord should be consummated. 1 But if our first parents could not yet apprehend the presence of a spiritual tempter, much less must it be possible for them to comprehend the coming and work of a Divine Redeemer. A promise was given them involving the certainty of some coming de- liverer, and that he should be found in some future " seed of the woman ; " but all further peculiarities of character and work were left to the progressive un- folding of prophecy and ritual foreshadowing, till the actual advent and work of the Redeemer should plain- ly disclose God's method of " peace on earth and good will towards men." It was intimated that continual enmity would exist between man's descendants and the serpent race, hereafter to be interpreted as mean- ing the devil's hostility to man and man's Redeemer, and that the injury on one side would be severe, and on the other side fatal. " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 2 It discloses God's attitude to man to be such as relieved from despair and opened future hope ; yet the promised redemption left abundant tokens of divine displeasure at man's sin, while faint- 'Isa. liii. 2 Gen. iii. 15. CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 49 ly opening the light of God's gracious coming inter- positions. 4. God's open communion with man changed, to be only through mediation. The opening a way of re- demption ^opened an occasion for a new probation. The first trial necessarily stood upon equity, giving an even-handed discipline in the cultivation of spirit- ual integrity and the control of sensual appetite. As this failed, eventuating in sensuality, and followed by a dispensation of grace resting upon a divine inter- position, so it behooved to open a further trial for humanity on this new and more favored footing. But here God may no longer permit man to approach him in open communion, and he stand to his fallen and sensuous creatures with unchanged tokens of his former satisfaction. As a sinner, God, with all his compassion, must disapprove and rebuke man for the carnal disposition he cherishes, and refuse an immedi- ate communion face to face in the light of his approv- ing smile. This was signified by his exclusion from the "tree of life," and the guard of flaming cheru- bim which barred all future approach to its fruit from every quarter. God's favor is life, and man, spiritual- ly dead in his carnal disposing, cannot appropriate that favor, nor taste its living peace and joy. He can come to it again only through the medium of the new dispensation of Grace, and standing before God in another's name, and not his own. His prayer and his thanksgiving, his whole worship of God and com- munion with him, must now be only through faith in 4 50 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OP HUMANITY. the promised mode of pardon and reconciliation. Hence so soon began offerings and sacrifices; and hence the clear interpretation of God's respect to Abel's sacrifice, and his rejection of Cain's. The former looked to God through a Mediator, the latter presumed upon the direct offering of his own gift. 5. God's dealings with man changed to blended se- verity and kindness. A determined and promised plan of redemption afforded an adequate ground for God to mitigate the original threatening, and confer much positive kindness, while putting man upon a new probation. There must be manifest severity in his dealings, to enforce the conviction of his displeas- ure against their depravity ; and this immediately began, by driving the first pair from the prepared Paradise which had been theirs in their innocence. The open world, in its uncultivated ruggedness, re- ceived them, and its thorns and thistles blasted and choked the vegetation they cultivated, and forced them with toil and sweat to eat their bread. The mind was to be burdened with care, and the body worn with labor ; weariness, pain, and sickness must supervene to their exposures and privations till at length their fleshly tabernacle should fall again to the dust from whence it had been taken. In all this severity there is not the retribution in strict justice of the original threatening of eternal death, and yet it is' a curse which even in a gracious administration makes " the creation groan and travail together in pain until now." CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN>S SIN. 51 But though God thus manifested his abhorence of their sin, there were many ways in which he proved himself placable and graciously inclined to help their wretchedness and restore them from their ruin. Their deepest suffering was yet so far a mitigation of their just penalty as to teach them clearly that by so much " mercy had already rejoiced against judg- ment/' and that in their very misery God was gra- cious still. Many good things were left for their enjoyment. Shut out of Paradise, but yet living in a world of many offered benefits ; the earth yielded its harvests, though only through toil, and the brute bowed his neck in service, though more stubbornly and impatiently than before the fall. The sun shone and the seasons cheered, and social life offered its gladness, and communion with God was permitted through a Mediator, though no longer face to face. Earth was a wilderness compared with Eden, yet such as man might make to " bud and blossom as the rose." All good was forfeited, and unmingled evil deserved, and yet direct acts of kind care and help from God awakened hope and joy. The one recorded interposition where " the Lord God made coats of skin and clothed them," 1 had much more in it than the conferring of present relief and comfort. It told them plainly of God's regard for their welfare, and spoke strongly in present consolation, and for future expectation of further bounty. And this was doubtless but one of many instances of paternal minis- 'Gen. iii. 21. 52 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. tration to the need of his fallen children He was in it dealing with them in kindness and pity, not in anger ; his own hand was helping them, and reveal- ing him to be their benefactor, and not an inexorable avenger. 3. CHANGES IN REGARD TO HUMANITY IN GENERAL. 1. After his fall Adam ceased to act as public head of his race. Had the first parents continued spirit- ually disposed, their descendants would have formed their disposition and fixed their character under the conditions which the parents of the race must have induced for them, and which could then have been more advantageous for holding sense subservient to the spirit than was even the arrangement made for Adam. The body would have been " put under and brought into subjection " by both man and woman ; God would have communed with them face to face ; all would have been tranquil and serene within and without ; and in such inner and outer conditions, it might strongly be expected that the successive gen- erations of the race would open their moral agency in 1 spiritual integrity, and grow more confirmed in virtue. But Adam's sin closed irrevocably all such opportune conditions. The ascendency of sense has put his spirit in bondage, and all such favorable prospective propagation of the race from him is blasted. The first parents now stand condemned and excuseless ; self- convicted of guilt, and subject to the penalty ; and if justice be allowed its course, final condemnation must CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 53 immediately ensue ; and thus at once would come the exclusion of any posterity by the infliction of eternal death upon the first sinners. All this is settled for Adam in Adam's first transgression. If God no\v, as he does, provide a way of redemption, and by this open the occasion for delay of punishment, and put Adam upon a new form of probation, and admit the incoming of a rising race of descendants, this cannot reinstate Adam in his former public headship, that he may act again for them as he necessarily must have done in his first trial. His fall has already shut up the bowers of Paradise, and precluded open commun- ion with heaven, and the harmony of fleshly appetite with spiritual rule ; and no subsequent act of his, under any form of governmental administration, can bring these advantages back for his posterity, that they may begin their moral agency and fix their dis- position and character under these favorable influences once offered for the race. What Adam may now do under the new administra- tion of Grace, can go only for himself. If there come repentance, and faith, and return to allegiance, and thus to communion again with God, this can be for himself alone, and only through the mediation of the new covenant. He and the individuals of his pos- terity must each hereafter stand upon the respon- sibilities of personal agency. His first trial, from the necessity of the case, was as public head of humanity ; and thus in itself representative and determinative of the forming conditions of character for all, settling 54 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OP HUMANITY. once and forever how his posterity must begin their spiritual agency, and under what conditions they must form their permanent disposition ; and now no other act of his can reverse the first trial, or begin any new trial for them. 2. Fallen humanity will perpetuate depravity through the race. Man's trial has been the most favorable for virtuous integrity possible, and the fact of his fall has left no other way open for a rising posterity but through a gracious provision of redemption, which puts man upon a new probation, where each person must be held liable for his own spiritual disposing. In all this there has been nothing arbitrary, but it is just what it should be to satisfy reason. To neither God nor man can any other way be so well, and yet in just this moral arrangement for the race, it will occur that, through human perversion of the best and most gracious provisions, depravity will be propa- gated through all generations. The first sinners, left to their own way, though with capacities and under obligation to reform and restore the spirit to its right- ful rule over sense, yet will never accomplish it. In their lapsed disposition is the will reluctating against the return to spirituality, and which per- petuates the depravity in them ; and such lapse of the spirit under the dominion of the flesh has given the sense an ascendency and advantage, and has so aggravated and intensified its habitual control, that the physical propagation of the sense in the descend- ants will carry its inordinate carnal influences along CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 55 with it. These will be of sufficient prevalent im- pulse in every descendant, on the first originating of moral agency, to induce the spirit to yield to the sense, and fix the assenting disposition on the ends of the fleshly gratification, to the rejection of spiritual (/ integrity. The first agency in moral personality will thus be as certainly perverse in the posterity, as the subsequent acts of the first sinner in the fallen ances- tor will continue carnally apostate. The moving im- pulses of the vitiated sensibility will be alike in the sinning progenitor and the new offspring, the state of the spirit alone being different. With the sinning parent, the flesh has its aggra- vated lusts, and moreover the spirit has already con- sented and bowed beneath its bondage, and the disposed will has nothing in it for reversing the depraved disposition; with the propagated descend- ant, the flesh has all the aggravated lusting impulses of the fallen parent, but the superinduced reason, as personal spirit, has not yet succumbed to the domina- tion of appetite, and become perverted spirit. This spiritual disposition the child must first set within itself ere it shall take the sinful character of the fallen parent ; and thus it is true of every descendant of fallen Adam, that it is his own disposing which fixes in him the carnal disposition of Adam, while his intensated sense impulses follow the law of social / liabilities in physical propagation. The appetites have the aggravations of the fallen parent, but the 56 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. rational spirit must consent to be in servitude to them, before the character can become sinfully apos- tate, as is that of the sinning parent. In this way it is true that every descendant of Adam has his own trial, and fixes his own disposition in his own consent to carnal servitude ; yet the neces- sary consequences of the trial and fall of the first sinner of the race make this free and responsible dis- posing a matter of certainty, that it will be a per- verse disposing. The aggravated appetites follow natural law in physical generation, and the spiritual disposing which might be, and ought to be, in sub- jecting sense with all its aggravated lusting, yet cer- tainly will be in basely yielding to sensual indulgence. A vitiated constitutional propensity to pilfer, known as kleptomania, sometimes manifests itself as with great difficulty restrained and subjected ; a child of a confirmed inebriate sometimes inherits the vitiated impulse known as oinornania, which makes a life of sobriety hardly attainable ; still in each case the pro- pensity can be restrained by a virtuous resolution ; so the vitiated sensibility diffused from Adam through humanity goes down to the children through the flesh, and not through the rational spirit, and in this case we learn both from revelation and experience, that all begotten of Adam, to a certainty, give the spirit over in bondage to this carnal lusting, if left of God to their own disposing. This sense-pravity is vitium, and not peccatum; but CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 57 as it originated ID the personal disposing of the spirit in bondage to* sense by our first parents, and the vitiation beginning in them is perpetuated through their posterity, and is now in human nature, not as created, but as perverted in the first transgression, it is truly originate vitmm ; while the original sinning act, from which the vitium sprang, is originate pecca- tum. When, in theology, we speak of original sin, we must distinguish between vitium and peccatum, and apply sinful desert to the forming disposition which in each descendant follows his originally vitiated sensibility. While, then, a natural ability for dis- posing the spirit to the firm suppression and control of the vitiated sense, is still with the spirit itself, and the obligation rests upon every descendant of Adam so to do, yet the pravity of sense following the first sin gives certainty, that what might be and should be done will yet not be done, in any case, by self-movement. All are naturally liable to the neces- sary consequences of the progenitor's vitiated sensu- ality, but each is responsible morally only for his w perversion of his own spirit. Here is no semi-pela- gianism, as if the connection of the first sin and all subsequent sin were cut half in twain ; nor any neces- sity for action in a pre-existing state to save personal freedom ; but a connection -of certainty in freedom, that as Adam vitiated sense, so all his posterity will deprave their disposition, and " go astray as soon as they be born. 58 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OP HUMANITY. 3. Redemption assumes this universal certainty of a sinning race. What the plan of Redemption is we shall further on better see ; but we can here know that all prospective dealing in mercy with the race is on the assured ground that all will need the gracious in- terposition. To God, at the first, this was certain so soon as Adam sinned, and that the recovery of none could be effected but by grace, and their allegiance confirmed anew but by a divine redemption. The first Promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, while the seed of the ser- pent should bruise the heel only of humanity, was applicable to all, and carried in it the divine testi- mony that the consequences of the fall went down to coming ages, parallel with that deliverance which was designed to reach all ages. And so, also, the curses upon man and woman, spoken originally to Adam and Eve, were yet inclusive of all their de- scendants, inasmuch as the certainty of their sinning would involve their certain desert as truly as in the case of the first transgressors. The posterity did not actually sin in Adam's sin, but they take naturally and necessarily Adam's vitiated sensibility, and un- der this comes the certain voluntary disposing of the spirit in subjection to the flesh. They have no personal responsibilities for his act, but as natural descendants they have all the liabilities to the nat- ural consequences of such act, and must of necessity dispose their spirit and fix their own character under the consequent conditions of Adam's act. The as- CHANGES INDUCED BY MAN'S SIN. 59 sumption of the certainty of their sinning is not that they are made sinners by any other, and only the fore-affirming of the fact, that through the aggrava- tions of the vitiated sense they will all make them- selves to be sinners. The vitium is natural, the pecoatum is moral and personal. 4. The first trial failing, a remedial system must stand on " better promises." Paternal kindness seeks deliverance for lost humanity, and changes the mode of administering discipline to the race, and this mode must have advantages over the former, and include stronger influences for virtue, in order to justify its introduction. Why even divine pity attempt anything further, if there is not ground for higher encouragement than in the failing administration ? God must uphold the integrity of his own char- acter, in having arranged a mode of trial which has failed, and must find weightier motives on the side of a spiritual disposing and control over sense, than the ' first arrangement offered ; in which case nothing will hinder his fatherly love in changing his dealings with man from the demands of equity to the solicitations of compassion. Inasmuch as we find the race perpetuated and mul- tiplying its generations over the earth, and as we find patience prolonged and grace sparing the con- victed and condemned, we are obliged to conclude that God has in some way vindicated his name and authority, and put intenser impulses at work to bring the spirit over the flesh, and therein finally 60 PRIMITIVE TRIAL OF HUMANITY. justifying himself to every conscience, in his won- derful, and wholly otherwise unprecedented, remedial measures for lost man's redemption. This remedial administration immediately supervened upon the first apostasy, and a history thence opens full of hope for man, and of interest and astonishment for other orders of spirits ; and which, in fact, must reveal the secret counsel and purpose of God in peopling our earth, and settling upon it a race of flesh and blood, and yet endowed with the prerogatives of rationality. We know, at the start, that this history must bring out God's vindication of wisdom and righteousness in his way of saving the lost ; and we shall not better comprehend how this can be, than by noting the long providential interpositions, which have taught the na- tions how God has put his hand into human history, for the redemption of the race from sensuality, to pure spiritual integrity and dignity. The degrada- tion of mankind is so deep, that long centuries of dis- cipline and instruction scarcely suffice to bring the race to know and choose the only method of recovery. We are to study the history as God's development of his own plan of salvation for man. SPECIAL PROVIDENCES CUBBING DEPRAVITY. 61 CHAPTER II. THE REDEEMER MUST PREPARE HUMANITY FOR HIS COMING INCARNATION, THE fall of man has left him in a state of degrada- tion and ruin, from which there is nothing in human- ity to effect deliverance. The carnal mind will never from itself return to its spiritual subjection, nor can the human spirit ever atone for its wilful sensuality. Another than man must come to men, and work out their deliverance, and the moving spring and efficient execution for this can nowhere be found, but in the abhorrence for sin and pity for the sinner which is in God himself. We have seen already the neces- sity for a threefold conscious voluntariness in Abso- lute Reason, that he may be known in Creation, and in governmental Administration ; and equally is tri- personality necessary to know God in Redemption. The original eternal plan is of the Father ; the man- ifesting this in human flesh is of the Son ; and the execution of it, in the human heart and the universal church, is of the Holy Ghost. The same Reason which creates also redeems, and the One Absolute Reason can be known in human redemption only in this distinctive being and working of threefold con- 62 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. sciousness and will. Essence, in pure simplicity, can be conceived neither as creative nor redemptive. The first promise to fallen man assured him that a Conqueror of his tempter should come, as in some way the seed of the woman ; but this promise in later scripture is shown as resting upon an earlier transac- tion in the counsels of the Godhead. The reference before made to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah shows that this Conqueror was to be a suffering Saviour, since " it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; " and that " he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied ; " and in these divine counsels, before all time, the pledge was given that this suffering Saviour was to "be a victorious Sovereign, having a spiritual seed to serve him. And in Psalms we have the announce- ment of this eternal pledge and counsel, " I will de- clare the decree ; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee." l It might have been anticipated, as in these revealed eternal counsels it is found to be, that the Logos as the second Person, or expressive manifester of the Father, would be the Eedeemer of lost humanity, and that antecedent to his coming into humanity, he would prepare the race for his utterly unexampled mission. In Creation there is declared the glory of God, but in Redemption the divine wisdom and majesty are even more profoundly glorious. The race must be first disciplined and trained before they can receive the great mystery of God manifest in the flesh. We 1 Psalm ii. 7. SPECIAL PROVIDENCE CUBBING DEPRAVITY. 63 need not, then, wonder at the intervening thousands of years between the promise and the coming ; but in all the long history before the Christian era, we shall find the Logos, Jehovah himself, working in and upon the nations to prepare them for his successful coming and teaching as their Redeemer. The same divine Personality which enters human flesh, enters beforehand into human history, and integrates him- self with the race, that he may bring them up to ap- prehend the meaning and the mercy of his incarna- tion. His human living and dying will be in vain, without his previous moulding and educating of the humanity he redeems. SECTION I. SPECIAL PROVIDENCES CUBBING IN THE STRONG TEN- DENCIES TO IMPIETY AND VIOLENCE. MAN, fallen under the control of sensuality, did not like to retain God in his knowledge, and the first tendencies of depraved humanity were towards ir- religion and open atheism. The excited appetites prompted passionately -to gratification, and in the selfishness of each, the weak were made the prey of the strong, and the quick result was the spread of violence and crime. " All flesh corrupted his way 64 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. upon the earth/' and the imagination, thought, and plan of the race became evil continually. The carnal mind was darkened, and the selfish heart was har- dened. The ordinances and institutions of Paradise tending to purity and piety were overborne and per- verted, and- what would have been his safeguard in virtue became the provocative to all licentiousness in his depravity. God had said to the first pair in their innocence, " Be fruitful and multiply, and re- plenish the earth; " designing the propagation of the race under the restraints of marriage, and the genial sympathies of the family, but which was early prosti- tuted to practices of polygamy, adultery, and pro- miscuous licentiousness. In the early vigor of the race and the unchecked indulgence of sexual passion, the earth was over-rapidly peopled by exorbitant births and prodigious longevity, so that communities and tribes, multiplying and enlarging faster than they could be socially disciplined and civilized, and seek- ing their territorial habitations at their own pleasure, interfered with and encroached upon each other, and at once opened in the savage practices of rapine, war, and enslavement of captives. The Sabbath had been instituted in the period of man's unsinning com- munion with God ; and immediately upon the fall the way of sacrificial worship had been instituted, resting' all access to God by the sinner upon the me- diation of the coming expiatory death of the Saviour ; but the growing masses of mankind carried their apos- tasy to utter rejection of all forms of religious devo- SPECIAL PROVIDENCE CUBBING DEPRAVITY. 65 tion. Abel offered his acceptable sacrifice " by faith " in coining atoning blood ; Seth and his posterity "called on the name of the Lord ; " and Enoch " walked with God/' and was translated; but the multitude dis- carded God, and wrought wickedness. The First-born among men slew the first Brother that was begotten, out of spite to God's regard for his expiatory offer- ing : and so onward, infidelity towards God and crime towards man increasingly abounded, till " it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth," so hopeless of all reformation had the corrupt race made themselves before him. Such general incorrigible impiety and vice der manded an interposing rebuke, as signally and wide- ly indicative of God's displeasure and determination to arrest and restrain it. The first ebullitions of de- praved sensuality were the most violent, and the cor- recting restraints were proportionally severe. Suc- cessive applications of discipline correct the growing generations, and curb the varied modes of outbreak- ing sensuality, till at length the ages come to such a measure of culture, that the Redeemer may enter into humanity, and penetrate, and purify it with a new spiritual life. His corrections are always equal and appropriate to the enormity of the offences. 1. THE WORLD OVERWHELMED BY THE FLOOD. As in the first trial, so in the first peopling of the earth, God put man in the most favoring circumstances for the ends in view, and left the issue to man's responsi- 5 66 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. bility. But one family only of all the tribes of the human race had maintained the knowledge and wor- ship of the true God, while the universal irreligion and profligacy of the rest of the world had made it manifest that fallen man would pervert those favor- ing circumstances, and that no discipline of ordinary providences would prepare humanity to profit by the introduction of the designed plan of redemption. Present wickedness, and the warning of coming gen- erations, demanded a terrible judgment. God thus forewarned the race that " the end of all flesh had come ; " and that he would " destroy them with the earth." One hundred and thirty years he delayed the desolating flood, while Noah preached righteous- ness to that generation, and prepared the Ark for the salvation of his family. But none heeded the warn- ing, nor repented of their sins, and God's patience found its limit. " The windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up ; " " and the flood came and took them all away ; " " and all flesh died that moved upon the earth." " And Noah only remained alive, arid they that were with him in the Ark." Noah and wife, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, were saved to begin a new peopling of the earth, under the more encouraging circumstances which the dreadful judgment had induced. In many respects, the second spread of human population upon the earth was more favorable than when immediately from the first fallen pair. The SPECIAL PROVIDENCE CURBING DEPRAVITY. 67 terrible example of human wickedness and God's deal- ing with it were before the eyes of men ; the mercy in the covenant that such destruction would not be repeated, and which the natural bow upon the rain- cloud was made to symbolize ; and the religious order and control prevalent in the godly families saved over from the old world ; and the manifestly greater care- fulness in fixing the dwelling-places of the growing tribes and nations for mutual safety and general ad- vantage and friendship, all tended to individual im- provement and public peace and harmony. In their separate journeyings arid colonizing, they still strove to keep up monuments of common interest, and bonds for persistent communion in towers and public edifices. 2. THE SHORTENING OF HUMAN LIFE IN ITS SUCCES- SIVE GENERATIONS. An average duration of human life before the flood, following Hebrew chronology, had been about nine hundred years. Noah lived six hundred years before the flood, and three hundred and fifty years after it. But immediately after the deluge the ages of men upon the earth were gradually short- ened to the time of Moses. We have the record of those in the direct line from Shem to Abraham, and these may be taken as fair examples of the longevity of other Shemitic families, as well as those descend- ing from Ham and Japheth. The life of Shem was continued to six hundred years, being one third shorter than the average antediluvian life. Arphaxad lived four hundred and thirty-eight years, and from 68 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. him to Nahor, the father of Terah, and grandfather of Abraham, were six generations, by which time we have for his life one hundred and forty -eight years. His son Terah lived longer, to two hundred and five years, but Abraham's life was one hundred and seven- ty-five years; and thence to Moses, we have his own life of one hundred and twenty years ; but in Psalm xc., referred to the time of Moses, the set time for the age of man is seventy years, and, in cases of more vigorous constitution, eighty years, at which point iu has since remained through human generations. Whatever may have been the proximate physiologi- cal tendency to diminished longevity, the great moral reason is to be seen in its influence on the govern- ment and discipline of the race. The long antedi- luvian ages were ministering occasions to the great wickedness of the old world. Sensuality had room to mature and execute its selfish schemes in the broadest manner, and the distance of anticipated death emboldened in indulgence and confirmed in habits of licentious excess and wanton iniquities. The death of the body, as the curse for the fall, was a merciful mitigation of the original penalty of eternal death for sin, and designed to hold the race under perpetual admonition of God's great displeasure against the transgression of the first pair, and a salu- tary restraint of controlling sensuality in coming ages. But this deferring the return of man to dust, through long centuries, had only eventuated in his fully setting his heart to do evil. The experience SPECIAL PROVIDENCE CURBING HUMANITY. 