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 Mosaic dispensation considered as introd 
 
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THE 
 
 » 
 
 MOSAIC DISPENSATION 
 
 CONSLDEEED AS INTRODDCTOEY TO 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 EIGHT SERMONS 
 
 PEEAOHED EEFOEE 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 AT THE 
 
 BAMPTON LECTURE 
 
 FOE THE YEAE MDCCCLVI. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD ARTHUR LITTON, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF OBIBL COLLEGE. 
 
 Novum Testameutum in vetere velabatur: vetus Testameutum in novo 
 revelatur. Avf/ustin. Serm. clx. 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 T. HATCHAKD, 187, PICCxSlDILLY 
 
 H. HAMMANS, (lATE GRAHAM,) OXFOBD. 
 
 1856. 
 
A. Si~^l^ 
 
 5 ^;_ 
 
 BAXTER., PBLNTEBy OXFOEB. 
 
TO THE 
 
 HEADS OF COLLEGES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 THE 
 
 FOLLOWING SEEMONS 
 
 PREACHED BY THEIR APPOINTMENT 
 
 ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FKOM 
 
 THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THE lATE 
 
 REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to 
 
 " the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University 
 " of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular 
 " the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents 
 " and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, 
 " I •win and appoint, that the Vice-Chancellor of the 
 " University of Oxford for the time being shall take 
 " and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, 
 " and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions 
 " made) that he pay all the remainder to the endovrment 
 " of Eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established 
 " for ever in the said University, and to be performed 
 " in the manner following : 
 
 " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday 
 " in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the 
 " Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room 
 " adjoining to the Prin ting-House, between the hours 
 " of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to 
 " preach Eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year fol- 
 " lowing, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the com- 
 " mencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the 
 " end of the third week in Act Term. 
 
 b 
 
vi EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON's WILL. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the Eight Divinity 
 "Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of 
 " the following Subjects— to confirm and establish the 
 " Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schis- 
 " matics — upon the divine authority of the Holy Scrip- 
 " tures — upon the authority of the writings of the 
 " primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the 
 " primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and 
 " Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy 
 " Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as 
 " comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 
 
 " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the Eight Divinity 
 " Lecture Sermons shall be always printed within two 
 " months after they are preached, and one copy shall he 
 " given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy 
 " to the Head of every College, and one copy to the 
 " Mayor of the City of Oxford, and one copy to be put 
 " into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing 
 " them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or 
 " Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture 
 " Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be 
 " entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be 
 " qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, 
 " unless he hath taken the Degree of Master of Arts at 
 " least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or 
 " Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never 
 " preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 While the genuineness, authenticity, and in- 
 spiration, of the Jewish Scriptures have been fre- 
 quently and successfully vindicated, there is reason 
 to apprehend that the structure of the Mosaic 
 economy itself, and its relation to the Christian, 
 have not received from our divines an equal 
 measure of attention ; the consequence of v^^hich 
 has been, a comparative neglect, on the part of 
 students in theology, of this portion of the sacred 
 volume, as containing little to interest or instruct. 
 
 We have, indeed, scattered observations and 
 hints in the works of well-known writers, but, as 
 far as the author is aware, no connected view of 
 the whole subject. It seems to have been part of 
 Warburton's plan to exhibit the connexion of the 
 two covenants ; but he has left a fragment only, 
 and that of no great value, on this subject : and 
 perhaps the loss is not so great, for from his general 
 views on religion, as displayed in his other works, 
 and from the constitution of his mind, this great 
 writer might not have been so successful in unfold- 
 ing the " Nature and Genius of the Christian Reli- 
 gion %" as he is in establishing the divine legation 
 '' The title of Warburton's ninth book. 
 
 b 2 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 of Moses. In Dr. Graves' useful work on the 
 Pentateuch/ Judaism as preparatory to Christianity' 
 occupies but a single lecture. Archbishop Magee's 
 learned Dissertations relate chiefly to one topic. 
 Many valuable remarks occur in different parts of 
 Mr. Davison's works ; so valuable, that it is a matter 
 of regret that this gifted writer was not led to 
 traverse the whole field : but on several points not 
 inferior in interest to those of which he treats in 
 his Discourses on Prophecy, and in his treatise on 
 Sacrifice, he has delivered no judgment. Mr. Faber's 
 Horse Mosaicse, and Dr. Fairbairn's excellent work 
 on Typology, confine themselves chiefly to the 
 typical branch of the subject. 
 
 In the following pages an attempt is made to 
 supply this defect ; and to present such a view of 
 the nature and use of the Mosaic system as intro- 
 ductory to the Gospel, as shall, at least, draw 
 attention to a rich, but uncultivated, region of 
 religious inquiry. The writer is aware that 
 omissions and imperfections will probably be 
 found in his work : the homiletic form, with its 
 necessarily contracted limits, is not the most favour- 
 able to theological discussion. He is willing how- 
 ever to hope, that most of the leading points in 
 which Judaism prepared the way for Christianity 
 have been noticed ; and especially those with which, 
 in the minds of intelligent students, peculiar diffi- 
 culties may be supposed to be connected. Eluci- 
 dations of some of these points, which could not 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 be well introduced into the Lectures^ he has thrown 
 into an Appendix. 
 
 In his choice of a subject, the writer has been 
 influenced not merely by the interest with which, 
 to the devout Christian, the elder dispensation 
 must ever be invested, but by a conviction, shared, 
 he beheves, by many, that theological controversy 
 amongst ourselves is taking a new turn, and that 
 such topics as the supernatural character of Re- 
 vealed Religion in general, and the divine authority 
 of the Holy Scriptures in particular, may be ex- 
 pected to occupy no small share of public attention. 
 In the rationalistic movements of the Continent it 
 is the Old Testament against which the first attacks 
 have commonly been directed: both in this country 
 and abroad, avowed infidelity has ever expatiated 
 with peculiar zest on the supposed defects of the 
 Mosaic system. That we may, before long, have 
 to meet a sceptical criticism of this kind, is by no 
 means unlikely. The writer has, in the prosecution 
 of his task, indulged the hope, that the remarks 
 made on the ethical tendency, and prophetical 
 character, of the ancient economy, may, under the 
 Divine blessing, contribute to the conviction of its 
 having been, not the product of human wisdom, 
 but the appointment of God. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTUKE I. 
 Page 1. 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF THE THEOCRACY. 
 
 Gal. iii. 19. 
 Wherefore then serveth the Law ? it was added because of transgres- 
 sions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. 
 
 That the Old Testament was introductory to the New, 
 generally admitted. But different views entertained respect- 
 ing the connexion between the two ; — Ancient heretics ; 
 Judaizing Christians ; the school of Spencer ; that of his 
 opponents (Witsius and his followers) ; parties within 
 Churches (Puritans, Pre-Millennarians) ; Churches themselves 
 (Komanists, Protestants). These differences frequently the 
 result of theories to be defended which do not appear on the 
 surface, p. 1 — 7. 
 
 The subject of the present Lectures. Importance of it ; 
 (a) From the present tendency of Theological speculation ; 
 which Ls a reaction from exaggerated views in the opposite 
 direction. (0) From its intrinsic interest. A knowledge of 
 the Old Testament necessary to the interpretation of the 
 New; conducive to the right understanding of Christian 
 doctrines, p. 7 — 15. 
 
 Statement of the topics to be discussed, p. 15 — 17. 
 
 Examination of the structure of the Theocracy as a whole. 
 It may be considered, 1. As a means of perpetuating the sacred 
 records, and repelling the noxious influences of heathenism. 
 Preparation for the Gospel, among heathen negative, among 
 Jews positive. Nature of the Theocracy — complete fusion of 
 civil and religious government. Peculiarities hence arising. 
 Deistical objections stated. But by no other system (a) could 
 the sacred oracles have been preserved, (^) could idolatry have 
 been made punishable by civil penalties. Hence the pecu- 
 liarities of the Mosaic system, particularly of its exclusively 
 temporal sanctions, vindicated. Conclusion, p. 18 — 36. 
 
XH CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 Page 37. 
 THE STEDCTUEE OF THE THEOCBAOY CONTINUED. 
 
 Gal. iii. 24. 
 The Laiu was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. 
 
 Continuation of the subject of the last Lecture. 
 Michaelis' views defective. Statements of Scripture on the 
 objects of the Mosaic system. We learn from them that the 
 Theocracy, in its structure, was, 
 
 II. A school of discipline, intended to operate on the sub- 
 ject from without inwards, p. 37 — 40. 
 
 Difference between the Christian and the Mosaic economy 
 as regards the relation of the outward form to the inward 
 spirit. The New Testament lays down general principles 
 only ; the Old enters into the minutest details of outward 
 religious service. Analogy between the latter system and 
 the work of ordinary education. The work of education is 
 conducted on the principle of outward discipline : it is in- 
 tended to form habits ; and presupposes a feebleness of self 
 determining moral power. The Jewish system was analogous 
 in nature : it operated by means of present and immediate 
 retributions, and by an external framework of " bodily 
 service." p. 40 — 50. 
 
 Such a system necessary from the imperfect knowledge and 
 low spiritual capacities of the Jewish people at the time of 
 their departure from Egypt. Mistaken notions on this sub- 
 ject, arising from the tendency to transfer Christian ideas to 
 the earlier dispensation. The Jew a Jew by natural birth, 
 the Christian so by new birth. Influences of the Spirit not 
 a matter of covenant under the old dispensation. The position 
 of the Jew therefore analogous to that of such members of 
 the visible Church as are not yet fully under the influence of 
 the Spirit. The love, fear, &c. required of him, afi'ections 
 intermediate between natural, and properly spiritual, ones: 
 hence justice of his expulsion from Canaan. Such a system 
 therefore as that of Moses the only one suitable to the case. 
 Futility of the delstical objections to the Mosaic system on 
 account of its multiplicity of rites and ceremonies, p. 50—65. 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 The Theocracy was, 
 
 III. An earthly figure of the inner Theocracy of the Spirit. 
 
 Christians collectively represented by terms drawn from 
 the elder covenant, as when they are described as the " Israel 
 of God," &c. Illustrations (< ) From the analogy between the 
 history of the chosen people, and the spiritual experience of 
 Christians; and (/3) From the privileges, common to both 
 Jew and Christian ; expressed by the terms, election, calling, 
 adoption, &c. Modification of meaning which these terms 
 undergo under the Gospel. Conclusion, p. 65 — 73. 
 
 LECTUEE III. 
 
 Page 75. 
 
 the levitical pbiesthood and saceifices. 
 
 Hebrews x. 11. 
 
 And every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes 
 
 the same sacrifices, which can never take aivay sins. 
 
 The Ceremonial Law, and Prophecy, the two main branches 
 of the Mosaic revelation. Subject of the Lecture, p. 75 — 77. 
 
 I. Import of the Levitical appointments of priesthood and 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Previous question, whether they can be said to have served 
 any use save a typical one. Davison's view respecting the 
 amount of insight possessed by the Jew into the import of 
 his Law, not altogether satisfactory. Difference between 
 symbolical and typical teaching of the Ceremonial Law. 
 Under the form-er aspect it needed no explanatory revelation 
 to make its meaning plain. Symbolism familiar to Eastern 
 nations. Instances from Old Testament. Advantages of 
 this mode of teaching, p. 77 — 87. 
 
 Connexion of the appointments of priesthood and sacrifice 
 with the general scope of the Theocracy, p. 87—90. 
 
 1. The Levitical priesthood differed not essentially from 
 that of other religions of antiquity. Yet presented con- 
 siderable points of contrast, (a) The Jewish Priests were not 
 the sole depositaries of religious knowledge. (/3) They were 
 not a distinct caste, but rather the representatives, of the 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 chosen nation, (y) Ethical qualifications required in them, 
 p. 90—95. 
 
 2. Levitical sacrifices. Leading idea, and different kinds 
 of them. More particularly, it is to be observed, (a) That 
 God Himself appears as the Author of the atoning ordinance. 
 (/3) That the Levitical sacrifices were vicarious, p. 90 — 103. 
 
 II. Efficacy of the Mosaic atonements. Two opposite views 
 on this point. How far they may be combined into one. 
 Object and limits of these atonements. All moral transgres- 
 sions (presumptuous excluded) covered by them, but none 
 effectually obliterated. Eom. iii. 25, 26. Hence inferiority of 
 the Mosaic atonements as compared with that of Christ. 
 Conclusion : comparison between the Levitical sacrificial 
 system and those of heathenism, p. 103 — 113. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Page 115. 
 THE PRIESTHOOD AND SACEIFIOE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Heb. X. 12. 
 
 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever 
 sat down on the right hand of God. 
 
 Importance of establishing the typical reference of the 
 Ceremonial Law. Its prophetical character vindicates its 
 divine origin, and explains the rudimentary nature of its 
 appointments, p. 115 — 120. 
 
 General view of the scheme of redemption. The specific 
 work of Christ consists, 
 
 1. In His priestly functions. Scripture expressly ascribes 
 such to Him. p. 120—123. 
 
 2. In His perfect atonement. Priesthood implies a sacri- 
 fice. Natural history of the dogma of the Eucharistic Sacri- 
 fice. Scripture representations on the import of Christ's 
 death. The doctrine of the Atonement, as commonly under- 
 stood, can be established from the New Testament, without 
 the aid of the Old. Hence no matter of surprise that the 
 sacred writers connect the two dispensations as type and 
 antitype. That they do this, and further teach that the 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 coincidence was designed, proved. Their language on this 
 subject not figurative. Consequences of maintaining it to 
 be so. The Priesthood and Sacrifice of Christ the archetypal 
 appointments, in accordance with which the Levitical were 
 framed. Uses to which we may still apply the Levitical 
 ritual, instanced in the vicaripusness of the Eedeemer's Sacri- 
 fice, and in the representative character of Christ Himself. 
 Thus each great division of the divine word illustrates the 
 other, p. 123— US. 
 
 Examination of the objection, that the mobal sense is 
 opposed to the doctrine of atonement. The idea of expiation 
 as distinguished from reconciliation. The craving for ex- 
 piation natural to fallen man. The penitential discipline 
 of Eome. The Gospel alone satisfies this want. Conclusion, 
 p. 145— J 63. 
 
 LECTUEE V. 
 
 Page 1S3. 
 
 the peophetio bevelation. 
 
 Acts x. 43. 
 
 To Him give all the Prophets witness. 
 
 Prophecy the second great means of instruction to the Jew. 
 
 Prophecy more comprehensive in its discoveries, but more 
 tardy in the communication, p. 153 — 155. 
 
 The prophetical office as a Theocratical institution ; its 
 use and importance, (a) As the nearest approach to the 
 ministry of the word. (/3) As a safeguard against a corrupt 
 government and priesthood, p. 155 — 157. 
 
 The substance of the prophetical revelation. 1. Its didactic 
 matter. Hebrew prophets combined the characters of ^on-is 
 and npo<j>riTris. New Testament gift of Prophecy chiefly moral. 
 Points on which the moral teaching of Prophecy enlarges, 
 (a) The nature and attributes of God ; especially His distinct 
 Personality. Pantheism of ancient philosophy, and modern 
 rationalism. (0) The Divine Providence. Difference between 
 this doctrine as stated in the New and the Old Testaments. 
 Importance of it to the believer, (y) The spiritual import 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 of the moral law. Progressive tendency of the prophetical 
 teaching towards a more spiritual system. Comparison be- 
 tween heathen philosophy and the teaching of the Prophets 
 as regards the ethical character of each. p. 15V — 173. 
 II. Its predictive matter. 
 
 1. The person and work of Christ. Progress of Prophecy 
 on these points. The Law, Psalms, and Prophets, p. 173—180. 
 
 2. The doctrines of eternal life and of the resurrection of 
 the body. These doctrines not found explicitly revealed in 
 the Pentateuch or the Psalms. Gloomy views of the ancient 
 believers in the prospect of death. Concurrently with the 
 fuller notices of redemption, Prophecy insists more and more 
 on a future state. Warburton's view erroneous, p. 180 — 189. 
 
 3. The nature of Christ's kingdom. Extension of spiritual 
 blessings to Gentiles. Christ's kingdom a spiritual one. 
 Conclusion, p. 189—194. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Page 195. 
 JUDAISM IN ITS INTEBIOR ASPECT. 
 
 Rom. ii. 38, 39. 
 He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; neither is that circmri' 
 cision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew, loMch is 
 one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the 
 spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, hut of 
 God. 
 
 Interior preparation for the Gospel as necessary as the 
 external and historical one. The Theocracy always contained 
 a spiritual as well as an outward Israel, p. 195 — 198. 
 
 Connexion of the subject with the doctrine of spiritual 
 influences. Hence previous question. How far spiritual 
 influences were vouchsafed under the Law? p. 198. 
 
 That such influences then existed shewn (a) from the 
 statements of Scripture, (/3) from the existence of piety. 
 
 Yet Scripture appears to recognise a marked distinction 
 between the gift of the Spirit under the Law and under the 
 Gospel, p. 198—802. 
 
CONTENTS. XVll 
 
 Various explanations proposed. The superiority of the 
 Christian gift of the Spirit supposed to consist in (a) The 
 Christian Scriptures. (/3) The miraculous gifts of the Spirit. 
 (y) The greater measure of sanctification now attainable. 
 (8) Formality of conveyance, p. 202 — 206. 
 
 Discussion of the point. Gift of the Spirit connected 
 with Christ's ascension. Christians then made (a) Temples 
 of the Holy Ghost. (j3) Members of Christ. Effects of the 
 indwelling of the Spirit. Spirit of Adoption. Vindication 
 of the Protestant doctrine of Justification. Difference between 
 regeneration under the Law and under the Gospel, p. 206 — 220. 
 
 Progress of religious sentiment among the Jews. The 
 spirit of the Law as distinguished from the letter. Conviction 
 of sin. Sense of the imperfection of the appointments in 
 being. Book of Psalms. Conclusion, p. 230 — 233. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Page 235. 
 
 the synagogue in its relation to the visible chdhch. 
 
 Acts xv. 21. 
 
 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, 
 being read in the synagogues every sabbath day. 
 
 Christianity to possess not only a religion but a Church. 
 Two Sacraments. Antecedently probable that some provision 
 would be made for the visible establishment of Christianity. 
 p. 285—237. 
 
 Changes which the Babylonish Captivity produced in the 
 Jews. Rise and progress of synagogical worship. Nature 
 of it; not sacrificial but verbal. Form of government in 
 Synagogue. Importance of this institution as a preparation 
 for the Gospel, p. 237—246. 
 
 That the polity of the Church was modelled after that of 
 the Synagogue beyond doubt. Visible separation of Chris- 
 tianity from Judaism gradual. Presbyters and Deacons 
 derived from Synagogue, p. 246 — 253. 
 
 Inferences. 1. No human priesthood under the Gospel. 
 2. True idea of the Christian Ministry, in its origin and 
 
XVIU CONTENTS. 
 
 perpetuation. It is a gift before it is an office. No such 
 idea in New Testament as a mystical grace of priesthood. 
 3. True conception of Christian worship. Services of the 
 Church homiletic not sacrificial. Danger of symbolism. 
 
 Conclusion. Tendency of the Clergy unduly to exalt theu- 
 office. Dangers of too great attention to the externals of 
 worship, p. 253 — 274. 
 
 LECTUEE VIII. 
 Page 275. 
 PBEVALENT EREOKS ON THE EELATION OF THE LAW TO THE GOSPEL. 
 
 Gal. iii. 3. 
 Are ye so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made 
 perfect in the flesh ? 
 
 Introduction. Two erroneous tendencies perceivahle; to 
 sever the connexion between the Law and the Gospel, and 
 to reconstruct the Gospel on the principles of the legal 
 economy, p. 275 — 978. 
 
 1. Antinomianism. A sketch of its history. Anabaptists 
 of the sixteenth century. Family of Love. Calvinists. Fun- 
 damental errors of these sects, (a) Severance of the spiritual 
 life from the written word. (/3) An attempt to construct a 
 pure visible Church. Explanation of St. Paul's statements 
 on the abrogation of the Law. Moral Law still binding. 
 Cautions against charging Antinomianism on doctrines which 
 have no necessary connexion with it; and against metaphysical 
 
 argument with avowed Antinomians. p. 278 290. 
 
 2. Tendency to reconstruct the Gospel on the principles of 
 the legal economy. Canon 21. of Sess. vi. of Council of Trent. 
 Import of it. Christ no lawgiver like Moses. Natural history 
 of external developments of the Church in polity and ritual. 
 Papacy itself a natural phenomenon. Point of transition to 
 spurious (i. e. Papal) Catholicism. Pious frauds. First 
 occasion of them. Schisms in the ancient Church. Cyprian's 
 case. ^ Exaggerated statements of that father. Dangers of 
 adopting the same line of argument against dissent. Illustra- 
 tions : Episcopacy; Infant baptism ; Lord's day. Evils of 
 employing unsound reasoning in support of truth. Conclusion. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. On Circumcision considered as a Sacrament, p. 311. 
 
 B. On the idea of Christian Election, p. 315. 
 
 C. On the divine origin of Sacrifice, p. 318. 
 
 D. On the vicarious nature of tlie Mosaic Sacrifices, p. 322. 
 
 E. On the extent of the Mosaic Atonements, p. 835. 
 
 F. On the Imposition of Hands in connexion with the 
 
 ceremony of the Scape-goat. p. 346. 
 
 G. On the doctrine of Imputation, p. 352. 
 H. On Rom. viii. 16. p. 367. 
 
 I. On the Invisible Church, p. 360. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 Galatians iii. 19. 
 
 Wherefore then serveth the Law ? It was added because of 
 transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the 
 promise was made. 
 
 That the Old Testament, so far from being 
 contrary to the New, as some ancient heretics 
 held, was designed to be a preparatory revelation, 
 containing at the least a dim outline of the more 
 perfect one that was to come, may be assumed as 
 admitted by most of those who profess and call 
 themselves Christians. Less than this indeed 
 can hardly be maintained by those, who believe 
 that both parts of the Canon proceeded from the 
 same Divine Author, and come under the same 
 category of inspiration ; and who remember, that 
 by Christ and His Apostles the writings of the 
 old dispensation are constantly referred to, as 
 furnishing testimony of various character, by alle- 
 gory, by type, and by prophecy, to the facts and 
 doctrines of the Gospel. Whatever differences 
 may exist in the principles on which the economies 
 
 B 
 
2 LECTURE I. 
 
 of Moses and of Christ were respectively con- 
 structed, or in the mode of instruction peculiar to 
 each ; whatever positive imperfections may have 
 belonged to the earlier revelation as compared 
 with the later ; to whatever extent the temporary 
 and provisional appointments of the one may have 
 been superseded by the other ; there must be a 
 connexion, an essential harmony, between them, 
 for they both testify of Christ, the scope, and 
 central object, of all God's communications to 
 fallen man. We may distinguish here, but we 
 cannot separate; for the whole range of revelation 
 is knit together, and made substantially one, by 
 the unity of the keystone, upon which all depends, 
 to which all, more or less directly, refers. 
 
 But while we may reckon upon an assent to 
 these statements thus generally propounded, when 
 we come to examine more minutely the views 
 which have been taken by individual Christians, 
 or by sections of the Christian body, of the rela- 
 tion of the Old Testament to the New, we find 
 great diversity prevailing. By the heretics of 
 ancient times already alluded to, the divine origin 
 of the Old Testament was openly denied, its 
 author being supposed to be a secondary evil 
 principle or deity, by whom the world was 
 created, and who was in perpetual warfare with 
 the self-existent and eternal fountain of good'. 
 Proceeding from such a source, the Jewish system 
 
 ^ See Faber, Hor. Mos. ii. §. 1. 
 
LECTURE I. 3 
 
 was essentially evil ; its ordinances were carnal 
 and debasing ; its morality defective ; and the 
 mission of Christ, in reference to the Law and the 
 Prophets, was not to fulfil, but to destroy. The 
 necessary consequence of these tenets was, a 
 complete severance of the Jewish from the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures, as if the two, instead of being 
 supplementary, were irreconcileably opposed, the 
 one to the other. An error of exactly an opposite 
 character prevailed amongst the first Jewish con- 
 verts to Christianity. Unable to conceive how a 
 system, which had been accredited by stupendous 
 miracles, and with which their existence as a sepa- 
 rate nation and their most hallowed associations 
 were bound up, could ever outlive its purposes in 
 the economy of redemption, and become needless, 
 they insisted on the continued obhgation of the 
 law of Moses on Christians, not only of Jewish 
 but of Gentile origin ; so that submission to the 
 rite of circumcision, not less than faith in Christ, 
 became in their eyes essential to salvation. It 
 required all the authority of the great Apostle of 
 the Gentiles to arrest the progress of these erro- 
 neous views, which, had they become dominant in 
 the Church, would not only have corrupted Chris- 
 tianity to its core, but rendered its diffusion 
 throughout the world impossible. The struggle 
 was severe and protracted ; even Apostles found it 
 difficult to overcome their Jewish prejudices, and 
 enter into the universal spirit of Christianity ; but 
 
 b2 
 
4 LECTURE I. 
 
 at length the question was decided against the 
 zealots of the Law, and the Jewish element either 
 separated itself from the Church, or lay apparently 
 extinct until circumstances revived it under another 
 form. It is seldom that Divine Providence fails in 
 eliciting good from evil, and to this great con- 
 troversy we owe the luminous expositions of the 
 relation of the Law to the Gospel which abound in 
 St. Paul's Epistles, and especially in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, and to which, in our discussions on this 
 subject, we must ever refer as furnishing the great 
 landmarks by which our course is to be guided. 
 
 Between the two extremes, thus briefly al- 
 luded to, opinion has fluctuated in the Church, 
 according as a higher or a lower view has been 
 taken of the nature and objects of the Old Testa- 
 ment institutions, and the differences between 
 the two dispensations have been either exag- 
 gerated or understated. Some, like Spencer and 
 his followers, have been unable to see any thing 
 in the Mosaic appointments but an imitation 
 of heathen, especially Egyptian, religious rites, 
 by the adoption of which, shorn of their impure 
 and idolatrous accompaniments, the Israelites, 
 who were incapable of a more spiritual worship, 
 were to be retained in their allegiance to their 
 Divine King, and acquiesce the more contentedly 
 in the prohibitions of their law against the ad- 
 mixture of foreign elements of worship \ According 
 •= See Spencer's work, De Leg. Heb. passim. 
 
LECTURE I. 5 
 
 to this view, the main, if not the sole, object of the 
 Mosaic system was the prevention of idolatry ; 
 its symbolical and typical import being proportion- 
 ably disregarded. Spencer's theory, as might be 
 expected, has been taken up and carried further 
 by the rationalistic writers of Germany and their 
 followers in this country ; by no means more 
 effectually than by robbing the Old Testament 
 of its Christianity, could Christianity itself, as 
 exhibited in the New, be despoiled of its distinc- 
 tive doctrines. The opponents of Spencer's school, 
 who number among them many eminent names, 
 have perhaps, in their well-meant endeavours to 
 rescue the elder revelation from the inferior place 
 assigned to it, been tempted to invest it with cha- 
 racters of perfection which do not properly belong 
 to it °. Not content with proving, that the Jewish 
 system was so constructed as not merely to incul- 
 cate the unity and spirituality of the Divine Being, 
 but to prefigure the great truths of the Gospel, 
 they have insisted, that under the Law these truths 
 were as clearly taught, and as clearly understood, 
 as they are under our dispensation ; so that if the 
 writings of the Apostles and their fellow-helpers 
 had perished, we should still be able to construct 
 
 " See especially Witsius on the Covenants, b. iv. c. 11, 12. 
 The Calvinistic writers generally betray an inclination to 
 exaggerate the perfection of the law as a religious system. 
 Calvin himself is not exempt from this tendency. See his 
 Institutes, 1. ii. c. 10. 
 
6 LECTURE I. 
 
 from those of Moses and the Prophets a complete 
 system of Christian doctrine. To maintain this 
 theory, they were compelled to have recourse to 
 arbitrary and unnatural interpretations, and espe- 
 cially to a system of typology, which luxuriates 
 in an unbounded license, and by finding Christ 
 every where furnished a pretext to minds indisposed 
 towards divine truth for finding Him no where^ 
 Besides these discrepancies of opinion on the 
 part of theologians, tendencies in the one direction 
 or the other are observable in parties within 
 Churches, and even in Churches themselves. 
 Thus our English Puritans, as is well known, 
 exhibited a disposition to model the Gospel, in 
 more points than one, after the Law ; and so, 
 though on different grounds, do those of our day 
 who incline to the literal school of prophecy, and 
 entertain strong pre-millennarian views. The 
 Church of Rome betrays a tendency to under- 
 state, the Protestant Churches, a tendency to 
 enhance, the distinction between the Law and the 
 Gospel. To enter more fully into these varieties 
 of teaching would here be out of place ; one 
 general remark is appHcable to them, that in 
 most cases they are the result, not of im- 
 partial inquiry into the subject-matter itself, but 
 of dogmatical prepossessions, and theories to be 
 
 ■i For an account of the school of typology alluded to, 
 and its founder Cocceius, see Fairbah-n, Typology of Scrip- 
 ture, i. c. 1 . 
 
LECTURE I. 7 
 
 defended, which do not appear on the surface. 
 Thus the Puritan found in the history of the 
 chosen people, and the hves of many of its lead- 
 ing statesmen and warriors, matter on which to 
 nourish his stern impatience of what he conceived 
 to be idolatry in religion and tyranny in govern- 
 ment ; and the preference with which he was thus 
 led to regard the Jewish Scriptures extended its 
 influence over his theology, producing what may, 
 without intending any thing derogatory to the 
 great and pious men to whom we owe so much, 
 be called a Puritanical version of the Gospel. 
 The interest which the Church of Rome has in 
 diminishing, as far as may be, the differences 
 between the Mosaic and the Christian systems 
 is obvious ; thus does she gain an argument for 
 the sacrifice of the Mass, for a human priesthood, 
 and for the general substitution of the letter for 
 the spirit which pervades her system. Among 
 Protestants, the reaction against these erroneous 
 tenets has been one main cause of their dis- 
 tinguishing so strongly between the two systems. 
 Thus has the relation of the Mosaic to the Chris- 
 tian dispensation been variously viewed, according 
 to the previously existing bias of the inquirer ; 
 and hence has arisen not only the discrepancies of 
 judgment which meet us on this subject, but the 
 difficulty of bringing the opposite parties to a 
 common understanding. 
 
 To endeavour, amidst these contending views 
 
8 LECTURE I. 
 
 which perplex us with their number and their 
 contrariety, to arrive at some definite notions 
 respecting the Mosaic economy, its structure, its 
 use, and the place it holds in the course of reve- 
 lation, is the object of the present Lectures. On 
 a subject on which so much has been written 
 originality cannot be expected, and the real dif- 
 ficulties which surround it forbid a dogmatical 
 spirit ; I shall be satisfied if in any instance I shall 
 be enabled, from a consideration of the points of 
 contrast, and of agreement, between the two 
 economies, to promote just views respecting each, 
 and so to lend some assistance to my younger 
 brethren, whose interests must ever be uppermost 
 in our thoughts, in their study of the word of 
 God. Perhaps I may be permitted to observe 
 that, as well from the circumstances of the times 
 as from their intrinsic interest, subjects of this 
 kind pecuHarly merit our attention. Observant 
 minds are beginning to fear that the tide of theo- 
 logical opinion, after having, particularly in this 
 place, for a number of years set strongly in a 
 particular direction, is about to retrace its course, 
 and in so doing runs imminent danger of retiring 
 to such a distance, as to leave many a bark, which 
 once rode in safety, stranded on the beach. Re- 
 actions of this kind are inevitable, perhaps are 
 necessary, in this imperfect state of, being. The 
 characteristics of the coming change seem suffi- 
 ciently obvious : an indifFerence to Christian truth 
 
LECTURE I. 9 
 
 as truth, which sometimes veils itself under a 
 professed sympathy with all schools of opinion to 
 a certain extent ; a spirit of eclecticism, which 
 calmly, and as if from the point of view of an 
 unconcerned spectator, analyses theological sys- 
 tems, and culls from each what is most congenial 
 to its taste ; a tendency towards Pelagian views of 
 the powers of unassisted human nature, especially 
 in social combinations ; the transformation of the 
 individual, personal, religion of the Bible, into a 
 Christianity of the race, the world not the church 
 being made the sphere of Christ's saving power ; 
 and, as a practical feature, a fastidious and un- 
 healthy dread of the imputation of party spirit, 
 which paralyses Christian zeal and activity ; such 
 are some of the features of the speculative reli- 
 gionism which seems not unlikely to gain a footing 
 amongst us. That this cast of sentiment should 
 leave Scripture itself unassailed, is not to be ex- 
 pected ; and in fact, views have been put forward 
 respecting the inspiration, and the contents, of the 
 sacred volume, which make it no longer, as we 
 believe it was intended to be, a lamp to our feet 
 amidst the darkness that surrounds us. What we 
 understand by inspiration, as applied to the Scrip- 
 tures, is robbed of its significance, by making the 
 term equally comprehend the surmises of philo- 
 sophers and the fancies of the poet ; and it is 
 more than insinuated, that certain portions even of 
 the New Testament, as, for example, the contro- 
 
10 LECTURE I. 
 
 versial parts of St. Paul's Epistles, having had their 
 day and served their purpose, are to be consigned 
 to an honourable repose, and Christianity is to 
 come forth under its final aspect as the religion of 
 universal love. In what light the Old Testament is 
 likely to be regarded, under the influence of such 
 views, may be easily surmised ; in fact, the note of 
 preparation for an attack on this portion of God's 
 word has already sounded, and the soldiers of 
 the cross, especially those who from their office 
 are placed in the van of the conflict, must look 
 to their armour, offensive and defensive, and take 
 up their position. Should the danger be happily 
 averted, this result will, we cannot doubt, be, under 
 God, owing to the increase among us of a devout 
 and intelligent study of Scripture, which thus only 
 comes to he felt to be the word of God, profitable, in 
 every part of it, for correction and instruction in 
 righteousness. For in truth the original aberration, 
 from which the type of sentiment just described is a 
 reaction, sprang from abandoning the guidance of 
 Scripture for theories of human origin ; from at- 
 tempting to supply what is obscure, or is left unde- 
 termined,in the written word by an unwritten rule of 
 faith, or a system of infallibleinterpretation ; andfrom 
 exalting the Creeds, or the voice of the Church, 
 so far as it can be ascertained, to an equality with 
 the declarations of Prophets and Apostles. It is 
 not often that they who have suffered themselves 
 to be seduced by these theories which promise so 
 
LECTURE I. 11 
 
 fair, but on trial prove so illusory, succeed in re- 
 tracing their steps to the solid ground of Scriptural 
 Christianity ; the necessity becomes felt, and the 
 more strongly in proportion to the earnestness and 
 logical acumen of the inquirer, either of wholly 
 drawing back or of advancing further ; and the 
 too probable result, therefore, is either an ac- 
 quiescence in a state of chronic, though perhaps 
 not avowed, scepticism, or a submission to the 
 claims of a pretended infallible authority, which 
 puts an end to doubt by stifling all inquiry. Our 
 best safeguard against either danger is a recurrence 
 to the written word, and a full confidence in it as 
 our only safe guide ; there we stand on solid 
 ground ; there we hold converse with truth as it 
 issued directly from its Divine Author ; there we 
 see enough revealed to satisfy every real want of 
 man, and enough partially, or wholly, hidden to 
 rebuke a spirit of dogmatism, or of presumptuous 
 curiosity. Studies therefore which have for their 
 object the elucidation of Scripture, in any of its 
 leading divisions, seem to be, under present cir- 
 cumstances, peculiarly appropriate. We have 
 listened long enough to the voice of Christian 
 antiquity, and the result has been of various 
 character, corresponding to the mixture of truth 
 and error which it pi-esents ; let us give some 
 portion, at least, of our attention to the primary 
 source of divine truth, the only authentic record 
 of what Moses and the Prophets prefigured or 
 
12 LECTURE I. 
 
 foretold, and of what the Apostles taught ; and 
 not suffer the Bible to be superseded by its human 
 commentators. 
 
 But independently of these considerations, there 
 is reason to apprehend that many Christians fail, 
 through mere inattention, of deriving from the 
 Old Testament Scriptures the instruction and 
 edification which they were intended to furnish. 
 The interesting narratives indeed with which they 
 abound, supplying as they do the best materials 
 for impressing on the mind of childhood the 
 lessons of religion, become identified with our 
 earliest associations, and never lose their charm ; 
 but the Law, civil and ceremonial, the historical 
 Scriptures, and even the volume of prophecy, re- 
 main comparatively unstudied, because their bear- 
 ing on the interpretation of the New Testament, and 
 on the furtherance of piety, is but imperfectly appre- 
 hended. Perhaps one of the most striking practical 
 proofs of the comparative neglect to which this 
 department of sacred learning has been consigned 
 is the general want of acquaintance, even on the 
 part of those who are to stand forth as teachers 
 of religion, with the original language of the Old 
 Testament. Yet it is surely no insignificant cir- 
 cumstance, that so large a portion of the entire 
 volume of inspiration should be occupied by the 
 Jewish Scriptures. On these Scriptures it is that 
 St. Paul builds his most cogent arguments against 
 unbelievers ; by these, with the light which the 
 
LECTURE r. 13 
 
 Gospel throws on them, a Timothy could be 
 made wise unto salvation". Ill qualified indeed 
 must that minister of the Gospel be for his office, 
 who is a stranger to this field of biblical research. 
 For if it is true, as it is, that we Christians possess 
 in our Scriptures the key to the Old Testament, 
 which, apart from this inspired commentary, were 
 a system of cyphers without the interpretation ; 
 it is no less true, that when once we have fixed, 
 by the aid of the New Testament, the true import 
 of the Law and of the Prophets, the latter will 
 be found, in their turn, to throw a flood of light 
 on the great truths of the Gospel. The statue, 
 to adopt the image of an eminent divine*^, with its 
 cords wrought within, may be mute till the sun 
 strikes upon them ; but when the animating ray 
 calls forth the hidden harmony, it will be per- 
 ceived to be both sweet and various. I need 
 not remind you how largely the writers of the 
 New Testament transfer the terms of the Old to 
 Christian purposes, and how impossible it is rightly 
 to understand their language without a reference 
 to its Jewish source. Moreover, it is a mistake 
 to suppose that the symbolical system of the old 
 dispensation has, not only given place to the 
 realities of the new, but wholly lost its utility. 
 With all our advantages over the Jew, especially 
 in the earlier period of his history, we are not 
 
 « -2 Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 ' Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, p. 143. 
 
14 LECTURE I. 
 
 above being instructed as he was by emblem and 
 figure; our own Sacraments partake of a sym- 
 bolical character; and the eyes which are too 
 weak, as may sometimes be the case, to gaze 
 directly at the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ, may profitably study the elements of the 
 Gospel \mder the typical history of the chosen 
 people, and the veil of the ceremonial law. Indeed 
 in some instances the symbol, when interpreted, 
 will be found to speak more fully, if not more 
 distinctly, than the interpretation itself. Take, 
 for example, the great doctrine of the Atonement. 
 He who after having perused what the New 
 Testament teaches concerning Christ's atoning 
 work, turns to the corresponding symbolical repre- 
 sentations of the Old in the book of Leviticus, 
 will, if I mistake not, not only find his mind 
 more vividly impressed than it was before with 
 the importance of this doctrine, but discover more 
 clearly the radical ideas on which it is based, 
 and which seem to be more barely exposed in 
 the symbol, more indirectly conveyed in the 
 explanation. As an instance, I might mention 
 the principle of vicarious suflFering. Let not then 
 the Old Testament be regarded as a dead letter; 
 it may be made to us who can unlock its hidden 
 treasures a source of most valuable instruction. 
 And even if this were not the case, even if the 
 Mosaic institutions were nothing to us but an 
 obsolete system, still as a relic, a memorial, which 
 
LECTURE I. 15 
 
 once enveloped Christian ideas, it can never lose its 
 interest. The Saviour has indeed come forth from 
 the obscurity of typical symbols ; the carnal ordi- 
 nances, which were only " imposed until the time 
 of reformation," have fallen away on every side, 
 in order to permit the glory of the Only-Begotten 
 of the Father to appear the more distinctly ; still 
 even the linen clothes and the napkin, which once 
 encircled His Person, become objects of sacred 
 interest, and to Christians the invitation will never 
 be addressed in vain, " Come, and see the place 
 where the Lord lay." 
 
 But I am detaining you too long with these pre- 
 liminary observations; suffice it to observe, that to 
 the pious mind no satisfaction can be greater than to 
 trace the successive steps by which preparation was 
 made for the Saviour's appearance ; to observe how 
 each appointment was exactly adapted to the pur- 
 poses it was to serve ; and to mark the substantial 
 unity which, under every difference of form or 
 accident, pervades both dispensations, making 
 them but parts of one comprehensive scheme for the 
 recovery of fallen man. Discoveries of this kind, 
 indicating as they do the existence of a presiding 
 Intelligence which sees the issues of things from 
 the beginning, often produce a stronger conviction 
 of the divine origin of the Scriptures, than the so- 
 called external evidences, indispensable as the 
 latter are in their place. 
 
16 LECTURE I. 
 
 The Mosaic dispensation may be regarded as 
 introductory to the Christian under a twofold 
 aspect, according as the institutions and 'the ex- 
 ternal revelation on the one hand, or the dis- 
 positions it was intended to produce in those 
 placed under it, on the other, form the subject of 
 consideration. This division will determine the 
 principal topics to which I shall have to direct 
 your attention. I propose then, in the first place, 
 to examine the structure of the Jewish Theocracy 
 in general, as a political and religious institution ; 
 after which the Levitical appointments, particularly 
 those of priesthood and sacrifice, with their corre- 
 sponding facts under the Gospel, will claim our 
 attention. The prophetical connexion between 
 the two covenants, including some remarks on the 
 subject-matter and course of prophecy regarded as 
 introductory to the Gospel, will follow. Passing 
 to the subjective view of the subject, we shall have 
 to inquire into the effect produced on the pious 
 part of the nation by the discipline under which it 
 was placed; a topic which will naturally involve the 
 inquiry, to what extent spiritual influences were 
 vouchsafed under the Law. As an institution, not 
 indeed immediately belonging to the Law, but still of 
 too much importance to be passed over in a course 
 of Lectures like the present, the synagogue, in its 
 relation to the temple worship, will deserve our 
 notice. Finally, I shall have to offer some re- 
 
LECTURE I. 17 
 
 marks on the erroneous notions that have pre- 
 vailed, from time to time, in the Church, respect- 
 ing the relation of the Law to the Gospel. 
 
 It will not of course be expected, that the 
 several topics just mentioned should be handled 
 under every aspect of which they admit, or in detail; 
 for formal introductions to the Old Testament, I 
 refer my hearers to the many valuable works that 
 have been published on this subject both at home 
 and abroad^ ; my aim has been, the authenticity and 
 inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures being assumed, 
 to select certain interesting points for discussion, 
 interesting either from their intrinsic importance, 
 or th eir intrinsic difficulty ; or from their not 
 having received so much attention as some others ; 
 or from the light which they throw upon the 
 nature of the Christian dispensation : and this 
 with the twofold object in view ; of vindicating the 
 Mosaic economy from the objections that have 
 been urged against it, and ascertaining in what 
 respects, and how far, it prepared the way for the 
 Gospel. 
 
 In what remains of this, and in the following 
 Lecture, I shall attempt to explain the funda- 
 mental principles on which the Theocracy, as a 
 whole, was constructed. 
 
 s Such as Graves on the Pentateuch, Gray's Key, Home's 
 Introduction, vol. i. The best modern German works on 
 the subject are Havernick's Einleitung, and Theologie der 
 A. T. translated, I believe, in Clark's Theological Library; 
 and Kurtz's Geschichte des Alten Bundes, not completed. 
 
 c 
 
18 LECTURE I. 
 
 Why more than 4000 years were permitted to 
 elapse between the first intimation to fallen man 
 of a future Saviour, and the actual fulfilment of 
 the promise, must ever remain a mystery un- 
 fathomable by human reason. Meanwhile we may 
 be sure, that the advent of the Messiah was de- 
 layed no longer than was necessary ; and one at 
 least of the reasons of the delay we may surmise 
 to have been, the necessity of a previous process 
 of preparation, to fit the world for the reception 
 of the Gospel. Though we have no reason to 
 suppose that the full effects of the fall were at 
 first manifest, the sacred history as well as unin- 
 spired traditions leading us to suppose, that the 
 seed of evil gradually developed itself; yet once 
 commenced the descent was rapid, and the wicked- 
 ness of man became so great that it needed a 
 universal and sweeping destruction to purge the 
 earth. Restored in the person of Noah and his 
 family, and placed under a covenant of natural 
 mercies, the human race again commenced its 
 downward course ; the knowledge of the true 
 God became lost, or obscured, by the adjuncts of 
 superstition ; and no standard of right and wrong 
 presenting itself, save the imperfect " work of the 
 law written" on the natural heart, men became 
 not only fearfully depraved, but, with few ex- 
 ceptions, unconscious of their fallen state, and 
 therefore indifferent to the means of recovery from 
 it. Had the Saviour appeared in the world at 
 
LECTURE I. 19 
 
 this stage of its moral progress. He would have 
 found it unprepared for the reception of the 
 truths which centre in His person and work. 
 Hence the course pursued by the Divine Wisdom 
 was to lead our race through a gradual course of 
 preparatory training, by means of which the most 
 influential portions of it, at least, might be fitted 
 to embrace the Gospel, whenever it should please 
 its Divine Author to propound it to their ac- 
 ceptance. 
 
 As regards the heathen world, this process of 
 preparation was merely negative. The heathens 
 were left to themselves, in order that by actual 
 experience, they might become convinced of man's 
 inability to restore the interrupted fellowship be- 
 tween himself and God. A conviction of human 
 weakness, and of the folly of the popular systems 
 of idolatry, together with a general craving amongst 
 earnest inquirers for some unquestionably divine 
 revelation to remove the obscurity which hung 
 over their present condition and future prospects ; 
 this was the amount of illumination, if it may be 
 so called, vouchsafed to the pagan world. En- 
 lightened heathens, at the first advent of Christ, 
 were prepared to receive Christianity, simply 
 because every school of philosophy, and every 
 mythical system, had confessed its insufficiency 
 to meet the spiritual wants of man. But it is 
 obvious, that something more than this was neces- 
 sary tQ secure a footing for the Gospel, whenever 
 
 c2 
 
20 -LECTURE I. 
 
 it should be promulgated. There needed to exist 
 somewhere a positive groundwork of religious 
 knowledge, with which Christianity might connect 
 itself; an outline of which Christianity should be 
 the filling up. Especially was it desirable, that 
 such a foundation and such an outline should 
 exist in the particular locality in which the 
 promised Saviour was to be born, and where His 
 earthly pilgrimage was to run its course : such a 
 favoured spot would form a centre, whence the 
 rays of divine light might be disseminated through- 
 out the world. This special and positive preparation 
 for the Gospel was effected by an immediate 
 exercise of Divine power. One people, while yet 
 in the loins of its progenitor Abraham, was selected 
 to be the repository of such revelations concern- 
 ing Himself and His designs, as it should please 
 God to communicate ; and, at a period when pro- 
 bably idolatry was universal, this progenitor of 
 the chosen people was separated from his country 
 and kindred, and, with his posterity, made the sub- 
 ject of a special covenant. In due time, when the 
 descendants of the Patriarch had become suffi- 
 ciently numerous to form a nation, they were led 
 forth from their place of temporary sojourn, and 
 put in possession of the land promised to their 
 fathers ; receiving, at the same time, through the 
 mediation of Moses, that code of law, civil, moral, 
 and ceremonial, under which they continued to 
 exist until the destruction of the temple. It was 
 
LECTURE I. 21 
 
 amongst this people, placed thus under a peculiar 
 economy, that Christ, when He came, was to find 
 existing such a measure of religious knowledge, 
 and such elements of religious feeling, as should 
 make the transition from Judaism to Christianity 
 easy and natural. 
 
 What were the prominent characteristics of the 
 national and religious polity thus erected amidst 
 the barren wastes of Sinai ? The first peculiar 
 feature that strikes the observer, is the form of 
 government adopted, which was a pure Theocracy ; 
 the only instance of such a polity which the 
 history of the world presents. The specific 
 difference between the Mosaic law, regarded as a 
 national constitution, and every other that is 
 known to have existed, consists not in its religious 
 character taken by itself, nor again in any pecu- 
 liarity of its civil enactments, remarkable as some 
 of these were, but in the complete fusion which it 
 presented of civil and religious government. The 
 system under which the Jews was placed was a 
 visible, external. Theocracy. When God took 
 the people into covenant with Himself, He be- 
 came their God not only in a religious, but in a 
 national sense ; He became not only the object of 
 their worship, but their King. The same lawgiver 
 framed both the civil and religious code of the 
 nation ; the same volume of inspiration which 
 instructed the Jew in his duty towards his Maker, 
 contained also the charter of his national pri- 
 
22 LECTURE I. 
 
 vileges. Moreover, God not only delivered to the 
 nation the law by which it was to be governed, 
 but charged Himself with the administration of 
 that law ; executing its sanctions of reward and 
 of punishment by an immediate exercise of almighty 
 power. These sanctions, as expressed in the books 
 of Moses, were exclusively temporal. The reli- 
 gion, therefore, of the pious Jew was not only a 
 religious, but a national sentiment ; it was loyalty 
 as well as religion. To worship other gods be- 
 sides Jehovah was not only a sin, but a crime ; 
 a crime lessee majestatis, or of a treasonable cha- 
 racter, and as such visited with the penalties of 
 death. The ideas expressed by the terms sin 
 and crime, between which human legislators know 
 so well how to distinguish, were, under the Jewish 
 polity, perfectly interchangeable. 
 