69 proved that a race of sinners, living a thousand years on the earth, could not be brought by any ordinary moral discipline to such a state of moral preparation that the promised Redeemer could come to them with any expectation of their acceptance of his salvation. But this cutting short of human life by nine tenths of its duration was a most powerful and largely success- ful means of bridling human lust and passion, and forcing a depraved race to feel their need of the coming of a gracious Deliverer. That the early post- diluvian generations might more rapidly repeople the desolated world, this contraction of the life of man was graduated through several centuries ; yet by the tenth and twelfth generations, the old nearly thou- sand years of human probation had been shortened to threescore years and ten. By thus heavily pressing the fact of mortality constantly upon human convic- tion, there has been a continual gracious influence in keeping up a seed to serve the Lord 3. GUARDING HUMAN LIFE FROM VIOLENCE BY CAP- ITAL PUNISHMENT. In connection with the permis- sion to man to eat animal flesh as food after the flood, was the caution to abstain from eating the blood. All flesh was delivered into the hand of man ; but as pre- ventive of all wanton cruelty, and a guard from sav- age ferocity, blood, as the representative of life, was marked with special sanctity. And then, more effec- tually to restrain the violence between man and man, which had been so prevalent before the flood, God 70 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. took occasion from this prohibiting the use of animal blood, to require capital punishment for the malicious shedding of human blood. " 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." 1 Governmental execution of capital punishment, properly adminis- tered., will not deprave public sentiment, but impress upon it salutary awe and veneration, while the with- holding of the punishment of death by civil process, in case of murder, tends to provoke the excited neigh- borhood to sudden vengeance by their own hands. The death-penalty should be most carefully and sol- emnly administered, but the forfeited life of the mur- derer should be taken lawfully, when outraged public sentiment is endangered to bloody vindication with- out law. If public sentiment may be so cultivated and elevated as to hold itself calm and orderly under milder forms of penal execution, capital punishment may then be abolished. But from the flood till now, humanity in no community has seemed to rise above the terrible necessity of legally exacting life for life. In view of the sad experience of the old world from incorrigible crime and violence, it cannot be soberly doubted that the introduction of capital pun- ishment by divine requisition was salutary and benev- olent. It did not exclude all malice prepense from issuing in murder, but it did check much maliciousness, and hold back from many murders. It could not 1 Gen. ix. 5, 6. SPECIAL PROVIDENCE CURBING HUMANITY. 71 again be said, in any generation of Noah's descend- ants guarded by this legal sanction, as it was true of the old world, that " the earth was filled with vio- lence." Combined civil authority restrained individ- ual malignity. 4. CONFOUNDING THEIR LANGUAGE. Under these restraining and remedial influences, the descendants of Noah, through his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, multiplied in the earth, and lived in harmony among themselves. The salutary dread from the remem- bered deluge, and traditionary accounts and long per- petuated traces of it, kept alive the recognition of God and reverence for his authority. The multiply- ing families kept much in company, though roving from place to place. This continued through two or three centuries, all of one speech and preserving kin- dred cordiality and friendship ; a great improvement in social life from that of the old world, but yet tend- ing to evils of another kind and in the opposite direc- tion. They chose to keep together, and thus would preclude many benefits from agriculture, enterprise, and separate national interests. It became necessary that there should be a special interposition for dif- fusing the population abroad into separate communi- ties. This took place in the time of Peleg, as it is noted that " in his days was the earth divided." Peleg was born ninety-seven years after the flood, and he lived two hundred and thirty-nine years ; so that at least within about three centuries from the 72 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. flood the families of man were again spreading wide abroad in the earth. The general history is thus given- by inspiration: They were journeying all to- gether " from the east/' and came to " a plain in the laud of Shinar." Here seemed a convenient place for their common abode, and they found abundant ma- terials for the brick and mortar with which to build a city. To make the city a more important monument of common renown, and hold the people from scatter- ing abroad, they built also a tower, whose top, in ex- aggerated speech, they meant " should reach unto heaven." Scattered tribes of common speech ere long make changes in the language, beyond the capability of mutual conversation ; but here the problem was, to get the people of common speech in separate commu- nities. They took determined means to hold them- selves together. Jehovah, in his power and wisdom, reversed the natural process, and made their speech unintelligible among themselves, and thus obliged them to separate into different clans, according to their capability of using a common dialect. So were they necessarily sundered, and the different portions of the earth inhabited, and the common city and tower in the plain of Shinar deserted of at least the most of their builders. This gave the name Babel confu- sion to the tower in subsequent generations. So all the varied descendants of Japheth, and Ham, and Shem, " every one of them after his tongue/' were divided in their countries and nations. Nimrod, " a mighty hunter from the Lord," had his kingdom from SPECJAL PEOVIDENCE CURBING Babel, and comprising many other built; Ashur built Nineveh on the towns ; and so Canaan, and Philistia, and the wide " isles of the Gentiles," were inhabited. All these nations were now in their forming state, and the elements of the coming great Assyrian empire were gathering; and when at length these and other independent kingdoms emerge into the light of history, they are found with settled laws and established institutions, recognizing civil rights 'and religious obligations. The atheism and savage vio- lence prevalent at the time of the flood were super- seded, and a more elevated and cultivated population had been secured by the special and providential interpositions of the Lord ; and yet their civilization was but little removed from barbarism, and their religion was superstitious and idolatrous. Polytheism generally prevailed, and among the tribes of Shem, who more conservatively retained the faith of mono- theism, even here, universally, so far as appears, the believers in one God were so far degenerated and paganized, that they joined in the general practices of idolatry. Even Terah, Abraham's father, and his contemporaries, " served other gods." l Some new method of discipline must cure this idolatry. 1 Josh. xxiv. 2. 74 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION.. SECTION II. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. HUMANITY had attained the age and condition when general providences and special interpositions of judgment and mercy applied to all, or occurrin'g promiscuously amid the varied families and nations of the earth, would not preserve the race from continued degeneracy in sensuality and false religion. If its sensuality tolerate any religion, it must be such as submits to be subservient to the flesh. The very gods it worships will have the passions and practices which itself delights to cherish. It will not recognize deity as a spirit, and worship him in spirit, but will have sensual media obscuring his pure spirituality, and ultimately tolerating the thought that God is such a one as itself. It is the age of idolatry, and in that point and period of its cultivation and experience, humanity will everywhere tend to nature-worship, hero-worship, or image-worship, and all connected cruel and debasing superstitions. The wise expedient divinely taken is, to concentrate special instruction and influence upon one nation, which shall secure their acknowledgment and worship of the true God, and set this peculiar people conspicu- CALL OF ABRAHAM. 75 ously among the nations as a missionary people for the world. But no one race or nation can at the time be found distinctively spiritual and godly enough to set forth as the teacher of the world ; and the neces- sary process is to begin with one Man, and lay ac- cumulating influences enough on him and his rising descendants to make and keep them a special people for the Lord. The end in view is the elevation of the race, and not partiality and favoritism for the chosen people ; and for the sake of the whole, that man must be taken which omniscience shall see shall secure the end best and surest for all. In making such selection God designated Abram, a son of Terah, the eighth in descent from Shem, the son of Noah. The native place of Terah was in Ur of the Chaldees ; but on removing from Chaldea to go into the land of Canaan, he journeyed so far as to the north-western border of Mesopotamia, and built a city for his followers, calling it Haran, after a son, who had died and been buried in Chaldea. This was his subsequent residence and burial-place, and the early home of Abram and country of his kinsmen. Here, when Abram was seventy-five years old, the Lord said to him, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I shall tell thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing ; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be 76 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. blessed." 1 Abram obeyed, and with his family and substance carried out his father's old intention of removing to Canaan ; and upon his arrival at Sychem, in the land of Canaan, the Lord again appeared to him, and promised to give the land in which he was to his seed. 2 After having journeyed in different directions in the land with his family and substance, and Lot, his brother's son, and built altars to God where he rested j and having also, on occasion of a famine, been down to Egypt, and returned again to Canaan with great wealth, and when Lot had sepa- rated from him to dwell in the plain of the Jordan ; Jehovah again promised him the land for his seed with greater particularity. ' Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward ; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." 3 The import of this Abrahamic promise needs to be carefully noted. It was in substance repeated to him, and subsequently to his son Isaac, and again to Jacob, and through following centuries was the basis of religious life and Christian expectation. The Old Testament church rested upon it, and the Mew Testa- ment church is in fulfilment of it. In one part, it was an enlarged repetition of the promise to Adam 1 Geu. xii. 1-3. * Gen. xii. 7. 3 Gen. xiii. 14-16. CALL OP ABRAHAM. 77 after his fall, and renewed to Noah through Shem after the flood, that some great deliverer from the curse of sin should come' in the seed of Eve. Here, to Abram, who had descended from Shem, it was par- ticularized that the deliverance should be from his seed, and for all the nations of the earth. And an- other part promised a national possession of Canaan, and an innumerable posterity. The last national part was preparatory and subsidiary to the univer- sal spiritual part. The national part was clear and full ; the spiritual part made the first promise at the fall more clear and full, but no one was yet able to see in it what the apostle Paul drew from it "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but, Unto thy seed, which is Christ." l Besides frequent repetitions of the promise, there were significant interpositions and institutions in connection with it, giving prominence to the importance with which God regarded it; once, by instituting a special sacrifice, and giving a remarkable signal of his presence ; 2 again, by changing his name Abram to Abraham ; 3 and then, again, by the ordinance of circumcision. 4 On this promise the hope of a lost world rested. 1. MEANS FOR SECURING ABRAHAM'S FAITH AND DE- VOTION TO GOD. As the ancestor of the chosen nation, Abraham must be made eminently a man of God. He had already been taken away from the 1 Gal. iii. 16. 2 Gen. xv. 9-17. 3 Gen. xvii. 5. 4 Gen. xvii. 9-14. 78 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. idolatries of Haran, and made to be a pilgrim and stranger in Canaan, and had thus been thrown upon the sole protection of God, who had intimately be- friended him ; and this pilgrimage life was perpetu- ated to the end of his days. The land was promised to his seed, but he had no possessions in it, save the purchased burial-place of the cave of Machpelah. He was greatly prospered in flocks, and herds, and nu- merous servants, but he constantly wandered from place to place. 1 And then there was the long defer- ring of children, apparently inducing the expectation that the heirship must come by adoption. 2 Then Ishmael is born, and 'Abraham would have God ac- cept him, for Sarah has been barren, and is now aged. Then Isaac is promised of Sarah, 3 and again the time of his birth is foretold, 4 and at the set time he is born, Abraham a hundred and Sarah ninety years old. And then, at the destruction of Sodom for the great wickedness of the people, God com- munes with Abraham, and hears his requests and conditions for sparing the place if at length ten righteous persons could be found in it ; and saves Lot from the overthrow ; and more signally tries his faith, by demanding the sacrifice of Isaac ; and fur- ther confirms it, by substituting a ram providentially supplied as the sacrificial victim. 5 The result of all God's discipline was, notwithstanding manifest faults in Abraham's life a steady-growing confidence in God 1 Acts vii. 5. 2 Gen. xv. 2-4. 3 Gen. xvii. 19. 4 Gen. xviii. 10. 6 Gen, xxii. 13. CALL OF ABRAHAM. 79 and fidelity in his service, to the attainment of that eminence in piety which made him worthy to be known as " the father of the faithful.' 7 2. INFLUENCES ON ABRAHAM'S DESCENDANTS IN THE LINE OF^ THE PROMISE. Patriarchal government had continued from Noah to Abraham, whereby the au- thority and influence of the ancestors largely moulded the character and conduct of the descendants. To secure the piety of Abraham was thus to secure a patriarchal blessing upon his posterity. God strong- ly depended on this to prepare the way of Covenant descent in holiness. He says, " For I know him, that he will command his household and his children after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." 1 Ac- cordingly, in addition to the pious nurture and edu- cation of Isaac, care was taken for his marriage con- nection in the family of Nahor, Abraham's brother, by which Rebekah more favorably came within the privileges and under the obligations of the Covenant than could have been anticipated from any of the daughters of the Canaanites. To pious patriarchal government was added such a providential arrange- ment as made the progress towards a nation gradual, and very slow in the early generations of the patri- -archs. The bearing of this upon the virtue of the ^/ national stock becomes strikingly apparent. 1 Gen. xviii. 19. 80 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Abraham had been called in .Covenant at seventy- five years of age, and remained for years childless ; and when Ishmael is born he is rejected from the promise, and Isaac is not born and taken into the Covenant till Abraham is one hundred years old. All this, we have seen, tried and ultimately strength- ened the faith of the first heir of the promise. And the like delay still continues. * Of the children of Isaac, Esau is rejected, and Jacob designated as the heir to the Covenant. For about one hundred years no multiplication is made of the Covenant descend- ants. Isaac singly perpetuates the line to Jacob, and Jacob stands alone till his children succeed, and from him all the posterity are reckoned. Why not push on this national arrangement more rapidly ? To human view it might seem needful to hasten, but here, as often, it is manifest that God does not make haste, and the reason appears in the connected events. The Ishmaelites and the various tribes descended from Abraham by Keturah all soon forget the God of their father, and become idolaters. Esau's posterity all de- generate, and become absorbed in the general pagan superstitions. The great design in the Abrahamic Covenant matures as fast as the depravity of human- ity in this age of the world will allow. By concen- trating special influences upon Abraham, he is made strong in righteousness ; by giving Isaac ease and peace, and kindly nurture all his life, he becomes a single link in the pious succession ; and by throwing Jacob into exile, and .making him pass through con- EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 81 slant trials, and endure hardness all his days, he is made an appropriate stock, in which the twelve tribes of Israel branch off, and begin their hasten- ing to the promised " great nation." And how cer- tain does it now appear, that the multiplication is as rapid as the race will bear ! How hardly does the expanded surface hold the strain of the inward de- pravity ! Iniquity comes in to the chosen people like a flood. Reuben commits incest with Bilhah, and Judah with Tamar ; Dinah gives herself up in forni- cation with Shechem, a Canaanitish prince ; Simeon and Levi treacherously slay all the Shechemites, and plunder their substance; and all the brethren join in hatred to Joseph, and conspire to sell him to the Ishmaelites, and deceive Jacob to believe that he had been slain by a wild beast. The chosen stock can- not endure further growth, but it must have further purging and pruning. SECTION III. EGYPT, AND THE GOING DOWN OF THE ISRAELITES INTO IT. BESIDE the dangers to the Covenant people from their own augmenting depravity, it is difficult to see how, without perpetual miraculous interpositions, they could be preserved to grow up to a nation among the 6 82 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Canaanites. God's purpose concerning them was publicly known, and both on their own account and as a warning and means of instruction to the Gentile nations, the great Abrahamic promise must be kept prominent and often referred to. This would neces- sarily subject them to the jealousy and exterminating hatred of the doomed nation. The spirit which sub- sequently instigated Herod to slay the male children of Bethlehem would be excited, and in order to de- feat the purpose would destroy the chosen people in their weakness. The way divine wisdom secured the result was to make a lodgment of the Hebrew family within the protection of the most powerful kingdom of the earth. Egypt was too strong to per- mit any or all the Canaanite nations to disturb Israel, and the interest of the Egyptians would secure the growing people from external or internal injury. From their long abode in Egypt it will be needful somewhat minutely to describe it. There are so many monuments of the earlier ages still existing in the land of Egypt, so much interest has been awakened by the at least quite extensive deciphering of their old hieroglyphical inscriptions, and such learned and careful explorations have been made with the modern facilities for tourists to visit the tombs and temples of the Nile, that there is now little difficulty, connected with ' the accounts of old geographers and historians, in attaining much satis- factory knowledge of this oldest and strongest em- pire of its day in our world, though still more of its EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 83 ancient history and internal experience has been irrecoverably lost from any modern research. 1. THE SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH OF EGYPT. Egypt is known in Scripture as " the land of Ham." It can- not be certainly, nor perhaps probably, said that Ham ever entered the Egyptian valley ; but his second son, Mizraim, with his descendants after their tongues, went there from the plain of Shinar, immediately after the confusion of language at Babel. In ancient historic notices Egypt is acknowledged as the land of Mizraim, which name Syncellus writes Mestraim, and which, as first king of Egypt, Herodotus, Manetho, and Diodorus write Menes. These old historians, and especially Herodotus, have generally increasing mod- ern credit, and are confirmed by general accordance in their representations with the Bible history. Herodotus says Menes built Memphis, after having reclaimed its site from the river by artificial embank- ments. The river is first known in history as Egyp- tus, and upon reaching it in their westward migra- tion through the isthmus on the east, Mizraim and his followers passed upwards to this more elevated part of the valley, and built here their first perma- nent dwellings. In a few years the best situations on each side of the river would naturally become thriv- ing towns, and soon some would be populous cities. Thus with On eastward and Memphis westward of the river, the former given in Grecian history as Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, and both retaining 84 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. monumental proofs of similar early antiquity. As the first patriarch gave name to the whole land, so the sub-patriarchs of the tribes which settled in different directions gave their names to their portions of the country. The region from Memphis upwards to a considerable distance was the land of Noph, from Naphtuhim; the lower part and the Delta was the land of Zoan, or Zanam. from Anamim; and the The- baid, or upper Egypt, was the land of Paphros, from Pathrusim. These were three sons of Mizraim ; 1 and another son, Casluhim, had Philistim, who settled the south-eastern shore of the Mediterranean, stopping on the way of the family-migration, or going up as a later colony from Egypt. Such sub-patriarchal divisions gave many separate chieftains, who became each the king of his tribe ; and thus came the early dynasties, with their several kings, which are found in later descriptions of the Egyptian government. Such consecutive dynasties, and the aggregate number and years of the particular kings, as these records present, can find no consis- tency in any acknowledged chronology; but if, as above, they were only partially successive to, and frequently concurrent with, each other, their dynastic history is readily explicable. The list of separate kings is given quite variously by different authors, such as Herodotus, Diodorus, Manetho, the Old Chron- icle, and Eratosthenes, partially conforming in some names, yet in no way can they be made entirely con- 1 Gen. x. 13, 14. EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 85 sistent together. They agree in Menes, which is Mizraim, as the first king, but are widely discordant in later reigns. Reference is most frequently had to the dynasties of Manetho, an Egyptian priest of Sebennytus, two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era, and near one hundred years after the last or thirtieth dynasty had run out in Neetanebes II., when followed the Persian conquest of Egypt by Ochus, known as Artaxerxes III. The dynasties of Manetho are numbered, and mostly give particular names, and the years they reigned ; but in the earlier instances many names are omitted, and not unfre- quently the dynasty has only the aggregate years of all, with no name specified. The deciphered hiero- glyphical names of Egyptian monarchs on the monu- ments are, however, so frequently like the names of the kings in Manetho's dynasties, that the monuments add credit to the historic record, and the two become somewhat mutually explanatory and confirmatory. Bunsen (Egypt's Place in History) puts with great positiveness the settlement and civilization of Egypt at a much earlier date than Menes. He as- sumes to rely on "Egyptian monuments, records, and traditions " for proof that the valley of the Nile was peopled as early as 10,000 B. C. ; and Lepsius before him had assigned an earlier period still ; and Renan has recently put the age of Egypt even yet further back ; all alleging the necessity of a longer time than the Hebrew chronology, or ordinary history, allows for so great national development as is evinced in the build- 86 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. ing of the pyramids and Egyptian monuments. From Noah to Abraham in Hebrew chronology is but about four hundred years ; but the Greek chronology of the Septuagint gives about thirteen hundred years. These chronologies must have been in accordance in the age of Christ, since the Saviour and evangelists quote from the Septuagint, and Luke's genealogy fol- lows the Septuagint peculiarities, in oJDen communi- cation with the Jews. One must since have been lengthened, or the other shortened; and much the most probable is it that the old Eabbis shortened the Hebrew chronology, that thereby they might dis- parage the claims of Christ as the Messiah. 1 This Septuagint chronology gives all needed time, if even the Hebrew is deemed insufficient. No period is reliable as assumed without monumental confirma- tion, and the oldest royal names yet found are the last of the third and the first two of the fourth dy- nasties. On the rocks in the Sinaitic peninsula are found the royal ovals of Sephuris, Soris, and Suphis, tallying, as above, with Manetho's dynasties. In the great pyramid, the oldest human structure in the world, a way has been forced through the solid ma- sonry, above the ceiling of the kings' chamber, into open interstices between the granite blocks that sus- tain the superincumbent pressure, and in this hidden recess there appear, on the rough faces of the lime- stone blocks, the quarry-marks of the workmen hasti- ly sketched in red pigment, and among them the name, > 1 See Seyffarth's Summary, passim. EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 87 in the royal oval, of Soofo, or Suphis ; thus seeming to fix the author and period as that of the second king of the fourth dynasty, and who must have been the same as Cheops, given by Herodotus. Wilkinson (Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians) puts the time of Suphis 2123 B. C. C. Piazzi Smyth (Life and Works at Great Pyramid) makes the design in build- ing it to have been a fixed standard of weights and measures, quite ingeniously if not profoundly; and by an astronomical calculation he fixes its date at 2170 B. C. No monumental inscriptions yet found date further back, and in Hebrew chronology this will give three hundred, or in Greek more than one thousand, years for Egypt's settlement before building the first pyra- mid. The ancestors of its builders participated in erecting the famous Tower of Babel, and all the cul- tivation of the old world had come across the flood, and no attained civilization of that age need ask for ; higher antiquity to have secured its cultivation. The hill of lime-rock, on which the pyramids of Mem- phis are built, was a place of royal and noble sepul- ture for successive generations, and the region is filled with tombs, elaborately cut in the solid stone, and opening into separate vaults and more spacious chambers. Perfectly preserved paintings freshly pre- sent these old Egyptians in all the varied scenes and employments of their times ; their dress, manners and customs, and national peculiarities. The great man of the tomb is represented of large size, his rod of power and punishment in hand, his scribe taking an 88 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. inventory of his possessions, his flocks and herds around him, and his -laborers under their task-masters at their varied employments. The Egyptian society had nothing of free communion and equal fellowship, but was everywhere the austere master and servile dependants ; and even the family group was the lord- ly patriarch and submissively obedient wife and children. The ' tomb of Shaffre, the name so com- pounded as to be expressive of the second Suphis, or son of Suphis, has recently been disclosed at the south-east direction from the second pyramid, of which he was the builder, and abundantly testifies to the power, population, and wealth to which the kingdom had then attained ; and the tombs of other great men of the time show that their occupants an- nounced themselves as the priests of Suphis, or of Shaffre. The ancient monuments and the improved engrav- ing in granite manifest that population and culture spread from Memphis up the river, settling and build- ing up the Faiouin on the west, and Benihassan on the east of the river; and the improvement is per- sistently manifest upwards, till it culminates in Thebes and Luxor; and then shows its inferiority, as beyond the centre of cultivated art, towards Syene and the cataracts. All here is less perfect and sooner decayed. When Abraham visited Egypt, Suphis and Shaffre had already reigned, and builded, and died, and the nation in its power and prestige was tend- ing upwards towards the Thebaid ; and this had be- EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 89 come a source of jealousy and dissension, that had ripened into revolt and rebellion before the coming of Joseph. In the twelfth dynast} 7 , a king, by Mane- tho named Sesostris, a Diospolite or Theban ruler, had carried his arms around the Mediterranean into Europe, and left his emblems inscribed on the rocks in the countries he conquered ; but in the subsequent dynasties till the eighteenth, there is continual change and consequent confusion, showing that the government was divided, and parts of the country had its different kings. Some are Diospolite, Xoite, or Zoan kings of the Delta ; Shepherd kings ; foreign Phenician kings ; and Hellenic shepherd kings ; mostly without names being given. The monuments give equal evidence of commotions and dissensions. Names have been violently obliterated, and in some of the tombs the paintings have been defaced and desecrated by hostile hands. The earliest catholic forms of the worship of Osiris may well be taken as designed to check this spread- ing alienation. It represented the collecting of the scattered members and limbs of the god into one place, and the union of his votaries in common wor- ship at his temple ; as if designed to unite all Egyp- tians in fellowship and devotion at the shrine of their common patriarch Mizraim. The varied forms of the myth of Osiris, as in some way presenting the dying and reviving of nature by the falling and overflowing of the Nile, were later inventions. But the well- meant efforts at religious reconciliation and national 90 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. union found their internal hostilities too strong to be so overcome. Different dynasties of kings reigned at the same time in different places, and were hostile to each other. Lower Egypt was peculiarly adapted to the feeding of flocks and herds, and the shepherds of Arabia, Canaan, and Phenicia removed, just as Abra- ham had done, their large flocks and herds to its rich pastures, and returned to their homes greatly en- riched and prospered. The employment of the shep- herd was then no peaceful Acadian life, but a per- petual strife with wild beasts and robbers, as in the experience of the young shepherd David. No men were so readily transferred to warriors and captains. They naturally made common cause with the Egyp- tian dissentients of their own region, and powerfully assisted them in their conflicts, and afterwards par- ticipated in the benefits of their victories. The kings of the lower and middle Egypt at first, and for a long time, triumphed over the old Diospolitans, and drove them into, and at one time, at least, beyond, the The- baid, and had authority over all Egypt. But at length the patriotism, prowess, and boldness of the old The- bans prevailed, and drove the hated shepherd-assisted armies back to Memphis, to On, to Xois, and finally out of Zoan and Egypt itself, and recovered the en- tire kingdom, under the complete sway of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty. It is not necessary to look abroad for an invading empire strong enough to come in and conquer Egypt. All the circumstances best comport with the belief, that all the kings of EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 91 Egypt were still native Egyptians, and helped by foreign emigrant shepherds and traders, and that the causes of dissension and revolt were internal con- flicting interests and superstitions, and not national foreign invasions. So long possession by a foreign nation must have left deeper traces of the exotic lan- guage and manners, if any such invasion had been. Wilkinson finds the name of Osirtassen I. on the broken columns of a temple at Karnak ; on two obe- lisks which belonged, to Heliopolis below, and the Faiourn above, Memphis ; and in the rock-chambers at Beni-hassen; showing that he had carried his arms and made captives among the Asiatic tribes. His name does not appear in any of the dynasties of Manetho, and is doubtless one of a dynasty of which he gives the aggregate years of the individual reigns, but not the kings' names. Wilkinson puts this Osirtas- sen at the year 1740 B. C., and deems him contemporary with the sale of Joseph to Potiphar, and begins from him what he considers authentic place and date in history. Because he had carried his arms beyond the Red Sea, Wilkinson deems that he could not have been in the times of the Shepherd dynasties ; but as on the obelisks, and at Karnak, he has the ensign of " the lord of the upper and lower country," and might thus have reigned when the Thebaid kings were driven towards Ethiopia, in such case nothing would prevent that he should have had collisions with Arabians, and even Assyrians. All best agrees with the supposition that he was in the zenith of the 92 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. sway of the Shepherd dynasties, if he was the king contemporary with Joseph. 