 Following from, or closely connected with, this 
 its fundamental principle, are certain peculiarities 
 which are found to belong to the system. Enter- 
 ing though He did into the relation which He 
 bore to the chosen people, it was yet impossible 
 that God should cease to be what He is, — the 
 Creator, the discerner of hearts, demanding the 
 homage and service of His reasonable creatures : 
 hence the moral law, enjoining the love of God, 
 and forbidding sins of the heart, appears incor- 
 porated in the national code ; a singular feature 
 which belongs to no other political constitution. 
 There were doubtless other reasons for this ap- 
 
LECTURE I. 23 
 
 pointment ; but to account for it, it seems enough 
 to observe, that in becoming the tutelary God of 
 the nation, God did not abandon His character as 
 the Creator of the universe, and therefore His 
 claims upon the spiritual obedience of His crea- 
 tures. But to proceed. No projects of foreign 
 conquest, of commercial enterprise, of national 
 aggrandizement, seem to be entertained by the 
 Founder ; on the contrary, isolation is His declared 
 aim ; the people were to dwell alone, neither 
 intermarrying with the surrounding nations, nor 
 incor^rating foreign customs with their own. 
 Many of the laws imposed, both civil and religious, 
 were such as effectually to prevent any consider- 
 able expansion of the Hebrew polity beyond the 
 confines of Palestine ; as, for example, the rite of 
 circumcision, the command to celebrate the three 
 great feasts at Jerusalem, and the ordinances of 
 the sabbatical year, and of the year of jubilee. 
 To compensate for any disadvantages that might 
 be apprehended from these regulations, temporal 
 blessings, the plenty of the barn and the store, 
 were promised as the reward of loyal obedience, 
 and this not merely to individuals, but to the 
 nation as such. Not only were the expressed 
 sanctions of the Mosaic law exclusively temporal, 
 but national prosperity, and national calamities, 
 were among them ; another feature this, which 
 results from the Theocratical constitution, and 
 which distinguishes this polity from all others. 
 
24 LECTURE I. 
 
 For penalties against breaches of the law form the 
 usual hmit of human legislation ; seldom, if ever, 
 does it propose rewards to the obedient : nor 
 again does this legislation deal with the nation as 
 such, but with individuals within it ; national 
 visitations obviously require, and imply, a power 
 superior to the nation. The perfection of the 
 Theocratical form of government permitted both 
 these provisions, for it brought into operation that 
 extraordinary Providence, by which, and by which 
 alone, they could be executed. 
 
 The failure which has attended all attei'ffpts to 
 exclude the Theocratical principle from the history 
 of the Jewish commonwealth, and to reconstruct 
 this history on purely secular principles, is noto- 
 rious ; and it may be affirmed, without hesitation, 
 that the theorist who sets out from the supposition 
 that the Mosaic institutions are the product of a 
 later age than that to which they profess to 
 belong, the slow growth of priestly craft or ambi- 
 tion ; and the historical Scriptures of thd old 
 covenant myths, skilfidly constructed to minister 
 to the national pride ; will find himself, in his 
 attempts to explain the history of this people, 
 involved in difficulties, compared with which any 
 that may attend the orthodox faith vanish into 
 insignificance. We may safely leave these, the 
 last importations from Germany *", to the obscurity 
 
 ' See Introduction to the Book of Genesis, by Van Bohlen, 
 Edited by J. Heywood, Esq. M.P. London, 1855. De Wette 
 was the founder of this school. 
 
LECTURE I. 25 
 
 to which we cannot doubt the practical good sense 
 of this country will consign them. Our own 
 deistical writers, to do them this justice, adopt a 
 more consistent and intelligible course. Without 
 entering into questions of authenticity or date, 
 they boldly arraign the whole system as inconsistent 
 with just views of God, and of the province of 
 political legislation. You ascribe, say these writers, 
 a divine origin to what manifestly bears on it 
 the marks of human imperfection, such imper- 
 fection as we do not meet with in confessedly 
 human polities. For the ennobling idea of a 
 supreme, omnipresent Being, who regards all His 
 creatures with equal eye, the Mosaic books present 
 us with a local, tutelary. Deity, who selects an 
 insignificant, and, as their own books declare, 
 undeserving, people as the object of His special 
 regards. The Creator descends to the functions 
 of a civil magistrate, and busies Himself with the 
 distribution of secular rewards and punishments. 
 Under this system too, the inalienable rights of 
 conscience were invaded, and idolatry, which no 
 wise government interferes with, when it does not 
 outrage public decency, was made a capital offence. 
 And what shall we say of a religious constitution 
 professing to emanate from God Himself, which 
 yet seems designedly to avoid any reference to a 
 future state of reward and punishment, and con- 
 fines its sanctions to the present life ? Finally, an 
 unsocial character pervades the whole economy ; 
 
26 LECTURE I. 
 
 and while even heathen states cultivated a spirit 
 of liberal intercourse, amicably interchanging 
 divinities, and tolerating differences of worship, a 
 stern bigotry marks the regulations of the Mosaic 
 code, which could not fail of producing a narrow 
 and fanatical spirit in the people placed under it\ 
 
 I pause not to inquire whether this is a correct 
 statement of the facts of the case, or whence in 
 particular these enlarged notions of the nature of 
 Deity have been derived ; whether the shafts 
 directed against the Jewish Scriptures have not, 
 in fact, been borrowed from them, while the 
 obligation has been unthought of or dissembled. 
 We can well maintain, in opposition to these 
 objections, that the polity of Moses was well 
 fitted, nay was absolutely necessary, to bring 
 about the objects for which, as we believe, it was 
 designed. To two of these objects, which seem 
 most intimately connected with the feature of the 
 Jewish polity now under consideration, I shall, 
 in the present Lecture, advert, reserving others 
 that may deserve attention to a future occasion. 
 
 It will be admitted then, I suppose, that one 
 great end of the selection of the Jewish people 
 was, that it should be " a keeper and witness of 
 Holy Writ ;" to it were to be committed the 
 oracles of God, those divine communications 
 which, extending from the fall to the coming of 
 
 i Leland, View of the Deistical Writers, vol. i. Letters 
 9 and 13. vol. ii. Letters 11 — 13. 
 
LECTURE I. 27 
 
 Christ, unfolded to the eye of faith, with con- 
 tinually increasing distinctness, the glorious pros- 
 pects which God had in store for his people. 
 
 It will be granted too, that a second principal 
 object of this selection was to preserve the doc- 
 trine of the unity, spirituality, and personality of 
 the Divine Being, amidst the universal tendency 
 of the world either, on the part of philosophers, 
 to speculative pantheism, or, on the part of the 
 people, to polytheism with its attendant evils, 
 moral and physical. " Wherefore then," says 
 St. Paul," served the Law ? It was added because 
 of transgressions, until the seed should come to 
 whom the promise was made :" it was " added" 
 to the primitive religion " because of transgres- 
 sions;" that is, as I think the words are best 
 understood, to restrain the visible outbreaks of 
 sin, particularly the sin of idolatry, until He 
 should come who, for an outward fence of this 
 kind, should substitute a better security, the law 
 written upon the heart. It was necessary that 
 the foundations of religion should be laid deep 
 on true, though possibly imperfect, views of the 
 nature and character of the Divine Being ; which 
 further revelations might improve, but must always 
 presuppose. That such an object was worthy of 
 the Divine interference, and was essential to the 
 successful promulgation of the Gospel in after 
 times, no one who is acquainted with the religious 
 condition of heathen antiquity can doubt. 
 
28 LECTURE I. 
 
 Now as regards the former of the objects, 
 the safe custody and transmission of the sacred 
 oracles, it is obvious that in no way so effectually 
 as by incorporating the successive revelations in 
 the public monuments of a state could their pre- 
 servation be secured. Had they been scattered 
 communications, given one here and another 
 there, they would have been speedily lost or 
 corrupted ; confined to a particular nation, and 
 enshrined in a political framework, they were 
 kept together, and by being combined, furnished 
 mutual illustration. But more than this; the 
 Theocracy lent its aid directly to their preserv- 
 ation. For in the volume of the law, civil and 
 ceremonial, no inconsidei'able portion of these pro- 
 phetic intimations is imbedded, and, under the form 
 of the types, cannot be separated from it; hence 
 the national pride of the Jews became interested 
 in maintaining them intact ; with those contained 
 in the Pentateuch at least they could not tamper, 
 without mutilating the charter of their national 
 existence. It is to be observed too, that the 
 prophecies respecting the Gospel were mostly, so 
 to speak, cast in a Jewish mould. From this 
 favoured nation, Messiah, the Prince of the new 
 era, was to spring ; Zion was to enlarge her 
 cords and strengthen her stakes ; she was to break 
 forth on the right hand and on the left, and her 
 seed was to inherit the Gentiles ; Jerusalem, deso- 
 late and trodden down of her enemies, was, under 
 
LECTURE I. 29 
 
 the rule of her exalted King, to attain a height 
 of glory which she had never known, and become 
 the joy of the vv^hole earth ''. It was the sin of the 
 carnal part of the nation to interpret these pro- 
 phecies in a carnal sense, but this, under the 
 providence of God, materially tended to secure 
 their safe transmission. Had the Jews in general 
 discerned the spiritual sense which lay hid under 
 these images, drawn from the earthly Zion, they 
 would have felt but little interest in them, but 
 little disposition to watch over their integrity ; 
 but interpreting them in a sense most congenial 
 to their sensual tastes, they clung with the greater 
 tenacity to the hopes suggested by them, and 
 faithfully handed down the documents which at 
 once condemn themselves, and furnish us with 
 the evidences of our religion^ 
 
 Turning to the other important end which we 
 have supposed the Mosaic institutions to have had 
 in view, the preservation of the true doctrine of 
 the Divine Nature in the midst of an idolatrous 
 world ; under which aspect the Law served as an 
 external barrier against the encroachments of 
 heathen pollution, behind the shelter of which 
 the blossom.s of true religion might flourish and 
 expand ; what likelihood, we may ask, is there 
 that this doctrine could have been preserved, 
 unaided by the outward fence of a national con- 
 
 ^ Is. liv. 1—4. &o. 
 
 ' Pascal, Pensees, Part ii. Art. 8. 
 
30 LECTURE I. 
 
 stitution ? The piety of isolated individuals, like 
 Enoch, or Noah, or Job, would have terminated, 
 in its influence, with themselves or their immediate 
 descendants : the family bond of union would have 
 proved equally powerless to check the advances of 
 idolatry, as we may gather from the case of Jacob's 
 own family™ ; and under any circumstances would 
 have been limited, in its restraining power, to those 
 of immature age : what was needed, was a society 
 invested with sovereign powers, and possessing, as 
 compared with the inferior forms of social union, 
 a principle of permanence, in other words, a national 
 polity. Could a society of this kind be organised, 
 in which sins and crimes should be synonymous 
 terms, in which idolatry in particular, otherwise 
 beyond the reach of civil laws, should be justly 
 punishable with temporal penalties ; it is obvious 
 that this, so far as any external institution could 
 curb the corrupt tendencies of fallen man, would 
 be that of which we are in search. Just such 
 was the Jewish Theocracy. The descendants of 
 Abraham were comprehended within the bond of 
 a national polity, with God as its supreme magis- 
 trate, in order that the corrupt and rebellious will, 
 in its irreligious no less than its criminal mani- 
 festations, might, without doing violence to any 
 natural rights, be kept in check. Idolatry became 
 punishable not as such, but as treason ; and neither 
 were the claims of conscience within its own proper 
 ™ Gen. XXXV. 2. 
 
LECTURE I. 31 
 
 sphere disallowed, nor was any precedent afforded 
 to Christian states to extirpate by force what they 
 conceive to be religious error. For not until it 
 can be shewn that God has delivered to a Christian 
 state a law prescribing the manner in which He is 
 to be worshipped, and made that law part of the 
 civil constitution of the state, will any argument 
 from the supposed parallel of the Jewish economy 
 hold good. 
 
 That the Theocracy did not, in point of fact, 
 perfectly accomplish this its purpose ; that re- 
 peated lapses into the idolatrous practices of the 
 neighbouring nations took place, and finally ten 
 tribes, the larger part of the nation, were for this 
 sin removed from their native land, never, as it 
 should seem, to return ; — is but one of the many 
 instances that meet us of the apparent frustration 
 of God's purposes by man's perverseness. It is 
 not the actual effect, but the tendency, the natural 
 result, of the institution that we should consider ; 
 and it seems that no other appointment could have 
 given such promise of securing the desired end. 
 Moreover, it is by no means the truth, that the 
 failure was complete. We have reason to believe 
 that the Jewish law, to a great extent, answered 
 its purpose of fencing off from the chosen people 
 the grosser abominations of paganism. Long in- 
 tervals, which the Scriptures hardly notice, of 
 obedience and consequent national prosperity, 
 occurred ; and if two national extirpations, one 
 
32 LECTURE I. 
 
 temporary and the other final, were necessary to 
 purge out the corrupt leaven, yet they did at 
 last succeed in doing so, and Christ, when He 
 came, found a people, morally indeed corrupt, — 
 fanatical, rancorous, and self-righteous, — but cleav- 
 ing with unconquerable tenacity to the funda- 
 mental truths of their religion, the unity and 
 spirituality of God, and as strongly opposed to 
 idolatry, as their forefathers were prone to indulge 
 in that sin. 
 
 What has been said being borne in mind, the 
 deistical objections before mentioned, which have 
 afforded a fallacious triumph to the unbeliever, 
 while they may sometimes occasion perplexity 
 to the Christian, will be found to lose their force. 
 The system bore a character of exclusiveness ; but 
 what barrier can be otherwise than exclusive ? 
 If care had not been taken to isolate this people, 
 by peculiar customs and peculiar prohibitions, 
 from the surrounding nations, the very end of 
 their constitution would have been defeated ; 
 iniquity would have come in like a flood, and 
 every vestige of a purer worship would have been 
 effaced. If, notwithstanding the severe penalties 
 denounced in their law, and their actual experience 
 of them, the Jews were so prone to adulterate 
 their rehgion with foreign admixtures, what would 
 have been the probable result had these prohibitory 
 enactments been wholly wanting ? Moreover, this 
 unsociable character of the law has been exag- 
 
LECTURE I. 33 
 
 gerated. The sojourning of strangers in the land 
 is contemplated, and towards these, if conformable 
 to the fundamental law of the state, humanity and 
 benevolence were to be shewn". But the sanctions 
 of the Law were purely temporal ; the fact is 
 undeniable, and how could it be otherwise ? If 
 a visible Theocracy was to be established, tem- 
 poral sanctions, the proper sanctions of civil legis- 
 lation, must be adopted ; and, as regards the nation, 
 none but temporal could be admitted, for nations 
 as such have no existence beyond this life. Let 
 it not be replied, that since nations are but an 
 aggregate of individuals, individual retribution, 
 partly inflicted here, and partly threatened here- 
 after, would have answered the same end : how- 
 ever difficult it may be to draw the line of dis- 
 tinction, we all feel that there is such a thing as 
 national disgrace or calamity, as distinguished 
 from individual suffering. And nations as such, 
 be it again observed, can only be visited in this 
 life, that is, with temporal inflictions. To have 
 inserted in the public code of the nation eternal 
 sanctions, would have been virtually to dissolve it 
 as an earthly polity, and to reduce it to a col- 
 lection of individuals, or at best to a Church in 
 the Christian sense of the word, that is, a purely 
 religious society, and therefore unable to exercise 
 the stringent powers necessary to suppress the 
 visible excesses of idolatry and superstition. I am 
 " Levit. xix. 34. Deut. x. 18, 19. xxiv. 17—19. 
 D 
 
34 LECTURE II. 
 
 aware that other reasons, and to the Christian 
 most convincing ones, have been alleged for what 
 no one can deny, the absence of any express al- 
 lusion to a future state in the books of Moses. 
 Thus it has been remarked, that since eternal life 
 was confessedly unattainable by the Law, the 
 doctrines of a future state could not consistently 
 appear in it ; the Atonement was not yet effected, 
 the forfeited gift was not yet recovered; with 
 what propriety then could the revelation of it 
 be vouchsafed"? It has been urged too, and 
 with no less force, that a promise inserted in 
 the Law, would have been understood as a pro- 
 mise annexed io the Law^, and so have fostered 
 that error which was the great stumblingblock 
 of the later Jews, the error of attributing per- 
 fection, as regards the forgiveness of sin, and the 
 gift of eternal life, to the old covenant ; which 
 necessarily led to a depreciated estimate of the 
 Gospel. These reasons for the omission appear 
 unanswerable ; but even if they were not, it would 
 still, it should seem, be sufficient to urge, that an 
 outward Theocracy being necessary to make sins 
 against God crimes against the state, and so to 
 act as a breakwater against the surrounding surges 
 of impiety, none but temporal sanctions could 
 explicitly appear in such a polity. 
 
 If, conceding the point as regards the nation, the 
 
 o Davison, on Prophecy, p. 18 a. 
 
 p Lancaster, Harmony of the Law and Gospel, p. 12. 
 
LECTURE I. 35 
 
 objector should still ask. Why, in the case of indivi- 
 duals, (and it is to be remembered, that the extra- 
 ordinary Providence, which supplied the omission of 
 a future state, apphed to individuals no less than to 
 the nation as such^) were not eternal added to 
 the temporal sanctions ? The ansvv^er is, that the 
 interpretation placed on the addition of such 
 auxiliary sanctions would no doubt have been, 
 that Moses distrusted the fulfilment of his own 
 predictions of temporal reward and punishment, 
 and sought to meet the possible failure by era- 
 ploying other motives drawn from the invisible 
 world, where the fraud, according to the atheist 
 scoff, could not be detected'. Nor must the 
 absence of explicit eternal sanctions in the Law 
 be supposed to imply, that the individual trans- 
 gressor had nothing to fear beyond this life. 
 Promises and threatenings of a general character 
 are interspersed throughout, which might well 
 suggest hopes and fears of future retribution. " The 
 Law," it has been observed, "in its sanction, is 
 only positive, that God will do so much ; not ex- 
 clusive, that He will do no moreV But while it 
 rather stimulated, certainly did not contradict, the 
 suggestions of pious hope and the forebodings of 
 
 1 As in the case of Achan, for example, Josh. vii. 
 
 ' Bonarum et malaram actionum repromissiones polli- 
 cetur (scriptura), in futura. tamen vita, ne fraus detegi possit. 
 Vanini, quoted by Warburton, D. L. b. v. s. 5. 
 
 = Davison on Prophecy, p. 131. 
 
 d2 
 
36 LECTURE I, 
 
 conscience, its openly proposed sanctions were 
 those which alone are suitable to a temporal 
 polity, and which alone could have made an im- 
 pression on such a people as the Israelites then 
 were, or indeed on any people as such ; — present 
 retribution, supported by sensible interpositions 
 and manifestations of the Divine power. 
 
 And here we must, for the present, pause. We 
 have considered the Theocracy only in its ne- 
 gative aspect, as conservative of important truths, 
 and repulsive of adverse influences ; more inte- 
 resting, to the Christian at least, are its positive 
 uses, as a school of discipline for the ancient 
 believer, and an earthly, and typical, represent- 
 ation of the spiritual relations which, under the 
 Gospel, subsist between God and His people. 
 These I propose to make the subject of the fol- 
 lowing discourse. Meanwhile, I trust it has 
 been shewn, that in its structure, as a form of 
 national polity, and even in those peculiarities 
 which, at first sight, might seem difficult of ex- 
 planation, it bears traces of that Divine wisdom, 
 which is most conspicuously seen in the perfect 
 adaptation of the means used to the ends pro- 
 posed. 
 
LECTURE IT. 
 
 Galatians iii. 24. 
 
 The Law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ. 
 
 That the Jewish Theocracy was fitted, in its 
 structure, to ensure the preservation and integrity 
 of the sacred oracles, and to maintain the worship 
 of the one true God amidst the universal tend- 
 ency to idolatry ; that, so far from being justly 
 chargeable with imperfections inconsistent with 
 its alleged divine origin, it exhibits, in its fusion 
 of civil and religious government and in its sub- 
 ordinate peculiarities, the only means by which, 
 without violating the rights of conscience, these 
 ends could be secured ; I endeavoured, in the 
 preceding Lecture, to establish. But we should 
 form a very inadequate notion of the Mosaic 
 dispensation, did we confine our view to this 
 its negative operation, its restraining and re- 
 pellent quality merely. We can in no wise 
 admit the view of those, of whom a distinguished 
 commentator on the laws of Moses may be taken 
 as the representative, by whom the idea of this 
 
38 LECTURE II. 
 
 dispensation is reduced to the lowest possible; 
 and the Theocracy is regarded as a purely civil 
 institution, enjoining, and satisfied with, an out- 
 ward allegiance to Jehovah as the tutelary God 
 of the nation. Thus, arguing against Warburton's 
 proof of the divine mission of Moses from the 
 absence of any save temporal sanctions in the 
 Law, as being in his opinion useless, the writer 
 alluded to makes the observation, " How ridiculous 
 would an Act of Parliament appear, which should 
 denounce the pains of hell as the punishment of 
 a crime"!" He finds "in the Mosaic system 
 nothing that could have been designed to main- 
 tain, in its purity, the doctrine of a Messiah, or 
 even preserve it at all. Moses framed no sym- 
 bolic books for the people to subscribe, nor did 
 he publish any doctrine, the belief of which was 
 enjoined under pain of punishment. For instance, 
 though he describes God as all-wise, almighty, 
 good, and the like, yet if any man doubted of this, 
 or of the coming of a Messiah, he did not thereby 
 become liable to any punishment by the Law. 
 The worship of one only God, in so far as it 
 stands opposed to idolatry, was the sole point 
 which Moses made it the grand object of his 
 policy to establish and maintain to the latest 
 period*." Such, in his own words, is the theory of 
 the learned German. It excludes, as will be per- 
 
 " Michaelis, Comment, b. i. art. 14. 
 b Ibid. b. ii. c. 4. art. 32. 
 
LECTURE II. 39 
 
 ceived, from our conception of the Mosaic Law, 
 all prospective references, all ulterior aims, every 
 thing of a disciplinary and typical character, and 
 by presenting only half the truth, leads to positive 
 error. 
 
 We have but to open the volume of Scripture, 
 to perceive how defective such a view of the scope 
 of the ancient dispensation is. Contrast with it 
 such passages as the following, which meet us 
 continually in the books of Moses ; " I am the 
 Lord your God, which have separated you from 
 other people. And ye shall be holy unto Me : 
 for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you 
 from other people, that ye should be mineV 
 " Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy 
 God, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His 
 statutes, and His commandments, and His judg- 
 ments, and to hearken to His voice ; and the Lord 
 hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar 
 people, as He hath promised thee, that thou 
 shouldest keep all His commandments ; that thou 
 mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy 
 Godl" Or let us listen to St. Paul, and he will 
 tell us that the Law presented " a shadow of things 
 to come';" that "the Law was a schoolmaster, to 
 bring us to Christ*^;" that "as the heir, so long 
 as he is a child, difFereth nothing from a servant, 
 though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and 
 
 ■= Levit. XX. 24—36. * Deut. xxvi. 17 — 19. 
 
 ■= Col. ii. 17. ' Gal. iii. 24. 
 
4.0 LECTURE II. 
 
 governors, until the time appointed of the father ;" 
 so the ancient believers " were in bondage under 
 the elements of the world V' a system of rudi- 
 mentary ordinances, imposed for a special and 
 temporary purpose. It is impossible not to per- 
 ceive that the Law is here described, not merely 
 as a fence against the corruptions of heathenism, 
 but, in the first place, as a school of discipline and 
 education, of a strictly ethical, and not a cosmical, 
 character ; intended, that is, to operate upon the 
 will and the conscience by means of law, emanat- 
 ing from a holy God, and issuing in the holiness 
 of the creature ; and, in the second place, as a 
 typical adumbration, under earthly figures, of the 
 future economy, of which Christ is the Mediator 
 and the Head. These are the points to which I 
 would now invite your attention ; requesting that 
 it be borne in mind, that by the term Law is 
 meant the whole system of Moses, as a polity, and 
 not any particular appointments, typical or other- 
 wise, belonging to it : we are still considering the 
 structure of the Theocracy in general, only, as in 
 the former Lecture more under its political, so as 
 in this more under its religious, aspect. 
 
 L The Law, then, was "a schoolmaster," a 
 system of educational discipline, to bring men to 
 Christ. On the lessons which it inculcated, the 
 subject-matter of its teaching, whether by type or 
 by prophecy, I make no remark at present, further 
 
 s Gal. iv. 1—3. 
 
LECTURE II. 41 
 
 than that all its appointments were intended to 
 exhibit and to inculcate the two great truths of 
 the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God ; I 
 wish to confine your attention, as much as possible, 
 to the mode of spiritual operation, which belongs 
 to the Law as a religious system. 
 