2. THE GOVEENMENT OF EGYPT. Its beginning was patriarchal. No descendant wished to dispute the authority of Mizraim, who was ruler and priest in one. Naturally the civil and sacerdotal authority became united in one person, and as long as this first patriarch lived, he was a monarch ruling in the place t and with the sanction of God. Other sub-patriarchs stood to their particular tribes in a similar but sub- ordinate position ; and when the older patriarch died, the advantages of union kept the kindred clans voluntarily submissive to some venerable chieftain, whose rule was accepted as under the same divine sanction. Patriarchal government naturally merged in theocratic government. Old polytheistic nations were universally not monarchical only, but theocratic ; and besides that it came up from the patriarchal state in course, it had the great recommendation that it promoted royal majesty and popular loyalty. The human king had the credit of being the vicegerent of the tutelar god while he lived, and if his reign had been specially acceptable and venerable, it was easy to set him among the gods when he died. Where the government blended civil and religious authority, the priests were in consequence a power in the state, and though not direct participants in the sovereignty, as the accredited messengers of the gods they were the legitimate advisers of the sover- EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 93 eign, and must have special distinction and peculiar prerogatives. They must have their badges, and revenues, and spiritual functions, as a separate class in the community. The king communes with the gods directly through the priesthood. Herodotus so represents the position of the Egyptian priests. 1 " Those of Heliopolis were the most learned of any in all Egypt. The office was confined to men ; and while in other nations priests usually wear the hair long, in Egypt they cut it short, except on occasions of great mourning. They observe great cleanliness, bathe twice a day, and practise religious ceremonies with great exactness. They have one kind of dress of linen, and their shoes were of the byblus. They do not spend their own incomes, but live of the sacri- fices, a portion of which was assigned them ready dressed, and wine, but they may not eat of fish. Every deity has his priests and a chief priest, and at death a son succeeds." The royal hieroglyph was the sun, or the hawk and globe ; and the name for the sun was Phre, pro- nounced Phrah, which is the Hebrew spelling for Pharaoh, the common title of Egyptian monarchs. So, as sun-devoted, we have Poti-phar, Poti-pherah, Ho-phrah, &c., as human alliances with the patron deity. 3. THE RELIGION OF EGYPT. Very soon after the flood, as already noticed, polytheism became univer- 1 Euterpe, sec. 3, 35-37. 94 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. sal. Monotheism, as a faith and -worship, lingered in few cases, as that of Melchisedek, king of Salem, and among the descendants of Shem ; but at the call of Abraham idolatrous practices everywhere abound- ed. The Egyptian colony was superstitious and idolatrous from the first, and very early their peculiar religious cultus began its development. It may be deemed that the worship of the heavenly bodies, as the emblems of the true God, marked the first depart- ure from the monotheistic faith in the family of Noah, and consequential upon this, polytheism and v/ idolatry were sure. Herodotus supposes this to have been the first worship, as he deems society to have begun in paganism. " The original deities men adore are the sun, moon, earth, fire, &c." Clio, sec. 131. And Diodorus Siculus, lib. 1, says, "The ancients looking up to the heavens and universal nature, and wondering, received as the first eternal deities the sun and the moon." From what has been above noticed of the Egyptians, it has been evident that the sun was made their supreme deity. Their first king, Menes, the patriarch Mizraim, ruled in the place of this chief god, and was himself worshipped after his death, as Osiris, in the gathering of all relics of him that had been scattered, into one place, to unite all the people in one common superstition. With Osiris was connected the worship of Isis, the representative of the moon, as the former had been, through the king, the representative of the sun ; and here was involved what was peculiar to the Egyptian a EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 95 religion. Some marked characteristic of animal or plant rendered the object sacred, proper to be dedi- cated to the deity, and induced its mark or name to become the standing hieroglyphical sign of the god. So the bull, as Apis, representing the fertilizing pow- er of solar light and heat, was sacred to Osiris, as the heifer was to Isis. The Egyptian hawk, from his keen sight, represented the omniscience and wisdom of Thoth ; the crocodile was terrible and tongueless, representing the certain, though silent, retributions of the deity; and thus with the goat, cat, ibis, and lotus and papyrus plants. The cat, from the pecu- liar fire of its eye in the dark, was a proper represen- tation of the moon in the sun's absence, and so the cat was sacred to Isis. Particular animals of the kind were dedicated to the god, and henceforth the priest cherished and fed them as sacred. To kill such sa- cred animal was a capital offence, with no reprieve ; and when they died they were embalmed, and carried to their sacred depositories in their assigned cities; and myriads of sacred cats, crocodiles, ibises, &c., lie embalmed in their assigned cemeteries. These sacred animals, as dedicated to the god, were not always of the kind which might be sacrificed in its city, and as matter of fact, the sacrificial animals were of very limited variety. Herodotus 1 gives a minute account. The swine, though an unclean ani- mal to an Egyptian, was yet sacrificed to Isis at the time of full moon only. In the Thebaid ; goats, but 1 Euterpe, sec. 41 and onward. 96 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. not sheep, were sacrificed, except at an annual festival they kill a ram and cast its skin over the image of the god; but at Mendes they sacrificed sheep and ab- stained from goats. Bulls and young male calves were sacrificed to Isis ; but cows and young heifers were not reciprocated in sacrifice to Osiris. So scru- pulous were the Egyptians about the blood of the sacred heifer, that they never used a knife or cooking utensil of another people, lest these should have touched the blood or flesh of the sacred animal. No other fowl but geese were offered in sacrifice. He- rodotus l says expressly that swine, bulls, and male calves, and geese were all that were sacrificed, though from former statement he should have added goats at Thebes, and sheep at Mendes. The great sacrifice was that of the sacred bull to Isis. Isis was represented as a woman, with the horns of the new moon upon her head. The prepara- tion for the sacrifice was a careful examination of the animal by the designated priest. He must be wholly white, and a single black hair would tarnish his pu- rity. When found unblemished, the priest affixes the sacred signet to his horns, and he is led with great solemnity to the altar. A fire is kindled, libations of wine poured out, the goddess is invoked, and the vic- tim slain. The skin is then flayed, the head separated from the body, and imprecations heaped upon it to avert all divine anger from the worshippers, and then sold to a stranger or cast in the river. No Egyptian 1 Sec. 45. EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS 7 ABODE. 97 will feed from the head of any sacrificed bullock. The body is afterwards dismembered, carefully examined, and then burned with various ceremonies. Other sac- rifices had their own peculiarities. There were also prescribed forms of divination in the consulting of the sacred oracles ; and that of the great deity at Thebes was the parent of all subsequent Grecian and Roman oracles. Some peculiar doctrines were much more elaborat- ed in their teaching, and inculcated by national prac- tices and customs. Such were especially the immor- tality of the soul, and rewards and punishments after death. The doctrine of metempsychosis, or varied transmigrations of the soul, was one form of Egyptian belief; and out of it grew the practice of embalming and careful preservation of the body in its mummy- state, that at the long period of the soul's return it might find and again inhabit its old tenement. And so the representations in their tombs of the funeral procession over the river, the arraignment of the dead before Osiris, and his approving or disap- proving sentence on the former life, and the disposal of the body under the sanction of the divine appro- bation, gave rise to similar mystic forms in their secret orgies, and which were the source of the famed mys- teries in imitation at Eleusina, and. Thrace, and other Grecian cities, and which mystic rites were continued from Greece to the Romans. The practice .of em- balming was a religious rite, and more perfect in later than in earlier times, when they had found and applied 7 98 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. the most effectual bitumen to secure the most com- plete preservation of the mummy. The method need not be specified, as the mummy-pits are so abundantly open to modern inspection. The civil authority had its hand on all these religious rites, inasmuch as it lised religious fears and hopes where it could not apply civil pains and penalties. These may not have had their full development, as given by the Greek historians, in the time of Joseph ; yet the principle and form of the Egyptian state reg- ulations were early established, and the Hebrew peo- ple were now to be introduced into, and become famil- iar with, these Egyptian peculiarities. 4. THE GOING DOWN OF THE ISRAELITES INTO EGYPT. From the call of Abraham to the going into Egypt had been two hundred and fifteen years, during which period the progress of the chosen people towards a national existence had been most remarkably slow, having increased in all to only seventy individuals. Their continuance in Egypt was precisely for the same period of two hundred and fifteen years, but in this latter period the accumulation of Abraham's pos- terity had been as remarkably rapid, numbering one year after their exodus six hundred and three thou- sand five hundred, and fifty men above twenty years of age able to bear arms. 1 The tribe of Levi was ex- cepted in this enumeration, as pertaining to the sacer- dotal office, and not subject to military service. The 1 Num. i. 45, 46. EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 99 addition of those, together with the aged, the children, and the women, could have made the entire popula- tion scarcely less than two million souls. So effective had been the divine arrangement for their safety and prosperity during their national minority. Joseph, the oldest son of Rachel, and the favorite of Jacob, was already in Egypt, having, through the jealousy and hatred of his brethren, been sold by them 4 to Midianitish merchants, who had again sold him to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh's guard. Soon after, from the false charge of his licentious mistress, Joseph was imprisoned in Egypt ; but both under Poti- phar and in prison, the favor of God was with him, and all he did prospered. The spirit of prophecy imparted to him enabled him to interpret the dreams of two state prisoners with him according to subse- quent fact, and this opened the way for his introduc- tion to Pharaoh, and interpretation of two remarkable successive dreams, indicating seven years of great plenty in the land, to be followed by seven years of famine. He was in consequence at once set at the head of the national administration, allied in marriage to the priesthood, which was the highest order in the state, and managed all things during the years of plenty in provision for the succeeding years of famine. This famine reached the land of Canaan, and the fam- ily of Jacob became dependent upon the granaries of Egypt ; and after the affecting trial of his brethren for Benjamin's sake, Joseph made himself known to them, and by Pharaoh's invitation, the whole patriar- 100 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. chal family went to Egypt, and were settled, by order of the king, in Goshen, the most fertile province of the realm. Their early abode in Egypt was, on Joseph's ac- count, under great royal favor. If, as we have before noticed, this Pharaoh was the Osirtassen I. found on the earliest monuments, and also one of Manetho's Sixteenth Dynasty of Shepherd Kings, who now reigned over all Egypt, the circumstances connected with the chosen race in Egypt find a natural and ready explanation. When Jacob and the family first came to Egypt, Joseph certainly designed to ingra- tiate the king towards them, and he tells Pharaoh that they were shepherds, and yet it was then true that " every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp- tians." If the king was one of the old Theban mon- archs, or of any regular Egyptian dynasty, such a course would seem inexplicable, and directly calcu- lated to subvert Joseph's intention. But if he was of the Shepherd dynasty, as helped in power by for- eign immigrants, whose retainers were as many each, and as warlike, as the trained servants of Abraham, nothing could have been more in accordance with the promptness and tact of Joseph. The king puts the Hebrew strangers at once in the midst of Egypt's choicest pastures, and directs that the most skilful of them be set over the royal flocks and herds. During this dynasty, Israel would be fostered and prospered. Joseph might have been, probably, thirty years of age at this time, and he lived to one hundred and ten EGYPT AS THE HEBREWS' ABODE. 101 } T ears ; and at least so long the favor and fostering care of Pharaoh would be sure to his brethren and their posterity. In the mean time, Jacob had given the patriarchal and prophetic blessing to his children, died, been em- balmed, and carried to his own burying-place in Ca- naan | Joseph had quieted all fears of retaliation, and pledged his brethren that he would nourish and pro- tect their children after Jacob's death ; his own family had largely increased, and the third generation of his children had grown up about him ; and then on for a season after Joseph's death and all his brethren, the Hebrews remained still prosperous, so that emphati- cally it is said of them, " they were fruitful and in- creased abundantly, and multiplied and waxed exceed- ing mighty, and the land was filled with them." But such constant and long-continued favor had its dangers. It tended to luxurious effeminacy and de- generacy; to forget their covenant, and undervalue its promises ; to be satisfied with their state, and both unable and unwilling to meet the necessary hardships which must be passed through in taking possession of their promised inheritance. After this prosperity had lasted more than a century, God, in his provi- dence, greatly changed their condition. The old Theban princes and captains renewed their courage and conflict, and recovered their government of the nation. Their insurgent enemies were gradually ex- pelled, and the Hebrews, so much in favor with them, were sure to feel the jealousy and distrust of the 102 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. embittered conquerors. As they forced the kings of the shepherd dynasties from Thebes, and then from Memphis, and down into the Delta, and took the rule of upper and middle Egypt, and pressed upon their retreating and enfeebled enemies utterly to subdue them, we have the coming in of the eighteenth dynas- ty, and the " new king arose who knew not Joseph." l These old insurgents might again make fight, and such a multitude of foreign people were dangerous. 2 " So they set over them task-masters, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field ; " and when, notwithstanding this vigorous oppression, " the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew/' this new king commanded the midwives to save alive only the female births and make way with all the male children. While this edict was in force, Moses was born ; hid three months by his parents, and then exposed in a cradle of rushes on the brink of the river. The child was here found by the king's daugh- ter, adopted by her as her own, and brought up in the palace, and became " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." This prepared him so far for the post of captain and lawgiver to the chosen nation. The time had come, and God had made his oppressed people ready and willing to assume their independence, and go out to the conquest of their inheritance. 1 Ex. i. 8. 2 Ex. i. 10. EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 103 SECTION IV. THE EXODUS OF ISRAEL, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF A GOVERNMENT. MOSES was forty years at the Court of Egypt. He still maintained his loyalty to his national Covenant with Jehovah, and his patriotic attachment to his people. By taking part with his brethren, and hasti- ly slaying an Egyptian, an oppressor, he was forced to flee to Arabia, and became a shepherd in the land of Midiau, married a daughter of Jethro, and kept his flocks in the valleys of the mountainous region about Sinai, and has here the very different discipline for his future work through the next forty years, and which future work was to occupy the last forty years of Moses' life in its execution. In this wild region about Sinai, he sees a bush in a flame while the bush itself is not burned, and a voice from it proclaimed the presence of the God of his fathers, and gave to him a commission to lead his people from bondage to their free inheritance in Canaan. After a series of most desolating judgments upon Egypt, which evinced the power of Israel's God above all the gods of Egypt, the stubborn opposition of Pharaoh was subdued, and he assented to Israel's departure. All 104 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. being ready) the whole nation, old and young, left Egypt, and journeyed eastward to the western gulf at the northern extremity of the Eed Sea. Here was the miracle of the divided waters for Israel's passage, and their returning flood for the destruction of the pursuing Egyptians, thus spreading wide among the nations of the earth the knowledge of the true God, whose power and authority above all gods it was the special mission of the seed of Abraham to publish and establish. Moses led the people on into the opening wilderness ; God made the manna to fall about their encampments, and the stream to flow from the rock smitten by Moses' rod; and the attacking Midianites were overthrown, as the supported hands of Moses lift the rod all day towards heaven ; and at length, in a three months' march from their leaving Egypt, they came to the place where God, from the burning bush, had ordered Moses to put the shoes from his feet because the place where he stood was holy ground ; and here they pitched their tents, and prepared for a long encampment, at the foot of Mount Sinai. All disturbing enemies were overthrown, and all necessary sustenance was provided, and here the essential and difficult work of organizing the fugitive people, and establishing a stable constitution, and open- ing the administration of a national form of govern- ment, was to be accomplished. 1. THEIR CHARACTER A^D TENDENCIES FROM THEIR EDUCATION IN EGYPT. Their fathers had died in EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 105 Egypt, and they had all been born and nurtured there, and there will all their recollections and early associations turn the current of their thoughts and sympathies ; and thus the influence of their abode in Egypt must be expected to characterize the temper and habit of the Israelites for the present, and mani- T fest its tendencies for many ages. They had hence derived all their notions of social life, municipal and civil regulations, rights of property, and modes of agriculture, architecture, manufacture, and military training, and had been constantly under the influ'ence of Egyptian religious doctrines and practices. They had preserved their Hebrew peculiarities, and by liv- ing mainly together had retained the habits induced by their education from the patriarchs, and especially their distinction from all other peoples in their Cove- nant and promise from God to their fathers ; and many of them, under the discipline of their hard bondage, had doubtless imbibed the true spirit of their fathers' faith, and scrupulously conformed to their fathers' worship and piety ; yet in many ways, it is manifest that the mass of the Hebrews had largely conformed ,) in feeling and practice to Egyptian habits. Their heavy burdens had not weaned their attach- ments from their old homes, nor kept them from fall- ing in with the superstitions and idolatries of their oppressors. They desired more a relief from bond- age in Egypt than a final departure from Egypt. Moses had early thought it easy to arouse them to 106 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. their deliverance, 1 but a wider acquaintance with the spirit of his people had apparently made him hopeless of their ever waking up to independence and freedom, and he long resisted the taking upon himself God's commission to emancipate them. 2 At every rising difficulty and hardship, or special danger, in their way up from Egypt to Canaan, they murmur, are discouraged, and fill their minds with remem- brances of the good things left behind them, and long to return to their enjoyment. 3 Even here be- fore* Sinai, while God is giving them their law, and Moses is withdrawn a few days from them in com- munion with the Divine Lawgiver, witli the glory of Jehovah's presence bright before them, they make their golden calf, after the worship of the Egyptian sacred Bull, and cry, " These be thy gods, Israel." And onward into their future history, Egyptian su- perstitions and idolatrious observances easily and re- peatedly lead the people off from their Covenant ; so deeply had they become Egyptiani^ed in their early experience. With the inward tendencies of fallen humanity to idolatry, and the universal influence from the practice of all surrounding nations, in connection with this early imbuing of the Hebrew mind with the idola- trous system matured and all-controlling in the val- ley of the Nile, it is very manifest that the strongest 1 Ex. ii. 11-14. Confer Acts vii. 25. 2 Ex. iii. 11, iv. 1, v. 20-23, vi. 12. 8 Ex. xvi. 3, xvii. 3 ; Num. xi. 4-6, xiv. 3, 4. EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 107 guards and the most controlling and stringent regula- tions must be applied to Israel, or the very design of Abraham's Call, and the end of God's promise to bis seed, must be lost in their apostasy and general impiety. To this end must we look for the peculiari- ties of God's dealings with the chosen people ; and especially now, in their formal organization as an independent government and free state, should we anticipate the most comprehensive and profoundly wise adaptations and institutions, inspired by Jeho- vah, and embodied in the constitution and code of laws which, under the divine direction and through the medium of Moses, are here to be proposed to the nation, and adopted by them. The Israelites staid in this safe and convenient encampment nearly a year ; and in many respects, both to Israel and the human race, it is among the most important of any year of the world's history. More is done here to settle in human recognition the principles of God's gracious purposes of redemption, than in any other year will occur till the coming of the Messiah. 2. To THIS CONDITION A THEOCRACY WAS EMINENTLY ADAPTED AND ADOPTED BOTH BY GOD AND THE PEOPLE. The Egyptian government was a Theocracy, hav- ing the sun as the chief Deity, and worshipped as Ammun, Noph, Ra, Phrah, Osiris, &c., and from whom was assumed to come all civil and religious authority. He made the laws, and inspired the king and priest- hood to apprehend, interpret, arid apply his will, in all 108 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. legislation and administration of government. The civil power, on this principle, had the right to bind conscience and legislate on religion, for the king was the vicegerent of God, and ruled only under his di- rection and approbation. And not only in Egypt; the governments of all the early great nations of the earth were theocratic from principle and policy. The Patriarch of the family was the Ruler and Priest of the family and tribe, from the very constitution of the family by God. The descendants felt constrained to submit to the authority of the Patriarch as the ordi- nance of God, and to look to him as the constituted medium of addressing God in prayer and sacrifice ; and as the family enlarged to a tribe, and a nation of tribes, so the king of the nation stood as the Patri- archal Ruler and religious functionary for all the peo- ple of the realm. And the policy perpetuated the application of the principle. For no matter how wise and powerful the monarch, nor how large and vigilant his official police, there must still be many crimes he could not detect, and some wrong-doers so strong that he could not punish ; but nothing could be hidden from the gods, and none so powerful as to escape divine justice. The civil power in this way had at its use all the rewards and punishments of the future world. Such form of government was highly expedient for the chosen people in all respects. They had become accustomed to government in that light ; Moses had been instructed in all its principles and their Egyptian EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY^^v " Oll6& K application ; it was the common and alrfcsT Tiece'ssary expedient for all idolatrous nations to help the presence of some god as their pati both as against vicious subjects and hostile enemies, and thus example favored such government for Israel ; but still more appropriate was it for them, in the end of God's design, to bring them off from all idolatrous tendencies, and confirm their perpetual attachment to the one true Jehovah. By taking Jehovah as the national king and patron God, and thus establish- ing a true Theocracy, the whole government stood on right and solid principle, and secured the highest veneration and respect for the official authority, and the fullest protection and freedom for the subject. ^ \ ^ A Theocracy with a pagan god must be superstitious and delusive, and will surely become tyrannical and & oppressive. The monarch and the priest will use the presence and the power of the false god for their own ambitious and selfish ends, but the presence and power of the true God will control alike prince and people, priest and worshipper. In such a true applica- tion of a theocracy, church and state rightly go together, and the source for civil pains and penal- ties is also the source for righteous control over con- science, and the application of spiritual blessings and # divine judgments. Besides this, the true Jehovah had called Abraham, and chosen his seed to be a people through whom all nations of the earth should be blessed. The very end of their existence as an independent people was their salutary influence 110 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. upon humanity, and that through them truth and righteousness should be spread over all people. Who shall prepare them for their mission, and gov- ern and guide them in all their way, so legitimately and successfully as Jehovah himself, who has so benevolently raised them up and brought them to their present position? Neither they nor the world can be served so well as by God's direct govern- ment and legislation for them. 3. GOD'S INSTITUTION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF A TRUE THEOCRACY. The general principles of early governments were theocratic ; but inasmuch as the god was false, the government was unrighteous and always oppressive. Only one nation was ever in position for the righteous application of the theocratic principle, and only the government of the Hebrew Common- wealth was a righteous, legitimate theocracy. It is richer in instruction in all the principles of free, and firm, and salutary civil jurisprudence, and more worthy of deep study, than any other national government, ancient or modern. Besides its direct bearing on the preparation of humanity for the application of the promised redemption, even for purposes of civil sovereignty only, we can better dispense with all other lessons of history and philosophical treatises of law and polity, than to disregard or mistake the divine teaching in God's own government over this one prominent nation of antiquity, whose theocratic rule had its practical manifestation in the world for EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. Ill fifteen hundred years ; and the scattered people, still acknowledging its authority, live on under the chan- ging forms of other governments, amid the rise and fall of nations, even to the present age. A mere outline of the method of the divine institu- tion of the Hebrew Theocracy is here given. The Israelites were encamped upon the plain at the base of Sinai, and the manifestation of God's presence was in clouds and smoke on the mount, and God called Moses upward thither, and in communion with him he gives the preliminary conditions of all further proceeding, and requires him to go down to the people and make the divine proposition fairly understood, and get their free assent. "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall b.e a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine ; and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." 