 All religions consist, or aim at consisting, partly 
 of external acts of worship, and partly of the 
 inner sentiments, whether love or fear, or both 
 combined, of the worshipper ; but a difference of 
 relation between what is outward and what is 
 inward may give rise to very different, and indeed 
 opposite, systems. A religion may propose to 
 work either from without inwards, or from within 
 outwards ; that is, its external system, its ritual 
 and polity, may either be the instrument of form- 
 ing the inner sentiment, or it may be the natural 
 expression of that sentiment, otherwise formed ; 
 it may either be a mould impressing its stamp 
 upon a passive material, or it may be the true 
 organic form, thrown out, in its proper mani- 
 festations, by force of the spirit within. The 
 former was the mode of operation pecuhar to the 
 Law of Moses ; the latter is that characteristic 
 of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 Let an impartial inquirer open the volume of 
 the New Testament, and, after having attentively 
 perused its various portions, deliver his opinion, 
 whether the aspect which Christianity there pre- 
 sents is that of a ceremonial law. We cannot 
 
42 LECTURE II. 
 
 doubt what the result of the inquiry will be. 
 He will find our Lord assuming throughout His 
 earthly course the character of a prophet, or 
 teacher ; unfolding the full import of the moral 
 law, rebuking the external formalism of the 
 Pharisee and the unbelief of the Sadducee, in- 
 structing His disciples in the deeper mysteries of 
 His kingdom : — never that of a lawgiver, in the 
 sense in which Moses was. Towards the close of 
 His ministry, while celebrating the last Passover 
 with His disciples. He took occasion to set apart 
 one of its customary rites, the breaking of bread 
 and the drinking of wine, to be, amongst Christians, 
 a perpetual memorial of His death and of the 
 atonement thereby effected, and a pledge of their 
 fellowship with Him and with each other. After 
 His resurrection. He appropriated to Christian 
 uses another famihar rite, long in use amongst the 
 Jews, that of baptism, to mark visibly the entrance 
 of the believer upon the duties and privileges of 
 an acknowledged member of the Church. But 
 beyond the simple appointment of these ordinances, 
 little appears in the sacred record. Believers are 
 to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost ; baptized Christians are to eat 
 of the bread and drink of the cup ; thus much, and 
 not much more, can be positively gathered from 
 the terms of the original institution, which comprises 
 no hturgical formulary, and seems purposely to 
 decline any details of ritual. The import of the 
 
LECTURE II. 43 
 
 two Sacraments of the Gospel, the truths they 
 symbolize and commemorate, being supposed to 
 be understood by Christians, much, as regards the 
 outward administration, is left undefined, and to 
 be supplied according to the usages of time, 
 climate, country, or national character. The 
 same may be said of the Apostolic appointments 
 which meet us later on in the inspired pages. 
 We have certain general principles, certain leading 
 precedents, laid down for the guidance of Christian 
 societies in their internal arrangements and ex- 
 ternal organization ; but, as before, a studied 
 absence of minute details, a singular abstinence 
 from positive legislation on such points. It 
 seems as if the Apostles thought that Christians 
 could be trusted, to a great extent, to frame 
 regulations for themselves, always of course in an 
 Apostolical spirit, as circumstances might call for 
 a contraction or extension of the existing ones. 
 The band which encircles Christianity in the 
 Christian Scriptures is of elastic materials. Such, 
 I apprehend, is the general impression which a 
 perusal of these Scriptures conveys to the mind. 
 
 Turn now to the books of Moses, and mark 
 how entirely different is the rehgious system 
 therein pourtrayed. A complicated ritual, de- 
 scending to the minutest details, regulates from 
 without the rehgious life of the Jew. He cannot 
 move in any direction without finding himself con- 
 fronted by some law, or precept, which confines 
 
44 LECTURE II. 
 
 his liberty of action, and prescribes what course 
 he is to take. If a tabernacle is to be erected, it 
 must be of a certain size, of certain materials, of 
 certain furniture ; if there must be priests to 
 minister in it, their tribe and family, their ritual of 
 consecration, their very garments, must all be 
 accurately prescribed ; if the worshipper would 
 offer sacrifice, a number of minute ceremonies 
 must be observed ; later on in his history, if he 
 would celebrate the praises of God, while Christians 
 are exhorted to speak to themselves "in psalms 
 and hymns and spiritual songs ''," an inspired hymnal 
 coming to him from without, shapes his devotions. 
 His food, his raiment, his domestic aiTangements, 
 are matter of law. Even on the diseases incident 
 to the climate, the natural infirmities of the body, 
 and the last great change which in this life that 
 body undergoes, a structure of legal prescriptions 
 is raised which must have required for their fulfil- 
 ment no small measure of time and attention. 
 " Touch not, taste not, handle not ;" — this was 
 the spirit of the Mosaic religion, and by reason 
 of the Theocratical form of government, all the 
 regulations of the Law, political and domestic, 
 as well as those appertaining to the worship of 
 God, partook of a religious character ; so that it 
 is nothing but the truth to say, that, in the case 
 of the Jew, his religion hemmed him in on every 
 side, interfered with every function of life, and by 
 ^ Ephes. V. 19. 
 
LECTURE II. 45 
 
 its incessant and importunate demands placed him 
 mider a yoke of bondage, which he confessed it was 
 difficult to bear'. Such is the contrast, a stronger 
 one cannot be imagined, which this system pre- 
 sents to that unfolded to us in the New Testament 
 Scriptures. The Mosaic religion, as I have ob- 
 served, proposed to work upon man from without 
 inwards, the Christian proceeds in the reverse 
 direction. 
 
 But that we may gain a clearer insight into 
 the nature of the old dispensation, let us dwell 
 awhile upon the analogy which, more than once, 
 St. Paul employs to illustrate its principles. The 
 analogy is drawn from the ordinary process of 
 education. " The Law was our schoolmaster to 
 bring us to Christ ;" the Jew, though an heir to 
 the fairest prospects, was " under tutors and 
 governors," until the time came for his manu- 
 mission, and his entrance upon the privileges and 
 responsibilities of manhood. Now the work of 
 education is, as we know, conducted on the prin- 
 ciple of working from without inwards : discipline 
 and habituation are the teacher's main instruments. 
 All that he expects to find present, at first, is, 
 innate capacities on which virtuous habits may 
 be engrafted; the habits themselves he proposes 
 to work into the character by a course of suitable 
 discipline. While the moral sense is as yet feeble, 
 he connects the idea of present suffering with 
 
 ' Acts XV. 10. 
 
46 LECTURE II. 
 
 misconduct, and present enjoyment with dutiful 
 obedience; a mode of treatment which is laid 
 aside in proportion as the pupil advances in power 
 of self-determination, and in moral discernment. 
 Enlarge the educational system into a national 
 polity, and you have the ancient idea of a state, 
 according to which it is a school of virtuous train- 
 ing for the citizens ; such an idea as floated before 
 the mind of Plato in his imaginary Republic. The 
 other great philosopher, whose works are so much 
 studied here, points out to us the principle on 
 which such an institution must produce its effect. 
 Describing the formation of virtuous habits by 
 repeated acts, he adduces, in confirmation of his 
 theory, the example of lawgivers, with whom, 
 he says, it is usual to employ the power of habit 
 in the improvement of the citizens (iOi^ovTes 
 TTOLOvcriv ayaOovs^^i that is, they aim at producing 
 inward effects by a system of external discipline. 
 The effects said to have been produced on the 
 national character by the legislation of Sparta, 
 present us with a remarkable instance of the 
 nature and operation of a system which commences 
 from without, with the view of ultimately leading 
 to interior results. 
 
 It is obvious that a system of this kind, whether 
 its object be the education of an individual or of 
 a state, presupposes some degree of indisposition 
 towards its requirements, or at least a feebleness 
 
 ^ Ethic. Nic. 1. ii. c, 1. 
 
LECTURE II. 47 
 
 of mora] power which needs external support and 
 direction. "The law" (so far forth as it is law) 
 "is not made for a righteous man, but for the 
 lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for 
 sinnersV It is because we cannot trust children 
 with the shaping of their own course, because 
 we have reason to suspect in their case the absence 
 of confirmed habits, moral and intellectual, that 
 we endeavour to supply the place of such habits 
 by an external framework of rules to which, 
 without caring at first whether the import or the 
 reasons of them be understood, we compel obe- 
 dience. And the less the power of self-direction 
 supposed to be present, the more the external 
 enactments are multiplied, so as to confine the 
 pupil on every side, and leave as little as possible 
 to his own discretion. The appointments, under 
 such circumstances, will naturally incur an arbitrary 
 and artificial aspect ; for the intention being to 
 curb the propensities of undisciplined nature, and 
 to give a specific direction to whatever naturally 
 right feelings may be in existence, positive enact- 
 ments, the reason of which may not be apparent, 
 must be multiplied, and the more arbitrary the 
 enactments, the better, in some cases, are they 
 adapted to secure the desired end. We do not 
 admit that any of the Mosaic appointments were 
 in fact arbitrary, but maintain that if they had 
 been, this circumstance, under such a system, 
 1 1 Tim. i. 9. 
 
48 LECTURE II. 
 
 would not have been surprising. The object here 
 being rather to form than to direct the internal 
 habit, rather to impart a bias than to regulate it, 
 a pressure from without must be apphed, which 
 may supply the lack of spontaneous promptings 
 within. 
 
 What an exact analogy in the points just men- 
 tioned the Jewish dispensation presents, will, I 
 think, be acknowledged ; and the parallel holds 
 good in other respects, which the Apostle has not 
 so explicitly dwelt upon. I have observed, that in 
 the work of education, present rewards and punish- 
 ments are employed to secure obedience, and the 
 more effectively the system is carried out, the 
 more immediate is the connexion between an act 
 and its consequences : I need not again direct 
 your attention to the extraordinary Providence 
 which under the Theocracy distributed at once, 
 and infallibly, to every transgression its penalty, 
 to every act of obedience its reward ; which in 
 a moment struck Nadab and Abihu dead for 
 offering strange fire before the Lord, and brought 
 to light the hidden sin of Achan, that it might 
 receive its due award of punishment. Moreover 
 the rewards and punishments which the teacher 
 employs must be sensible and material ; those 
 which are of a spiritual nature will have little or 
 no effect on children ; at least in the early stages 
 of the process of education. By equally ele- 
 mentary means the rehgious affections of the Jew, 
 
LECTURE II. 49 
 
 whether love or fear, were ehcited. Just as in 
 the case of the young child, it is the perception 
 of material benefits, the removal of the pangs of 
 hunger, or other uneasy bodily sensations, which, 
 in the first instance, draws forth the emotions of 
 love and gratitude towards those by whom these 
 wants are reheved; so the Jew, at his first entrance 
 on the course of spiritual training under which 
 he was placed, was engaged for the service of God 
 by immediate and sensible advantages, and learned 
 to love his heavenly King while yet but imper- 
 fectly acquainted with the full extent of his 
 obhgations, or the blessings in store for him. It 
 was not required of him that he should walk by 
 faith ; the mental eye was too feeble to look 
 forward to things unseen ; and those temporal 
 sanctions which the political character of the 
 Jewish Church alone admitted were equally 
 rendered necessary by the immaturity of the Jew 
 in the matter of religion. Thus a present result 
 was gained which might be, and was intended to 
 be, directed to higher purposes ; when these earthly 
 sentiments, founded on earthly motives, should, 
 under such a measure of the Spirit's influence as 
 belonged to the elder dispensation, and by means 
 of the various appliances of discipline and in- 
 struction therein provided, gradually rise into a 
 higher element, and the Christianity of the Old 
 Testament, as pourtrayed in the Psalms and 
 Prophets, should emerge into view, and grow 
 
 E 
 
50 LECTURE II. 
 
 in distinctness of feature and completeness of 
 proportion, until at length it should burst the 
 shell by which it was at once confined and pro- 
 tected, and attain, under the Gospel, " the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 
 
 That the Mosaic system then was rudimentary, 
 external, a system of " carnal ordinances," to 
 adopt the strong language of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews™, is evident, and the question now arises, 
 Why was such a system necessary ? can we 
 arrive at a satisfactory conviction that no other 
 would have been equally suitable ? It has already 
 been remarked, that all such educational institutes 
 presuppose deficiencies within, mental and moral ; 
 and the answer in general to the question just 
 mentioned will be, that the Jew, especially at the 
 period of the promulgation of the Law, was 
 incapable of a more spiritual mode of treatment. 
 In the first place, the materials of a more spiritual 
 economy did not as yet exist. The Atonement 
 was as yet but prospective, the Holy Spirit, as 
 I shall have occasion to shew hereafter, did not 
 operate as He does under the Gospel ; and God's 
 gracious designs, as regards the redemption of our 
 race, lay imbedded, and concealed, in the obscure 
 intimation that the seed of the woman should 
 bruise the serpent's head, and in the promises to 
 Abraham. Nor were these defects perfectly 
 remedied throughout the whole course of the 
 "■ Heb. ix. 10. 
 
LECTURE II. 51 
 
 dispensation. To the last the Jew walked in 
 comparative darkness ; to the last the powerful 
 motives which affect the Christian, derived from 
 the infinite love of God as exhibited in the 
 completed work of redemption, and from the 
 authoritative announcement of a future resur- 
 rection of the body to life or to death eternal, 
 could not be brought to bear upon the ancient 
 believer ; to the last therefore he needed stimu- 
 lants to his piety drawn from inferior sources. 
 And, in the next place, it is obvious, from the 
 inspired history, that the Israelites, at the period 
 of their history alluded to, were, as regards re- 
 ligion, a people of extremely rude conceptions. 
 Their notions of the Divine nature and attributes 
 had, during their residence in Egypt, become, to 
 the last degree, childish and corrupt ; and so 
 deeply had the taint of idolatry affected their 
 minds, that it required centuries of discipline, and 
 the temporary dissolution of the whole pohty, 
 to purge it out. Unless then it had pleased God 
 to deviate from His ordinary course, by dissipating 
 instantaneously and miraculously the clouds of 
 spiritual darkness in which the selected race, in com- 
 mon with the rest of mankind, was involved, a mode 
 of training, suitable to the low capacities of the 
 subject, must be adopted. If even after centuries 
 of training under his law, the Jew was, as St. Paul 
 declares, a child, not yet emancipated from the 
 yoke, we can well conceive, that when he was led 
 
 e2 
 
52 LECTURE II. 
 
 forth by Moses from Egypt, he needed to be 
 dealt with as an infant in religion. And as such 
 he was treated. Fenced round on every side 
 against the encroachments of heathenism, he was 
 taught the elements (crroixeta") of piety by means 
 suited to his infantile capacity — by type, by symbol, 
 and by the " bodily exercise" of literal enactments. 
 But the point before us demands to be con- 
 sidered a little more closely. There is reason to 
 suspect that in many minds some confusion of 
 thought exists as to the spiritual standing of the 
 Jew as a Jew, which interferes with just views of 
 the nature of the ancient economy, and of its 
 relation to the new. The question then is. How 
 are we to define a member of the Theocracy ? 
 We describe a Christian as a man in Christ ; one, 
 that is, who has been regenerated by the Holy 
 Spirit, who has been justified through faith, who 
 is a new creature, and walks in newness of life ; 
 this is our conception of a true, living, member of 
 Christ, and of Christ's church ; and in so describ- 
 ing the Christian, we do not intend to pourtray 
 an advanced Christian as distinguished from a 
 novice, we are not speaking of degrees in the 
 Christian life, but we are enumerating the cha- 
 racteristics which are essential to our conception 
 of any real Christian. Now what is our cor- 
 responding notion of the Jew ; the Jew as we find 
 him when placed under his law, not as what he 
 " Gal. iv. 3. 
 
LECTURE II. 53 
 
 might ultimately become ? What was necessary 
 to constitute a real member of the Theocracy ? 
 It is on this point that I conceive some degree of 
 misapprehension prevails, which prevents us from 
 perceiving the fitness, the necessity, of such an ele- 
 mentary system as that which has been described. 
 I venture to think then, that here, as in some 
 other instances, we are apt to introduce into the 
 Old Testament more of Christianity, in its dis- 
 tinctive features, than is borne out by the facts of 
 the case. That, as regards the knowledge of 
 Christian doctrines, and the sanctions of our 
 covenant, this error has been occasionally com- 
 mitted, few, who inspect our popular hymns and 
 books of theology, can, I think, doubt. Let me 
 here make one remark, which may be of use to 
 students of the Jewish Scriptures. Imbued as we 
 have been from childhood with the great doc- 
 trines of the Gospel, and still more, accustomed 
 as we are to look upon, and to read, the Bible as 
 one book, it is very difficult for us to form an 
 adequate conception of the hmited amount of 
 religious knowledge, possessed, as far as we see, 
 by the Jew, particularly in the earlier period of 
 his history. Few of us, perhaps, when we turn 
 over the leaves of our Bibles, realize sufficiently 
 the fact, that we have in our hands a record of 
 progressive revelation, extending, from the first 
 intimation of a Saviour in the book of Genesis to 
 the actual advent of that Saviour, over an interval 
 
54 LECTURE II. 
 
 of more than 4000 years; and that centuries 
 sometimes elapsed between one inspired com- 
 munication and another. The only way to arrive 
 at just views respecting the degree of spiritual 
 illumination enjoyed by the ancient behever at any 
 given period, is to suppose that all the books of 
 Scripture subsequent to that period had perished, 
 and then to examine how much of Christianity we 
 can fairly extract from the portion that is left. 
 If the whole of the Old Testament be subjected 
 to this process, that is, if we separate from it 
 mentally the volmue of the Christian Scriptures 
 in which the cyphers of the Law find their full 
 interpretation, we shall be surprised, I suspect, to 
 find how slow, how gradual, and to the last how 
 defective, was the communication of divine truth 
 to the ancient church. The student will discover 
 the germs of his religion under type and symbol ; 
 and with high gratification will trace the gradual 
 disclosure of the Christian mysteries, in all their 
 separate branches, until prophecy, big with its 
 mighty theme, becomes instinct with Christian 
 hope and sentiment, and reflects from all its 
 surface the glories of the approaching advent, 
 even as the morning clouds assume richer and 
 deeper tints as the luminary of day advances to 
 the horizon ; but he will find a veil of comparative 
 obscurity spread over doctrines which with us 
 are the first principles of religion, such as the 
 atonement of Christ, regeneration by the Spirit, 
 
LECTURE II. 55 
 
 and the resurrection of the body to life eternal. 
 And the effect on his mind of the observation of 
 this inferiority of the old as compared with the 
 new covenant will be, not that he will be led to 
 undervalue the former which never professed to be 
 a perfect revelation, but that he will learn to 
 recognise in the Saviour the true light of the 
 world ; in that He both recovered for us, and has 
 fully revealed to us, life and immortality ; and 
 will learn to estimate more highly his own pri- 
 vilege in living under a dispensation in which the 
 shadows of the dawn have given place to the full 
 brightness of noon-day. 
 
 Now the point which I would suggest for 
 your consideration is, whether the spiritual stand- 
 ing of the Jew, as a member of the Theocracy, 
 did not partake of the same imperfection as 
 unquestionably belonged to the revelation vouch- 
 safed to him. The primary fact which seems 
 sometimes lost sight of is this, that the Jew was 
 a Jew by natural birth, whereas, whatever view 
 we may take of the nature or instrument of re- 
 generation, no one is a Christian until he be 
 born again". The overlooking of so capital a 
 distinction could not fail of leading to conclusions 
 partially erroneous. The privileges of the old 
 covenant, those at least which belonged to the 
 people as such, were attached to a carnal descent 
 from Abraham, just as the privileges of English- 
 
 " 1 John iii. 3. 
 
56 LECTURE II. 
 
 men belong to them by natural birth ; in the one 
 case, as in the other, liable to forfeiture under 
 certain circumstances of rebellious disobedience ; 
 there was here no question, as there is no mention, 
 of a regenerating spirit effecting a change of heart, 
 as the initial point whence the Jew entered on 
 his course of legal training. Nor does it appear 
 that circumcision, by which he became a pub- 
 licly acknowledged member of the Theocracy, 
 wrought any change in his inward condition. I 
 do not say that in no sense was circumcision a 
 sacrament ; but if by that term he meant a means 
 of grace, then to call it a sacrament is, I cannot 
 but think, an instance of the tendency just now 
 alluded to, to introduce the Gospel into the Law. 
 Circumcision was the sign of the Mosaic covenant, 
 an emblem to the Jew of what he ought to be, to 
 him perhaps as striking a one as baptism is to us ; 
 but that it was a covenanted means, or channel, 
 of spiritual influence, no where, I think, appears. 
 I am far from intending to insinuate, that under 
 the Theocracy spiritual influences were not at 
 work ; I shall have hereafter to assume that the 
 Spirit was in some sense then given ; but that the 
 Jew did not commence his course of training under 
 the Law as a spiritual man, and that the Theocracy 
 was not a Church, in the New Testament sense of 
 the word, seems plain from the absence of any 
 promise of divine grace as part of the blessings 
 comprised in the covenant of Sinai. So far as 
 
LECTURE II. 57 
 
 this grace was given, it was given, to adopt Bishop 
 Bull's accurate expression, under, not by virtue of, 
 the Law". In vain will the reader of the books of 
 Moses search in them for any distinct allusion to 
 the sanctifying influences of the Spirit ; one or 
 two passages he may discover, from which a pious 
 and reflective mind might have inferred the pre- 
 sence of supernatural agency, as when God pro- 
 mises, on the repentance of the people in captivity, 
 to "circumcise theheart^" of them and of their seed ; 
 but expHcit references to assistance from above to 
 fulfil the requirements of the Law, are as scanty in 
 this portion at least of the Old Testament as they 
 are abundant in every page of the New. The 
 very duty of prayer, which forms so prominent a 
 feature of Apostolic instructions, is no where in 
 the Pentateuch universally enjoined, nor is any 
 promise of a favourable hearing annexed to the 
 performance of the duty''. Yet we cannot doubt 
 that pious men of old offered prayer to God, and 
 that their prayers were heard ; but in the exercise 
 on their part, and the acceptance on the part of 
 God, of this confession of their wants, they stood 
 not upon legal ground, but upon the primitive 
 footing of those who came to God because they 
 
 " Harm. Apost. c. xi. §. 4. p Deut. xxx. 6. 
 
 1 There are but three instances in the Pentateuch in which 
 prayer is enjoined (Deut. xxvi. 13—15; xxi. 7, 8. Numb. vi. 
 24 — 26.) ; and these relate oniy to public or particular occa- 
 sions. See Lancaster, Harmony, &c. c. 7. 
 
58 LECTURE II. 
 
 believed that He is, and is a rewarder of them that 
 diligently seek Him'. 
 
 If these remarkable facts be thought to throw 
 any hght on an obscure point, we shall best 
 perhaps consider the position of the Jew, on his 
 first entrance into the school of the Law, as some- 
 what analogous to that of such members of a 
 visible Christian Church as are not yet fully under 
 the influence of the Spirit ; who are operated 
 upon from without by appliances of various kinds, 
 such as the ministry of the word, the sacraments, 
 the life and conversation of the living members of 
 Christ, in short all that we comprise under the 
 term Christian influences, and which may produce 
 considerable effects without leading to decided 
 personal piety, as, on a large scale, we may see 
 in the changes in public manners and sentiment 
 which invariably follow from the introduction of 
 Christianity into a nation ; who are wrought upon, 
 I say, from without by these instruments of the 
 Spirit together, no doubt, with some measure of 
 the strivings of the Spirit to gain an entrance into 
 the heart ; but in whom Christ, the hope of glory, 
 is not yet fully formed, and who still therefore 
 have not emerged from the Christian training 
 school into the liberty of the children of God. 
 The difference between the two cases consists in 
 this, that such imperfect Christians, if they may 
 be so called, are not dealt with as children but as 
 
 ' Heb. xi. 6. 
 
LECTURE II. 59 
 
 men ; the motives of a fully revealed Gospel are 
 brought to bear upon them, spiritual power is 
 assured to them if they will but seek it, they are 
 called to walk by faith, and not by sight ; whereas 
 in the case of the Jew, owing to the comparative 
 scantiness of his revelation, and of the supply of 
 the Spirit of grace under his economy, the appli- 
 ances were necessarily more elementary in their 
 nature. And thus instead of the word of God, as 
 a means of grace, announcing a finished atonement 
 and opening up an assured prospect beyond the 
 grave, he had the Law with its complicated cere- 
 monial, proclaiming indeed the same lessons, of 
 the necessity of holiness in the creature, of the 
 possibility of reconciliation with God, of some 
 future better rest provided for the faithful de- 
 scendant of Abraham, but proclaiming them chiefly 
 under symbol, and figure, appealing to the senses ; 
 instead of the crowning manifestation of God's 
 love in the gift of His Son being presented to him 
 as a motive to obedience, an earthly deliverance 
 and temporal blessings called forth his gratitude, 
 God, as the prophet Jeremiah says, taking his 
 ancient people by the hand% that is, by the 
 sensible connexion of outward benefits, in order 
 to lead them onwards to the destiny in store for 
 them ; instead of faith being his religious charac- 
 teristic, as it is ours, his path, lying on a lower 
 level, conducted him through a region of sight, 
 ' Jer, xxxi. 33. 
 
60 LECTURE II. 
 
 where nothing but gross and most culpable in- 
 attention could induce forgetfulness of the Divine 
 presence and the Divine mercies. It was thus that 
 to the spiritual childhood of the Jew, God, in His 
 great condescension, manifested Himself, in the first 
 instance, under the guise of an earthly Benefactor 
 and King ; " I am the Lord thy God, that brought 
 thee out of the house of bondage," therefore " ye 
 shall have no other gods before Me' ;" gaining 
 their confidence by visible marks of His good- 
 ness, and alluring them by the sweetness of 
 temporal mercies to follow Him in a way they 
 knew not, a way which they would soon discover 
 to be one of trial, and chastening, and self-know- 
 ledge, but leading in the end to spiritual blessings 
 of which the earthly presented but a faint shadow. 
 For this dispensation began with love to God, in 
 the lower sense just mentioned, and terminated in 
 conviction of sin ; ours begins with conviction of 
 sin, and once more conducts to love to God in 
 the highest, deepest sense, as the fruit of the 
 indwelling of His Spirit. 
 