1 Moses obeyed, went down to the plain, made known to the people the distinct proposition through the elders ; and then all the ^people intelli- gently and freely respond, " All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.' 7 2 Moses then returned to Jeho- vah in the mount with their unanimous assent, and God accepted the full surrender, and bade Moses so to in- form the people, and prepare themselves, by special sanctification and cleansing, to receive the formal 1 Ex. xix. 4-6. a Ex. xix. 8. 112 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. ratification on the third day from that time ; " and it came to pass, on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet ex- ceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." " Moses speaks and God answers him by a voice." Thus in the audience of all the people God announces the ten commandments. In their terror, the people cried to Moses, " Speak thou with us, and we will hear ; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." God then gave to Moses in the mount the general regulations contained in chapters 21, 22, and 23; and he returned and rehearsed them to the people, and they again responded, " All the words which the Lord hath said will we do." After this verbal assent, Moses built an altar and made sacrifice, and formally wrote out the words of this general constitution now agreed upon, and read them again in full assembly ; and this third time the people unanimously assent : " All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient." Then Moses took the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled with it the Book and all the people," saying, . " Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." The ten commandments were afterwards written upon two stone tablets, as- fundamental and immutable moral obligations ; and these, with the Book of the Constitution now ratified, and the whole code of legislation afterwards divinely announced in ac- EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 113 cordance with the constitution, were at length put for permanent preservation in the Ark of the Cove- nant, 1 and these were every seven years, at the year of release, to be read to the great convocation ; and the last act of Moses' public official work was the calling attention anew, and assent of the nation, to these words of life and death for them. 2 So God himself has respect to the right of a peo- ple to choose their king and adopt their form of government, and by such consent lie becomes their civil Ruler as well as Patron Deity. It would have been another sin to have refused the divine proposal ; but having accepted and ratified the covenant, hence- forth all idolatry and participation in pagan supersti- tions became rebellion, and all open resistance to God's legislation was treason. Provision was at once made for the local abode and visible presence of their divine king within the nation. The Taber- nacle, in the wilderness and for the first years of their possession in Canaan, was God's national dwelling- place ; afterwards the costly temple by Solomon was substituted ; and here the Shechina, or cloud of the Lord's presence, perpetually abode. Here the peo- ple came for counsel, brought their offerings, and through the High Priest received the sovereign re- sponses. Here was his perpetual Table with the Shew-bread, the golden candlestick, and the con- stant smoke of incense ; and the entire tribe of Levi 1 Ex. xxv. 16. * Deut. xxxi. 15-20. 8 114 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. was assigned to be religious ministers and civil ser- vants of his household ; and a perpetual revenue was required in the tithes and offerings of first fruits and portions of the sacrifices. Among the most remarkable manifestations of his presence and authority was the stated application of special providences in rewards and punishments. It was openly assumed and declared, that God would so deal with them as with no other people, and direct- ly suit his providences to their conduct. No enemy should molest them in their faithful keeping of Sab- bath days and the sabbatical year ; the land was every seventh year neither to be sowed nor eared, and at the Jubilee, two years together was the land to be left fallow, and yet it was spontaneously to pro- duce all that should be needed ; and all needed good is theirs provided they maintain their loyalty and de- votion. But all evil is threatened if rebellious. So their law speaks ; so their prophets preach ; so their sacred Psalms teach them ; and even in some marked cases the retribution for parental disloyalty went down to the third and fourth generation. This lia- bility to retributions in the posterity of the sinner was a prerogative of God as their king, but with- holdeii expressly from the human magistrates. 1 A true Theocracy may so establish civil sanctions in this life, leaving each soul to bear his own iniquity for the future state, 2 for the true God can exactly discriminate and infallibly execute ; but no false god 1 Deut. xxiv. 16 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 3, 4. 2 Ezek. xviii. EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 115 can sustain such assumption, nor could Moses have afforded this legislation but as he was the Lawgiver ss in a true Theocracy. While Jehovah was thus their chosen king, and the legitimate civil sovereignty was vested in him, and all captains, judges, and kings, that afterwards ad- ministered the government of Israel, were vicege- rents of him, yet in the great transactions and changes of the administration, the people had an acknowledged and legitimate voice, and were rec- ognized as the source of supreme power in the state which they had now voluntarily committed to a theo- / cratic administration. 1 So far as left to human ad- ministration, the Hebrew Commonwealth was a Re- public. In many respects the different Tribes were independent, and sovereign in their own jurisdiction, and yet all the tribes for national purposes were one sovereignty, and no one tribe could be permitted to withdraw from the rest in separate nationality but as revolutionary and rebellious. While Egypt and all surrounding nations were Absolute Despotisms, as- suming divine right to rule, and maintaining their oppression by mythological delusions, the Hebrew theocracy kept prominent the liberty of the people,^ and recognized the rights of the citizen. They as- sent to the true God to be their king, and the true God can never administer an oppressive rule. " He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are 1 See Josh. ix. 18-21 ; 1 Sara. x. 24, xi. 14, 15. 116 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. slaves beside." u If the truth make you free, you shall be free indeed." God took a name distinguishing him from all other gods, in which name he was publicly to be known as their patron-deity ; and in this was another method of establishing a true theocracy. When God gave Moses his commission at the burning bush, he first announced himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in this as peculiarly the covenant God of the Israelites. Moses was despondent that the peo- ple could be roused by references to the patriarchal faith, and felt from his past experience that they had succumbed to Egyptian influences too far to be read- ily restored to Hebrew loyalty, unless through some further sign and pledge of God's distinctive appro- bation and protection. " Moses said unto God, Be- hold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto the-m, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say unto me, What is his name ? what shall I say unto them ? " The Egyptian patron-god is known by name as peculiarly Egypt's protector and ruler ; Israel will need a dis- tinct deity, and an appropriated appellation attaching the nation to him as distinguishingly theirs. God assented to the reasonableness of Moses' proposal, ,and took the occasion to give himself a new name as the special protector of the chosen people. " And God said unto Moses, I am that I AM " " say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." l 1 Ex. iii. 13, 14. EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 117 This name imports independent being, self-existence, and is expressed in the Hebrew language by JEHO- VAH, as the God who only has underived being, and from whom all existence comes ; and this is now first appropriated in connection with Israel's national deliverance. " And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah ; and I appeared unto Abra- ham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." l Of all the many names before applied to God, here comes first the appellation of the living God, distinguishing him especially from all national false gods, in whom is no life ; and thus as holding all being in himself. JEHOVAH is Israel's full and exhaustless source of all good. This name was to a Hebrew the most sacred possible, and by superstitious veneration became the ineffable name, which was not to be uttered by human lips. Now, all the responsibilities as well as immunities and privileges derived from a theocratic form of gov- ernment, and immediate national alliance with the deity, were fully known to Israel, and a common ac- knowledgment of the people of all neighboring king- doms. The people must obey, and worship, and everywhere acknowledge allegiance to their own patron-deity. Thus, as in Deuteronomy, 2 so in many other places, it is assumed that the nations Israel had conquered will each have their patron-god, and that Israel will be in danger of going after them as the 1 Ex. vi. 3. a Deut. xii. 29-32. 118 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. gods locally, as well as nationally, of the countries conquered ; and they are admonished not to have any regard to these old gods of the place, for Jehovah their God is Universal Lord, and all na- tions, all lands, all worlds are his. So the Amo- rites claimed the land Israel had taken from them, but Jephtha at once appealed to the common national right of appropriating the power of their own pa- tron-deity. " The Lord God of Israel hath dispos- sessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? Wilt thou not pos- sess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So, whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." 1 4. SPECIAL ORDINANCES SEPARATING ISRAEL FROM GENTILE IDOLATERS. The tendency to idolatry was so strong, and the influence of pagan example so universal and constant to turn the chosen people from their true God, that at the expense of all the benefits of national sympathy and communion be- tween different kingdoms, it was necessary to keep Israel separate, and institute ordinances and cere- monial practices which should prove a separating wall between Jew and Gentile. Incidental evils might occur, and national pride and presumption be fostered, in Israel by perverting these remedial measures against Gentile superstitions ; but the dan- 1 Judges xi. 23, 24. See also 1 Sam. xxvi. 19, 1 Kings xx. 23, and 2 Kings xvii. 24-33. EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 119 ger from public example was so imminent, that, for the -time, seclusion and non-intercourse were the only safe expedients. When Israel shall have been weaned from idolatry, and the world made ready, in the Mediator's coming, for universal brotherhood, then must such a separa ting-wall between distinctive peo- ples be broken down. Among such Ordinances was that relative to cere- monial uncleanness from the dead. The touching of a dead body, a bone, or any human relic, defiled the person, and excluded him from communion with the congregation for seven days. 1 The Egyptian doc- trine of the metempsychosis with its resulting prac- tice of embalming and preserving the dead was sacred, and thus in Egypt dead bodies and perpet- ual contact with them abounded ; and with such an ordinance among the Hebrews, nothing could more effectually separate the two communities. What was sacred to one was abominable profaneness to another. And then, the method of an Israelite's cleansing from uncleanness by touching the dead still very much more strengthened the partition-wall between the nations. The heifer was sacred to Isis, and to an Egyptian one who had shed the blood or eaten the flesh of a red heifer was an abomination. They would not use a knife or any cooking utensil of a foreigner, nor by any means eat with strangers, lest they should come in contact with that which had be- come desecrated by violating the sanctity of Isis. 1 See Lev. xxi. 2 and 11 ; Num. ix. 6-14, xix. 11-16. 120 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. But God instituted the very blood of the Egyptians' sacred red heifer to cleanse an Israelite from his defilement by the dead. A red heifer must be slain, the carcass burned, the ashes collected and mingled with water ; and this was preserved in readiness, and called "the water of separation/' by which the un- clean was to be sprinkled, and if he came abroad without such ceremonial cleansing, he was to be cut off from the congregation. 1 . A pidus Hebrew and an idolatrous Egyptian must hold each other in abom- ination, and such could not dwell together but by their conversion to a common faith and practice. So, also, the ordinance of dean and unclean meats. Nothing is unclean of itself, but for purposes of dis- cipline, God made to an Israelite certain animals ceremonially unclean ; and the law of unclean meats had manifestly one design of separating Israel from idolaters. With an Egyptian, swine, dogs, cats, mice, lizards and serpents, the crocodile, and among fowls, the hawk, owl, and bat were sacred; dedicated to their gods, and eaten for food. The Hebrew Law for clean and unclean animals 2 would necessarily separate them from the Egyptians, and in a similar way from the idolatrous nations of Canaan, when they should enter their inheritance. 3 Still further with the ordinance of marriage. An Israelite was forbidden from all intermarriage with the heathen nations ; 4 and the reason given is, " lest 1 Num. xix. 2 Lev. xi. ; Deut. xiv. 3 Lev. xx. 24-26. 4 Deut. vii. 3, 4 ; Josh, xxiii. 12, 13, EXODUS AND THE THEOCRACY. 121 they draw you away after their gods." The violation of this law always evinced the expediency of its en- actment by the deleterious consequences of its re- jection. 1 The Captivity in Babylon, an3 the strict and severe execution of this law of intermarriage by Ezra on their return, finally eradicated the Israelitish tendency to idols. 2 Then there was the distinct prohibition of several leading idolatrous superstitions. Spencer 3 says it was a custom with idolatrous nations of antiquity to stand over the sepulchres or bodies of the dead, and pluck out or shave off the hair of the head or the beard, letting it fall upon the corpse or into the tomb, as a devoted peace-offering to the departed spirit, or to evil demons. So the prohibition to Israel of " cut- ting the hair, marring the corners of the beard, and cutting and scarring the flesh for the dead, 7 ' 4 had a direct intent to exclude heathenish superstition. So, again, Spencer, 5 referring to the Mosaic prohibitions of sowing a vineyard with different seeds, ploughing with an ox and an ass together, wearing garments of mingled linen and woollen, and inducing different species of cattle to engender together, 6 says " idolaters designed to signify by these mixtures and conjunc- tures, that husbandmen and shepherds were under obligation to the favoring influences of the planets, because they thought that the plenty of wool on. the 1 Num. xxv. 1-9 ; 1 Kings xi. 4. 2 Ezra ix. and x. 9 Leg. Heb. B. II. chap. xii. 4 Lev. xix. 27, 28. * Leg. Heb. B. II. chap. xxi. Lev. xix. 19 ; Deut. xxii. 9-11. 122 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. animal, and of linen in the fields, were from the favor of the stars." And quoting from another aulhor in the same place, " All these mixtures are prohibited in detestation of idolatry, because the Egyptians, in veneration of the stars, made divers commixtures of seeds, and animals, and in their garments, thus rep- resenting different conjunctions of the planets." And to the same purport is the prohibition to seethe a kid in its mother's milk. 1 Bishop Patrick, com. in loco, says, " Rabbi Abarbinel affirms, the ancient idolaters were accustomed, when they gathered the fruits of the earth, to seethe a kid in his mother's milk, that the gods might be propititious to them." And Cud- worth, on the Lord's Supper, 2 quotes a Karaite Jew as saying, " It was a custom of the ancient heathen, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid and boil it in the dam's milk, and then, in a magi- cal way, to go about and besprinkle with it all their trees, fields, gardens, and orchards, thinking by this means they should make them fructify more abun- dantly the following year." Thus what might seem trifling, and even supersitious, legislation, is seen to have a serious and direct bearing against all super- stition, as then insnaringly abounding. To all the above may be finally added the solemn prohibition to " pass through the fire to Moloch." 3 Rabbi Maimonides, Mor. Nev. Part III. c. 37 : " This was one great artifice of idolatrous priests to work 1 Ex. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26; Deut. xiv. 21. 2 Chap. ii. 3 Lev. xviii. 21, xx. 1-5; Deut. xviii. 10. TEACHING UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. 123 upon the superstitious temper of weak men. They knew that they feared nothing more than the loss of their children, and thus the worshippers of fire taught, that if they did not make their sons and daughters pass through the fire, all their children would die." And Lowman l says, " Such purifications were well understood to be an act of consecration to Moloch, the son, or prince, of the heavenly host. Sub- sequently, they not only passed through the fire as devoted to the idol, but were literally burnt as an offering to the god." SECTION Y. SPECIAL TRUTHS OF REDEMPTION TAUGHT UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. / THE Theocracy was a form of civil government for the nation, and in the conditions of the Hebrew peo- ple was the form most expedient for their freedom and prosperity; but it looked much further than their national freedom and power, and was indeed itself wholly subservient to a higher spiritual design. It was best adapted to make and keep the people to be worshippers of the one true God, and to spread the knowledge and worship of Jehovah among other * 1 Rationale of Heb. Rit. p. 232. 124 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. nations; and still spiritual in a further sense than teaching the doctrine and service of one true God, even the doctrine of the promised redemption of hu- manity from the curse consequent upon the fall and depravity of the race. The Hebrew nation was to be free and powerful, and also worshippers of the one true God, for the further end that they might be taught, and then might teach others, the mystery of God's plan for recovering a fallen race again to holi- ness and heaven. Inasmuch as God is civil-Ruler not only, but also patron-Deity, we should anticipate that his legislation will include institutions directly bearing upon Israel's needed preparation for the Re- deemer's coming, and in their preparation as a chosen people thereby making the world ready for the com- ing of its promised deliverer. Their Egyptian experience had accustomed them to be taught spiritual doctrines by divinely appointed ceremonies, as well as civil duties by direct divine enactments. There were the common funeral cere- monies and sacrificial observances, to which all had access, and where were taught the exoteric or public doctrine of the gods ; and there were the higher mys- teries, to which statesmen, priests, and philosophers were initiated, and in which the esoteric or hidden and profoundly speculative teachings were presented ; and in each, appointed and arranged rites and signifi- cant representations were exhibited. And so we shall find in God's legislation for Israel sacrificial rites and ceremonial observances, required from all TEACHING UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. 125 the people as national institutions and ordinances, and which are directly calculated to subserve order and national liberty, and to exclude idolatry and promote true piety ; while they reach much further, and teach the truths yet little comprehended of God's wonder- ful plan of redemption. Both the lower and the higher ends are contained in the same required ob- servances, and the serious and thoughtful perform- ance, by one who sees only the lower design, will tend directly to bring him up to the apprehension and adoption of the higher. The divinely appointed forms are significant of real things, and foreshadow coming substances, and a devout, habitual observance opens the mind to expect, and prepares it to embrace, the reality at the time of its manifestation. It was a wise and effective system of national education, bringing the people gradually up from sensual appre- hension to spiritual discernment. The Mosaic Eitual. as an entire system, is thus a schoolmaster to bring the nation to the coming Messiah ; but we need now to allude only to some more prominent instances of its mode of teaching as specimens of the whole. 1. THE PASSOVER FEAST. The meaning designed as the most direct and obvious in the Passover was a memorial of God's gracious interposition in deliver- ing the Hebrews from their Egyptian bondage ; and as this was so signal and effective at the opening of their national independence, it was ever after held as one of the most prominent of Hebrew observances. 126 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. It was instituted by God at the time of the last judg- ment upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the slaying of their first-born, and which for the time subdued the stubbornness of Israel's oppressors. All the forms observed were minutely appropriate to such memo- rial. The sprinkling of the blood of the paschal-lamb ; eating the flesh with bitter herbs ; doing it in haste, and with loins girt, and shoes on, and staves in hand ; and the exclusion of all leaven, all commemorated their bitter bondage, the discriminating favor of the destroying angel, and their speedy remove from the land of their oppressors, as given in full in Exodus. 1 It was made a perpetual monition of the supremacy of Jehovah, their God, over all the gods of Egypt. Here was, however, but its lower application. The same ceremony was comprehensive of a higher -mean- ing. It was designed as truly for a type of human redemption as for a memorial of Hebrew deliverance. The Paschal Lamb foretokened "the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world," and the necessity that " Christ our Passover should be sacri- ficed for us," as intentionally by God, as it recalled the sparing of Israel's first-born when in Egyptian families " there was not a house wherein was not one dead." It was subsequently ordered in divine provi- dence, that Christ's crucifixion occurred at the day and hour in the year for the killing of the Passover victim according to the Hebrew Ritual. 2 And the 1 Ex. xii. and xiii. * See Matt, xxvii. 62 ; Luke xxii. 7-20 ; John xix. 14. TEACHING UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. 127 Lord's Supper then was made the memorial of Christ's death, instead of the Passover as typical of it. The hidden meaning of the Passover came more and more fully out, to the pious and thoughtful Israelite, till the nation and the world became ready for the re- demption sacrifice of the Lamb of God. 2. THE CEREMONY OF THE SCAPE-GOAT. This was included in the complex ceremony of the sin-offering, which involved both a sacrifice and a sign of remis- sion. A bullock was to be slain, and the blood sprinkled before the holy-place, and put upon the horns of the altar. Two young goats were then selected, one of which was slain, and the blood sprinkled like that of the bullock, while the other was let go alive into the wilderness, after the formal laying of the high priest's hands on the head, and con- fessing over it the sins of the people. Both the high priest and all connected in this transaction were made unclean by it, and the parts of the victims were carried without the camp and burned with fire ; sig- nifying the impurity of the sinner as abominable to God, and transferring his uncleanness to all commun- ing with him. To a common Israelite this lower na- tional defilement and its removal by ceremonial sub- stitution were all that he apprehended. But in God's design, in addition to this there was a deeper meaning. It typified the expiation of human guilt by the substitu- tion of Christ's atoning sacrifice, and led the thought- ful mind to look to more precious blood than that of 128 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. bulls and goats, which could only ceremonially, and not literally and eternally, take away sin. Hence Christ is termed a sin-offering, 1 and is said to have " suffered without the gate ; " 2 and his sacrifice is the " taking away " of the sins of the world. 3 3. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE, AND SERVICES CONNECTED WITH THEM. In their common and primary intent, their construction and use manifested the presence and power of Jeho- vah, their God and King, in the* midst of them, and confirming the national allegiance to him. The cere- monial services were national atonements, and legal purifications, propitiatory towards their tutelar-deity, and standing to them as a civil community in distinc- tion from ,the idolatrous temples and altars peculiar respectively to other organized communities about them. But a much higher end was to be attained, and a deeper meaning was put into the tabernacle and temple service. Hence the precision with which Moses was required to fashion every part, and to " see that he made all things according to the pattern shown in the mount." 4 An extended explanation of this is given by the author of the Hebrews, especial- ly in the fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth chapters. The temple is taken as a figure, a hieroglyphical repre- sentation of the coming Gospel Kingdom. The High Priest is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blood of the 1 2 Cor. v. 21. 2 Heb. xiii. 11, 12. 3 John i. 29. 4 Ex. xxv. 40. TEACHING UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. 129 sacrifices is for his atoning blood ; the holy of holies is heaven, into which this High Priest has entered, for- ever making intercession ; and the entire ritual stands as the shadow of realities that are coming. They could better be understood after Christ had come, and died, and risen again; but the very shadows taught the studious Israelite much, and made the nation and the world anticipate largely the truths of Christ's redemp- tion before he came and substantially fulfilled them. In addition, thus, to the promises more and more full from time to time, and the prophecies more and more clear from age to age, and the provision of scribes, and priests, and schools of the nation for transcribing, and reading, and expounding the divine law, there was a prepared system of symbols and ceremonies with a common meaning for all, and a deeper and more important meaning for those capable of spiritual dis- cernment. 4. THIS METHOD OF INSTRUCTION BY DOUBLE-MEAN- ING REQUIRES CAREFUL DISCRIMINATION. Many words are used with different meanings, and sometimes the same word has directly opposite meanings. The words life and death may have a large variety of significa- tions, and a careful attention to the connection can alone, in some cases, distinguish which is there the true meaning. The word let may mean to permit or to hinder ; and the word prevent, which primarily means a fore-going, may be applied in the opposite senses of going before to block up, or to open the 9 130 HUMANITY AWAITING EEDEMPTION. way. One may studiously use these ambiguous words with intent to perplex, and make his speech a riddle ; or with intent to deceive, and make his speech men- dacious. The first is trifling, the second is lying ; and by no such " paltering in a double sense " can direct instruction be given. The Mosaic ritual employs nothing of this form of double-meaning. There is, further, an assumed form of interpreting any scripture, by taking its plain, literal facts and incidents as of no account in themselves, and afford- ing no historic nor narrated instruction, but as a cor- responding spiritual meaning is made out from them. " A system of correspondencies " is invented, and all plain statement and historic narrative is void of all meaning, except as the suggested spiritual truth is attained. To a lively fancy, such spiritualizing of all plain speech may be very captivating, and taken also to be very pious, but no solid instruction can be so imparted or received, for nothing determines whether the writer and the interpreter have the same spiritual meaning in common. This can hardly be known as double-sense, for one sense only is of any importance, and the unimportant sense is too empty to be made a medium for any reliable spiritual communication. Not thus does God, in any part of his Word, allow us to presume that we have truly caught his intentional Q/ spiritual meaning. Certain acts may be so plainly representative of certain other events, that the former may intentionally be made use of to express and teach the latter. Such TEACHING UNDER A DOUBLE-SENSE. 