 Apprehensive of having already dwelt too long 
 on this head of the discourse, I must decline 
 pursuing some interesting trains of thought con- 
 nected with the point before us. But let me 
 request the reader of Scripture, who, taught by 
 his Church and his Bible to beheve "that the 
 condition of man is such," that without special 
 ' Exod. XX. 2, 3. 
 
LECTURE IT. 61 
 
 grace he cannot rise into the sphere of the spiritual 
 life, and when in it cannot perfect holiness as God 
 requires it of him", may be perplexed at finding in 
 the books of Moses love to God with all the heart 
 made to the Jew the condition — not indeed of 
 eternal life, for that the covenant of Sinai was a 
 covenant of works in that sense is a fiction of 
 divines, but certainly — of his retaining possession 
 of Canaan ^ as if God were proposing to his crea- 
 tures a blessing on the performance of a condition 
 which they never could fulfil ; let me request him, 
 I say, to consider, whether he is not, from Christian 
 habits of thought, unduly exalting the love of God 
 required of the Jew at Sinai, to an equahty with 
 that spiritual affection which the natural man can 
 never experience ; whether this Jewish sentiment 
 were not analogous in nature to the hearty alle- 
 giance of a faithful subject to a gracious sovereign 
 and benefactor, though from the theocratical con- 
 stitution of the state, it necessarily possessed a 
 religious character. The requirements of the divine 
 law must always be intrinsically the same ; God 
 
 ° Art. X. xii. 1 Cor. ii. 14. 1 John i. 8, 9. 
 
 ' Deut. vi. 4, 5. Mr. Fairbairn (Typology, &c. ii. p. 153.) 
 remarks, that the inheritance (of Canaan) was freely given by 
 promise to Abraham and his seed, and therefore could not 
 be acquired by obedience to the Law : this is true ; but their 
 retention of the gift was clearly made dependent on the observ- 
 ance of the covenant, which, among other things, or rather 
 as comprising every thing else, required love to God. See 
 Deut. passim. 
 
62 LECTURE II. 
 
 can never be satisfied with less than the surrender 
 of the heart, and the notion that the service re- 
 quired of the Jew was a mere outward one, or a 
 mere abstinence from idolatry, is contradicted in 
 every page of the Pentateuch ; but the affection 
 required may have varied somewhat in quality 
 according as God manifested Himself as a tem- 
 poral benefactor, or as a Redeemer from sin and 
 its consequences. It was under the former aspect 
 that the Jew contemplated Jehovah ; and so fully 
 appreciable even by the mere natural man were 
 the benefits bestowed, that it may not have needed 
 any spiritual influence, or at any rate but a small 
 measure of it, to call forth the corresponding 
 natural affection. On the commonest principles 
 of morality the Jew ought to have heartily loved 
 and obeyed his divine Benefactor, and the natural 
 sentiments thus elicited were intended, under the 
 growing light of revelation, and such spiritual aids 
 as were given under the Law, to be gradually 
 transmuted into something more properly spi- 
 ritual ; a transmutation which in the pious part of 
 the nation did actually take place. If this be so, 
 the Jew was expelled fi:om Canaan, not so much, 
 or so directly, because he failed in rising from 
 natural to spiritual affections towards God, as 
 because he failed, as he notoriously did, in ex- 
 hibiting the natural affections. He "rebelled" as 
 well as "vexed" the "Holy Spirit^;" he slew the 
 '' Isaiah Ixiii. 10. 
 
LECTURE II. 63 
 
 King's messengers^ who came exhibiting their cre- 
 dentials ; he, in heart and spirit, renounced his 
 allegiance. And on this ground, not to speak of 
 others, his expulsion was most just''. 
 
 But I refrain from pursuing the subject fur- 
 ther. Enough perhaps has been said to enable 
 us to perceive, that the confessedly elementary 
 character of the Mosaic economy, as a rehgious 
 system, was rendered necessary by the spiritual 
 incapacity of the Jew of Sinai, whether we attri- 
 bute that incapacity to the deteriorating influences 
 to which he was exposed in Egypt, or to the 
 inherent imperfection of his religious standing, or, 
 as I think is nearest the truth, to both combined. 
 And I have dwelt the more fully on this subject, 
 because the feature in question has, among others, 
 been singled out by our Deistical writers for their 
 attacks. How unworthy of the Deity, so the 
 objection runs, how manifestly inadequate to ex- 
 press the true relations between man and his 
 Maker, was this system, of which the most promi- 
 nent characteristic was a multiplicity of rites and 
 ceremonies, apparently arbitrary in their nature, 
 with which the time and attention of the people 
 
 >■ Isaiah Ixiii. 10. 
 
 ' The expulsion of the Jews from Canaan, notwithstanding 
 the abhorrence of idolatry which, after their return from 
 Babylon, they exhibited, need occasion no difficulty, if it be 
 borne in mind, that from the first love to God, and not the 
 mere abstinence from idolatry, was made the condition of 
 blessing. 
 
64 LECTURE II. 
 
 must have been chiefly occupied*. And if we 
 choose to forget the preparatory character of the 
 Theocracy, and the ulterior objects of it, that is, 
 if we separate Judaism from Christianity, we may, 
 no doubt, find it difiicult to vindicate the con- 
 sistency of the former with our notions of a 
 rehgion purporting to proceed from Him who is a 
 Spirit, and who demands that they who worship 
 Him should do so in spirit and in truth. But the 
 Mosaic system was never intended to be a final 
 one. It was a school of preparatory training, in 
 which certain habits of thought and feehng were 
 to be wrought into the national character by a 
 forcible pressure from without ; and under such a 
 system the forms of religion are of paramount 
 importance, for it is by these that the inner spirit 
 is to be called into existence. The object aimed 
 at is to hold human nature in a fixed mould until 
 it has received the desired impression, and imbibed 
 the spirit which lies latent or imprisoned in the 
 form ; the mould therefore must be of inflexible 
 material, incapable of expansion and contraction, 
 and of elaborate finish ; and must press from 
 without upon all parts of the religious life. The 
 lawgiver will multiply rules, enjoin specific acts of 
 religion, appoint " days, and months, and times, 
 and years ;" instead of general principles issue 
 literal prescriptions ; in short, construct such a 
 rehgious polity as by the Divine wisdom, and 
 
 '■ Leland, Deistical Writers, i. Let. IS. 
 
LECTURE II. 65 
 
 consistently as we trust it has been shewn with 
 the Divine wisdom, was actually imposed on the 
 Jewish people. 
 
 II. I proceed, with greater brevity, to make 
 some remarks on the Theocracy, under the last 
 point of view in which it presents itself to the 
 reader of Scripture ; as an earthly figure, or 
 representation, of the future Kingdom of Christ, 
 and of the relations subsisting between God and 
 His people under the covenant of grace. Indeed 
 this is not properly a distinct topic from the 
 former ; it falls under the idea of the Law con- 
 sidered as a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ : 
 for it belongs to the process of education not only 
 to supply the lack of internal habits by the props 
 of external discipline, but to present to the 
 immature mind correct representations of things, 
 though it may be under the form of parables or 
 images. We may however consider the subject 
 separately. 
 
 The reader of the New Testament then will 
 soon discover that Christians, in their collective 
 capacity, are there frequently represented under 
 analogies drawn from the ancient covenant ; as 
 when they are described as " the Israel of GodV 
 "the city of the living God," the "new" or "the 
 heavenly Jerusalem"," or as when St. Paul speaks 
 of " our commonwealth (TroAtVeu/xa) being from 
 heaven V expressions manifestly derived from the 
 
 '' Gal. vi. 16. = Heb. xi. 23. Gal. iv. 26. * Phil. iii. 20. 
 F 
 
66 LECTURE II. 
 
 Jewish polity, and transferred to Christian uses. 
 From the same source have come the terms which 
 describe the benefits and privileges which belong 
 to Christians, particularly those expressed in the 
 words, election, calling, adoption, and sanctification, 
 all of which, as we know, are found in the Old 
 Testament applied to the Jewish people, and 
 thence have passed into the Gospel. 
 
 Very remarkably is the principle I am con- 
 tending for exemplified in the history of the chosen 
 people ; their deliverance from Egypt, their wan- 
 derings in the wilderness, their contests with the 
 Canaanites, and their final settlement not under 
 Moses the Lawgiver, but under Joshua the typical 
 Saviour, in the promised land. His spiritual per- 
 ceptions, one would think, must be dull who does 
 not perceive, under these earthly adumbrations, 
 the history both of the Church collectively, and of 
 each Christian's experience in particular, pour- 
 trayed in striking colours ; who, on looking back 
 on past trials and past mercies, cannot enter into 
 the spirit of the words addressed of old to Israel, 
 " Thou shalt remember all the way which the 
 Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the 
 wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee";" 
 who does not recognise in the difficulties with 
 which the people had to contend a hvely image 
 of the straitness of the gate and narrowness of the 
 way that leadeth to life, in their temporal visit- 
 
 ^ Deut. viii. 3. 
 
LECTURE II. 67 
 
 ations a pattern of the fatherly chastening from 
 which no true son is exempt, in their final victory 
 and fruition of Canaan a type of the heavenly rest 
 that remaineth for the people of God. This is no 
 fanciful system of accommodation ; w^e have in- 
 spired authority for thus reading the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures. The use which our Lord makes 
 of the elevation of the brasen serpent', and of the 
 manna in the wilderness ^ and which St. Paul 
 makes of another interesting occurrence, the 
 water from the rock at Horeb ^ is familiar to all ; 
 and that these are but specimens from the quarry 
 we may gather from the general declaration of the 
 Apostle, that "these things happened" unto the 
 Jews " for ensamples," rather types or models 
 (rvirot), "and they are written for our admonition 
 upon whom the ends of the world are come'." 
 Studied with this light thrown upon it, the early 
 history of the Israelites becomes an inexhaustible 
 source of instruction, warning, and consolation ; 
 and the conviction arises in the mind of the 
 believer, that so apt a reflection of the Christian 
 life, in its various aspects, cannot be a casual 
 coincidence ; in other words, that the Divine wisdom 
 shaped the history of the chosen people, as well 
 as the appointments of the Law, with a special 
 reference to the iuture dispensation of Christ. 
 In like manner the Jewish privileges, variously 
 
 ' John iii. 14. s John vi. 49, 50. ^ 1 Cor. x. 4. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. X. 11. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LECTURE II. 
 
 expressed in the terms just now alluded to, find 
 their counterpart under our dispensation, but in 
 a deeper, and a more spiritual, sense. The ex- 
 ternal relations of the Law give place to the 
 inward ones of the Gospel. Christians are elected, 
 and called ; they are sons of God by adoption ; 
 they are a holy nation, a peculiar people ; but 
 these terms, as applied to Christians, as much 
 transcend, in their idea, what they signified under 
 the Law, as the religion of Christ is superior to 
 that of Moses. And I cannot but observe, that 
 inattention to this distinction has not unfrequently 
 exercised an injurious influence on the interpreta- 
 tion of the New Testament in this particular point. 
 Hence has proceeded the tendency to lower the 
 meaning of the terms in question,' so as to make 
 them signify something entirely separable from 
 a work of the Spirit on the heart ; as when it is 
 argued, that St. Paul, in speaking of Christians " as 
 being chosen in Christ before the foundation of 
 the world," meant only an election of particular 
 nations, the English nation for example, to the 
 profession of Christianity, because the Jewish 
 election was, in fact, a national one'' ; or that the 
 words " called" and " saints," as used by the same 
 Apostle, signify, respectively, only an external 
 calling by the word, and an external dedication to 
 God, such as equally belonged to the vessels of 
 the tabernacle. Nor can we think that those 
 
 '^ See Locke on Romans ix. and Ephes. i. 1 — 6. 
 
LECTURE II. 69 
 
 expositors have fully unfolded the sense of Scrip- 
 ture, who, rising above the school of Locke and 
 Grotius, yet interpret these expressions to mean 
 merely an admission to ecclesiastical privileges, 
 to the oiFer of salvation', by which, I presume, 
 is meant admission to the means of grace and 
 a claim to the influences of the Spirit, pri- 
 vileges which, however valuable, by no means 
 imply vital, saving, union with Christ. That 
 many passages, at least, such as those in the Epistle 
 to the Romans, where St. Paul connects election 
 and calhng directly with justification and the fore- 
 taste of glory '^, and where he declares, that "as 
 many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
 the sons of GodV' cannot, without straining, be so 
 reduced in import, seems clear ; but let me briefly 
 point out what I conceive to be the fundamental 
 error of this type of exposition. 
 
 The usage of Scripture then seems to furnish 
 us with the following canon of interpretation ; — 
 the Theocratical nation is spoken of as the type, 
 or figure, not of local Christian churches, such as 
 that of Rome, or Ephesus, but of the one true 
 church, or, as it is called in Protestant theology, 
 perhaps somewhat improperly, the invisible 
 church, the mystical body of Christ, which in 
 our Prayer-book is defined to be "the blessed 
 company of all faithful," or truly believing, " peo- 
 
 ' See Whately, Essays on St. Paul, Essay on Election. 
 " Rom. viii. 29, 30. " Ibid. v. ]4. 
 
70 LECTURE II. 
 
 pie"." This is the heavenly Zion, the spiritual 
 Israel, of which the Jewish Theocracy, with its 
 temple, and its appointments of sacrifice and 
 priesthood, was the earthly counterpart. There 
 could be but one temple, the centre of unity to 
 the nation, and so there is but one mystical body 
 under its Head, Christ. And as the members of 
 the church under this its inward, its true aspect, 
 are also, all of them, living members of Christ, 
 vitally incorporated in Him, as the branches in 
 the vine, and under the influence of His Spirit, 
 you will at once perceive that the Theocratical 
 relations under consideration assume, in the Chris- 
 tian application, a deeper meaning than that which 
 has been assigned to them. The Jewish election, 
 and calling, and adoption, it has been observed^, 
 belonged to the whole nation without exception ; 
 in the Pentateuch it is almost always the nation 
 collectively that is addressed : true, most true : 
 and so under the Gospel, while these privileges 
 belong, in their spiritual fulness, only to the true 
 church, they belong to every member of it without 
 exception. And now follow out the parallel. 
 The nation was not merely invited to leave Egypt, 
 but was drawn out of it by a mighty hand and 
 stretched out arm, so the members of the mystical 
 body are called not merely by the word, but by 
 the Spirit working with the word ; the nation was 
 
 " Communion Service. 
 
 p Whately, Essay on Election. 
 
LECTURE ir. 71 
 
 elected, not merely to the offer of Canaan, but to 
 an actual fruition of the land of promise, so Chris- 
 tians are elected not merely to the means of grace, 
 but to the actual fruition of Gospel blessings, 
 cleansing by the blood of Christ, sanctification by 
 His Spirit, fellowship with God, the foretaste of 
 glory ; the nation as such was adopted, " Israel is 
 my son, my first-born V' the privilege being not 
 the less real because it was external, so Christians 
 receive not merely the title of sons, but the Spirit 
 of adoption, whereby they cry Abba, Father'; 
 "the Spirit itself bears witness with'' their "spirit 
 that" they "are the children of God^;" they "are 
 sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is 
 the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemp- 
 tion of the purchased possession'." Yet in the 
 
 1 Exod. iv. 23. "^ Eom. viii. 15. ' Ibid. v. 16. 
 
 ' Ephes. i. 13. If the reader is disposed to pursue the 
 analogy, and to argue that as the Jewish nation, notwith- 
 standing its election and calling, was eventually, for its sins, 
 expelled from Canaan, so a state of vital union with Christ is 
 not indefectible, he is at liberty to do so ; the Author is not 
 concerned in maintaining in its integrity any particular scheme 
 of doctrine, but only in shewing that the expressions in debate 
 imply, when applied to Christians, not merely an external 
 privilege, but a fruition of the blessing. It must be observed, 
 however, in reference to the point just mentioned, that whereas 
 the covenant of Sinai was made with the people themselves, 
 the Christian covenant is founded in Christ, (hence the ex- 
 pression, "chosen in Christ,") and therefore may be supposed 
 to possess a guarantee for its performance which did not 
 belong to its predecessor. For further remarks on this 
 subject, see Note in the Appendix. 
 
72 LECTURE 11. 
 
 application of these terms to the Theocracy, the 
 groundwork was laid for their higher, their Chris- 
 tian, meaning ; the earthly served to prepare the 
 way for the spiritual; Israel after the flesh to 
 shadow forth the true Israel ; and in this point as 
 in others the Jew, in becoming a Christian, found 
 himself surrounded with old and familiar ideas, 
 and only exchanged the earthly figure for the 
 heavenly reality. 
 
 Such are the points of view under which I 
 thought it might be interesting to us to consider 
 the Theocracy ; in the prosecution of which 
 design I fear I have trespassed too long on your 
 attention. Let me briefly sum them up : the 
 Jewish polity was in its structure so framed as, in 
 the first place, to fence off" a consecrated spot, 
 where, by being bound up with a national con- 
 stitution, the knowledge and worship of the one 
 true God might be preserved ; secondly, to ope- 
 rate, in the infancy of religion, as a school of 
 discipline, working, after the manner of edu- 
 cational systems, firom without inwards ; and 
 lastly, to exhibit an earthly counterpart of the 
 inner Theocracy, the Theocracy of the Spirit, 
 which, after redemption had been accomplished, 
 was to be established in the world. Traces of 
 adaptation, of wise contrivance, of prospective 
 aims, are, I think, clearly visible in the institution; 
 and, so far as they are so, aid in deepening our 
 convictions of its divine origin. These convictions 
 
LECTURE II. 73 
 
 will gain in strength, as the constituent elements 
 of the Legal system are found to bear the same 
 marks of a presiding intelligence. Some of these 
 I hope to bring before you in the following dis- 
 course. Meanwhile, let me dismiss you with the 
 prayer, that the privileges which as Christians we 
 enjoy may be realised in our experience, and 
 influence our practice, more and more ; that we 
 may remember, that if we are chosen in Christ, 
 it is that we may be holy, and without blame 
 before Him in love ; if called of God, it is that we 
 should take up our cross and follow Christ ; if sons 
 of God by adoption and grace, it is that we may 
 be transformed into the image of the First-Be- 
 gotten, and so into a meetness for the inheritance 
 of the saints in light. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Hebrews x, 11. 
 
 And every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering 
 oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take 
 away sins. 
 
 Hitherto it is the structure of the Theocracy 
 as a whole ; the fandamental principles on which, 
 in its political, disciplinary, and typical character, it 
 is based ; to which our attention has been directed : 
 we are now, in accordance with what was said 
 at the close of the preceding Lecture, to pass on 
 to the consideration of the constituent elements of 
 this system, the appointments which it comprised, 
 without some acquaintance with which it is im- 
 possible to form an adequate idea of the manifold 
 influences brought to bear upon the Jew to 
 prepare him for his future destination. Of these, 
 the two principal are the ceremonial law, and the 
 institution of prophecy ; both of them preparatory 
 to the Gospel, though in different ways ; the one 
 by embodying, under sensible forms, the ideas 
 peculiar to the Christian dispensation ; the other 
 
76 LECTURE III. 
 
 by direct information, varying in amount and 
 clearness in diflferent ages, respecting the person 
 and work of the promised Saviour. The former 
 of these subjects I propose now to enter upon, 
 while I endeavour to illustrate some of the prin- 
 cipal of the Levitical appointments, as well in 
 their use in the religion of Moses of which they 
 formed a part, as in their prospective references to 
 the Christian scheme. 
 
 I have said, some of the principal of these 
 appointments ; for here an almost boundless field 
 presents itself, to traverse which, in the brief 
 compass of time at our command, would be im- 
 possible. Adopting the usual fourfold division, we 
 should have to dwell successively on the sacred 
 places, the sacred seasons, the sacred rites, and 
 the sacred persons, of the Law ; and as each of 
 these topics comprises under it many subordinate 
 particulars, it is obvious that our choice lies 
 between a superficial, and therefore uninteresting, 
 survey, and a selection of one or two points, 
 which seem to be of primary importance, for 
 more extended examination. Let me remind my 
 hearers, that the latter is in general the plan of 
 these discourses, which by no means profess to 
 deal with their subject in all its details, but rather 
 to concentrate attention on the salient points of 
 agreement or of contrast between the Law and 
 the Gospel. I make no apology therefore for at 
 present confining myself to some remarks on the 
 
LECTURE III. 77 
 
 Levitical sacrificial system, under its two main 
 divisions of priesthood and sacrifice, with their 
 corresponding facts under the Gospel ; a subject 
 which, both from its intrinsic gravity, and from 
 the circumstances of the times, appears to call for 
 a more particular discussion. Hereafter an oppor- 
 tunity will be afforded for examining some of the 
 typical relations of the temple, and the temple 
 services% In the present discourse, I propose to 
 consider the appointments of priesthood and sacri- 
 fice simply as parts of the Mosaic religion ; in the 
 following one, the Christian fulfilment of them as 
 types will engage our attention. And perhaps if 
 we inquire successively" into the import, and the 
 efficacy, of the Mosaic appointments in question, 
 no essential point will be left unnoticed. 
 
 I. I proceed to consider the import of priest- 
 hood and sacrifice as elements of the Levitical 
 worship. But at the threshold we may be met 
 by the question, what import can they, or any 
 other parts of the Mosaic ritual, have, save a 
 typical one ? Their use was to point to Christ, 
 and here it terminated. Inasmuch then as it is 
 the Christian Scriptures which disclose the typical 
 application, the ceremonial law was given chiefly 
 for our instruction, and the Jew was simply the 
 keeper of a casket which he could not unlock, an 
 actor in a symbohcal representation which to him 
 conveyed little or no meaning. Such, or some- 
 ' See Lecture VII. on the Synagogue. 
 
78 LECTURE III. 
 
 thing like it, is, in fact, the conclusion to which 
 some eminent writers have been conducted; and 
 one in particular, whose name always deserves to 
 be mentioned with respect in this place, but whose 
 reasonings must on some points be read with 
 caution, has, in his work on Prophecy, and in that 
 on Sacrifice, strongly impressed upon us the re- 
 serve which the Law maintains respecting the 
 meaning of its own ordinances, and the conse- 
 quent state of ignorance in which the Jewish 
 worshipper must on this point have been in- 
 volved\ 
 
 It could not, in truth, escape the notice of so 
 acute a reasoner, that some of the popular notions 
 on the amount of insight which the Jew possessed 
 into the import of his ritual are open to grave 
 objections. Confining the use of the Law to its 
 typical references, the older writers on the Typology 
 of Scripture, in their natural desire to rescue the 
 legal rites from the insignificance of dumb elements, 
 were tempted to suppose that the Jew, even in 
 the earliest period of his history, clearly discerned 
 the prophetical import of his ritual worship ; that 
 when, for example, he brought his offering to the 
 door of the tabernacle, and there slew it, he was 
 exercising a real, though prospective, act of faith 
 in the Redeemer, whose person he foresaw, and 
 whose work of atonement he understood, and 
 
 •> Davison, on Prophecy, p. 139 — 150. Primitive Sacrifice, 
 p. 89. 
 
LECTURE III. 79 
 
 relied upon in anticipation". I need not further 
 describe a mode of interpretation, which must be 
 familiar to all who have looked into our popular 
 treatises on this subject, nor need I, after what 
 was said in the preceding Lecture, point out the 
 inherent weakness under which it labours. It is 
 in fact an illusion arising from our transferring 
 the knowledge which we possess to an earlier 
 period in the course of progressive revelation, to 
 the detriment of the symmetry of divine truth, 
 and of the cause itself of truth. Of the prophetic 
 meaning of the types no hint is given in the Law, 
 and it is not for us to intrude our tapers wher-e 
 the light from heaven fails us. Moreover, as the 
 writer just mentioned has observed, a type with 
 its prophetic import unfolded would amount to 
 a full exposition of the doctrine, and thus nothing 
 would have been left for the last and most perfect 
 revelation of God to make known ; Judaism would 
 have been, not preparatory to Christianity, but 
 Christianity itself'^. 
 
 Against the inversion of the natural order of 
 things which would transfer the Jew into the 
 position of the Christian, this reasoning seems 
 decisive ; and yet there is something cheerless and 
 unsatisfactory in the state in which the argument 
 is thus left. It is a mortification to our Christian 
 
 • See the examples given by Mr. Davison from the writings 
 of Bochart and Lamy, Primitive Sacrifice, p. 164. 
 
 * Davison, on Prophecy, p. 140. 
 
80 LECTURE III. 
 
 sympathies to suppose that the Levitical rites 
 were incorporated in the national worship as 
 utterly mute symbols, serving indeed to us as a 
 prophetic evidence of our faith, but containing no 
 positive use of instruction to the ancient believer. 
 Or shall we limit their use to the desire which 
 they were calculated to awaken in the worshipper 
 of a better atonement, as their insufficiency 
 became, from his growing spiritual perceptions, 
 more deeply felt ? Surely this seems too narrow 
 a view to take of the operation of the ancient 
 economy, which, it should be remembered, was 
 not only one great type of the future kingdom 
 of Christ, but was a religion to those who lived 
 under it, a present revelation, however imperfect, 
 which had its present use. Let the parallel case 
 of prophecy be considered. Prophecy, far from 
 being a mere series of predictions, contains didactic 
 matter of the greatest importance, and of present 
 use to those to whom it was addressed; the prophet 
 was not only an inspired seer of future events, but 
 a teacher of righteousness to his own generation ^ 
 And shall we deny a similar double purpose to the 
 other great branch of the Mosaic institutions, 
 the ceremonial law ? It seems hardly consistent 
 with our best notions respecting a system of divine 
 origin to suppose that it would be content with 
 a ritual of dumb show, or condemn its members 
 to the perfunctory discharge of ceremonial duties 
 ' Davison, on Prophecy, Discourse ii. 
 