131 methods of communication God not unfrequently em- ploys. By divine direction, Isaiah walks three years, naked and barefoot, to warn Egypt of the coming in- vasion and captivity of the Assyrians. 1 Jeremiah hides his girdle in a rock until it is marred, to teach that destruction is imminent for Judah. 2 Ezekiel por- trays the siege of a city upon a tile, sets up an iron pan as a wall of defence, &c., representing the coming' siege of Jerusalem. 3 And by representative acts, Christ taught humility and kindness by washing the disciples' feet. 4 And Agabus warned Paul of coming persecution by binding himself with Paul's girdle. 5 The act is made intelligently expressive of the intent, and so truly teaches the intended lesson ; and such teaching by signs is frequent, legitimate, and emphatic. It is, however, hardly double-sense ; for the represen- tation, though striking, has but one meaning, and the sign truly communicates that meaning only. There may be such use of language as inten- tionally to convey an obvious meaning to one class of minds, and at th same time have another meaning designed to be apprehended by another class, or by the first class in another stage of improvement. There are truly two meanings, one apprehended by some, and both apprehended by others, and God may use language designed for the communication of such form of double-meaning. So in relation to the trial and temptation of our first parents. The agency of 1 Isa. xx. 2-4. 2 Jer. xiii. 1-11. 3 Ezek. iv. 1-17. 4 John xiii. 4-19. 6 Acts xxi. 11. 132 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. the serpent was designed to be expressed, and this was at once apprehended ; but just as certainly was the agency of the devil meant to be included, though not apprehended till a later generation. 1 So also the rest in Canaan was one meaning of Psalm xcv. 11, but this included also the meaning of the rest of the Sab- bath and the rest of heaven. 2 Psalm Ixix. has primary reference to David, but it was so expressed as also to include the sufferings of Christ and the treachery of his enemies. 3 And especially predictions of future events are not seldom given in a double-meaning. Psalm Ixxii. applies directly to Solomon, but has its adequate fulfilment only in Christ ; and Joel, i. and IL, has intentionally the two meanings of an army of locusts and of the Assyrian army ; and the foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem 4 also includes the prediction of the end of the world and the final judg- ment. In a rhetorical figure, or the use of a parable, only one meaning is given ; but here two distinct meanings are contained, and designed, by some minds at some time, to be both distinctly understood. And this use of a double-sense is still more directly employed in teaching higher truths in connection with a lower and more familiar meaning, by what is prop- erly typical representation. A type differs from a sign in that it has two senses, and the sign but one intended meaning. The Passover, as a sign, meant 1 Gen. iii. Cf* John viii. 44 ; Heb. ii. 14, 15 ; 1 -John iii. 8 ; Rev. xii. 9. 2 Heb. iii. and iv. 3 Cf. John xix. 28, 29 ; Acts i. 20. 4 Matt. xxiv. THEOCRATIC SERVICE SPIRITUAL. 133 only Israel's deliverance, 1 but as a type, it included Christ's redemption ; 2 and this, in common with many other typical ceremonies, God extensively and suc- cessfully used in the instruction of his chosen people. One common meaning, studied and followed out in its leading direction, opened fairly into higher light and more important truth. Nothing was deceptive or de- lusive, much less false or contradictory ; both mean- ings were true, desirable to be apprehended ; but the last was best attained by coming to it through the study and practice of the first. 5. THE THEOCRATIC RITUAL DEMANDED A SPIRITUAL OBSERVANCE. We have not unfrequently, but very superficially, the derogatory assumption that the He- brew ritual was a mere system of sensible, formal observances, tending rather to superstition than spir- ituality, and cherishing self-righteousness rather than inward holiness. And the reproach is often extended to the whole Old Testament, as the sacred oracles of the Israelites, that they present God as severe, vin- dictive, an object of fear rather than of trust and love ; and the religion inculcated to be a gross and selfish servility towards God, and supercilious con- tempt and hate towards other nations. But with the world as it was., and humanity as it had developed itself in that age, and the idolatry and cruelty and sensuality everywhere abounding, and the necessity that the true Theocracy should take the chosen seed 1 Ex. xii. 14-27. 2 1 Cor. v. 7. 134 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. as it was in itself, and with its surrounding influences ; and the plain truth is, that the adaptation of the whole Hebrew government, in it3 civil enactments and reli- gious ordinances, to civilize and spiritualize the rising generations of Israel, is so direct and wise, and in its results so effective and successful, that it proves its superhuman origin, and has no lower source than the infinite wisdom, and power, and goodness of Jehovah. The grace of the gospel could not have been reached by the generations of man, and the plan of redemp- tion could not have found an age ready that its won- ders should have been wrought in it, except through just such an intervention as the call of Abraham, and the legislation of Moses, and the subsequent teaching of divine prophecy and providence secured. The Theocracy taught that God was one ; was a spirit that could not have any material likeness ; and that, though the heaven of heavens could not contain him, yet that, in very deed, he dwelt with men ; and though he did by no means clear the guilty, yet was he the " Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffer- ing, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, trans- gression, and sin." No formal obedience alone could be acceptable, and the very formality of the divinely instituted ritual demanded, and was designed to se- cure, a pure service of the heart. 1 No language can more fully or forcibly enjoin a hearty service, or show 1 See Ex. xxxiv. 7; Lev. xix. 1, 2: Deut. x. 12-19, xxx. 6; 1 Sam. xvi. 7; Ps. xv. 1-3, li. 1-17; Isa. i. 10-20, Ixvi. 2; Joel ii. 12, 13. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 135 the law more completely written on and filling the heart, than such expressions and the experiences re- corded by the Psalmist. 1 So with the civil and religious polity of Israel : the grand design was the establishment of a free and powerful nation; to cultivate them in the arts of peace, and inculcate pure morality and national piety ; and though necessarily, in their ignorance and dark- ness, appealing to sense, yet in such a way as most effectually to reach, elevate, and purify the spirit. While all the other peoples of the world continued in their idolatry and polytheistic superstitions, the Hebrew people, with frequent lapses and many apostasies, still preserved the faith and worship of the true God, and taught the nations to expect the advent of a Divine Prince and Saviour. SECTION VI. ADMINISTRATION OF THE THEOCRACY TO THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. THE encampment of Israel at Sinai continued about eleven months, during which period the law was given and the tabernacle made and furnished ac- cording to minutely specific directions; and hence- forth the established form of worship was maintained, 1 Ps. xix., IxiiL, Ixxxiv., cxix., &c. 136 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. sacrifices offered, and ceremonies observed according to the directions of the inspired Ritual. The Shechi- na, or bright appearance of God's presence and glory, was perpetually with the nation, and gave to them the direction of their future movements by peculiar indications when to move and where to encamp. 1 God was thus manifestly in the midst of them, and known by them as Jehovah, their national King and patron-Deity. It was, however, convenient and ex- pedient that a human ruler should be interposed between the divine king and people, and it was the prerogative of God to indicate his will in the deter- mination of whom it should be that they were to acknowledge as his vicegerent in the government. While the transactions at Sinai had been in progress, the will of God had been fully manifested that Moses was his lawgiver and constituted leader. 2 When, after- wards, Moses' authority was questioned and resisted, God vindicated it terribly and effectually. 3 1. THE THEOCRACY UNDER MOSES. Just thirteen months and twenty days from the exodus, 4 the Israel- ites, by the command of Moses from the Lord, took their departure from Sinai, and the cloud of the Lord was taken up from the tabernacle, and the tribes followed in their prescribed order, with their stan- dards, officers, and people, and the cloud next rested 1 Num. ix. 15-23. 2 Ex. xxiv. 9-18, xxxii. 33, 34, xxxiii. 8-11, xxxiv. 29-35. 3 Num. xii. 1-15, xvi. 1-35. 4 Num. x. 11. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 137 iii the wilderness of Paran. So, journeying from day to day direct towards Canaan, they came in a short time to the borders of their promised possession, and a man from each tribe constituted a commission to go through the land and return a true report. Within forty days they return, and report in great praise of the country ; but all except two, Joshua and Caleb, are terrified and utterly unmanned by the power of the people and the defence of their cities. " We be not able to go against this people." " We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." * With this report the timid Israelites were over- whelmed with despair, and evince how little they are prepared to conquer their promised inheritance, and take an independent place amid powerful nations. They murmur and clamorously rebel, and determine to make themselves "a captain and return to Egypt." The contradictory report of Joshua and Caleb, and the interposed persuasion of Aaron, and the authority of Moses, avail nothing ; they become furious and headstrong in their riotous purpose, and proceed to stone all opposed. 2 A more courageous and disci- plined generation must come up, or the great designs of their fathers' covenant and promise must fail. In the midst of their turbulent frenzy and obstinacy, the glory of the Lord in the tabernacle suddenly mani- fested the divine displeasure, and in terrible majesty Jehovah declares that he is about to destroy them 1 Num. xiii. 27-33. 2 Num. xiv. 1-10. 138 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. utterly and instantly. Moses interceded, and Jehovah spared, but announced that they should all turn back into the wilderness, and journey and die there in their wandering till another generation should be born and disciplined, worthy with Joshua and Caleb to go over Jordan and plant their divine institutions in the land. While this enunciation was being given, the ten cowardly spies died by a plague from the Lord, and the mutiny was hushed ; but the spirit of the people was no more loyal than before. In spite of warnings and prohibitions, they desperately presumed to go against the Canaanites, and ascended " to the hill-top," where the Amalekites and Canaanites discomfit and destroy them. 1 There is no alternative to the sur- vivors but to go back to the wilderness till " their carcasses fall there." u After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years ; " 2 so God threatened, and so God dealt by them, and effected the necessary training of a disciplined, hardy, coura- geous generation. In Numbers 3 is given the record of their wanderings and several encampments, and directly under Moses' leading and Jehovah's super- vision they gained the confirmed habit of orderly conduct and prompt obedience. By removals and restings of the glory of his presence, the Lord con- trolled their marches and encampments. 4 And by 1 Num. xiv. 10-45. 2 Num. xiv. 34. 3 Chap, xxxiii. 4 Num. ix. 15-23. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 139 precise arrangements and relative positions to each other and to the tabernacle, with their captains, Moses systematized all their movements with mili- tary exactness, 1 and thereby made them to become both good soldiers and good citizens. They learned subordination, precision, prompt execution ; and from long slavery there came out a race of hardy and trusty freemen. Aaron, Moses' brother and high priest, died at Mount Hor, and his son Eleazer was designated by God, and invested by Moses with the office of high priest; 2 and then, a short time after, when they made their second approach to Canaan, Moses ascended Mount Nebo by God's direction, and from the pinnacle of Pisgah looked westward over the Jordan, and saw the outspread hills and plains of Canaan, and died there alone with God in the mountain, " and the Lord buried him." 3 Besides particular transgressions of Aaron and Moses, by which they forfeited the favor of per- sonally entering the promised inheritance of Israel, there was a national result to be attained in their suc- cessive deaths and the transmission of their offices to other incumbents. It accustomed the people to the necessary succession of magistrates, and habituated them to expect and respect the appointments of God in the places of the dead. Had Moses and Aaron lived to go over Jordan, and added the veneration and affection which would ensue from conquering the land for them to all the influence of their counsel and 1 Num. x. 11-28. 2 Num. xx. 22-29. 3 Deut. xxxiv. 1-6. 140 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. command in the forty years' wanderings from the exo- dus, it would have been a more difficult matter to content the people with any successors of such emi- nent leaders ; but by the removing of their rulers at different times, and dividing the glory of the grand events and achievements from Egypt to the possession of Canaan, the people readily learned submission and obedience to such as Jehovah should appoint for them. 2. THE ADMINISTRATION OP THE THEOCRACY UNDER JOSHUA. All the generation which left Egypt were now dead, except Joshua and Caleb, the faithful com- missioners who had spied the land thirty-nine years before ; and thus, besides these two, all Israel's thou- sands were under sixty years of age, counting those then under twenty years who had not been numbered at Sinai. 1 Here, then, were a people in full vigor, hardy and independent, disciplined and taught by se- vere experiences to trust and obey their officers, and acknowledge Jehovah as their King and Lord. Joshua had already, by God, been invested with the office of chief captain in Moses' stead, and been specially com- missioned to make full conquest of the land of Canaan, and promised the constant presence and counsel of Jehovah. 2 Within three days he roused the people to prepare for the expedition ; made Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, whose possessions had already been assigned them east of the Jordan, to join in the war of conquest ; and sending two men to spy 1 Num. xiv. 29. 2 Josh. i. 1-9. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 141 the land, he marched, and made his military encamp- ment on the east bank of the Jordan. Here again were three days' solemn preparation, and receiving divine directions for following the sacred ark, borne by the priests, in the miraculous passage of the river. Here began the series of divinely assisted successes, which much further disciplined and matured the chosen people for their great mission, in teaching to the idolatrous nations the power and supremacy of the one true God. After the crossing of the Jordan there occurred the destruction of Jericho, whose walls fell to the ground with" no human instrumentality, save the shout of the army and the blowing of the priests' trumpets; and then the manifestation of an omniscient watch which detected the sin of Achan, and the severe punish- ment which warned against all future appropriating of the accursed wealth of Canaan to private posses- sion. 1 After which followed the perpetual victory of the army, in overcoming one Canaanitish city and people after another, for about seven years of unin- terrupted conflict, conquest, and complete extirpation of the native population. The whole land was so brought into possession, that what of its inhabitants were not utterly exterminated, as had been required, were at least so subdued or terrified that they yield- ed unquestioning service and submission to their re- sistless invaders. And here occurs the serious question of the moral 1 Josh. vii. 142 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. right of Israel to invade and exterminate the Canaan- ites. To put it directly, as infidelity affirms it to have been, Was it not cruel, inhuman, and horribly wicked for this foreign people to come and slay old and young, and take permanent possession ? If we look to noth- ing higher than humanity in those transactions, they could not be justified ; they must be most sternly re- buked and condemned. No man, and no numbers of men, have the right so to invade and destroy their fellows. But this is not the light in which to put and judge these proceedings. It was not Joshua's com- mand, and the people's ready execution, that stood ultimately responsible. Jehovah was their King and their God, and he commanded that " their eye should not pity, nor their hand spare." : And their God was also the God of all flesh, and thus the real question is, May God command one people to exterminate an- other, and may that people righteously execute such command ? We do not look the truth directly in the face, till we question God's right to do what he will with his own. And here we may say, on both sides, reverently and unhesitatingly, that the right of God is not in his mere arbitrary will, nor in this that all flesh is his by creation and power ; but it is in this, that God is Absolute Reason, and that he should fix his purpose and execute his will universally in the end of reason. We, who, as human, can only have a finite endowment of reason, may not always, now or ever, be competent to judge the Absolute in all cases ; and yet, so far as 1 Deut. vii. 16. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 143 divine purposes and acts come within the sphere of human comprehension, we may judge the Tightness of such purposes and acts. God himself permits it, and appeals to such reason within the sphere of its finite compass. 1 The following considerations sustain the divine equity and benevolence in the transaction. God is the moral governor of all people, and he has in nature given sufficient light to read and know his being and authority. 2 The nations of Canaan were notoriously wicked, and had been long spared by God, and were now ripe for judgment; 3 and he might have wholly exterminat- ed them righteously by some providential judgment. He commissioned Israel to be his authorized execu- tioners, 4 and made this work a discipline for them and for their warning. 5 It showed to them and the nations God's abhorrence of idolatry. In this is enough to silence all questioning. Joshua lived to make the conquest of Canaan, and settle the tribes in it according to their assigned por- tions, and faithfully and successfully administered the government for several years afterwards, while the people were at peace, cultivating the soil and building up the ruined cities. The tabernacle had been set up at Shechem, and there, when he had lived one hun- dred and ten years, Joshua summoned a full convocation of the people, and recounted before them the wonders 1 Isa. i. 18, v. 3, 4 ; Ezek. xviii. 25-29. 2 Rom. i. 19, 20, ii. 14, 15. 3 Gen. xv. 16. 4 Num. xxxiii. 60-56. 6 Deut. vii. 144 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. of God to their fathers and to them, and gave them his solemn charge to be faithful to God and their national covenant, and then died, committing them to the care and protection of Jehovah. 1 3. THE ADMINISTRATION UNDER THE JUDGES. For some time after Joshua's death, and while the. elders who survived him remained, the people were peace- ful, industrious, and obedient to the law, without any appointed head of the nation. 2 The prudence of Moses in their wanderings, and the prowess of Joshua in their wars, had made these chief captains necessary in their times ; but the day for almost exclusive mili- tary training was past, and a more popular civil method of governing might be. admitted. Instead of a single ruler, God designated the tribe of Judah to have the pre-eminence in counsel and leading meas- ures ; 3 and under the precedence of this tribe there were various successful expeditions against the uneasy remnants of some of the Canaanites, while some still held themselves in their strong places, notwithstand- ing all efforts made to dislodge them. 4 Under the influence of these remaining idolaters, and the Hebrew tendency to relapse into supersti- tion, the people, after the first generations passed away, began to forsake God and serve Balaam and Ashtaroth ; 5 a,nd God, according to his previous an- nouncement to make his special providences conform 1 Josh, xxiii., xxiv. 2 Josh. xxiv. 31. 3 Judges i. 1-20. 4 Judges i. 22-36. * Judges ii. 13. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 145 to their national fidelity or rejection of him, began to give their enemies power over them, and to oppress them with severe exactions. 1 Then came the admin- istration of Judges, whom the Lord raised up for their deliverance. 2 These judges were a different order of magistracy from the chief ruler or captain, as in the case of Moses and Joshua, who had been permanent in their office through all changes. The judges were raised up for a special emergency, and on critical occasions. They were for the time in full authority as Jehovah's vicegerents, and held both judicial and executive power, declared war, headed the army, made peace, and often maintained their rule after the exigency which had called them out had passed by. But they exacted no annual revenue, kept no royal courts, had no badge of official dignity, and designated no successors. 3 Sometimes they judged all Israel ; but in other cases their jurisdiction was partial, and in some cases two were contempo- rary. They grew at the last, under Eli and Samuel, to be more permanent, powerful, and dictatorial. In one case, Deborah, a woman, in connection with Barak, judged Israel forty years. Their appointment began with Othniel, on occasion of eight years' oppression of Chusan-rishathaim, of Mesopotamia, and in all, to Samuel, were fourteen in number, and the sum of their periods of office was four hundred and ninety years. There may have been intervals, and perhaps overlap- pings, and the exact time from Joshua's death to 1 Judges ii. 14, 15. 2 Judges ii. 16-19. 3 Judges ii. 16-23. 10 146 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Samuel's anointing Saul as king cannot well be de- termined, but will not have been far from five hun- dred years. Very special interpositions of Jehovah by some of the judges, particularly Deborah, Gideon, Jephtha, Samson, and Samuel, made conspicuous his power and protection of his people, and his rebuke for their backslidings ; and the taking of the Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines under Eli not only rebuked Israel, but confounded the idols of the hea- then in their own temples. So God kept his people together before the nations till the days of Samuel. 4. THE THEOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION UNDER KINGS. In the old age of Samuel, he made his sons asso- ciates with him in the judge's office ; but they became unjust and mercenary, "accepted bribes and per- verted judgment." It was also a critical time with the nation, which was then dangerously beset with powerful enemies. The people were dissatisfied and alarmed, and the elders in concert repaired to Samuel at Ramah, and asked directly for a king to rule them, after the manner of other nations. 1 This request for a king displeased Samuel ; but on inquiry of the Lord, the divine answer affirmed the request to be unright- eous, and yet directed Samuel to a compliance with their wish. Samuel prophetically announced to them the consequences of their choice, and the exactions and oppressions their kings would make upon, the people, and the burdens the nation must bear to sup- 1 1 Sam. yiii. 1-5. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 147 port the royal state and dignity ; but the elders, never- theless, were persistent in their purpose, and by God's direction Samuel complied with their request, though holding it unreasonable, and sent them away with the understanding a king would be found and inaugu- rated. Saul, a son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was hunting the strayed asses of his father ; and becoming wearied and discouraged by a long search, he said to his servant that he would go to the city of Samuel and take counsel of the man of God. At the entrance of the city Samuel met them, and having been already directed by God, he privately there anointed Saul king over Israel. Soon after, a solemn convocation of the people at Mizpeh was made, and the lot was cast by the prophet, to determine before all the peo- ple who their king should be, first by tribes, then by families, and then man by man. First the lot fell to the tribe of Benjamin, then to the family of Matri ; and ultimately among the individuals of the family, the lot fell to the very man whom Samuel had already prophetically and privately anointed. When found and presented, his great stature and comely form and features struck at once the popular favor, and by ac- clamation they acknowledge him their king. He was soon publicly inaugurated at Gilgal, and divinely in- vested with the regal authority. Israel's sin in seeking a king was rather in the manner and motive than in the fact. Moses had in his day anticipated such a result, and had given such 148 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. directioDS as permitted, and even encouraged, the nation to have a king. 1 Their motive in asking a king, though occasioned by the age of Samuel and the immorality of his sons, was the gratification of vanity and national glory, and too much after the custom of the heathen about them ; for they said, after Samuel's prudential expostulations, " No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, -and that our king may judge us and fight our battles." 2 But most reprehensible was it that they forgot their theocratic allegiance, and desired a king incompatible with the claims of Jeho- vah. Says the Lord to Samuel, " They have not re- jected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." 3 They had neither consulted God nor his prophets ; they, passed by the high priest and the Shechina ; and of their own motion they de- manded a king, to the exclusion of Jehovah, already their legitimate sovereign. God allowed their re- quest, and made it the very means of punishing their sin, and disciplining their disloyalty to him. He maintained his supremacy, and held his constitutional authority, and in giving them a king as he pleased, he made the king to be his viceroy, and no indepen- dent monarch. The government was still a Theoc- racy, and the human king was God's vicegerent as truly as had been their chief captains and their judges. This peculiarity is to be recognized through all the kingly succession, that the human king acts 1 Deut. xvii. 14-20. 2 1 Sam. viii. 20. 3 1 Sam. viii. 7. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 149 in Jehovah's stead and by his authority. He regu- lated the religious arrangements of the courses of the priests' service, the orders of the singers, and the em- ployments of the Levites under the prescribed ritual j- 1 he could arrange and officer the army, 2 and he could appoint the civil magistrates for executing the* laws through the land ; 3 but he could originate no new laws or ceremonies not in execution of the divine statutes, except as committed to him by the divine Sovereign. Hence the rebukes and threatening of the prophets to disobedient kings were legitimate ; they were Jeho- vah's accredited messengers calling delinquent vice- gerents to account. The first year of Saul's reign was without reproach, but after the second year he began to exhibit the truth of Samuel's forewarning. He raised a large body-guard of three thousand men, two thousand for himself, and one thousand he committed to the charge of his son Jonathan. 4 He offered sacrifices presump- tuously, and was plainly told the kingdom would go from his family ; 5 and some time after, for direct dis- obedience, Jehovah took the kingdom from him, and gave it in his own purpose to Saul's neighbor. 6 After this Samuel dropped all intercourse with Saul, and under the Lord's direction privately anointed the youthful son of Jesse to be the future king of Israel. 7 After this Saul became irritable, jealous, and reck- 1 1 Chron. xv., xvi., and xxiii.-xxvii. 2 2 Sam. xxiii. ; 1 Kings iv. 3 2 Chron. xix. 4 1 Sam. xiii. 1, 2. 6 1 Sam. xiii. 6 1 Sam. xv. 7 1 Sam. xvi. 13. 150 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. less ; and as the Lord had forsaken him, he applied, after Samuel's death, to the woman of Endor, who had a familiar spirit ; and to the surprise of the wo- man and the confusion of Saul, the dead Samuel ap- peared, and announced his doom, that on the next day he should be with Samuel in the eternal world. In the morrow's battle with the Philistines on Mount G-ilboa, his army was defeated ; and as he was hard pressed by his enemies, he fell upon his own sword, and died, he and his armor-bearer. 1 Saul reigned forty years. When David heard of the death of Saul, he in- quired of God, who answered by sending him up from Ziklag to Hebron, in the tribe of Judah, and the men of Judah came to him and anointed him king over the house of Judah ; 2 but Abner, Saul's chief captain, took Ishbosheth, a son of Saul, and made him king over all Israel beside Judah. 3 After seven years, Ishbosheth was slain, and all the tribes came to David in Hebron, and made him king over them all. 4 David's reign was prosperous, and Israel became numerous and powerful, fighting 1nany battles and overcoming their enemies, and maintaining the wor- ship of the true God at the sanctuary. David greatly delighted in the holy-days' convocations at the taber- nacle ; arranged the order of the priests in their min- istrations, and the singers ; and wrote the larger por- tion of their devotional Psalms. But his generally 1 1 Sam. xxxi. 4, 5. 2 2 Sara. ii. 4. 3 2 Sara. ii. 8, 9. 4 2 Sam. v. 6. THEOCRACY TO THE CA holy life was dishonored by some iquities, as in the matter of Uriah ; and tive judgments of God followed, marking before tn~e~ nation and carrying to his own conscience the evi- dence of the divine displeasure. The revolt and death of Absalom, the incest of Amnon, and the de- structive pestilence when he numbered the people of his own motion, officiously and vain-gloriously, all chastened his spirit, and induced bitter repent- ance and deep humility. In his last days, his son Adonijah attempted to usurp the kingdom which God had intimated should descend to Solomon, and David sent at once Nathan the prophet, and the high priest, and the chief captain, and they anointed Solomon king ; and David gave to him a special charge, and then died, having reigned, in all, forty years. 1 The reign of Solomon was peaceful and long, and Israel rose to the height of national greatness and renown. The costly temple was built, and the Ark of God transferred to it from the tabernacle ; and all the imposing ceremonial worship of the daily services and yearly solemnities brought the people before the Lord, advancing them in the knowledge of what the Covenant with their fathers and the theocratic reign of Jehovah meant to them as a people, and in prepara- tion of the world for the Messiah's coming. And yet, with all this teaching, and in many persons learning, the will and work of the Lord, the long prosperity of Solomon's reign was more than fallen humanity 1 1 Kings ii. 10, 11. 152 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. could bear. Wealth flowed in on every side, luxuries abounded, and sensuality greatly overpowered the king and the nation. Solomon disobeyed the injunc- tion against foreign marriages, and multiplied his wives from the heathen nations, and especially an Egyptian princess, 1 and made alliance with Pharaoh, and opened the way for all Egyptian superstitions and idolatries again to come in to the people. As Solomon grew old, he was in this way led into hea- then practices, and set up altars and built high places over against Jerusalem. 2 This rapid religious de- generacy demanded an effectual check, and God con- vulsed and divided the kingdom, and brought out a lasting separation between the idolatrous and the true worshippers. In the latter part of the reign of Solomon, Jeroboam became conspicuous as a man of enterprise and valor, and Solomon promoted him to be captain of the tribe of Joseph. The prophet Ahijah was commissioned by the Lord to announce to him that the nation should be rent in twain, and that ten tribes would come under his sway, because of the national idol- atry, but that the consummation should be delayed during the life of Solomon. Owing probably to Jer- oboamte insolence and to Solomon's jealousy, Solomon sought the life of Jeroboam, and the latter fled to Egypt, and was protected and favored by Shishak, the then reigning Pharaoh. Shishak was doubtless the first king of Manetho's twenty-second dynasty, known 1 1 Kings iii. 1. 2 1 Kings xi. 1-8. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 153 on the monuments as Sheshonk, and probably had gained his crown by violence or treachery from Sol- omon's father-in-law, as the last king of Manetho's twenty-first dynasty; 1 and thus Shishak was ready to foster the refugee from Solomon. So soon as Solo- mon died, having reigned forty years, Jeroboam re- turned, and was present when all Israel had gathered at Shechem to make Solomon's son, Rebohoam, king in the place of his father. At his instigation they demanded of Rehoboam a diminution of the taxes, which the old counsellors of Solomon advised him to make, but the young men advised him to assert his prerogative, and threaten stronger exactions. So Reho- boam haughtily answered ; and at once, on the signal from Jeroboam, an uproar was made, the council was broken up, and the tribes, except those of Judah and Benjamin, went to their own homes. Rehoboam, in the same haughty spirit as his threat, sent his treas- urer to collect their augmented taxes, whom they stoned to death, and stood out in open mutiny. Re- hoboam cowered and fled in fear to the fortifications in Jerusalem, and the ten tribes made Jeroboam their king, while Rehoboam held the allegiance of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. An army of the two tribes was at once ready, with a hundred and fifty thousand men to fight the ten rebellious tribes into submission ; but by the prophet Shemaiah, the Lord forbade Rehoboam to go out to battle, for this whole matter had been under his providential 1 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Chapter II. 154 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. supervision. Henceforth the Hebrews were two king- doms that of Israel and that of Judah, Israelites and Jews. The Israelites made Samaria in the lot of Ephraim their capital, while the Jews kept the old capital at Jerusalem, which was nearly on the divid- ing line between the lot of Judah and of Benjamin. The one kingdom was often known also as that of Ephraim, as the other was that of Judah, from the tribal locality of the royal residence. 5. AFTER THE DIVISION, TO ISRAEL'S DISPERSION AND JUDAH'S BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. The revolt of the ten tribes was of the Lord, in the -sense that he over- ruled what he condemned as wrong, for the better fulfilment of his great purpose to fit the world for the promised Redeemer's coming. Their revolt was a rejection of God as their king, a rebellion against their legitimate sovereign, and alienation of them- selves from the Abrahamic Covenant and Promise, and thus cutting themselves off from all the privileges and prerogatives of the theocratic state. Hencefortli the history of Israel a's a nation is of no more interest in the covenant institutions of Jehovah, than the his- tory of any Gentile nation, except as their old con- nection and still close neighborhood with Judah had a more special influence upon the kingdom and peo- ple who remained in covenant. God continued his warnings by occasional prophets, and announcing his threatened judgments, and thus gave them opportu- nity for repentance and return to allegiance ; but as THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 155 a kingdom, they rejected all warnings, and steadily departed further from the true worship till they be- came lost in history among the nations. We only outline their experience to their final dispersion. Besides Jeroboam, with whom the revolt com- menced, and who reigned twenty-two years, there were eighteen kings, and two periods of interreg- num of twelve and of eight years respectively, and making for the duration of the separate kingdom of Israel two hundred and sixty years and seven months in all. Of all these successive kings it is specifically recorded that " they did evil in the sight of the Lord," and among them ten, at least, lost their lives by vio- lence. At once it was manifest how dangerous to the permanent separation from Judah it would be to permit the Israelites so disposed to go up to Jerusa- lem at the yearly feasts and solemn convocation, and on consultation with his courtiers, Jeroboam made two golden images of the Egyptian Apis, known as " the golden calves," and placed one at Dan, in the tribe of Naphtali, at the northern extreme of the king- dom, and the other at Bethel, within the tribe of Ephra- im, and at the southern portion of the kingdom, and erected temples and altars, and appointed priests not of the tribe of Levi, and established feast days, and thus introduced a superstitious and idolatrous wor- ship after the Egyptian model. Some pious Israelites remained and refused to join in the idolatrous prac- tices, 1 but the most of the nation became confirmed in pagan worship. 1 1 Kings xix. 18. 156 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. While Jeroboan was burning incense at his idola- trous altar at Bethel, a prophet from Judah announced to him the destruction of this altar and worship by a future king of Judah, Josiah by name, and Jeroboam . in great anger stretched out his arm to arrest the prophet ; but in the act the arm was paralyzed, and the altar burst asunder and scattered around the fire and ashes. The terrified king was humbled, and asked the prophet's intercession to God for his restoration, which was done, and his impotent arm healed ; but in his perverseness he still clave to his idolatries, and multiplied profane priests^ and kept his people from the Lord. His son Abijah was dangerous- ly sick, and his judgment and conscience constrained him to inquire of the Lord, and not of his idols ; but lest his people should recognize his want of confi- dence in his gods, he sent his wife secretly to Ahijah, at Shiloh, to make the inquiry. This old prophet, who in Solomon's reign had foretold Jeroboam of his com- ing elevation to the kingdom, was now blind ; but fore- warned of God, he announced who she was, and re- buked the hypocritical concealment, and uttered the curse of the Lord upon the house of Jeroboam for his wickedness. The child should die or ever she entered the capital city, and the only favor given was this natural death, for all the rest of the house should die by violence. " The Lord will smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 157 will scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger." l Jeroboam warred against Judah, and the battle was set in array, eight hundred thousand men of Israel against four hundred thousand men of Judah, in the days of Abijah, son and successor to Rehoboam. Standing on a mountain over against the army of Israel, Abijah reproved them for their idolatry and rebellion against the family of David, and would dis- suade them from fighting against the people of the Lord God of their fathers. Jeroboam secretly di- rected an ambush to get in stealth behind the army of Judah, and when Abijah and Judah knew it, they put their trust in God, and shouted the battle-cry, and attacked and slew of Israel five hundred thousand men, took Bethel and many other cities, and so weak- ened and discouraged Israel, that Judah was left in peace of Jeroboam ever after. At length Jeroboam died of some divine judgment, for it is said, " The Lord struck him and he died." 2 Then came treachery, and assassinations, and suicides among the kings of Israel, till Ahab took the throne, and with his heathen wife, Jezebel, filled Israel with abominations. 3 Elijah, the Lord's prophet, often re- buked and reproved him, tested the supremacy of Jehovah against Baal by the answer of fire from the Lord, and threatened him that the dogs should lick his blood in the vineyard of Naboth, which he had robbed by violence. Ahab was s lai ' n in battle with 1 1 Kings xiv. 15. 2 2 Chron. xiii. 3 1 Kings xvi. 158 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. the Syrians, and they washed the blood from his chariot, which the dogs licked up in this stolen vine- yard. Jehu followed him in the kingdom, and with burning zeal for a time slew seventy of Ahab's sons, and Jezebel, Ahab's pagan wife, and the priests of Baal, and demolished this idol's temple and altars ; but he left the Egyptian golden calves, and " took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God." After Elijah there were the prophets Jonah, Amos, and Hosea, who continued the divine warnings till the kingdom was given over to destruction. The later kings reigned short and wickedly, and were violently destroyed till Hoshea took the throne. Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, conquered Israel, and subjected the nation to tribute, and when Hoshea made alliance with Egypt, and refused to pay the tribute, Shalma- nezer again invaded Israel, and carried the people captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and in Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 1 Ere long the king of Assyria brought families from different provinces of his empire, and settled them in the vacated territories of the captive ten tribes. These blended the worship of Jehovah with that of their provincial gods, and were known in after gener- ations as Samaritans with whom the Jews would have no dealings. 2 The ten tribes so dispersed in Persia and Media have become lost from all historic recogni- tion, and only such as joined themselves with Judah * 2 Kings xviii. 9-12. * John iv. 9. THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 159 previous to the dispersion have been retained within the circumscription of the Abrahamic Promise. We return to take up the notice of the Theocracy under the kings, and follow the experiences of the kingdom of Judah from the division of the nation, which people were henceforth known as the Jews. Many pious Israelites joined themselves to Judah and the worship of Jehovah from the first, and at subse- quent times the defection of the godly from Israel to the Jews was frequent and numerous, and almost universally the priests and Levites, who had no countenance from the Israelitish grovernment, 1 left their cities in Israel for those in Judah. The The- ocratic government and Ritual service, together with the responses of the Oracle in the holy of holies, con- centrated their influences upon this limited and better portion of the chosen people, and in connection with the national competition for superiority over the re- volted tribes, their religious culture greatly elevated the Jewish character. There was more genuine piety and firm adherence to their Covenant than any former age had witnessed. So was it mainly with Judah till the time of the Israelites' dispersion, when the absence of national rivalry and the universal example of pagan idolatry allowed the strong under-current towards heathen superstitions to gain force, and finally over- flow in wide-spread pagan practices and rejection of covenant obligations. Beginning with Rehoboam, who reigned seventeen 1 2 Chron. xi. 13, 14, xiii. 9. 160 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. years, there were to the Babylonian captivity twenty reigns, one of which was that of queen Athaliah, making in all the sum of three hundred and ninety- four years. The two hundred and sixty years and seven months of the Israelitish kingdom ran out in the sixth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and from thence to the Babylonian captivity was a period of one hundred and thirty-three years and six months, at the termination of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, king of Judah. Of the Jewish reigns before the dispersion, there were six whose influence was good, embracing a period of more than two hundred } T ears ; and there were also six whose influence was evil, but whose duration was so shortened that they embraced but about fifty years. After the dispersion of Israel the change was rapid and lamentable. Passing the remaining years of Hezekiah's reign, which were twenty-three, and all good, there were six evil kings, reigning in all eighty years, and only one godly reign, that of good Josiah, of thirty-one years' continuance. The lapse in iniquity and idolatry was fearful, making the visits of divine judgments a necessity, if the de- fection from God was to be arrested. Manasseh's most wicked reign followed that of pious Hezekiah, and he filled the land with idolatry, setting up his images in the very temple, and wrought abomination in Judah more than any king before him. God, by his prophets, announced the coming destruc- tion : " I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a disji, THEOCRACY TO THE CAPTIVITY. 161 wiping it and* turning it upside down." l Amon fol- lowed Manasseh. and also imitated his wickedness, but in two years was assassinated in his own palace. The prophets Nahum, Joel, and Habakkuk taught and warned in these evil times ; yet would the kings and people not be reclaimed. The good reign of Josiah partially restored the defection and delayed the ruin ; but it was only a respite, and not a deliverance, for there was no confirmed reformation. In his day were the prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah, by whom God said he spared Judah for Josiah's sake, but that ulti- mately he would remove Judah as he had Israel from his sight, and reject Jerusalem as the place for his name. 2 Jehoahaz followed in the kingdom, and " turned to work wickedness," and in three months the desola- tion began. The king of Egypt invaded and con- quered the land, and carried him away captive, and put Jehoiakirn in his place. He also wrought wicked- ness, and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded his king- dom, and subjected him to tribute. After three years, on Jehoiakim's refusal to pay the tribute, the Chal- deans again invaded the land, and oppressed the peo- ple, in the midst of which he died, and Jehoiachin took the throne ; and in the third month Nebuchadnezzar came again, and carried the royal family, and mighty men, and skilled artisans to Babylon, and put Zede- kiah on the throne as his own vassal. The prophet Ezekiel now lived, and was also carried captive with 1 2 Kings xxi. 13. 2 2 Kings xxii., xxiii. 11 162 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. the chief men. In the ninth year of his reign Zede- kiah rebelled, and Nebuchadnezzar came back and besieged Jerusalem, and after resisting the siege three years, and enduring famine and suffering, the Jews were forced to surrender, the walls of Jerusa- lem were broken down, the temple was burned, the holy vessels and costly ornaments of the temple plundered and carried to Bab} T lon. The sons of Zede- kiah were slain before his eyes, and then his own eyes were put out, and he in his blindness was carried a prisoner to Babylon. The poor and oppressed people left in the land were governed by rulers put over them by their conquerors. This captivity had re- peatedly been foretold as determined by Jehovah, and that its continuance should be for seventy years ; and this thorough execution of the desolation is fully narrated. 1 Besides the terrible, and in the end effectual, dis- cipline of Judah by these calamities, there was the throwing of the Jewish influence and knowledge of the true 'faith upon another and wider portion of hu- manity. Not Canaan, and Egypt, and Syria, as mainly hitherto, but the Assyrian empire over all Eastern Asia, was made acquainted with the institutions of Jehovah and the practices of his people. Their des- olation purified the Jews, and they, in their recovered loyalty to God, taught the nations the promise of his coming redemption for the whole lost family of man- kind. 1 2 Kings xxiv., xxv. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 163 SECTION VII, FKOM THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY TO THE COMING OF MESSIAH. HENCEFORTH inspired Scripture ceases to direct our way in the history of God's dealing with humanity, till we come to the New Testament record, save the Books of Daniel and Esther, which give some occur- rences in Babylon, and those of Ezra and Nehemiah, relating to events connected with the restoration from captivity. The captivity and experience in Babylon did much in fixing the Jews in loyalty to Je- hovah, and the preparation for the advent of their promised Kedeemer. They came out of that furnace greatly purified, and ever after abhorred -idolatry as deeply as before they had been inclined to all pagan superstitions. The peculiarities of the Theocratic rule and ritual were henceforth less needful, and hav- ing mainly accomplished their end, the whole dispen- sation was wearing away. The captivity destroyed and lost many of their sacred symbols, which at their return were never restored. The ark of the covenant, with the original copy of the law, the golden pot of 164 HUMANITY AWAITING EEDEMPIION. old manna, and the blossoming almond rod of Aaron, which had been laid up before the Lord, were all lost with the burning of the first temple ; and more than all, the Shechina, or visible presence of Jehovah, passed away without any return to the second temple. The successive removals, to its final departure, are strikingly given in the visions of Ezekiel, step by step, just preceding the burning of the temple. 1 Jehovah's perpetual witness of himself in special providences also began its decline as less marked and constant, and the open entailment of judgments upon the chil- dren for the fathers' sins, in civil vindication, were prophetically announced as then ceasing. 2 Still in its expiring light the old Theocracy does not cease its salutary teachings. Its eve is as impor- tant in its lessons to us as its morn or its midday splendor. It tells of God's work done by it, and marks the passing away of an important day in order that the more important scenes of a gospel day may open. And as the old passes away, we shall find its expiring light and influence thrown out wider and further upon the nations. The providence of God mingles his people more with mankind, and sets their faith and worship out on broader scenes than had be- fore been exhibited. The Jews go to Babylon and make their impression on the Assyrian empire; the Assyrian is subverted by the Persian, this by the 1 With Ezek. i. confer viii. 4, ix. 3, x. 4, 18, xi. 23, 24. 8 Ezek. xviii. 2, 3. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 165 Grecian, and then this by the Koman universal mon- archies ; and amid them all, the chosen people of Je- hovah, and their persistent faith and worship, are kept constantly and most prominently conspicuous. These great transactions fulfil the divine prediction, " I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he cometh whose right it is, and I will give it him." 1 " Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and the De- sire of all nations shall come." 2 No such mighty overturnings have taken place among the nations of the earth as those within the five hundred years preceding the advent of Christ, from the beginning until now ; and yet this one people mingled in them all, shed its light upon them all, and stood unbroken through them all, till the Lord and Saviour of all came in the flesh and tabernacled with men. We shall follow the history from the captivity to the advent of Christ, through the great monarchies with which the Jews were influentially familiar, and the marked epochs occurring in their experience. 1. THE JEWS AS SUBJECT TO THE ASSYRIANS. There was a first and last invasion of Judea by Nebuchad- nezzar, with an interval of eighteen years, and an intervening hostile visit, in all of which captive Jews, more or less, were taken to Babylon ; and thus the 1 Ezek. xxi. 27. 2 Hag. ii. 6, 7. 166 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. captivity, as one event, filled a period of eighteen years. Nebuchadnezzar was sent with an army against Egypt, through Palestine, by his father, Nabo- polassar ; and in this expedition he took Jerusalem, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and Daniel and his com- panions, with many chief families of the Jews, were sent to Babylon. 1 In profane history we learn that two years thereafter Nabopolassar died, and Nebuchadnez- zar hastened back to Babylon to receive the kingdom. Jehoiakim soon refused paying tribute, and the armies from the subject Assyrian provinces overran Judea ; 2 and in these troubles Jehoiakim died. In the third month of Jehoiachin, his successor's reign, Nebuchadnezzar a second time came, and carried away the royal family and many noble Jews back with him to Babylon, and made Zedekiah king. 3 Zedekiah soon rebelled, and Nebuchadnezzar a third time came and finished the work of desolation and captivity, and put Gedaliah as governor over the poor and miserable families which he left in the land, 4 This was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, 5 i. e., from his commissioned expedition on his first visit to Jerusa- lem, but the seventeenth year from reigning alone. 6 The beginning of the captivity we thus put at the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and first of Nebuchadnez- zar's royal commission, and which was the year 606 B. C. 1 2 Kings xxiv. 1 ; Dan. i. 1-7. 2 2 Kings xxiv. 2. 3 2 Kings xxiv. 8-17. 4 2 Kings xxv. ; Jer. xxix. 6 2 Kings xxv. 8. 6 Prideaux, B. I. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 167 The Jews were then in Babylon under Assyrian monarchs, as. follows : Years. Months. Nebuchadnezzar's reign, 44 Evil-merodach's reign, 2 Nerriglissor's reign, ...... 4 Laborosoarchod's reign, 9 Nabonadius, or Belshazzar ? s reign, . . 17 Making in all, 67 9 During this period we may note the following oc- currences and influences : Gedaliah, left by Nebuchadnezzar, at his first inva- sion of Judea. as governor, was mild and kind, and the dispersed families in the land gathered themselves readily under his rule ; but within seven months he was treacherously slain by Ishmael, with all his at- tendants. Johanan then drove Ishmael away to the Ammonites, and he, with the remnant of Jews, re- moved to the southern border of Palestine, near to Egypt, in fear of the revenge which the Chaldeans might take for IshmaePs treachery and assassination. Jeremiah the prophet was with them, and when they inquired of him if they should pass over into Egypt, he, from the Lord, forbade such purpose. In defiance of this, they determined to go, and soon relapsed into the old Egyptian superstition, and worshipped the queen of heaven, joining in sacrifices to Isis. Jere- miah here denounced the exterminating judgment of the future coming of the king of Babylon. 1 1 Jer. xl. to xliv. 168 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Those Jews who had been carried to Babylon were kindly treated, and Daniel was in high estimation, and raised to eminent civil authority; and when EviL merodach took the kingdom, he freed Jehoiaehin, and gave him royal support in his own palace. 1 During Nebuchadnezzar's reign his interpretation of the king's dreams, the deliverance of his three friends from the burning furnace, and the madness which, according to DaniePs prediction, came upon the king, when they drove him from the presence of men to be with the beasts, 2 all this powerfully affected the Assyrian empire, and seems to have made Nebuchad- nezzar, on his recovery, a humble worshipper of the true Jehovah. 3 The steadfast refusal of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego to bow to the king's golden image evinces how soon and strong the captivity had served to dissuade the Jews from idolatry. Their own sadness, while they wept by the rivers of Baby- lon, and hanged their harps on the willows, and the sympathy of their captors, who asked them to sing their songs of Zion, 4 all manifest how effectually God's dealings with them were working out his own coun- sels. The seventy years' duration of the captivity set by the prophet 5 was drawing near its close, and in the way of the destined deliverance, the Assyrian dynasty was overthrown by that of the Medes and Persians. 1 2 Kings xxv. 27. 2 Dan. iii. and iv. 8 Dan. iv. 34-37. 4 Psalm cxxxvii. 6 Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 169 2. THE JEWS AS SUBJECT TO THE PERSIANS. The last of the Assyrian nionarchs was Belshazzar, an effeminate ruler, who, while Cyrus was besieging him in his capital, gave himself up to pleasure. At a voluptuous feast, in contempt of Jehovah, he ordered the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem temple to be used in his drunken revelry. The dread prodigy of a supernatural hand appeared writing on the wall, and left the ominous characters there legible. Daniel in- terpreted them plainly, and the interpretation was im- mediately fulfilled, in that the besiegers took the city that very night, slew Belshazzar, and Darius the Median took the kingdom. 1 Cyrus was the general who had taken Babylon, and while the power was in his hands, he left Darius, who was his uncle, and known as Cyaxares, to rule at Babylon, while he pros- ecuted his designs of further conquest. Darius died after about two years, when Cyrus took the king- dom in his own name. The Persian monarchy may be noted as beginning in the year 538 B. C. Darius reigned 2 years. Cyrus " 7 " Cambyses, or Ahasuerus of Ezra iv. 6 . . . . " 7 " Smerdis, or Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 7 . . . . " 1 " Darius Hystaspes " 36 " Xerxes the Great " 21 " Artaxerxes Longimanus, or Ahasuerus of Esther, " 40 " Xerxes II., known as Sogdianus, " 1 " 1 Dan. v. 31. 170 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Darius Nothus reigned 19 years. Artaxerxes Mnemon ; . . " 46 " Darius Ochus " 21 " Darius Arses " 2 " Darius Codomanus . . . * " 4 " In all 207 " With this new race of kings at Babylon, God at once began the exhibitions of his power in favor of his own chosen people. Daniel was elevated to great favor and power, for, as Darius divided his new king- dom into one hundred and twenty provinces, with their rulers, he put over these three presidents, the first of which presidencies was given to Daniel. He was envied and hated by the other officers, who con- spired for his downfall. They knew his discretion and probity, and despaired of success in their cabal ex- cept through some intrigue in the matter of his reli- gion. They artfully procured a decree, unalterable in law by any authority, prohibiting any petition to any god or man, save to the king, for thirty days. Daniel knew the decree, and the penalty of being cast into the den of lions ; but he opened his window three times a day towards Jerusalem, and prayed to Jehovah aloud as beforetimes. The issue came, and for a whole night he lay in the lions' deji ; and when the anxious king called to him in the morning, he an- swered that his God, Jehovah, had shut the lions' mouths, and he was safe. Joyfully the king received and honored him, but put his accusers at once in his place with the lions, who immediately devoured them. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 171 Daniel, and his people, and his religion, were now respected. 1 The seventy years from Nebuchadnezzar's first car- rying the Jews captive to Babylon terminated in the first year of Cyrus. Daniel had consulted the pro- phetic books and found the time, and prayed and con- fessed to Jehovah, and had been answered in refer- ence to the time the Jews should be restored, and also the time that the promised Saviour should come for the world's redemption. 