LECTURE III. 81 
 
 which to them conveyed no spiritual instruction. 
 Such certainly was not the idea entertained by the 
 pious Hebrew respecting his own ordinances, 
 when he described the godly man as one whose 
 "delight" was "in the law of the Lord," as one 
 who meditated therein " day and night*^;" or 
 when he prayed, " Open thou mine eyes, that I 
 may see wondrous things out of thy law^." Nor 
 indeed would the Mosaic dispensation have been 
 properly a preparation for the Christian, unless it 
 had, not merely prefigured the facts, but expressed 
 the ideas, which belong to the latter : we have 
 seen how this was the case with the Theocracy 
 as a polity, in which the relations of the chosen 
 people to Jehovah, though but typical, were, after 
 their manner, real; and why should not the 
 principle be extended to the ceremonial law ? 
 Physiologists will tell us, that the structure of the 
 lower animals contains, in rudiment, every organ 
 which, in its perfection, is found in the frame of 
 man. 
 
 The fact is, that both the defenders and the 
 opponents of the system which attributes to the 
 Jew a knowledge of the Gospel facts to which his 
 ritual pointed, have been somewhat embarrassed 
 by the assumption on which they seem to have 
 gone, that the Law was exclusively typical in 
 character, forgetting that it was also symbolical. 
 The distinction here intimated is so important, 
 ' Ps. i. 2. * Ps. exix. 18. 
 
82 LECTURE III. 
 
 that I may be permitted to explain it a little 
 more fully \ Every true type then is necessarily 
 a symbol, that is, it embodies and represents the 
 ideas which find their fulfilment in the antitype ; 
 but every symbol is not necessarily a type ; a 
 symbol may terminate in itself, and point to 
 nothing future ; it may even refer to something 
 past. The difference between the two will be- 
 come evident, if we consider, that the learned 
 researches of modern times have made it more 
 than probable that the religions of antiquity were 
 all symbolical in character, or so framed as to 
 convey under sensible images the ideas on which 
 they were respectively based'; but no one would 
 think of calling the rites of heathenism types: 
 they were a species of acted hieroglyphics, which 
 
 ^ The purely symbolical import of the Mosaic ritual, a 
 department of Biblical criticism almost unknown in this 
 country, has been unfolded with great learning and sagacity 
 by Bahr, in his Symbolik des Mosaischen cultus; an in- 
 teresting work, though unhappily, from the author's antipathy 
 to what he calls the " forensic " view of sacrifice, — the view, that 
 is, which connects with that rite the ideas of punishment and 
 of substitution, — by no means a safe guide on all points. 
 Together with Bahr's Observations on the Mosaic Sacrifices 
 should be read, Kurtz, Das Mosaische Opfer ; Abp. Magee's 
 work, especially Dissertations, 88, and 39 ; Outram, De Sac. 
 Diss. i. c. 21, 23; and Fairbairn, Typology, vol. ii. c. 3. §.4. 
 Bahr's work, however, with all its defects, is a very valuable 
 one ; and in this Lecture the Author has been much indebted 
 to it. 
 
 ■ See Creuzer's great work Symbolik und Mythologie der 
 alten Volker. 
 
LECTURE III. 83 
 
 reached the understanding through the senses, and 
 here their use terminated. A type is a prophetic 
 symbol ; and since prophecy is the prerogative of 
 Him who sees the end from the beginning, a real 
 type, implying as it does a knowledge of the 
 reality, can only proceed from God. Whether 
 the Mosaic ordinances of religion, as they were 
 undoubtedly symbolical, were also all typical, may 
 admit of diflFerence of opinion ; it certainly seems 
 a narrow view to confine the types of the Old 
 Testament to those expressly mentioned as such 
 in the New^; but even in those appointments 
 which we know, on inspired authority, to have 
 been typical, we can, mentally at least, separate 
 the symbol from the type, and consider the 
 former by itself. 
 
 Now to the understanding of the Mosaic ritual, 
 considered as a system of symbols, it was by no 
 means so necessary that an explanation should 
 have been added, as it was to the reading of its 
 meaning as a system of types. We must not 
 measure the effect of such representations in 
 ancient times and among eastern nations by our 
 more abstract and intellectual modes of com- 
 munication. To us the language of symbolism is, 
 except so far as nature prompts it, a strange 
 language ; to eastern antiquity nothing was more 
 familiar. Symbolical actions, sometimes with an 
 
 ^ See Bishop Marsh, Lectures on the Criticism and Inter- 
 pretation of the Bihle, Lect. VI. 
 
 g2 
 
84 LECTURE III. 
 
 explanation, sometimes sufficiently explaining 
 themselves, conveyed to the eastern mind, un- 
 tutored to reflection, a liveliness of impression 
 which no words could impart ; and thus sym- 
 bolism became in those regions a kind of science, 
 cultivated by the few, understood, to some ex- 
 tent, by all. I need not remind my hearers how 
 often this mode of instruction is employed in the 
 Old Testament in other cases than the par- 
 ticular one before us. Isaiah walks three years 
 naked and barefoot, as a sign against Egypt'; 
 Jeremiah puts yokes and bonds round his neck, 
 and then sends them to the neighbouring kings in 
 token of their approaching subjugation by Nebu- 
 chadnezzar™; Ezekiel erects a mimic siege against 
 Jerusalem, and through an aperture in the wall 
 of his house removes his household goods in the 
 sight of the people", to intimate to them their im- 
 pending captivity ". It is true that in these instances, 
 together with the symbol, the interpretation was 
 given; but even had it not, they would, to the 
 attentive observer, have conveyed their own 
 meaning. Let us suppose a similar measure of 
 devout curiosity on the part of the Jew, with some 
 enlightened perceptions on the subject of ^religion, 
 
 ' Isaiah xx. "" Jerem. xxvii. ° Ezek. iv. and xii. 
 
 " Better examples of purely symbolical actions would, 
 perhaps, have been the boring of the ear of the servant who 
 should refuse his freedom, Exod. xxi. 6; and the washing of 
 hands by the elders at the expiation of an uncertain murder, 
 Deut. xxi. 6. 
 
LECTURE III. 85 
 
 and it is hardly possible not to think that the 
 striking symbohsm of his Law must have been 
 understood, not so much as prefiguring Christian 
 facts, as presenting ideas to be afterwards reahzed 
 in Christianity. I would refer to the expressions 
 of David as illustrative of the point in hand. 
 " Purge me with hyssop," he prays in Psalm li. 
 " and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I shall be 
 whiter than snow." It is plain from this passage 
 that the Levitical sacrifices had conveyed to the 
 Psalmist no clear instruction respecting the great 
 Christian sacrifice, for in this case he would surely 
 have pleaded its efficacy, as supplying the desired 
 atonement which he could not find in the Law ; 
 and yet it seems equally plain that the symbols of 
 that Law had not spoken to him in vain ; they 
 had suggested the idea of atonement, and the 
 expectation of a sacrifice to cleanse from pre- 
 sumptuous sin, founded on the same principles as 
 the Levitical, but superior in power. I may 
 observe too, that had a key to the symbols of the 
 Law been furnished by Moses, one object of this 
 whole method of teaching, viz. to draw attention 
 to the inspired record, would have been frustrated. 
 The devout inquirer would feel his interest and his 
 curiosity excited by the sacred hieroglyphics of 
 Moses, dimly intimating, but not openly de- 
 claring, their import ; the sacred volume would 
 become an object of diligent study and meditation, 
 just as the Apocalypse is to us ; advantages which. 
 
86 LECTURE III. 
 
 it is obvious, would have been lost, had any 
 formal explanation been appended to the symbol. 
 For the same reason our Lord spake in parables : 
 by the careless the meaning was missed ; the 
 serious and attentive had their curiosity awakened, 
 and eventually rewarded. 
 
 If the foregoing observations be well-grounded, 
 we shall neither ascribe to the pious Jew a distinct 
 recognition in his sacrifices of the atoning work of 
 Christ, a supposition burdened with many diffi- 
 culties ; nor, on the other hand, a mere mechanical 
 performance of a dumb ceremonial ; but we shall 
 suppose, that while the typical import of his ritual 
 was, for the wisest purposes, veiled from him 
 until He came in whom the Law found its fulfil- 
 ment, — as a system of symbols, of representation 
 by action, as Warburton calls if, it was a vehicle 
 of religious instruction wherever it encountered 
 suitable dispositions of mind. And I have dwelt 
 the more fully on the subject, both because some 
 aid may thereby be furnished towards the solution 
 of the difficult question, how far the Jew under- 
 stood his own ritual, and because the point of 
 view from which in this discourse we are con- 
 templating the Levitical appointments will be the 
 better perceived''. 
 
 p Div. Leg. b. iv. §. 4. 
 
 1 The above observations must be understood as applying 
 to the ceremonial law, considered by itself and apart from 
 prophecy. The law, however expressive as a system of 
 
LECTURE III. 87 
 
 We are to conceive then that the New Testa- 
 ment had never been written, or had perished, 
 and to endeavour to gather the leading ideas 
 which either from its mute symboHsm, or from 
 hints contained in the Law, (for on the symbolical 
 meaning of its own ordinances the Law is not 
 altogether silent), the Levitical sacrificial system 
 seems to embody. 
 
 The general import of this system is best 
 gathered from the chief ends of the Theocracy 
 itself; for, as has been well observed, what the 
 latter was as a whole, the Levitical appointments 
 in question were in particular" ; in these the 
 design of the whole economy appears in a con- 
 centrated form. Now from the passages adduced 
 in the preceding discourse we learn, that the 
 separation of the Israelites took place in order 
 that they might be a holy nation, consecrated to 
 the special service of God : " The Lord hath 
 avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, — 
 that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord 
 thy God." But the holiness of the creature can 
 only be a derivative one, it is an emanation from 
 the absolute source of holiness ; it implies therefore 
 an existing connexion, or fellowship, with God. 
 
 symbols, contains no hint of its typical import. But, as will 
 be shewn hereafter (Lecture VI.), the effect of the law and 
 prophecy combined must have been such as almost to force 
 the typical reference on the observation of the inquirer. 
 ' Bahr, Symbolik des Mos. Cult. vol. ii. p. 190. 
 
88 LECTURE III. 
 
 In the case of the fallen creature this fellowship 
 has been interrupted; here then its restoration, 
 as in the upright creature its maintenance, is the 
 problem, and the difficulty. In the first place, 
 God must stoop to connect Himself with the 
 wandering outcast, must take the initiative in the 
 work of reconciliation ; for since the day that our 
 first parents hid themselves among the trees of 
 the garden, guilt shuns the Divine Presence, and 
 prefers darkness to light. In the next place, the 
 true character of God, and the true condition of 
 man, must suffer no obscuration in the process; 
 this were to film over the disease, not to cure it : 
 the heathen religions could never be ethical, could 
 never be training schools of piety, because in them 
 neither was the absolute holiness of God, nor the 
 sinfulness of man, inculcated as first principles of 
 religion. True religion then, whether it appear 
 clothed in the preparatory symbolism of the Law, 
 or in its more perfect form under the Gospel, 
 must exhibit in strong relief the truths, that sin has 
 made a separation between God and man, and 
 that, though reconciliation is not hopeless, the 
 means of repairing the breach must proceed not 
 from the creature, but from the Creator. 
 
 How strongly these lessons were impressed 
 under the Mosaic economy we all know ; indeed 
 it is the predominance of its ethical character that 
 distinguishes this religion from all others of an- 
 tiquity. The God who, in such a concrete form, 
 
LECTURE III. 89 
 
 presented Himself to the Hebrew as a Person not 
 an influence, as Spirit not matter, as the sole 
 object of worship, not one of the Lords many and 
 Gods many of heathenism, is the absolutely Holy 
 One ; " ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God 
 am holyV He connects Himself by covenant 
 with a certain people, takes up His abode among 
 them, reveals Himself to them, makes them, in 
 short, as distinguished from other nations, a king- 
 dom of priests', of those, that is, to whom a 
 peculiar privilege of nearness to the Divine Pre- 
 sence is vouchsafed. But this favoured people is 
 not allowed to forget, that it is in no way exempt 
 from the sinfulness, original and actual, which is 
 the common inheritance of the race ; on the 
 contrary, the conviction of this painful truth is 
 in an especial manner impressed on the Jewish 
 mind. If the principle of the Mosaic polity was 
 to work from without inwards, the import of all 
 its ordinances was, the unfitness of man in his 
 natural state to appear before a holy God. To 
 such an extent was this symbolically inculcated, 
 that natural conditions of the body, natural in its 
 fallen state, became theocratical disqualifications, 
 and excluded from the camp of Israel. Birth, 
 death, and the connecting link between the two, 
 sickness, in its highest form of leprosy, were all 
 to the Jew associated with sin ; by natural gene- 
 ration sinful beings are propagated, sickness and 
 ' Levit. xix. 2. ' Exod. xix. 6. 
 
90 LECTURE III. 
 
 death are the consequences of sin ; all therefore 
 communicated ceremonial uncleanness, which could 
 only be removed by appointed rites of purification". 
 
 These ideas, which pervade the whole of the 
 ceremonial law, find their culmination in the 
 institutions which we are more immediately con- 
 sidering. God dwells among His chosen people ; 
 but even this kingdom of priests cannot approach 
 the Divine Majesty, save through the intervention 
 of persons set apart for that office ; nor can they 
 offer acceptable worship, without being first purged 
 from their natural uncleanness, whether general, 
 or arising from particular transgressions. Even 
 the inanimate instruments of divine worship, the 
 tabernacle, the altar, the holy place, the garments 
 of the sacred persons, are, on account of their 
 connexion and contact with the people, regarded 
 as unclean, and as needing to be purified to 
 fit them for holy uses. The mediating persons 
 are priests ; the cleansing ceremony is sacrifice. 
 
 The Levitical priesthood does not differ essen- 
 tially from the same institution as it meets us in 
 other religions of antiquity. In all religions we 
 find priesthood, as we do sacrifices, and in all it 
 has sprung from the same feeling. Together with 
 the idea of God, however rude and imperfect, 
 arises the consciousness of the infinite distance be- 
 tween man and God, and a desire to fill up the 
 interval with an intermediate order, which, con- 
 " Levit. xii. Numb. xix. Levit. xiv. 
 
LECTURE III. 91 
 
 nected on the one hand with the worshipper, and 
 on the other with the Being worshipped, may 
 serve as a means of communication between them : 
 to persons thus invested with an official sanctity, 
 it was felt to be a relief to delegate those acts of 
 religious homage which the worshipper himself 
 shrank from performing. And in order to confer 
 permanency on the institution, to raise it as much 
 as possible above the fluctuations of human caprice, 
 the principle of caste was adopted ; that is, the 
 priestly function was attached to a certain tribe 
 or family, and it was made to pass from father to 
 son by natural descent, irrespectively of moral or 
 intellectual qualifications. 
 
 On these principles the Jewish priesthood was 
 instituted. The tribe of Levi was set apart to the 
 ministry of the tabernacle ; out of it the family of 
 Aaron to sacerdotal functions ; and again out of 
 this family the high priest to the highest offices 
 connected with his calling. Whatever in the 
 human institution was true in sentiment, whatever 
 expressed a real want of human nature, is found 
 incorporated in the Jewish law ; while the cor- 
 ruptions which grew up round the former are 
 here effectually obviated. For, with all their 
 identity in principle, very considerable are the 
 differences between the Mosaic priesthood and 
 that of any heathen nation whose history is known. 
 In the first place, under the Jewish economy the 
 priests were not the depositaries of any system of 
 
92 LECTURE III. 
 
 esoteric doctrine, any mysteries, the knowledge 
 of which was to be withheld from the people ; 
 while the contrary was a characteristic feature of 
 the priesthoods of heathenism. In the countries 
 in which the sacerdotal order was strongly defined, 
 as in Egypt, India, and, in a less degree, ancient 
 Italy, a secret lore, sacred books ^ existed, which 
 were carefully hidden from the public gaze, and 
 the study of which was considered the exclusive 
 prerogative of the priestly caste ; so much as the 
 priests chose to communicate might be known, 
 but no more. This corrupt principle, one of the 
 plague-spots of the papal system, indicative of 
 deep disease within, could find no place under the 
 Mosaic polity, where priests and people had an 
 equal right in the national code, and were equally 
 bound by its regulations. If the tribe of Levi was 
 set apart for the peculiar study of the Law, it was 
 only that through its means the knowledge of it 
 might be more widely diffused throughout the 
 people. " When all Israel is come to appear before 
 the Lord thy God in the place which He shall 
 choose, thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in 
 their hearing'';" by the letter, and still more by the 
 
 ^ e. g. the Sibylline books of Eome. The reluctance of 
 Herodotus to disclose the sacred legends of the Egyptian 
 priests is known to the readers of that historian. See 
 b. ii. By the Brahminical law, boiling oil is to be poured on 
 the neck of those who usurp the priestly prerogative of read- 
 ing the sacred books. Bitter, quoted by Bahr, ii. p. 28. 
 
 y Deut. xxxi. 1 ] . 
 
LECTURE III. 93 
 
 spirit, of such an injunction as this, the growth of 
 that species of spiritual despotism which affects 
 the exclusive knowledge of divine mysteries was 
 effectually checked. Equally distinctive of the 
 Jewish priesthood was the idea of representation 
 which it embodied, a very important point in con- 
 nexion with the typical application. Although 
 the line of demarcation between the sacred order 
 and the rest of the nation was strongly marked by 
 natural descent, the distinction was relative, not 
 absolute, for Israel was a kingdom of priests ; the 
 Levitical priesthood was the representative, the 
 efflorescence, of the priestly nation. The very 
 same prerogatives which belonged to the sacer- 
 dotal order, belonged also, though in a less in- 
 tensive degree, to the nation ; as may be seen in 
 the description of a priest given by Moses in the 
 book of Numbers, where, in reference to the 
 rebelHon of Korah, he tells the people, that 
 " to-morrow the Lord will shew who are His, and 
 who is holy ; and will cause him to come near 
 unto Him ; even him whom He hath chosen will 
 He cause to come near unto Him^;" election, con- 
 secration, nearness to God, here mentioned as 
 sacerdotal, were also, as we know, theocratical 
 privileges. It was in the high priest, in whom 
 the sacerdotal office appeared in its perfection, 
 that the representative function was also most 
 prominent. On his breast the names of the twelve 
 ' Numb. xvi. 5. 
 
94 LECTURE III. 
 
 tribes were borne"; his sin was imputed to the 
 people\ and he, in turn, bore their iniquities, and 
 in their name and stead made atonement for them". 
 With him the nation was identified ; and felt itself 
 ennobled by the dignity and privileges which he 
 enjoyed. Thus, while by the necessary inter- 
 vention of the priesthood the ideas of God's holi- 
 ness and man's sinfulness were maintained in vigour, 
 no social degradation of the people as compared 
 with the priests, such as we find in the Indian 
 system of caste, could consistently with the prin- 
 ciples of the Mosaic law take place. 
 
 It would be improper here not to glance for 
 a moment at the ethical character of the Levitical 
 priesthood, a quality which it shares with the 
 whole of the economy of which it was a part. 
 They who were to approach the Divine Presence 
 must be holy ; and though, as became a sym- 
 bolical religion, this requirement was sensibly set 
 forth by the necessity of bodily integrity, by 
 the rites of consecration, by the sacred garments 
 and the holy oil, moral purity was the thing sig- 
 nified, as appears from the transfer of the Pontifical 
 dignity from one branch of Aaron's family to 
 another, on account of the crimes by which the 
 ofiice, in the persons of its original possessors, had 
 been stained ^ In this point also the Mosaic in- 
 stitution presents a contrast to the corresponding 
 
 a Exod. xxviii. 29. •■ Levit. iv. 3. ' Ibid. xvi. 31. 
 
 " 1 Sam. ii. 35. 
 
LECTURE III. 95 
 
 one of heathenism ; for although the idea of the 
 necessity of sanctity in those who would act as 
 mediators between God and man was never wholly 
 lost, compared with the prominence given to it in the 
 Mosaic law, it almost disappears from view. Freedom 
 from bodily defect we find every where a necessary 
 qualification for the priesthood °; but who can 
 associate any pure moral ideas with the abomi- 
 nations of which in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 
 priests and priestesses were the willing ministers ? 
 But let us now proceed to the kindred in- 
 stitution of sacrifice. Into the disputed question 
 concerning the origin of this rite it is not neces- 
 sary to enter : great names are here arrayed on 
 both sides', and although the evidence seems, on 
 the whole, in favour of the supposition, that this 
 mode of worship commenced under divine sanc- 
 tion, yet, since Scripture does not in express terms 
 decide the point, a difference of opinion is allow- 
 able. With the decision of the question we have 
 no immediate concern ; for, whether sacrifice is, in 
 the law of Moses, merely recognised as an exist- 
 ing ordinance, or instituted for the first time, as it 
 
 ' Sacerdos integer sit, was a maxim of the Eoman law. 
 With the Greeks, as is well known, beauty of person was 
 prized as a qualification for the priesthood. 
 
 ' Spencer, Warburton, and Davison, incline to the human 
 origin; the Fathers generally take the same side. Magee 
 and Faber strongly espouse the opposite opinion. Outram 
 leaves the question undetermined. For further remarks, see 
 Note in the Appendix. 
 
96 LECTURE III. 
 
 meets us there, in its expiatory form, it is con- 
 fessedly of divine appointment. 
 
 The leading idea of the Levitical sacrifices has 
 already been pointed out. The priestly nation 
 enjoyed, through its formal priesthood, a cove- 
 nanted privilege of access to God ; but sin, cleaving 
 to the worshipper, renders him unclean, and there- 
 fore unfit for the Divine Presence ; by sacrifice the 
 disqualification is removed. The effect of sacrifice 
 is usually described by the word " atonement," 
 literally, the covering of sin from the eye of God. 
 Both as regards the nation in its collective capa- 
 city, and individuals belonging to it, this cleansing 
 process was necessary. At the original dedication 
 of the covenant, the whole people were sprinkled 
 with blood ^, by which ceremony they were sym- 
 bolically purged from pollution, and fitted for 
 intercourse with their heavenly King : but since, 
 from the weakness of the instrument, this was but 
 a temporary purification, and the nation, in the 
 lapse of time, contracted fresh uncleanness, an 
 annual day of general expiation was instituted, 
 on which by solemn sacrifices the covenant was 
 renewed, and the people consecrated afresh to the 
 service of Jehovah\ The same idea pervades all 
 the offerings commanded, or permitted by the 
 Law, in the case of individuals. By these which 
 under the ancient economy formed the only 
 authorized mode of worship, the sentiments of 
 B Exod. xxiv. 8. ^ Levit. xvi. 
 
LECTURE III. 97 
 
 piety, in its various forms, were expressed. The 
 burnt-ofFering, the most ancient and most exten- 
 sive in its import of all, consumed wholly on the 
 altar, represented the general conviction of sinful- 
 ness which was part of the religion of the pious 
 Jew, and the felt duty of a complete surrender of 
 all the powers and faculties to God, who, notwith- 
 standing the imperfections of his servant, continued 
 to him the privileges of the covenant. In the 
 peace, or thank, offering, under its various forms', 
 the feeling of sin is expressed in connexion with 
 particular mercies, vouchsafed by, or expected from, 
 God; in accordance with a deep and true sentiment 
 pervading both the Old and the New Testament, 
 that the loving-kindness of God, not less, perhaps 
 more, than His rod of chastisement, awakens in 
 the true Israelite a sense of his own unworthiness''. 
 In this species of sacrifice, after atonement is made, 
 man is seen in the enjoyment of perfect fellowship 
 with God ; he sits at God's table, he is placed, for 
 the time being, on a level with the priests, and 
 with them partakes of the divine bounty'. The 
 sin, and the trespass, offering "" had reference to 
 particular sins, by which, though committed inad- 
 vertently— (for wilful transgression no atonement 
 
 ' These were three in number; viz. a thanksgiving offering, 
 an offering made in performance of a vow, and a voluntary 
 offering. See Levit. vii. 12, 16. 
 
 * Is. xxxviii. 15. Ezek. xvi. 63. Eom. ii. 4. 
 
 ' Levit. vii. 16, 16. " Levit. iv. 1 — 3. vi. 1 — 5. 
 
 H 
 
98 LECTURE III. 
 
 was provided,) — fellowship with God had been 
 interrupted, and by sacrificial cleansing must be 
 restored. But to all the atoning property belongs ; 
 in all the victim is slain, the blood is sprinkled by 
 the priest; and only after this preliminary process, 
 by which the person of the offerer was rendered 
 acceptable, is communion with God enjoyed or 
 recovered. The Mosaic sacrifices were, one and 
 all, expiatory ; a circumstance which deserves 
 notice, as this quality has sometimes been confined 
 to those in which the idea of sin and its forgive- 
 ness is particularly prominent, as the sin, trespass, 
 and burnt, offerings. But the meat offerings were 
 either a substitution for, or an adjunct of, the 
 animal sacrifices"; and as regards the peace 
 offerings, though from the omission of the usual 
 phrase denoting their atoning power, and from 
 their general character, we might be tempted to 
 think otherwise, yet, the laying of the hand upon 
 the victim and the sprinkling of the blood around 
 the altar by the priest stamp them as not less 
 really, though perhaps less prominently, piacular 
 than the rest". 
 