2 Among the books con- sulted, and which must have been laid before Cyrus by David, was the remarkable prediction in Isaiah, 3 in connection with the majesty and sublimity of the de- scription of Jehovah's unity and power. That it was this which impressed and moved Cyrus to restore the Jews, is quite manifest from the decree he made to this end. 4 The leaders in the execution of this decree of Cyrus were Zerubbabel, the grandson of Jehoiakim, called in Babylon Sheshbazzar, and Joshua, grandson of the high priest Seraiah, who, with king Jehoia- kim, had been among the first captives. These two leaders, with about fifty thousand Jews, went up from Babylon to Judea, with horses, and camels, and ves- sels of the temple, and much treasure, to build up their own houses, and their fathers' cities, and the walls and temple at Jerusalem. 6 The Samaritans de- sired to assist, but they were not Jews, and their offer was unacceptable. 1 Dan. VK * Dan. ix. 3 Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 4 Given in Ezra i. 1-4. 5 Ezra i. to iii. 172 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. On this account their real enmity in heart disclosed itself, and they immediately and persistently opposed the undertaking. They hindered as they could all through the reign of Cyrus ; they wrote accusing let- ters of the Jews to his successor, Ahasuerus ; and especially to Artaxerxes Smerdis, and finally from him attained a command to make the Jews stop building, and they forced the Jews to cease from their work to the time of Darius Hystaspes. 1 Here was the same intervening number of years in the whole period of restoration, viz., eighteen years, that there had been between the first and last carrying into captivity. So that, from the beginning of captivity to beginning of restoration was seventy years, and from the finishing of captivity till the full return was seventy years, and from the beginning to the completion of each event of captivity and restoration was a period of eighteen years. This full restoration was in the second year of Darius's reign, whose decree confirmed that of Cy- rus, and annulled all intervening hindering authorities. 2 After two years' earnest labor, the second temple was finished and dedicated on the feast of the Pass- over, with great solemnity and national thanksgiving ; and Darius befriended the Jews through his long reign. He was followed by Xerxes the Great, whose famous Grecian expedition and warlike enterprises absorbed his attention, leaving Judea to its own way. Artaxerxes Longimanus followed in a long reign of 1 Ezra iv. 2 Ezra vi. FROM CAPTIVITY TJ THE INCARNATION. 173 forty years. He is the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther, and the occurrences in the life of this Jewish queen, the circumvention of Hainan's design to extir- pate the whole Jewish people through the realm by Esther's foster-father Mordecai, with the execution of Haman, and the Jews' complete deliverance, took place early in his reign. The temple service and general Jewish ordinances had now been restored and regularly observed in Judea for fifty-eight years, but the walls of the city were yet unfinished, and many disorders were introduced and tolerated. In the seventh year of this king, Ezra, who was a scribe and direct descendant from Aaron, and of great repute and influence, was sent with a royal commission to re- dress all disorders, and complete and establish the work of Jewish polity and prosperity. By him the canon of Jewish Scripture was collected and settled, the ceremonial services orderly arranged, and espe- cially the great disorder from foreign marriages was thoroughly corrected. 1 Again, in the twentieth year of this king, Nehe- miah, his captain, who was a Jew, heard of the still incomplete restoration and settlement of all matters at Jerusalem, and, at his request, the king gave him permission to go up to Judea and see what was its condition, and appointed him governor, with full au- thority to regulate all matters. He came and private- ly surveyed the still desolate breaches which had not been repaired, and set himself at once to rousing the 1 Ezra vii. to x. 174 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. nation to their duty. He set the work of rebuilding immediately forward, resisted and overcame all the machinations of the old Samaritan opposers, finished the walls, redressed the oppressions of the strong over the poor, and in twelve years mainly accomplished his work, and returned to the king at Babylon. Short- ly again he came back with new authority, redressed the Sabbath violations that had been introduced, and put the government and people in an orderly and prosperous condition. 1 As the law had been found by Ezra, and read before the people, so out of this now began the practice of regularly reading it in smaller assemblies on the Sabbath; and thus was introduced the long-continued habit of synagogue worship, which was everywhere common among Jews in the time of Christ and his apostles. After Nehemiah, the province oT Syria included Judea, and the Persian government of it was through the high priest, and thus the sacred office became much secularized and corrupted. It so re- mained for eighty years, till Alexander the Great con- quered Persia. 3. THE JEWS AS SUBJECT TO ALEXANDER AND HIS SUCCESSORS. The empire of the world, attained by the conquests of Alexander, was at his death divided into four sovereignties, under four of his distinguished generals Cassander over Macedon and Greece ; Ly- simachus over Thrace and the countries bordering 1 Neh. throughout. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 175 the Hellespont on the west and the Bosphorus on the east ; Ptolemy over Egypt and Palestine ; and Seleu- cus over Babylon and Syria. The Jews were im- mediately involved in the transactions of the two latter empires only. The conflicting interests and consequent contentions of these two made Judea, standing between them, the frequent battle-ground of their hostile armies. For several of the earlier reigns, Judea was directly subject to Egypt, and later in this period it was made a province of Syria, while for the whole time the Jews shared in the commotions of both, till their more independent state under the Maccabean heroes. This period begins in the year 331 B. C. Alexander, ..." 8 years. Egyptian. Ptolemy Lagus, .... 39 " " Ptolemy Philadelphus, . . 38 " " Ptolemy Euergetes, ... 25 " " Ptolemy Philopator, ... 17 " " Ptolemy Epiphanes, ... 19 " All Egyptian period, 146 Syrian. Seleucus Philopator, ... 11 " " Antiochus Epiphanes, ... 8 " Whole period, 165 " While in his conquests, Alexander the Great was besieging Tyre, he sent into the neighboring coun- tries of Samaria and Judea, demanding supplies; but 176 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. the Jews were subject to Persia, then ruled by Darius Codomanus, and fearing his displeasure, they refused the demand of Alexander. Immediately upon his con- quest of Tyre, and offended by this refusal, Alexander marched with his army to Jerusalem, intending severe punishment for this Jewish slight. Jaddua, the Jew- ish high priest, met him on his coming, clothed with the holy vestments of his divine office, whom Alexan- der immediately received and saluted with profound- est veneration, saying that this very personage had appeared in a dream to him long before in Macedonia, and given him intimations and directions about his intended expedition, and that the deity of whom he was the priest must have inspired and directed his whole journey. Jaddua read to him the prophecy of Daniel, 1 concerning the destruction of Persia by a Grecian king, and applied the prophecy to Alexander himself, who was so favorably affected that he left Jerusalem safe, and conferred on the Jews many favors. 2 After Alexander's death at Babylon, and the divis- ion of Egypt to Ptolemy, the latter determined to possess Judea and the neighboring region, as an inter- vening barrier between him and the Syrian empire of Seleucus at Babylon. The Jews resisted, and closed the gates of Jerusalem against him. Under- standing that they would not fight on their Sabbath, Ptolemy attacked them on that day, routed them, and 1 Dan. viii. 20, 21. 8 Prideaux, anno 333 B. C. Stackhouse, Bible Hist. p. 749. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 177 entered the city. The prophet 1 had ere this an- nounced that special providences towards the nation should cease, and this is the first historic occurrence of a divinely undefended Sabbath for the chosen people. In this rule of Ptolemy lived Simon the Just, the eminent high priest who, the Jews say, completed their Scripture canon after Ezra. Ptolemy Philadelphus. succeeded Soter, and kept up the library and literary institutions the latter had fostered at Alexandria ; and in his day the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was effected, and in this language the learned in all the nations of that age could read the history of the Hebrew Theocracy, and learn the doctrines and wor- ship of the true religion. Philopator succeeded Philadelphus, and recovered Jerusalem, which had for a season been out of Egyptian control ; he de- termined to enter the holy place in the temple spite of the protestations and warnings of the priests, and on his forcible approach to the holy of holies, he was mysteriously seized with a sudden fit of trembling and spiritual terror, that he became helpless, and was carried out by his attendants. When away, his fear subsided, and gave place to rage and cruel persecu- tion of the Jews, and preparation for a general massacre of the people. He made his elephants drunk with wine, that they might in their frenzy trample the Jews to death ; but they turned their fury upon his own men, and killed multitudes. His fear again re- 1 Ezek. xviii. 2, 3. 12 178 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. turned, and he witnessed portents and prodigies in the sky, which induced the cessation of all Jewish persecution, and forced him to favor the nation he still hated. Ptolemy Epiphanes succeeded Philopator ; and in his nineteenth year, when Seleucus Philopator had succeeded his father, Antiochus the Great, in Babylon, Judea was made a province of Syria, and held by Seleucus, though Epiphanes reigned in Alexandria and Egypt five years longer. Seleucus treated at first the Jews kindly ; but becoming satisfied that there were rich treasures in the temple, he deter- .mined on their possession, and sent his treasurer, Heliodorus, to rob the temple. On entering the temple, the treasurer was frightened by what he deemed a vision of angels, and he hastened out speechless and nearly senseless, giving up all notion of plunder. Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded Seleu- cus, and was a cruel persecutor of the Jews. He was persistent and unrelenting in applying torture and barbarous penalties to force the Jews into idola- try. But the superstitions to which the nation had before been so prone, had now become their abomi- nation. They endured death in any form rather than sacrifice to an idol. 1 This persecution and oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes called out Jewish patriotism, piety, and courageous resistance. Mattathias, a descendant from a renowned priest, Asmoneus, with five sons, began the heroic contest in 1 2 Mac. vi. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 179 the place where they exiled themselves in the region of Dan, to avoid oppression. Here their tyrant at- tacked them, to force them to his idolatrous worship. Mattathias boldly stood the fight, and overcame and slew the king's messengers, and set himself upon the offensive, determined to drive the oppressive idolaters, by Jehovah's help, from the land. He fought with desperate valor in many battles, usually victorious, and died one hundred and forty-six years old, desig- nating Judas, his eldest son, to succeed him in lead- ing on the opposition. 4. THE JEWS UNDER THE MACCABEES. The family of the Maccabees were called Asmoneans, from their eminent ancestor Asmoneus, but the origin of the name Maccabee is not so readily ascertained. One derives it from a Hebrew word for " cavern," from their early hiding-places against their persecutors; another from the first Hebrew letters of their adopted motto upon their ensign, " Who is like unto thee among the gods, Jehovah!" 1 thus giving the spelling Maccabi. Antiochus continued his spite against the Jews and contempt for their religion after the death of Mattathias ; he profaned the temple, entering the holy place and sacrificing swine's flesh on the great altar of burnt-offerings, and filled the temple with idols, devoting it to the worship of Jupiter Olympus ; he forced the people to idolatry, or tortured them with every cruelty, and suppressed 1 Ex. xv. 11. 180 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. all outward worship of Jehovah through the land. The sons of Mattathias resisted these edicts and efforts strenuously and boldly, and aroused and led on the people to the most courageous conflicts and signal victories. 166 B. C. Judas Maccabeus, 8 years. Jonathan " 14 " Simon " 8 " John Hyrcanus, .29 " Aristobulus I., 1 " Alexander Janneus. ........ 27 " Alexandra, queen, ....... 9 " Aristobulus II., 6 " In all, 102 These were respectively high priests in their suc- cessions, as well as chief captains, except as queen Alexandra had Hyrcanus as high priest. Judas Maccabeus, with a brave band of followers, went through the country from city to city, demolish- ing idols and their altars, and defeating the large armies which Antiochus repeatedly sent into Judea, under the successive generals, Apollonius, Seron, Ptol- emy Macron, Nicanor, Gorgias, and Lysias ; over- throwing them with great slaughter, and taking large booty. He rescued and purified the temple, and re- stored its worship and daily ministrations, and gave deliverance largely to the nation. Antiochus, greatly enraged by these defeats, set out himself from Baby- FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 181 Ion with his army, determined to make Judea one vast sepulchre. In his haste his chariot was overset, his bones broken, and his bruised body became ulcer- ated and mortified, and he died after great agony, and with spiritual horror at the consciousness of his cruelty and wickedness now avenged by deserved judgments. The idolatrous nations south-east from Judea, Idu- means, Ammonites, and Syrian tribes, after this, con- federated against the Jews, and Judas went against and attacked them, thoroughly routing all their forces. The Tyrians and Sidonians, also on the west, put them- selves in hostility, against whom his brother Simon was sent with three thousand men, and overcame them. Antiochus Eupator, succeeding Epiphanes, kept up the old contest, and Judas continued his success- ful resistance till he was slain in battle, and Jona- than, his brother, took the lead after him. He over- threw the Syrian general Bachides, who had been sent against him, and kept up for life the successful contest. ' He was at length slain by the treachery of Demetrius, who afterwards became king of Syria. The brother Simon then led the patriot band of Jew- ish warriors, who obtained terms of peace and partial independence, and used his authority for the eleva- tion of the Jews and the service of Jehovah. His son-in-law, through some secret spite, invited Simon and two of his eons, Judas and Mattathias, to an entertainment, and treacherously assassinated them. After this, Hyrcanus, the son of Simon, became high 182 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. priest and ruler, as the Maccabean brothers had passed away. Early in their rule, or perhaps even in the days of Mattathias, a Jewish court had been instituted, con- sisting of seventy of the most dignity and veneration among the aged, and which became the great council of the nation, known as the Jewish Sanhedrim, and which was perpetuated till the destruction of Jerusa- lem by the Romans. The different sects of Pharisees and Sadducees were now being formed under the discussions growing out of the reviving of the study of the Hebrew law and ritual, the Pharisees being strict constructionists of the letter of the law, and the Sadducees giving a wider and more liberal interpreta- tion. They became strongly opposing parties, and struggled hard for leading influence and power in the government. Hyrcanus at first paid tribute to Syria, but at length attained deliverance and independent authority. He conquered their old enemies, the Samaritans, and de- stroyed the temple Sanballat had built on Mount Gerizim; subdued the Idumeans, and so proselyted them to the Jewish faith that they became incorpo- rated with the nation. He further made alliance with the Romans, whose power was beginning to be felt in the politics of the great nations of the world. He found the Pharisees jealous and reproachful towards him, and he gave in his adhesion fully to the Saddu- cees, and took that sect under government patronage. He died in peace, and Aristobulus, who was high priest, took the government, and was the first As- FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 183 monean who assumed the title of king of Judea. He was a very cruel, wicked, desperate ruler, im- prisoning and starving to death his mother, and slay- ing his brothers, and in one year dying in horror of conscience under awakened conviction of his crimes. Alexander Janneus followed in a stormy reign of many years, and kept Judea in perpetual foreign or civil commotions. He was often in conflict with his own subjects, besides his wars with foreign enemies, and with varied fortunes and often cruelties, he finished his reign and life by diseases his intemperance and prodigality had induced, without having benefited his country by his ceaseless struggles. He gave his wife counsel on his dying bed to make friends of the Pharisees, and she thus succeeded to the throne, and made Hyrcanus high priest. She, with the Pharisees so coming into power, persecuted the Sadducees with great vindictiveness. At her death there was fierce contention between the high priest Hyrcanus and his brother Aristobulus for the ascendency. Aristobulus was at first successful, and obliged Hyrcanus to abdi- cate his office of high priest in his favor, and he took the government. Subsequently, by the assistance of an Arabian king, Aretas, Hyrcanus opposed him, and on appeal to the Roman Pompey, Aristobulus was de- posed, and Hyrcanus took the rule. But Judea was no longer independent. Pompey had conquered it, and Hyrcanus reigned only as tributary and subject to the Romans. After all this mingling of Jewish experience and 184 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. influence with the great monarchies, Assyrian, Per- sian, and Grecian, following the early Egyptian, and all now decayed and subverted, the Jews begin their connection with the iron dynasty of Rome, the most peculiar power the world has known, and most peculiarly fitted to bear universal sway when the Messiah shall come and set up his spiritual kingdom. An Asmonean prince is on the throne of Judea, but only nominally a king, for his power is all from Rome, and he only a Roman vassal. 5. THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMANS. -- Pompey, the Roman general, took Jerusalem, and put Hyrcanus in the government in the year 63 B. C. Hyrcanus II. reigns .... 24 years. Antigonus, " .... 2 " Herod the Great till John came, 32 " In all, 58 years, to birth of John Baptist. Pompey went into the temple and took note of all its treasures, but he took nothing away, and left the sacred services to their regular performance. He established Hyrcanus in the high priest's office, and committed the government of Judea to him, but subjected him to tribute, and forbade his wearing a crown. The conflict between Pompey and Caesar, at Rome, occasioned new contentions between Aristo- bulus and Hyrcanus at Jerusalem, till Aristobulus's death at Rome, by poison, and Caesar's ascendency to power, when Caesar again confirmed Hyrcanus in FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 185 his sacred office, but put Antipater, an Idumean con- vert to Judaism, as procurator in Judea, under the counsel of Hyrcanus. Antipater had two sons, Pha- sael and Herod, and these he associated in the govern- ment with himself, the former at Jerusalem, and the latter in Galilee. Herod was ambitious, prompt, and bold, and ingratiated himself in the favor of Julius- Caesar, who added to his power and influence. An officer of Hyrcanus, named Malicus, poisoned Antip- ater, and Herod slew him in revenge for his father's death. Marcus Brutus assassinated Julius Caesar, and then Mark Antony and Cassar Octavianus subdued Bru- tus and Cassius, and became arbiters of the Koman state. Antony came to Antioch, and while there confirmed Phasael and Herod in their authority as te- trarchs,and took to Rome fifteen hundred eminent Jew- ish citizens as hostages for the quiet of the province. Subsequently, on a sedition of turbulent Jews and their assault of Herod's retinue, Antony put these hostages all to death at Rome. Antigonus, a son of Aristobulus, obtained help from the Parthians, invaded Judea, and took Jerusalem, with flyrcanus and Phasael, and cut off the ears of Hyrcanus, that thus maimed he might be perpetually disqualified from the priesthood. Phasael, believing his death was determined, took his own life by poison. Herod fled to Rome, and informed his patron, Antony, of these occurrences in Judea ; and he, with Octavi- anus, afterwards Caesar Augustus, espoused Herod's 186 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. cause, and gave him an army against Antigonus. With these Roman forces Herod returned to Judea, and after varied successes and reverses, took Jerusalem, which the Roman soldiery plundered against the will of Herod, and who bought the soldiers off only by giving a large ransom. Antigonus, who had been in the high priesthood for two years, was delivered to the Romans, and by them put to death ; and with him terminated the priesthood and princes of the Asmo- nean family. Herod was now established in Judea as the sole governor, and attained the title of king, but ordina- rily known as Herod the Great. He began by put- ting down his enemies, among whom were many of the Sanhedrim, and other eminent Jews. He made Ananel, a man of mean birth, high priest, and then deposed him and put the brother of his wife Mari- amne, named Aristobulus, in his place. Soon after Aristobulus was drowned by Herod's order, from jeal- ousy of his influence and favor with the Jewish peo- ple. Herod's cruelty increased to the greatest excess, dooming his friends, his wife Mariamne, and then his children, to death, and in sudden passion executing his jealous malignity on any occasional victim. As the natural result, his own spirit was perpetually the prey to remorse and terrible apprehensions. All this, and especially the setting of the Roman eagle over one of the gates of the temple, exceedingly exasper- ated the Jews against him, whom he soon found it his necessary policy to pacify. To do this, and at the FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 187 same time gratify his own ambition, he determined to build anew the temple at Jerusalem. This had now stood about five hundred years since its rebuild- ing by Zerubbabel, on the return from the Babylonian captivity, and had become sadly defaced and greatly decayed. Two years were given to collecting mate- rials, and nine and one half years more in rebuilding so far that the daily services could again commence ; but the work went on in various additions and embel- lishments till his death ; and then still on to the days of Christ's ministry, the work was yet continued, and the temple still in building. 1 Some of the old foun- dations of Solomon's temple remained in the second rebuilding, so that " the house " was known as the same ; 2 and in this third building, the foundations of the first, and much of the work of the second, were there j yet was the increase in additions, porches, columns, and adornments, so much as to change the appearance in proportion and style to a new building. The eyes of the nations were again turned to Judea and Jerusalem, and the last uttered voice of prophecy was on the eve of fulfilment, " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me ; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts." 3 On occasions of Roman peace, the Temple of Janus was shut. This had occurred first in the days of 1 John ii. 20. " Hag. ii. 3, 7, 9. 3 Mai. iii. 1. 188 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. Numa ; again, at the close of the first Punic war ; the third, on Cassius's victory over Antony ; the fourth, on Cassar's return from the war in Spain ; and now fifth, and for twelve years, in the thirty-third year of Herod, as the last, and a prelude to the advent of the Prince of Peace. 6. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. In the nature of the case, it is reasonable to anticipate that when God, in his providence and ordinances, has brought his chosen people to a state of knowledge and expectancy prepared for the Saviour's coming, and through them prepared also the great nations of the world for his advent, he should immediately pre- cede that event by a special administration, designed to 'call attention to it as just at hand, and secure di- rect and personal readiness to receive him and his message. Prophecy had long since indicated that such was the divine purpose. Isaiah begins such an- nouncement by a most inspiriting message to the Jew- ish church : " Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned ; for she hath received at the Lord's hand double for all her sin." The prophet then gives a summary of the work and ministry of the Messiah's forerunner, under the figure of " the voice of one crying in the wilderness,' 7 and expresses the work to be done by the commission " Prepare ye the way of the Lord ; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 189 and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain ; and the glory of the Lord shall be re- vealed, and all flesh together shall see it, for the mouth of the Lbrd hath spoken it." 1 John expressly applies this prophecy to himself, when the Jews sent messengers to him to inquire " who he was." He unequivocally answers, " I am the voice of one cry- ing in the wilderness." 2 So Malachi announces, "Be- hold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me." 3 And again, " Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord ; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." 4 This was the prediction the Jews interpreted literally, in reference to Elijah's second coming ; and so the messengers which the Sanhedrim sent to John asked him, il Art thou Elijah ? " and in answer to their false meaning he replies, " I am not." 5 The paraphrase of Luke (i. 17) gives the true interpretation of this prediction : " He (John) shall go before him (Messiah) in the spirit and .power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the chil- dren, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." John came " in the spirit and power of Elijah " in his manner 1 Isa. xl. 1-5. 3 J6hn i. 22, 23 ; also Matt. iii. 3 ; Mark i. 3 ; Luke iii. 4-6. 3 Mai. iii. 1. 4 Mai. iv. 5, 6. 5 John i. 21. 190 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. of life, boldness of reproof, and earnestness of appeal ; and to see how striking the parallel is, take for Elijah, 1 and then for John, 2 the subjoined references. And then we have our Lord's own declaration concerning the ful- filment of the prophecy, " If ye will receive it, this is Elijah who was to come." 3 And again, his declaration that " Elijah had already come," and the disciples un- derstanding it of John the Baptist. 4 Besides these pro- phetic announcements of John as forerunner of Christ, there seems to have been a particular personal com- mission given to him according to John (i. 33) : " He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," Also John iii. 28. What was the exact design of John's commission ? 1. To apprise his nation that the Messiah was at the door, and to insist on their repentance and its fruits as demanded to meet his advent. Malachi had said, " But who may abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth ? " 5 And still further, 6 " Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven." They were on the very eve preceding such a day, and while God had for ages been teaching them, and had brought them to such a state that the Messiah could come and not actually lose his mission in the world, 1 1 Kings xvii. to xix., xxi. 17-24; 2 Kings ii. 1-11, and his dress, i. 8. 2 Matt, iii., xiv. 4; John i. 19-36, iii. 23-36. 3 Matt. xi. 14. 4 Matt. xvii. 9-13. 5 Mal/iii. 2, 3. 6 Mai. iv. 1-5. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 191 yet were there few souls ready and waiting for him. A great moral reformation and purification of life were essential to save them from finding his advent a curse to them. A baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire was coming, and John's mission was to rouse the peo- ple to a spiritual apprehension of it. And he very largely effected it. "Then went out to him Jerusa- lem, and all Judea, and all the region about Jordan, confessing their sin." l Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism ; and the great burden of his preaching was, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' 7 2. To baptize the Messiah himself, and point him out as the actual Redeemer of humanity. John not only preached repentance to the people, and baptized such as manifested their obedience, but he had also another end to accomplish to distinguish who the Messiah was, and testify his personal presence to the people : " That he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water." 2 John, though a relative, in the flesh, of the Saviour, had not an acquaintance with him, but he had a pre-appointed signal that, on his official administration of baptism to him, the Holy Ghost should visibly appear and remain upon him. 3 At the age of thirty, the Saviour came to John to be baptized of him, and the intimation to John that he was the Christ, led John to say, " I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me ? " 4 1 Matt. iii. 5-7. 3 John i. 31. 3 John i. 31 and 33. 4 Matt. iii. 14. 192 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. The Saviour let John know that he did not seek the baptism of repentance belonging to John's com- mission to the Jewish people, but a baptism that rightly consecrated all official sacred investitures, and was now to fulfil his part in his entrance upon his public Messiahship ; and with such explanation John was satisfied. " Then he suffered him." l The sign of the descending and awhile-abiding form of the Holy Ghost was given, 2 and then John the Bap- tist " saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.; " and as Jesus walked among them, John again points him out, saying, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " 3 These two parts filled John's mission, and when they were accomplished, his administration ceased. He continued his testimony while Christ remained for some length of time after his baptism in comparative obscurity, and then John was imprisoned, and his active mission ended. What was the peculiar distinction of John's Baptism ? The Abranamic covenant made provision for the admission of converts from any Gentile people. Who- ever was so received and circumcised came at once into all the privileges of a Hebrew of the Hebrews. A mode of purification was established in connection with the rite of circumcision, and which became a formal application of water, and known in the tradi- tions of the elders as proselyte baptism. Without further consideration of this, it is sufficient to say, that John's baptism was quite different from proselyte 1 Matt. iii. 15. 