 But let us endeavour to gain some more precise 
 notions on the subject. The Law, as I have before 
 observed, though silent on the prophetical, is not 
 so on the symbolical, import of its own ordinances, 
 especially that of sacrifice. " The life of the flesh 
 is in the blood," we read in Leviticus xvii. " and 
 " Numb. XV. 1—15. Levit. v. 11. ■> See Levit. iii. 13. 
 
LECTURE III. 99 
 
 I have given it to you upon the altar to make an 
 atonement for your souls. For it is the blood 
 that maketh atonement for" (rather "by") "the 
 soup." This passage deserves to be attentively 
 considered, for it introduces us to the central 
 ideas on which the Levitical rite of sacrifice is 
 based, and from which it derives its distinctive 
 characteristics. 
 
 Observe then, in the first place, that, as we should 
 have expected', God Himself appears as the Author 
 and Giver of the atoning ordinance ; a capital point 
 of distinction between the Mosaic and the heathen 
 sacrifices. In the latter, the worshipper aimed at 
 appeasing the wrath of an offended Deity; the 
 sacrifice was supposed to effect a change in the 
 disposition of the superior power, who was either 
 bribed, or propitiated, into a milder temper ; and in 
 all cases the first movement towards reconciliation 
 proceeded from man. With the Mosaic offerings it 
 was exactly the reverse, " / have given it to you 
 to make atonement for you," is the declaration of 
 Jehovah. Man appears inadequate to the task 
 of devising means whereby sin may be covered ; 
 in this emergency God interposes, provides an 
 ordinance which, from His positive appointment, 
 assumes a sacramental character, and Himself, 
 
 p Levit. xvii. H. 27??^, as Bahr remarks, ii. p. 307, can 
 only signify "by means of the soul" (of the animal), not as 
 om- version has it, " for your souls," in which rendering our 
 translators seem to have followed the Sept. avrl -^vxrjs. 
 
 "^ See page 88. 
 
 h2 
 
100 LECTURE III. 
 
 through His representative the priest, and by 
 means of the atoning blood, removes what is 
 displeasing in His sight, and what therefore had 
 produced a separation between Him and the 
 transgressor. The same idea is expressed in the 
 word which we translate atonement, and which, 
 as I have already remarked, is derived from a root 
 signifying "to coverV For it is obvious that 
 such an expression never can be, as it never is, 
 applied to God ; in Him there is nothing that 
 needs covering ; the revelation of Himself and 
 His attributes formed the groundwork of the 
 Mosaic covenant. To suppose that God was ren- 
 dered placable by sacrifice, would to the Hebrew 
 be equivalent to supposing that some quaUty or 
 attribute in Him needed to be covered, in other 
 words removed, by the act ; and so to introduce 
 an idea foreign to the theology of the Old Testa- 
 ment, which knows nothing sinful or imperfect in 
 the Divine Being. In the Mosaic atonements 
 God appears as at once a Being of infinite holiness 
 and of infinite love ; towards sin His holiness 
 assumes the form of righteous displeasure, but the 
 sinful creature is an object of His love ; means are 
 provided whereby both attributes may be, not 
 covered but, fully manifested, means whereby He 
 may be seen at once shewing mercy, and yet not 
 
 ■■ 155 signifies to smear or cover; in Pihel it seems to be 
 used only in the sense of atoning for; but the original 
 meaning should not be lost siglit of. 
 
LECTURE III. 101 
 
 shewing it until sin is symbolically hidden from 
 His sight. In short, God was never other than 
 good and gracious to Israel, but an impediment 
 existed to the unrestrained exhibition of His good- 
 ness, which in the prescribed act of sacrifice was 
 removed. If we ask, why this particular instru- 
 ment of atonement was adopted, why " almost all 
 things were by the Law purged with blood"," the 
 Gospel alone supplies the answer ; this is one of 
 the points that could never have been discovered 
 from the Law itself. 
 
 Secondly, the passage which I have read seems 
 to assert as plainly as words can do the vicarious 
 nature of these sacrifices ; so plainly, that it re- 
 quires some ingenuity of reasoning to counteract 
 the impression. The efficacy of the sacrifice is 
 attributed especially to the blood ; an idea which 
 is also conveyed by the circumstance, that the 
 sprinkling of the blood on or around the altar, 
 not the slaying of the victim, was the peculiar 
 function of the priests. The reason of this is 
 given ; — the life is in the blood. A life then, the 
 life of the guiltless animal, was presented to God 
 by the priest, and became, through the divine 
 appointment, a covenanted means of cleansing 
 from the pollution of sin. But what connexion 
 is here traceable between means and end, unless 
 we introduce the idea of substitution 1 Introduce 
 it, and all becomes clear. The worshipper is a 
 » Heb. ix. 39. 
 
102 LECTURE Til. 
 
 transgressor; the penalty of the broken law is 
 death; the death of the victim with the sub- 
 sequent sprinkling of the blood exonerates from 
 the penalty ; what train of ideas can more clearly 
 express the symbolical imputation of the offerer's 
 sin, and its remission through the vicarious suf- 
 fering and death of the victim ? I do not insist 
 upon the burning without the camp of the bodies 
 of certain victims* supposed to have from this 
 imputation contracted pollution, for the soundness 
 of this interpretation of the circumstance is more 
 than doubtful ° ; but I may well lay stress on the 
 imposition of hands on the victim, both because 
 
 ' Those, namely, whose blood was brought into the 
 sanctuary. See the followmg note. 
 
 " See Bahr, ii. p. 397. who seems to have satisfactorily 
 proved, that so far from the victims whose blood was brought 
 into the sanctuary being unclean (by the imputation of sin), 
 they, as exhibiting the sin-offering in its highest form, were 
 peculiarly holy. Why then were they burnt without the 
 camp, instead of being, like the other sacrifices of the same 
 nature, eaten by the priests ? The reason must be sought 
 in the object of these sin-offerings, as compared with those 
 of inferior power, which was, to make atonement either for 
 the high priest's sin, as the representative of the nation, or 
 for the sin of the whole congregation including the priests. 
 See Levit. iv. 3. and 13. Levit. xvi. In these sacrifices 
 therefore the priests appeared, not as priests, as mediators 
 between the people and Jehovah, but as offerers, as them- 
 selves needing atonement, and accordingly as excluded from 
 participation of the flesh of the victims. Under these circum- 
 stances, lest the holy flesh should, by being kept, see cor- 
 ruption, the whole carcase was, as the speediest mode of 
 disposing of it, consumed in a clean place without the camp. 
 
LECTURE III. 103 
 
 sins are expressly said to have been thus trans- 
 ferred to the live goat on the day of atonement", 
 and because the import of this ceremony both in 
 the Old and the New Testament is well known 
 to have been, the communication of a property 
 from one who possessed to one who lacked it". 
 
 Such are the leading ideas which seem to be 
 embodied in the Levitical institution of sacrifice. 
 If they have been correctly set forth, it will be 
 obvious, that any such theories of this mode of 
 worship as that it was a gift whereby man en- 
 deavoured to render his imperfect consecration of 
 himself to God complete^ ; or that it was a symbol 
 of the surrender of the soul to God to be made 
 partaker of His holiness^; not to mention grosser 
 conceptions, such as that of Spencer, who derives 
 the Mosaic rites from an accommodation to the 
 idolatrous practices of Egypt^; are, as applied at 
 least to the Mosaic sacrifices, essentially defective : 
 they throw into the background the ideas which 
 in these sacrifices are most prominent, those of 
 a broken law, of consequent guilt, of liability to 
 punishment, and of forgiveness through vicarious 
 suffering. 
 
 II. But what shall we say was the efficacy of 
 the Mosaic atonements ? What were the sins atoned 
 
 " Levit. xvi. 21. 
 
 " Josli. xxvii. 18 — 20. compared with Deut. xxxiv. 9. 
 
 " Tholuck. Heb. Brief. Beilage II. 
 
 y Bahr, ii. p. 210. 
 
 ' De Leg. Heb. L. iii. Diss. ii. 
 
104 LECTURE III. 
 
 for, and how far did the atonements extend ? With 
 some observations on this, the second point pro- 
 posed for consideration, the present Lecture will 
 be brought to a close. 
 
 Two opposite views have on this subject been 
 propounded which invite our attention. By some 
 it is supposed that the atonements in question had 
 reference to all sin, moral'' as well as ceremonial ; 
 and the language of some divines of strong Cal- 
 vinistic tendencies seems even to imply, that the 
 ancient believers enjoyed remission of sin in no 
 less a degree than Christians do now"" : others 
 
 " That is, all such moral sins as were not by the Law 
 expressly excluded from the benefit of atonement ; for since 
 wilful sins which seemed to involve a spirit of rebellion 
 against Jehovah, were to be punished by excision (see 
 Numb, XV. 30.), no party can maintain that all sins were 
 capable of atonement by the Mosaic sacrifices. It may 
 conduce to the better understanding of this part of the 
 Lecture to state briefly the points at issue. Presumptuous 
 sins then being excluded, as incapable of atonement, the two 
 questions on which the controversy turns are, 1. Did the 
 atonements include all other sins, moral as well as ceremonial, 
 or did they (with a few special exceptions) apply only to 
 ceremonial? 2. If it be supposed that they did apply to all 
 other sins, did the atonement consist merely in a restoration 
 to Theocratical privileges, an external cleansing (Veysie, 
 B.L. Leot. iii.) ; or had it a real effect on the spiritual state of 
 the offerer as a sinner in the sight of God ? As will be seen, 
 the present writer adopts, in both cases, the latter view ; but 
 for a fuller discussion of the subject he refers to the Note in 
 the Appendix. The reader will find an interesting Sermon 
 on the subject by Dr. Hawkins, printed at the end of his 
 work on the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament. It 
 leaves however some difficulties untouched. 
 
 * Witsius on Covenants, iii. p. 249. 
 
LECTURE III. 105 
 
 conceive that all sin was indeed remitted by virtue 
 of the sacrifices, but only for a limited period, as, 
 for example, for the interval between one day of 
 atonement and another. Those who adopt this 
 view, under either modification, ground their 
 opinion on the passages in the Old Testament, 
 in which, without any limitation to ceremonial 
 offences, sins are said to have been by the 
 appointed offerings atoned for. And certainly some 
 of these are as strong as can well be imagined. 
 Take, for example, the expressions employed in 
 describing the ceremonial of the great day of 
 atonement. " And Aaron shall lay both his hands 
 on the head of the live goat, and confess over him 
 all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all 
 their transgressions in all their sins, putting them 
 upon the head of the goat : — and the goat shall 
 bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not 
 hihabited "." And again, at the close : " This 
 shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make 
 an atonement for the children of Israel, for all 
 their sins, once a year*." To which may be added, 
 that even in the case of the sin-offering, which 
 bears more the character of having been appointed 
 for particular ceremonial offences, it is said, " If 
 a soul shall sin against any of the commandments 
 of the Lord";" and that in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews there seems to be a kind of parallehsm, 
 as regards the kind of sins atoned for, drawn 
 ' Levit. xvi. 21, 23. " Levit. xvi. 34. ^ Levit. iv. 2. 
 
106 LECTURE III. 
 
 between the Jewish saci'ifices and that of Christ ; 
 " such an High Priest became us, who needeth 
 not daily to offer up sacrifices, first for His own 
 sins, and then for the people's : for this He did 
 when He offered up Himself?' 
 
 This opinion is strongly opposed by others, to 
 whom the Law appears to offer no general atone- 
 ment for moral offences, and who insist on the 
 repeated declarations in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 that the Levitical sacrifices could not take away 
 sin, or relieve the conscience from a sense of 
 guilts They observe too, that the ancient be- 
 lievers, David for example^, long for a real atone- 
 ment, which therefore they could not find in the 
 Law, and that in the Apostolic comparisons between 
 the Law and the Gospel the power of justification 
 is expressly denied to the former'. The con- 
 clusion drawn is, that these sacrifices atoned only 
 for ceremonial offences, and some few slighter 
 cases of moral transgression specially excepted for 
 particular reasons'' ; and that their efficacy was 
 confined to the re-instatement of a member of the 
 Theocracy in his earthly position, and in no way 
 affected his relation towards God as the righteous 
 Governor of the worlds 
 
 f Heb. vii. 26, 37. s See Heb. ix. 9. x. 1—4. 
 
 •» Psalm li. ■ Acts xiii. 39. ^ Levit. vi. 1 — 7. 
 
 ' See Davison, Prim. Sac. p. 86 — 93. For a more extended 
 examination of this writer's statements, which on both points, 
 the range of offences to which the Mosaic atonements applied, 
 
LECTURE III. 107 
 
 That to this latter end, the restoration of Theo- 
 cratical privileges, the Mosaic atonements were, 
 in those cases to which they applied, efficacious 
 to the fullest extent, is undoubted ; the offerer 
 brought his victim, and by the sacrifice regained 
 his standing as an Israelite. Moreover, it is easy 
 to see why in some cases atonement was per- 
 mitted, while it could not be extended to all 
 offences. The Theocracy was a civil polity, with 
 God as its supreme Magistrate. To the people 
 placed under it a new law, civil and ceremonial, 
 not to speak of the moral, most complicated in its 
 enactments, was given ; a law too which created 
 sins that did not otherwise exist, as when natural 
 bodily infirmities, leprosy, or contact with a dead 
 body, are ranked among the things that needed 
 an atoning sacrifice. To observe the law in these 
 points with perfect exactness, was almost impos- 
 sible ; and therefore, as all admit, for mere cere- 
 monial sins of ignorance, or of pardonable inad- 
 vertence, a remedy was provided by which the 
 rigour of the law might be mitigated, while its 
 integrity was maintained. But had the same 
 indulgence been shewn towards grave moral trans- 
 gressions ; could the wilful murderer, the adul- 
 terer, the idolater, and in general the presump- 
 tuous transgressor, have escaped with impunity 
 by offering an appointed sacrifice ; it is plain that 
 
 and the efficacy of the atonements themselves, appear to the 
 present author untenable, see Note in the Appendix. 
 
108 LECTURE III. 
 
 the maintenance of the Theocracy, as a temporal 
 pohty, would have become impossible, and the 
 structure would have fallen to pieces. It was 
 only therefor for such sins as could be pardoned 
 without injury to the interests of society, and for 
 such as did not wear the aspect of rebellion against 
 Jehovah, as the Head of the State, that atone- 
 ments were permitted. 
 
 But it may admit of consideration, whether, in 
 the case of moral transgressions not of presump- 
 tuous character, not less than in that of ceremonial 
 offences which were sins only by the Law, a real 
 atoning effect did not follow from the Mosaic 
 sacrifices, those especially which were offered for 
 sin in general, as the burnt-offei'ing, and the ex- 
 piations of the day of atonement ; and whether it 
 has not been too hastily assumed, that where there 
 was not perfect atonement, there could have been 
 no atonement at all. Perhaps the conflicting 
 statements of Scripture will be reconciled, and the 
 difficulties which beset either of the extreme views 
 avoided, by recurring once more to the etymology 
 of the word by which atonement is expressed. 
 Let us say that all moral transgressions, save those 
 to which the penalty of excision was attached, 
 were covered, but none effectually obliterated, 
 and we shall probably be not far from the truth™. 
 
 - The writer would not be understood as laying much 
 stress on the etymology of the word ; this would be too 
 
LECTUEE III. 109 
 
 That the typical expiations of the Law could 
 never procure the complete and final remission of 
 moral guilt, is at once the dictate of reason and 
 the doctrine of the New Testament ; nor does the 
 Old Testament say that they did so. What it 
 affirms is, that sin was covered by these expiations ; 
 the sin remained, but its penal consequences were 
 suspended ; the debt was not really paid, but until 
 it was so, a limited measure of hberty was allowed 
 to the debtor, God forbore the immediate exe- 
 cution of the penalty, tolerated the existence of 
 the sin, when, in obedience to His command, the 
 prescribed sacrifices of atonement were offered ; 
 this seems the extent to which, under the old 
 covenant, remission was granted. A view which 
 is confirmed by a passage in the Epistle to the 
 Romans, the meaning of which our translators 
 have not expressed so happily as is their wont. 
 "Whom," says the Apostle speaking of Christ, 
 " God hath set forth to be a propitiation through 
 faith in His blood, for a manifestation of His 
 righteousness, on account of the passing over" 
 (as indeed the margin has it) " of bye-gone sins," 
 which passing over had its source "in the for- 
 bearance of GodV The sins of the ancient 
 world were not visited upon it as they deserved ; 
 the sins of Israel were covered by a positive 
 
 slender a basis for argument. He refers to it rather as 
 illustrative of the view set forth in the Lecture. 
 " Rom. iii. 25, 26. 
 
no LECTUEE III. 
 
 institution, but of most inadequate virtue ; lest 
 then it should be supposed that God is indifferent 
 to sin, lest this forbearance should be miscon- 
 strued, and so the attribute of the Divine righte- 
 ousness be somewhat obscured, for this, among 
 other reasons, Christ came, by an effectual pro- 
 pitiation to accomplish, what the blood of bulls 
 and of goats could not do, the complete abolition 
 of sin in its condemning power, and so to enable 
 God to exhibit Himself as just, and yet the Justifier 
 of him that believeth. 
 
 No violence then need be done to the plain 
 statements of the Old Testament, that moral no 
 less than ceremonial sin was, by the Levitical 
 expiations, in some sense atoned for, nor to the 
 equally plain statements of the New, that no sin 
 was thereby efficaciously taken away. It was so 
 far hidden from the eye of God as not to receive 
 at once its just retribution, but it was not perfectly 
 expiated ; the handwriting of ordinances, con- 
 cealed by the mercy-seat, still lay within, testify- 
 ing against transgression, and claiming the blood 
 of the transgressor. An inherent weakness of the 
 Mosaic atonements which fully justifies the dis- 
 paraging terms which, in comparison with the 
 atoning work of Christ, the New Testament ap- 
 plies to them. For the difference, in truth, is 
 immense between a mere suspension of punish- 
 ment, and a complete satisfaction to offended 
 justice ; between a debt not demanded, and a 
 
LECTURE III. Ill 
 
 debt paid and cancelled. The conscience of the 
 worshipper under the Law could never have been 
 purged from guilt, for the hght of nature would 
 teach him that his sacrifices were ineffectual to 
 this end, and the Law by its withholding the grant 
 of plenary remission would but confirm the pain- 
 ful misgiving". To obliterate completely and for 
 
 ° The language used in reference to the sacrifices of the 
 day of atonement may be thought to imply even more than 
 the view above taken ascribes to them, and to have conveyed 
 to the Israelite an assurance of complete remission. " On 
 that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to 
 cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before 
 the Lord," Levit. xvi. 30. To the present writer it does not 
 appear that much stress can be laid on the absence of a 
 promise of forgiveness throughout this chapter, (see Dr. 
 Hawkins's Sermon &c. p. 183.), for it seems difficult to draw a 
 distinction between the promise of a cleansing from sin and 
 of forgiveness (in the Old Testament sense) ; but there were 
 two circumstances which must, it should seem, have impressed 
 on the reflecting Israelite the inherent imperfection of these 
 atonements : first, that the same phrase of atonement and 
 cleansing was applied to the tabernacle and altar (v. 30.) ; 
 and secondly, that the sacrifices were to be repeated annually. 
 It is on this latter point that the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 principally insists in its exposition of the inferiority of the 
 Mosaic sacrifices to that of Christ. (See c. x. 1 — -14.) That 
 the former should have possessed the real, though limited, 
 efficacy, ascribed to them in the text, need occasion no 
 difficulty to the Christian, who believes that the Mosaic 
 atonements were constructed with a reference to Christ and 
 His work, and therefbre, from that connexion, may have 
 been invested with a virtue not naturally belonging to them. 
 To God the sacrifice of Christ was always present, and 
 therefore in His sight, the Old Testament substitute for it 
 
112 LECTURE III. 
 
 ever the condemning record, and for the spirit of 
 bondage to impart the consciousness of forgive- 
 ness, is the prerogative of the greater sacrifice 
 offered on Calvary, to which the legal appoint- 
 ments, as w^e believe, bore a typical reference, and 
 the correspondence of which with its typical 
 adumbration it will be my endeavour in the suc- 
 ceeding Lecture to demonstrate. 
 
 I conclude with one remark. We know what 
 the general character of heathen sacrificial systems 
 was ; their cruelty, their frivolity, their unutter- 
 able pollutions. Some true and just ideas appear 
 struggling for utterance under the superincumbent 
 load of superstition and impurity. From the chief 
 seat of these corruptions an infant people goes 
 forth into the desert, and suddenly appears settled 
 under a religious polity, which, while embodying 
 the true and just utterances of human nature, is 
 entirely exempt from the impurities of surrounding 
 modes of worship. No human victims bleed on 
 the Jewish altars ; no vile debaucheries stain the 
 tabernacle ; no disgusting exhibitions defile the 
 moral sense. Human priests and animal sacrifices 
 indeed are there, because the religion is but pre- 
 possessed a real atoning power ; to the Jew, to whom the 
 typical relation was not revealed, or revealed imperfectly, his 
 sacrifices must have appeared in every way defective, and 
 could never have made the conscience perfect. But the 
 atoning power of them was not made dependent on the 
 amount of knowledge possessed by the offerer, but on the 
 simplicity of his faith and obedience. 
 
LECTURE III. 113 
 
 paratory ; but the whole system proclaims the 
 holiness of God, and the necessity of holiness in 
 those who would worship Him. What explanation 
 are we to give of so remarkable, so isolated, a 
 phenomenon in the history of the world ? If we 
 suppose the Mosaic rehgion to be of divine origin, 
 the fact is accounted for ; to infidelity it must 
 ever appear inexplicable. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 Heb. X. 12. 
 
 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, 
 for ever sat down on the right hand of God. 
 
 To discover the symbolical import of the Mosaic 
 sacrificial system it is not necessary to call in the 
 aid of the New Testament ; the Law, under this 
 aspect, sufficiently declares its own meaning. We 
 may, and I think should, conduct the interpreta- 
 tion of the Mosaic symbols on the same principles 
 on which we should endeavour to unfold the ideas 
 embodied in any other symbolical religion of 
 antiquity ; that is, dismissing from our view any 
 ulterior, or typical, references, we should simply 
 inquire what doctrines the rehgion aimed at repre- 
 senting under symbol to those by whom it was 
 constructed, or upon whom it was imposed. We 
 thus avoid any suspicion of introducing from the 
 New Testament ideas which do not properly 
 belong to the Old, of forcing the latter to speak 
 a language which is really the language of the 
 Gospel. Especially is this mode of treating the 
 
 i2 
 
116 LECTURE IV. 
 
 subject necessary in controversy with the modern 
 Jew; who, rejecting Christianity, takes from us 
 the power of pressing him with interpretations of 
 the Old Testament derived from the New, and 
 throws us back on the reverse process, of first 
 interpreting his own Scriptures from themselves 
 and without extraneous aid, and then shewing 
 that in Christ both Law and Prophets have been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 You will remember that in the preceding Lecture 
 such was the method pursued. Placing ourselves 
 in the position of the Jew before the New Testa- 
 ment was written, or even prophecy had begun 
 to unfold the distinctive features of the Redeemer's 
 work, we endeavoured to interrogate the cere- 
 monial law, in its appointments of priesthood and 
 sacrifice, on the import of its symbolism ; and 
 found the principal ideas which it embodied to be, 
 man's natural pollution in the sight of a holy 
 God, the consequent separation between the two, 
 the Divine mercy in making the first overtures 
 to repair the breach, and the necessity of mediation 
 and atonement as the means of reconciliation. 
 
 But however favourably the Mosaic system, in 
 contrast with other contemporaneous religions, may 
 come forth from these investigations, we cannot 
 vindicate its divine origin solely on the ground 
 of its superior ethical character, and apt expression 
 of the spiritual wants of man. For however diffi- 
 cult it may be to account for the sudden appear- 
 
LECTURE IV. 117 
 
 ance of such a religion, amidst the abominations 
 of surrounding modes of worship, this exemption 
 from impurity will not of itself stamp it as divine ; 
 it may in this case have been, as a German writer 
 expresses it, " the first of the ethnic religions, 
 but still ethnic." The authentic signature of 
 heaven is still wanting, viz. the prophetical cha- 
 racter, the constructed reference to future events, 
 which, if it can be satisfactorily established, proves, 
 beyond all doubt, that the system in which it 
 inheres is not from man but from God. For 
 whatever unaided reason may effect, to deliver 
 a real prophecy, to construct a real type, is con- 
 fessedly beyond its power. 
 