8 Matt. iii. 16, 17. 3 Joim i. 34-36. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 193 baptism. His work was not bringing converts to Judaism, but preparation of Jews for the advent of Messiah. The baptisms of the two were as distinct as the doctrines and duties they symbolized. John's baptism also differed from that which Christ instituted. Christian baptism was instituted by him- self, and by his authority stood as the sacramental sign of admission to his established church ; but John's baptism was before Christ came and the Christian church was introduced, and for the end of introducing Christ himself. Christian baptism was in the name of the Father, Son, arid Holy Ghost ; but John's baptism left his disciples without hearing that there was any Holy Ghost. 1 John himself made a great distinction between the two baptisms ; one was " unto repent- ance," the other unto life, purified " with the Holy Ghost and with fire. " 2 Those whom John baptized were baptized over again on entering the Christian church; as the three thousand Pentecost converts were all baptized, though many, and probably most, had been baptized by John. 3 Christian baptism is noticed as baptism, eminently and unqualifiedly ; but John's baptism is always qualified as distinctive, as " baptism of John," " baptism of water," " baptism of repentance," &c. And finally, the qualification for John's baptism was a practical faith that Christ was just coming ; but of Christian baptism the prerequisite was a practical faith that he had come, suffered, risen, 1 Acts xix. 2, 3. 2 Matt. iii. 11. 3 Acts ii. 41, xix. 3, 5. 13 194 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. and ascended. John's disciple stood above the Old Testament saint, in that he had added the belief, and conduct accordingly, of Christ's immediate coin- ing; but Christ's disciples had a faith and conduct fastening them to the one known Christ, as already revealed in the flesh. In John's day no man had lived that was greater than he ; but the least in Christ's kingdom was greater than John. 1 With this view of John's office and its administra- tion, there needs to be added only a short statement of his life and time. Herod had reigned in Judea thirty-two years when John the Baptist was born, and his reign continued three years longer, covering the bloody transaction of slaying the children of Bethlehem, in order to the destruction of the infant Saviour. In this thirty-second year of Herod, the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias, a priest minis- tering in the temple, of the course of Abia, and told him that his hitherto barren wife Elisabeth should bear a son, whom he should name John, and who should " go before " the coming Lord " in the spirit and power of Elias." 2 The history of John's infancy, youth, and manhood is not given till his opening min- istry at thirty years of age. He must have known the destination of his life from his father and mother, and have doubtless been directed in training and expectation preparatory to it ; but when the time for his public ministry came, we have the abrupt an- nouncement, " In those days came John the Baptist, 1 Matt. xi. 11. * Luke i. 5-25. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. 195 preaching in the wilderness of Judea." l Mark be- gins his Gospel with this preaching of the forerunner ; but Luke is quite specific in noting the time of its occurrence. " In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." 2 In the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus Caesar he took Tiberius Caesar into partnership with him in the government, and assigned to him the Roman provinces. John was thirty years of age at this fifteenth year of Tiberius, and thus fifteen years of age at the beginning of Tiberius' reign, as above, and his birth the twenty-seventh year of Augustus, which was the thirty-third year of Herod the Great in the kingdom at Jerusalem. John was about six months the senior of Christ, and Herod died in his thirty-fourth year in the kingdom, and thus had just time for the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem after Christ's birth, before his own death. Valerius Gratus had been made procurator of Judea by Tibe- rius, after the death of Augustus, and in his own full reign; and this Gratus had deposed Annas from the high priest's office, and while Annas was yet living had made several successive high priests and removed them, and this very fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign had at last made Joseph, called Caia- 1 Matt. iii. 1. 2 Luke iii. 1, 2. 196 HUMANITY AWAITING REDEMPTION. phas, high priest, while Annas the old high priest still lived. Within this year of Caiaphas' appointment to the high priest's office, Gratus was himself recalled to Rome, and Pontius Pilate was put in his place in the government of Judea, and Herod Antipas was then tetrarch of Galilee; and thus all stood as Luke re- lates at John's opening ministry. The reckoning of time from the Christian era com- menced in the sixth century, and mistakingly began the date four years later than Christ's birth, and so this year of John's commencing ministry was accord- ing to the vulgar reckoning 26 A. D. About six months from its commencement, he baptized the Lord Jesus, and in the fulfilment of his dispensation in pointing him out as the Messiah already come, he v must have occupied a much longer time, according to Prideaux' reckoning three years ; and others make, some two years and some one year. He was then cast into prison by Herod Antipas for plainly rebuk- ing his adulterous connection with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. Prideaux makes this imprison- ment to have lasted a year, during which time John's disciples came to Christ, in doubt about fasting, while Christ's disciples did not fast. 1 And then, again, perhaps desponding at his hard lot, or, as may be, seek- ing an opportunity to strengthen his disciples' faith in Jesus' Messiahship beyond his own teaching, he sent two of them to Jesus to ask if he were " the Saviour that was to come, or if they were to expect another." 2 1 Matt. ix. 14-17. 2 Matt. xi. 2-6. FROM CAPTIVITY TO THE INCARNATION. '197 At the time of their presence, Jesus took occasion to work many miracles, and preach the truth plainly to the poor sufferers he healed, and then sent his disci- ples back to John to tell him what they had seen and heard in confirmation that he was the Christ, and to assure John of Christ's blessing if he held his confi- dence full to the testimony given. 1 Soon after this, Herodias' daughter danced before Herod on a convivial occasion, and so pleased him that he promised, with an oath, to give her what she should ask. She, instructed by her mother, whose harbored spite towards John, for his reproof to Herod on her account, had made nothing to be so desirable to her as the death of the stern reprover, asked Herod to give to her John Baptist's head. By Her- od's order, John was at once executed in prison, and his head brought to the daughter and mother in a charger. 2 His disciples took the headless body and buried it, and went and told Jesus. 3 We now finish this chapter of the history of God's dealings with mankind, through long ages, to get the world ready for the Redeemer to come among men, and next open a chapter for the consideration of his advent, and establishment of his kingdom, and ful- filment of all his purpose and promise in saving the lost. 1 Luke vii. 19-23. 2 Matt. xiv. 10, 11. 3 Matt. xiv. 12. 198 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. CHAPTER III. THE INCARNATION, WITH THE WORK AND DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION. THE same person in the Godhead, who has created the worlds, and made man upon this earth, when man sinned has promised a way of redemption for him, and has been working upon the nations of the earth, through his chosen people, to prepare the way for the coming of the promised Deliverer ; and now, with the preparation made, it is also the same second per- son of the Trinity who is to be Redeemer, and come and dwell among men, to open the door for the fallen to rise again into favor and communion with God. It is thus still the dispensation of the Logos that we further contemplate through this chapter ; but not as tracing successive transactions and occurrences his- torically any more, we rather take the records the evangelists have given, and from them show who the Redeemer is, and what is the redemption he has wrought out for humanity. What he has already done, in covenant connection with Abraham's seed, has put the race in condition for his alliance with it more intimately than before. THE INCARNATION. 199 Iniquity and idolatry are still widely prevalent, but one nation has been cured of its pagan tendencies, and been brought formally to worship the one true Jehovah. They have, moreover, thrown so much light over the polytheistic world, that the idolatrous nations have been obliged to recognize in the Jeho- vah of Israel a Deity more powerful and pure than any of their patron gods. They have also been made to expect, through Hebrew ritual and prophecy, the speedy coming of a heavenly Messenger, who shall bring with him divine deliverance for sorrowing hu- manity. Most of his own covenant people will be found still too sensuous to receive him, and faith in his salvation will make but slow progress among the Gentiles ; but so many hearts have been made open for him, that the great Redeemer may now come and live among men, and preach his new Gospel of Salva- tion to them, and the spiritual truths he shall reveal shall not fall on a soil wholly barren. The world's salvation will now be more rapidly hastened by his coming personally in it, than by any longer delay in preparation for him ; " the fulness of time " has thus come, and the incarnation of Jehovah is at hand. He who made all things, and crowned his work on earth with man, is now to be made flesh and dwell with men. 200 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. SECTION I. THE INCAKNATION OF THE LOGOS. / SPECULATIVE Reason can walk alone here just as little as in determining the work of creating the heavens and the earth. Phenomenal facts must first be apprehended, and in them the insight of reason must read the traces of God's handiwork ; and equally so in redemption ; revealed facts must be the symbols in which reason shall read God's spiritual meaning. The facts are indeed a dead letter to sense, and all logical deductions from sense ; but they have in them a living meaning to reason's insight, and which can by no possibility be brought into contemplation, ex- cept by reason alone. They contain spiritual truth, and this must be spiritually discerned, not sensibly perceived, nor logically deduced from any sense-per- ceptions. Yet while the spiritual eye may read, the insight can get no more truth than God has put with- in the record ; all this contemplative reason may see, and boldly should strive to read all that the record contains. 1. THE REDEEMER is BORN OF A VIRGIN. Two evangelists only give the specific record of the facts THE INCARNATION. 201 in the Redeemer's incarnation, viz., Matthew 1 and Luke. 2 John 3 states pre-existing truths, and teaches fundamental doctrine, beyond any other evangelist, about " the word made flesh ; " but John records noth- ing concerning the birth from a human mother. The evangelical Epistles, also, communicate much valuable and valid doctrine of the coming of our Lord from heaven to earth, but do not say anything descriptive of the manner by which the Logos entered into hu- manity. We may take these teachings afterwards and interpret the historic narrative by them, but the first lesson to learn is in these distinct and particular records of the above two evangelists: There is doubt- less more meaning here than the human mind has yet recognized ; and all that is here God would have men carefully contemplate, and comprehensively appropri- ate. He designed here to communicate supernatural truths ; and as he has given to man reason competent to discern supernatural truth, it cannot be to God's honor that any man should deem the sanctity of the mysteries forbids an honest and hopeful attempt to attain the supernatural communication. The danger is twofold; that some shall sink the whole in bald naturalism, or that others shall take the supernatural- ism to be too profound for human comprehension. The account in Luke has all that Matthew gives, and is the more explicit and particular. There is here, moreover, the advantage of having the account of John the Baptist's foretold birth and mission, paral- 1 Matt. i. 18-25. 2 Luke i. 26-80. 3 John i. 202 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. lei with the account of the birth and mission of the Messiah ; and the comparisons and contrasts in the two will greatly help in comprehending the truths belonging to the Redeemer's personality. We thus carefully note the record in the Gospel of Luke. We have the account concerning John of the angel Gabriel appearing to the priest Zacharias in the tem- ple, and foretelling, antecedently to his conception, the birth of his son, and that he should call his name John ; that this son should be the Lord's forerunner, and should turn the faith of many in Israel to the Re- deemer's advent. Beyond the angel's foresight, what was here supernatural was the quickening of Elisa- beth from barreness ; the making of the father dumb till the birth occurred, and then healing him, and the endowing of the child with unwonted spiritual power by the Holy Ghost. But this child, given under such supernatural conditions, was a human being only. Zacharias was his father, as Elisabeth was his mother; and John was a descendant of his parents by ordinary generation, just as they and he were natural descend- ants from the first man and woman. Six months after, the same angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin Mary, and foretold the birth of a son from her, and that she should call his name Jesus ; that he should have an endless kingdom, and be known as the Son of the Highest. Mary's conscious virginity induced the scrupulous inquiry how such an event could be. The answer was direct, and intentionally unequivocal and emphatic, that the conception should THE INCARNATION. 203 be miraculous. The living seed should be God's crea- tion in a virgin ovarium, and the originated embryo should there grow to the birth ; and that " the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." In this is the parallelism between John's and Jesus' birth, that they are both human and born of woman ; and so Jesus is man as truly as John. But beyond the parallel, there springs a con- trast, for while John is son of Zacharias, Jesus is Son of God. And here, taking solely the evangelical narrative, perhaps it might be said, Adam was created man directly by God with no previous parentage, and tracing up the genealogy of Jesus to Adam, Luke says of Adam, " who was the son of God." 1 And now Adam, though truly human, was -yet no more than human : may it not then be accepted that this is the whole meaning of the appellation " Son of God," and that of Jesus, this alone is true, he is a mere man immediately originated from God ? Leaving here the narrative to be in other things interpreted as it may, in this there is no dispute that it teaches Jesus was man, and originally, as was Adam, immedi- ately from God. But from other authentic and in- spired sources, we have the clear revelation 2. JESUS WAS BORN MORE THAN HUMAN. Admit that Adam and Jesus have their parallel in their direct divine origination ; they find also their con- 1 Luke iii. 38. 204 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. trast in that Adam then began while Jesus had pre- existence. " The Word was made flesh/' but this " Word was in the beginning with God." l Of Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul declares, " who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful men." 2 And it is this contrast precisely which the same apostle affirms between Adam and Jesus Christ, when he says, " The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the Lord from heaven." 3 While, then, it is plain that in this son of Mary we have a man in all respects like other men born of woman, except that his origin as man was immediately from God, as plain, also, is it that in this birth we have more than man .even that which did not then begin, but pre-existed from all beginning. Unlike any other being, in his full personality he is the one only living God-man. We should presume too much on the cultivation of human reason to suppose that in this age the full com- prehension of this strictly unique being might be at- tained by any man. Even angels desire to look deep- er and see more. 4 Yet as the ages pass onward, the reason of humanity does advance in philosophic and theologic comprehension ; and this deep mystery of godliness God manifest in the flesh is less a mystery, though no less in majesty and glory, than it was in earlier ages; and some things concerning it 1 John i. 1-14. 2 Phil. ii. 6, 7. 3 1 Cor. xv. 47. 4 1 Pet. i. 12. THE INCARNATION. 205 are more adequately contemplated by us than they were by our fathers. And the more we may know of it, through our deep and reverent study, the more shall we profit man and please God. Physical life propagates itself in sexual generation from age to age. In the vegetable, the life is mere unconscious instinct, spontaneously working itself out in successive flower and fruit from year to year. But something can never originate from nothing, and the product have more than was in the producer. Plant- life can never go over in fructification to the higher kingdom of animal life. The irritability of nerve and contractibility of muscle must first be, or animal sen- sation and locomotion cannot be. Bodily organs may be given in less or more varieties, but the organ first must be, or sense-perception can have no manifesta- tion ; and in sex-propagation, the mere plant-parentage can never beget an animal offspring. And so again, the animal can never pass into the sphere of the human, and use the insight of reason in philosophy, morals, and religion, from a mere sentient organism. There must be the human body for the human spirit, and the mere animal cannot beget the man. Sense must be an original superinduction upon plant-life, and then reason k must be superinduced upon animal sense, and the higher life can alone work out the higher organism. We know this to be reason's truth and reason's order, and hence we know it to be nature's necessity j and nowhere was nature ever found to step over this 206 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. order of Absolute Reason in any kingdom of propa- gated successions. Any interchange of organic func- tion in organic grades is at once known as supernatu- ral; and it was as really a miraculous interposition which made the dumb ass to speak, as it would be to make trees walk, or plants hear. The exigency must demand the supernatural interposition, and then in nature will be given the manifestation. For the work of redemption there comes the need that humanity be exalted to the divine ; that is, Deity must manifest himself in the experiences of humanity, and no sexu- ally generated organism can be competent to the emergency. Even Adam's body, as he was first cre- ated man, would not, as a tabernacle, be fitting for the indwelling of Jehovah, and much less any body in sexual descent from him after the vitiation of his fall. There must here be the Lamb without spot ; a sacri- fice for sin which the blood of bulls and goats, and even the offering of a human first-born, cannot be made adequately to answer. Wherefore, when the divine Redeemer comes, it must be that in honest, hearty satisfaction he can say to the Father, " A body hast thou fitted for me." : It is not an angel form that he may assume, nor angelic experience into which he is consciously to enter, but as the seed of Abraham, and partaker of flesh and blood, so that between God and offending man he may stand as faithful high priest, making reconciliation with sovereignty on one side, and succoring the tempted on the other. 2 Hence, too, 1 Heb. x. 5. 2 Heb. ii. 14-18. THE INCARNATION. when the Son is sent forth into the world he must be "made of a woman, made^njfcM-j.tb& law ; " l and yet not in ordinary generation, as just seen, but he must be born of a virgin whom " the power of the Highest has overshadowed." 2 Here are the conditions which we may now see can alone consistently introduce the divine to participation with the human. So existing, the Messiah is truly " IMMAN- UEL God with us." 3. THE REDEEMER, so BEING, is STILL ONE BEING. The tree is one as truly as the stone is one. There is a force pervading the stone, which may be termed cohesion, or chemical combination, that holds all parts together and makes a whole. And in the tree there is a profounder bond pervading every part, and the one life everywhere grasps root and trunk and branch in unity, and makes the many still a single. This tree- life put upon mere force gives to us the tree as one, in a higher and more comprehensive sense than the force of cohesion gives to us the stone as one. Through the everywhere diffused life in which the parts grow together, we know the tree to be more a unit than the stone which has its parts only stuck to- gether. And then, again, the animal has not only, as the tree, everywhere life diffused through it, but over and above life, there is everywhere sensation all-per- vading. This one sense holds the animal in higher identity than the one life does the plant; and we 1 Gal. iv. 4. 8 Luke i. 34, 35. 208 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. know the sense in every member and organ to be the same, and making the body one in its one feeling, in a profounder meaning than that the tree is one in its one life. As life is a deeper bond than force, so sense is a more sublimated connective than vitality. And then, when reason is put over sense in man, and gives him insight of phenomenal principles and laws, and enables him to guide his actions by science, taste, and conscience, it puts the whole man under self-control, and the one will is made regulative of all sense-expe- rience. The man is then one in his personality in a higher sense than any plant or animal is one. The whole animal sense is taken in, and thoroughly suffused by, the superinduced rationality. All this opens the light upon the unity of Jesus Christ's personality. His manhood is one, as with all men ; but there is put upon the man the higher con- nective of the divine, and the very will and person- ality of Jehovah is integrated in the human reason, and lifts the man within the comprehensive sphere of divine intelligence and action. One divine will and consciousness holds sense and human reason in unity, and the oneness of the divine Redeemer is as superior to that of man, as Absolute Reason transcends the en- dowment of human rationality. Now, in the Godhead, as Absolute Reason, there is the distinct will that plans, and has within itself the Ideal ; and the separate will that objectifies, and gives Expression; and the still other will, that puts idea and object in consistent comprehensive Unity ; and THE INCARNATION. , 209 these three wills, in their discrimination, are three persons in their own conscious activities, and can be recognized in nothing so appropriate as respective personalities. And yet are the three not so many beings, for the being of all is in the one Absolute Reason. And the personality incarnated in the Re- deemer is the second, known as Logos, or Word, i. e., the expresser, or outward manifester of the unseen Ideal. This Word originally was " with God," and " was God," and here is " made flesh ; " entering truly into humanity. This complexity, as One in Jesus Christ the Redeemer, reconciles the many apparent paradoxical representations given of him in the Gos- pels. Thus, " he came down from heaven," and while on earth talking with his disciples he was also "in heaven." l He says also of himself, " I and my Father are one ; " 2 and then again, " My Father is greater than I ; " 3 and also, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 4 And so, also, we have the repre- sentation, that this assuming of a human body and dwelling with men was a humbling condescension, involving much personal sacrifice. "He made him- self of no reputation ; " " he humbled himself, and became obedient." 5 " He became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." 6 His perfection, as Redeemer of men, is through suffering. 7 There must needs be occasion for speaking of the Redeemer John iii. 13. 8 John x. 30. 3 John xiv. 28. 4 John xiv. 9. 6 Phil. ii. 7. 6 2 Cor. viii. 9. 7 Heb. ii. 10. 14 210 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. in all the phases of his complex being, viz., as God in Trinity, as man in the flesh, and as both God and man in his mediation. It would be impossible to fill out his record in redemption without giving more or less such paradoxical exhibitions of him. As Redeemer of men he is one, and yet not complete in his oneness, except as the divine takes up in its unity the animal sense and the human spirit, and makes them a unit in its absolute unity. This one virgin-birth raised hu- manity into the sphere of God-consciousness, and brought Deity into the sphere of human experience. While in the man- Jesus " dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," l in the Jehovah-Jesus was the sus- ceptibility to be " touched with the feeling of our in- firmities." 2 So incarnated, Deity can be tempted; so exalted, humanity can endure any temptation with- out sin. 4. THIS ONE REDEEMER is IN HIMSELF PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING. Not as offices conferred upon him, and into which he has been inaugurated by some separate authority, but in his own essence such offices already belong to him in the mode of his existence. He is Prophet in the acceptation that the message he brings from above needs not to be first delivered to him, but stands already in his own omniscient con- sciousness. What Jesus communicates is just what God himself is. His truth is the truth in God. His 1 Col. ii. 9. * Heb. iv. 15. THE INCARNATION. 211 exhibited feeling is God's feeling ; his will is God's will. He says of himself, " I do always those things that please the Father." 1 And the Father says of him, " This is my beloved Sou, in whom I am well pleased." 2 His pleasure is God's pleasure, and seen through its expression in his life and daily action and conversation, we see directly into the heart and pur- pose of God. " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Jesus has Divinity ; he is Deity ; and in himself he expresses what the Godhead is. And so, moreover, he is mediating High Priest, not as taking commissioned authority from superior sover- eignty, and delegated representation from assenting subjects, and so acting by consent and sufferance of parties; but in what he is he already touches both parties, and has within himself the interests both of man and God. Essentially he is Mediator between the two, and he can no more renounce the wants of man than the claims of God. His intercession is hu- manity interceding, just as his pardoning and accept- ing is the valid justification by God. " I knew that thou hearest me always." 3 His mediatorial Reign also is his essential preroga- tive. To be so born of a virgin gives inheritance to the sceptre of humanity. It is a dominion to which mere man could not be exalted, and one which, out of the flesh, God could not condescend to take. But the humbling of himself to be born of woman, and become obedient to the death of the cross, makes it 1 John viii. 29. * Matt. iii. 17, * John xi. 42. 212 his right to be highly exalted as " King in Zion," and " head over all things to his church." His triumphant resurrection gives into his hand the "keys of Hell and of Death/' and sets him on " the right hand of the Throne of Majesty in the Heavens." In all these offices he bears, it is in virtue of what is essential in him that he determines how to execute them. It is his to say what he will reveal as Prophet, when he will intercede and when pronounce absolu- tion as High Priest, and how legislate, and judge, and execute as Mediatorial Sovereign; and all he so does stands forever in the validity of Absolute Authority. The Absolute Reason, in redeeming a lost race, re- quires a second person for the manifestation of his secret plan and counsel, just as in the eternal Ideal of created worlds there must be the manifesting will that fixes them in objective steadfastness; and it is by the same second Person, as Son, God redeems humanity, that it was by whom also in the beginning " he made the worlds." l 1 Heb. i. 2. LIFE AND WORK IN THE FLESH. 213 SECTION II THE REDEMPTIVE WOEK AS WROUGHT IN HUMAN FLESH. THE coming of Christ in the flesh, and so taking Humanity, was the great redeeming-work of God. This has in it all the virtue for salvation that any subsequent manifestation can bring out of it, and in itself, to the divine comprehension, expresses the length and breadth, the height and depth, of the love of God ; and has in it, too, all the purpose and promise of the first announcement of redemption after the fall, when God said of the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." But to finite spirits, and especially to human reason, this " mystery of godliness" will not have its hidden truth unfolded but through a life-and-death-experi- ence, which shall carry out before them the very work of self-sacrifice which is essentially in the very incarnation itself. This has already been pre- figured as plainly as ritual representations could effect it, in the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, and the sin-offering of the slain goat, and bearing-a way-iniquity of the scape goat; but though as clearly as humanity 214 REDEEMER'S ADVENT AND DOCTRINE. could then receive it, yet how inadequately can ani- mal blood, anyhow shed, indicate the depth of abhor- rence in God for human sin, and the intense pity in God for the human sinner ! These both are fully set within the incarnate Word, in the fact of the incarna- tion itself, and no further exhibition is about to add anything to the essence of this expiation ; but more vividly, and more truly, the life and death of Christ may show this to men, than has been, or ever can be, done by any ceremonial sacrifices. Prophecy had also done what it could in setting an incarnate redemption in expectancy before men ; but now the life and