 Admitting the divine origin of this religion, we 
 shall find ourselves not the less embarrassed if we 
 cannot point to a typical fulfilment of its appoint- 
 ments. For however high it may rank as a human 
 production, as a divine institution it is so mani- 
 festly weak and rudimentary, that, if we are to 
 hold that it was not preparatory to something 
 higher and better than itself, we must abandon it 
 to the sneers of the deist, and the less open, but 
 not less dangerous, insinuations of the rationalist. 
 Take the particular appointment on which we 
 have been dwelling, that of sacrifice. Atonement, 
 the expiation of sin, is the declared end of the 
 Levitical sacrifices ; yet the instrument of cleansing 
 is the blood of bulls and goats, than which none 
 can be conceived more inadequate to its purpose. 
 
118 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Reason and Scripture both assure us, that animal 
 sacrifices can in themselves have no expiatory 
 power, yet under the Law they were exalted into 
 a means, if not of taking away, yet of covering, 
 sin ; how can we reconcile the apparent contra- 
 diction but by the supposition of some future 
 effectual expiation, unrevealed indeed, or only 
 dimly intimated, to man, but present to the mind 
 of God, the virtue of which had a retrospective 
 effect, and conferred on its temporary substitutes 
 a cleansing power which did not naturally belong 
 to them ? And generally the structure of the 
 Mosaic religion is such, that if it be supposed 
 a final one, its appointments become difficult of 
 vindication ; they could neither satisfy, though 
 they might express, the wants, nor correspond to 
 the conceptions, of the more enlightened wor- 
 shipper ; they become, in short, reduced to " beg- 
 garly elements %" not merely, as the Apostle uses 
 the expression, in comparison of the superior 
 glory of the Gospel, but in themselves and ab- 
 solutely. The more important therefore is it to 
 satisfy ourselves that they had prospective uses, 
 that they were intended to prefigure the great 
 truths of redemption, and that if the divine Author 
 of the Mosaic institutions Himself, by the de- 
 struction of the temple, and the dissolution of the 
 national polity, brought the elder dispensation to 
 a close, it was because, the reality being come of 
 ■> Gal. iv. 9. 
 
LECTURE IV. 119 
 
 which it presented the shadow, it was no longer 
 needed. 
 
 Now both in the Old and in the New Testa- 
 ment Scriptures, man is represented as sinful by- 
 nature and by practice ; as an inheritor of a 
 corrupt nature ^ and as an actual transgressor 
 of the divine law"". In consequence of this 
 departure from his original righteousness, an 
 estrangement took place between him and God ; 
 on man's part a sense of guilt drove him from 
 the Divine presence'*, on God's that attribute of 
 His which we call justice, or righteousness, ex- 
 hibited itself under the form of displeasure against 
 sin. In this there is nothing that is not accordant 
 with our own moral sentiments ; fallen as we are, 
 we make a difference between virtue and vice, 
 and this faculty of moral judgment, so far from 
 being an evidence of imperfection, is a proof that 
 the temple of human nature is not wholly in 
 ruins, that the image of God in man is not wholly 
 obliterated. Sentiments analogous to those, the 
 possession of which distinguishes us from the fallen 
 angels and makes us capable of spiritual recovery, 
 it is surely no great effort to beheve may exist in 
 the highest intensity in Him who is the perfection 
 of holiness. But the same God who cannot but 
 hate sin, is a God of infinite love ; and in the 
 exuberance of His love devised means whereby 
 
 * Ps. li. 5. Eom. V. 12 ; viii. 7, 8. Ephes. ii. 3. 
 <^ Eom. i. ii. " Gen. iii. 8. 
 
120 LECTURE IV. 
 
 the penal consequences of transgression might 
 be averted, and the way opened to reconcihation 
 between the sinner and his Maker. These means 
 consisted in the appointment of a Mediator, God 
 manifest in the flesh, by whose interposition in 
 our behalf, involving His own sufferings and 
 death, the gracious design was effected, and man 
 restored to the capacity of fellowship with God 
 here, and of eternal life hereafter. In this too 
 there is nothing contrary to our natural ideas; 
 our great writer on the Analogy of religion has 
 abundantly shewn, that the principle of mediation, 
 whereby through the intervention of others the 
 evil consequences of vice or carelessness are 
 repaired or mitigated, pervades the whole of God's 
 visible government of the world ^ 
 
 Such is the scheme of mercy in its most general 
 outline; but it is with the specific nature of the 
 great Mediator's work and office with which we 
 are at present concerned, and to which we must 
 confine our attention. The work of Christ then 
 is described by the sacred writers of the New 
 Testament (for on the field of prophecy I do not 
 in this Lecture enter) under the two principal 
 heads of intercession and sacrifice, according as 
 the Redeemer is regarded as a Priest, or as an 
 offering for sin. Permit me to bring together 
 some of the Scripture statements on these points 
 
 e Butler, Anal. Part ii. c. 5. 
 
LECTURE IV. 121 
 
 successively, and only at such length as is com- 
 patible with the limits of a single discourse. 
 
 A priest, as we have already had occasion to 
 observe, is one chosen by God to mediate between 
 Himself and man. Thus the Levitical priesthood 
 is described in the Old Testament as elected out 
 of the elect nation, as standing, in comparison 
 with the rest of the people, in a relation of peculiar 
 nearness to Jehovah, and as the channels through 
 which the atoning influences of the old covenant 
 were conveyed to the people at large. It is 
 precisely in this character that our blessed Lord 
 is represented to us in the New Testament. If 
 it is a general principle, — symbolized in all reli- 
 gions, the Jewish among the rest, by the limit- 
 ation of a priesthood to a certain caste, or tribe, — 
 that no one is a self-constituted priest, that the 
 office is of divine, not of human, appointment, 
 "so also Christ glorified not Himself to be made 
 an High Priest ; but He that said unto Him, Thou 
 art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. 
 As He saith also in another place. Thou art a 
 Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek^." 
 If a priest, as mediator, must, on the one hand, 
 be in close connexion with God to present at the 
 altar the blood, that is the life, of the victim, and 
 to intercede in behalf of transgressors ; and, on 
 the other, possess a kindred nature with those 
 whom he represents, that he may be the better able 
 ' John iii. 16. e Heb. v. 5, 6. 
 
122 LECTURE IV. 
 
 to sympathize with their feelings and their infirmi- 
 ties ; if he " is ordained for men in things pertaining 
 to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices 
 for sins ; who can have compassion on the ignorant, 
 and them that are out of the way, for that he also 
 himself is compassed with infirmity'';" so Christ 
 in His divine nature is connected, by an ineffable 
 union, with the Godhead, while in His human He 
 is one with His brethren, one in temptation, in 
 suffering, in sorrow, though not in sin, " that He 
 might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in 
 things pertaining to God," " able to succour them 
 that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered 
 being tempted'." If in every religion the priest- 
 hood, as befits those admitted more immediately 
 to the Divine presence, is invested with an official 
 sanctity ; symbolized under the Law by bodily 
 perfection, sacred garments, and the solemn rites 
 of consecration ; so Christ, " tempted in all points 
 as we are, yet without sin^," by His spotless obe- 
 dience, both active and passive, became qualified 
 to appear before God ; " for such an High Priest 
 became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and 
 separate from sinners''," to whom the Father 
 could bear testimony, " This is my beloved Son, 
 in whom I am well pleased'." 
 
 As Christ was thus in all points quahfied to be 
 a mediator between God and man, so the sacred 
 
 h Heb. V. 1, S. ' Heb. ii. 17, 18 i Heb. iv. 16. 
 
 k Heb. vii. 26. i Matt. iii. 17. 
 
LECTURE IV. 123 
 
 writers ascribe to Him, in His exalted condition 
 at the right hand of God, the actual exercise of 
 priestly functions. He is our " Advocate with the 
 Father'";" He "ever liveth to make intercession 
 for us";" "Christ is not entered into the holy 
 places, made with hands, which are the figures of 
 the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear 
 in the presence of God for us";" "this Man, 
 because He continueth for ever, hath an un- 
 changeable priesthood^." Apprehensive of fa- 
 tiguing my hearers, I content myself with the fore- 
 going passages selected out of many which declare, 
 unequivocally, that our Lord bore, and does now 
 bear, in a true and proper sense, the sacerdotal 
 office. 
 
 But a priesthood necessarily implies a sacrifice ; 
 the one is the correlative of the other, but not 
 exactly on the same level of relation, for we may 
 better conceive of sacrifice without a priesthood, 
 than of priests without the blood of sacrifices to 
 offer. Thus, in the promulgation of the Law" we 
 find the priesthood instituted before the regulations 
 concerning sacrifice are given ; Moses, who was 
 not of the priestly family, officiating at the sacri- 
 fices used for the consecration of Aaron and his 
 sons''. The Epistle to the Hebrews, in accordance 
 with this natural order of things, first establishes 
 the proper priesthood of Christ, and then passes 
 
 ■" 1 John ii. 1. 1 Eom. viii. 34. Heb. vii. 25. 
 
 " Heb. ix, S4. p Heb. vii. 24. ■! Exod. xxix. 13. 
 
124 LECTURE IV. 
 
 on to explain the import and efficacy of His 
 sacrifice. I may observe, in passing, that this 
 consideration may perhaps throw some light on 
 the natural history of that corruption of Chris- 
 tianity, which consists in introducing a proper 
 human priesthood, and proper sacrifices, under 
 the Gospel. It has sometimes been questioned 
 which of these errors arose first ; whether the 
 process was that Christian ministers first became 
 invested with sacerdotal powers, and then the 
 Eucharist, to complete the idea, was regarded as 
 a sacrifice ; or, in the reverse order, the Lord's 
 table became an altar, and then Christian ministers 
 priests ; but we can have little doubt that the 
 former was the actual course of things. The 
 hierarchical spirit which so soon began to prevail 
 in the Church, and the tempting parallel which so 
 readily suggested itself between the three orders 
 of the Christian ministry and the High Priest, 
 Priests, and Levites of the Jews, transformed 
 presbyters and bishops into priests, and as to a 
 priest a sacrifice is necessary, the ordinance which 
 commemorates the Saviour's death was made to 
 assume this character. 
 
 If it be admitted then (and I am not aware that 
 save by avowed Socinians this point is contested) 
 that Scripture assigns to Christ sacerdotal func- 
 tions, in a real not a figurative sense ; it seems to 
 follow that a sacrifice must have been offered, and 
 that that sacrifice must correspond to the reality 
 
LECTURE IV. 125 
 
 of the sacerdotal office of which it is the necessary 
 appendage. " Every high priest is ordained to 
 offer gifts and sacrifices : wherefore it is of neces- 
 sity that this Man have somewhat to offer' ;" what 
 He offered was Himself; "once in the end of 
 the world hath He appeared, to put away sin by 
 the sacrifice of Himself^" 
 
 By the sacred writers the work of atonement is 
 made to culminate in the death of Christ ; and 
 the main question we have to determine is, in what 
 light do they represent that death ? Was it merely 
 the seal of His doctrine, and the consummation of 
 His obedience ; or a proof that conscience, laden 
 with a sense of guilt, delivers a false testimony, 
 and that in reality we have not, and never had, 
 any thing to fear from God, who is a God of pure 
 mercy, by no means extreme to mark what is 
 amiss ? Was it in order to convince us how 
 erroneous are those ideas, which so strangely 
 appear in the religions of all peoples of all ages, 
 which are so deeply lodged in every human heart, — 
 the ideas of a broken law, of Divine displeasure, of 
 expiation, satisfaction, propitiation, — that God de- 
 livered His only-begotten Son to suffer and to die 
 like one of us, as the most decisive proof He 
 could give of His never having entertained the 
 sentiments we are apt to attribute to Him ? Was 
 it to chase away these spectres of the imagination 
 which alone prevented our becoming reconciled to 
 ' Hcb. viii. 3. > Heb. ix. 26. 
 
126 LECTURE IV. 
 
 God, that the Saviour endured the cross, despising 
 the shame ? Strange that a simple declaration on 
 God's part, that sin is a phantom, that it consists 
 in distrusting His goodness, in not believing that 
 He was always reconciled to man, should not have 
 been sufficient for this purpose without so costly a 
 surrender. Far otherwise indeed is the scriptural 
 account of this great transaction. I do not pre- 
 sume too much on the knowledge even of the 
 youngest amongst us, when I appeal to them, 
 whether the death of Christ be not by the Apostles 
 represented as a true expiatory, and propitiatory, 
 sacrifice for the sins of the world. A piacular 
 sacrifice is one that removes guilt by atoning for 
 it ; it cleanses, by expiating, a stain which had 
 previously attached to an individual, a nation, a 
 race ; and so we read that the " blood of Christ 
 cleanseth us from all sin' ;" that " He gave Him- 
 self" for the Church, "that He might sanctify," 
 that is, legally cleanse, " if," " that He might purify 
 unto Himself a peculiar people "";" we are said to be 
 " sanctified" (in the same sense as before) "through 
 the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for 
 allV' and to have been by Him "washed from our 
 sins in His own bloods" A propitiatory sacrifice 
 is one which besides expiating reconciles, or rather 
 reconciles by expiating; and in reference to Christ 
 we are taught, that " God set Him forth to be a 
 
 ' 1 John i. 7. " Ephes. v. 26. ' Tit. ii. U. 
 
 y Heb. A. 10. - Rev. i. 5. 
 
LECTURE IV. 127 
 
 propitiation through faith in His blood*;" that 
 " He is the propitiation for our sins* ;" that " God 
 was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," 
 not inducing us to lay aside our enmity, though 
 this in its place is also a necessary part of re- 
 demption, but, as the Apostle immediately explains, 
 "not imputing their trespasses unto themV' that is, 
 rendering the world which by reason of sin had 
 been an object of His displeasure now no longer 
 so. Indeed, lest we should suppose that the 
 reconciliation is merely on our part, the same 
 Apostle, in another Epistle, expressly tells us, that 
 "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
 God by the death of His Son*;" that is, that before 
 any change of sentiment took place on our side 
 towards God, an objective act of reconciliation 
 took place on His ; a change being, by the death 
 of Christ, wrought in the aspect which the world 
 presented to God. Not only do the sacred writers 
 thus explicitly affirm the proper propitiatory cha- 
 racter of Christ's sacrifice, but they seem to labour 
 to impress this great truth on our minds by figu- 
 rative expressions drawn from human transactions. 
 Thus, the ideas of redemption from a state of 
 captivity and of propitiatory atonement being 
 closely connected, as running up into the common 
 notion of dehverance, we are said to have been 
 redeemed from the bondage of sin, from the curse 
 
 ^ Eom. iii. 25. ^ I John ii. 1. c q, Cor. v. 19. 
 
 '' Rom. V. 10. 
 
128 LECTURE IV. 
 
 of the law" ; the ransom paid was His blood, the 
 effect to us was release, or redemption*^. Christ 
 Himself declares, that He " came to give His life 
 a ransom for many^;" and St. Paul asserts, that 
 in Him " we have redemption through His blood, 
 even the forgiveness of sinsV in which words the 
 figure and the thing signified are blended together. 
 To the same effect are the numerous passages 
 which describe Christians as purchased, or bought, 
 by Christ ; St. Paul reminds us that we " are 
 bought with a price'," and exhorts the Ephesian 
 elders to " feed the Church of God which He hath 
 purchased with His own bloods" 
 
 Such is the teaching of Scripture on the nature 
 of Christ's sacrifice : it will be observed that the 
 passages cited contain no direct reference to the 
 law of Moses ; they are perfectly general in cha- 
 racter. And I deem it important that it should be 
 remembered, that the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 as commonly understood in the Church, can be 
 established from the New Testament, irrespectively 
 of any typical allusion to the ancient economy; 
 for from the time of Priestley downwards, a favourite 
 topic with those who would recast the Gospel in a 
 Socinian mould has been the necessity of extri- 
 cating it from Jewish associations, and the tem- 
 porary garb which, in accommodation, it is said, 
 to the modes of thought prevalent in the Apostolic 
 
 » Eom. vi. 18. Gal. iii. 13. ' 1 Pet. i. 18. s Matt. xx. 28. 
 ■■ Ephes. i. 7. i 1 Cor. vi. 20. ' Acts xx. 38. 
 
LECTURE IV. 129 
 
 age, it assumed, and in which it appears in the 
 Apostolic Epistles, It is implied, of course, in 
 these reasonings that the work of Christ is described 
 in the New Testament only under figures, and by 
 expressions, drawn from the Mosaic economy, as 
 if wherever the words cleansing, reconciliation, 
 propitiation, intercession, and the like, occur, there 
 must needs be a reference to the Jewish law; than 
 which no supposition can be more arbitrary. As 
 in order to extricate the symbolical import of the 
 Jewish rites of sacrifice, we considered them by 
 themselves and irrespectively of any light which 
 the New Testament may throw upon them, so let 
 us suppose that the Old Testament had never 
 been written, or that every passage containing 
 allusions to the Levitical ritual were expunged 
 from the New ; — enough will still remain to esta- 
 blish, beyond all reasonable doubt, the proper 
 expiatory character of Christ's death. The fact is, 
 that all religions, with, it is said, one exception ^ 
 have their priests, and their sacrifices, propitiatory 
 as well as eucharistic ; and if Judaism had never 
 existed, if Christianity had had no historical con- 
 nexion with any other religion, past or present, it 
 would have been no matter of surprise to us to 
 find it founded on facts involving these ideas. 
 The wonder would rather be, that, with the re- 
 ligious instincts of humanity in every country, in 
 every age, pointing in one direction, to a sense of 
 '' Buddhism, see Thomson's Bampton Lectures, p. 44. 
 K 
 
130 LECTURE IV. 
 
 guilt, to the necessity of expiation, and this by- 
 means of sacrifice, to propitiation of an ahenated 
 superior power, a religion professing to come from 
 God should fail to satisfy those wants which 
 nature, hiowever imperfectly, had endeavoured to 
 express. That the expiatory sacrifices of the 
 heathen were grossly superstitious, inasmuch as 
 no natural connexion can be perceived between 
 the death of an animal and forgiveness of sin, may 
 be true ; but the superstition lay, not in the want 
 felt, but in the mode by which it was attempted to 
 be supplied ; not in the feeling of the disease, but 
 in the belief that such a remedy could of itself be 
 of any avail : and Christianity independently of 
 any fulfilment of type or prophecy, as the perfect 
 religion in which all true religious ideas were to find 
 a place, in which every real want of human nature 
 was to receive satisfaction ; — and of a religion 
 really coming from God no less than this can be 
 predicated ; — might be expected to exhibit a real 
 expiation for sin by means of an efficacious 
 sacrifice, elevating what had been superstitiously 
 devised by unenlightened reason to the dignity 
 and authority of a divine appointment. And this, 
 as we have seen, is the case. The New Testament 
 has its own great Priest and sacrifice, and it has 
 its own independent explanations of the import of 
 that sacrifice : dismiss from your minds the fact 
 that any preparatory, typical, system existed, and 
 you will still be able, with a superfluity of proof. 
 
LECTURE IV. 131 
 
 to convince yourselves, that by Christ's death sin 
 was expiated, God reconciled to the world, and 
 man delivered from the penalty of transgression ; 
 ideas which, far from being the special property of 
 the Mosaic dispensation, form, more or less, the 
 groundwork of all, or nearly all, the religions that 
 have existed in the world. 
 
 It is, under these circumstances, no matter of 
 surprise to find the sacred writers connecting, in 
 the most emphatic manner, the two dispensations, 
 and referring us to the Levitical institutions as 
 prefigurative of the truths of the Gospel. That 
 they do assert this typical connexion lies on the 
 very surface of Scripture, and is admitted. Of 
 our Lord it is recorded, that " beginning with 
 Moses, and all the Prophets," He expounded to 
 the sorrowing disciples, on the road to Emmaus, 
 " in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
 Himself ;" while His Apostles tell us, in general, 
 that "the law," the ceremonial law, presented a 
 " shadow of good things to come," though " not the 
 very image of the things™ ;" and in particular, that 
 not only is Christ a priest and a sacrifice, but that 
 in His priesthood and sacrifice the Levitical ap- 
 pointments received their fulfilment as the type 
 merges into the antitype. One whole Epistle, of 
 which, whether it be the production of St. Paul or 
 not, the canonicity has not as yet been assailed, 
 is devoted to this special object ;— to shew how 
 1 Luke xxiv. 27. '" Heb. x. 1. 
 
 k2 
 
132 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Christ, by absorbing into Himself all the elements 
 of the Jewish sacrificial system, has put an end for 
 ever to the ceremonial law. In the other Epistles 
 the same line of thought occurs, though the 
 subject is not so frequently or so formally dis- 
 cussed. St. Paul speaks of Christ's giving Him- 
 self " as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a 
 sweet-smelling savour"," and of His being " our 
 Passover sacrificed for us";" St. Peter of His 
 blood corresponding in redeeming power to that 
 " of a Lamb without spot and blemish ^ ;" St. John 
 of His being " a Lamb of God which taketh 
 away the sins of the world i;" allusions, all of 
 them, to the offerings of the Law. But, as I have 
 observed, it is the Epistle to the Hebrews that 
 chiefly enlarges on the typical aspect of the 
 Levitical appointments. In the writer's view the 
 work of Christ finds its counterpart in the most 
 significant ceremonies of that ritual. The inau- 
 guration of the Mosaic covenant by the sprinkling 
 of blood ; the ordinance of the red heifer, whose 
 ashes mingled with vi^ater availed to remove the 
 pollution occasioned by contact with a dead body; 
 the ceremonial of the great day of atonement, on 
 which alone the sacred gloom of the most holy 
 place was invaded by the high priest, bearing the 
 atoning blood by which the sins of Israel col- 
 lectively were expiated ; all convey to the writer's 
 mind a vivid image of the one great atonement 
 ° Ephes. i. a. -ICor. V. 7. ^ 1 Pet. i. 19. '• John 1.29. 
 
LECTURE IV. 133 
 
 offered on Calvary^ and of the continued priestly 
 intercession of the exalted Redeemer'. And why 
 should they not have done so ? There was, in 
 truth, a marvellous coincidence, in these points, 
 between the Law and the Gospel, each principal 
 circumstance of the former answering to a cor- 
 responding one of the latter ; the Jewish high 
 priest to the great High Priest of our profession ; 
 the most holy place of the tabernacle to the heaven 
 whither Christ had ascended ; the legal sacrifices 
 to the sacrifice of Christ; and the sprinkling of the 
 blood and the intercession of the Jewish mediator 
 to an analogous exercise of sacerdotal functions 
 on the part of the Redeemer. The proof of 
 prophetic inspiration is the exact fulfilment of 
 prophecy in events which could not have been by 
 human foresight or sagacity surmised; we have 
 here a parallel case ; the types of the law prove 
 their divine origin by their accurate and intended 
 correspondence with the facts of that mysterious 
 scheme of redeeming mercy which human reason 
 could never have devised. 
 
 I say, their intended correspondence, for the 
 same writer who states the points of agreement, 
 tells us that the coincidence was designed ; as 
 indeed is almost self-evident, for how can we 
 conceive of two religions emanating from the 
 same divine Author, and corresponding in all 
 essential ideas, and not conclude that the earlier, 
 ' See Heb. ix. 23 ; 13,14; 7—1 3. 
 
134 LECTURE IV. 
 
 and preparatory, one was intended to prefigure 
 the later and more perfect? But we are told 
 expressly that such is the relation between the 
 Law and the Gospel: "The Holy Ghost this 
 signifying," in the various appointments of the 
 ceremonial law, " that the way into the holiest 
 was not yet made manifest, while as the first 
 tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure 
 for the time then present ^" And this furnishes 
 us with the true reply to the old and favourite 
 solvent of accommodation, or of figurative allusion, 
 in explaining the transfer of the Old Testament 
 sacrificial terms to Christian uses. The phrase- 
 ology in question, we are told, was adopted because 
 it had previously belonged to the Law; Christ's 
 sacrifice was no real one. He is not a real Priest, 
 but since the Apostles were Jews, habituated to 
 Jewish images and modes of expression, it was 
 impossible for them to throw off these at once; 
 and therefore though they meant something quite 
 different, they clothed their thoughts in the familiar 
 garb to which they had been accustomed. 
 
 Upon the real nature of the language in ques- 
 tion, that it is not figurative but expressive of real 
 analogies, it is not necessary to make any remarks, 
 inasmuch as this point has been excellently handled 
 by one of my predecessors in this Lecture'; but let 
 me pause for a moment to request it may be con- 
 
 • Heb. ix. 8. 
 
 ' Veysie, Bampton Lectures, Led. V. 
 
LECTURE IV. 135 
 
 sidered how such a theory as this is compatible 
 with any proper view of the inspiration of either 
 of the great divisions of God's word. It has already 
 been observed, that the dignity and use of the 
 Mosaic rites can only be vindicated on the sup^ 
 position of their having been intended to delineate 
 the truths of the Gospel, apart from which refer- 
 ence they remain a dark enigma; but the theory in 
 question goes further than this ; it makes the Law 
 not only unmeaning and incomprehensible, but a 
 source of positive error : had it not been for its 
 historical connexion with Judaism, Christianity 
 would not have been delineated under erroneous 
 figures, and one great source of the misconceptions 
 that have prevailed in the Church on the doctrine 
 of the Atonement would have been cut off: our 
 main business now must be to separate the Old 
 Testament from the New, the misleading figure 
 from the latent reality ; for as Christians we can 
 derive no spiritual nutriment from the former. 
 But if this be the case, how can we stop short of 
 the conclusion, that the Jewish Scriptures can lay 
 no claim to a divine origin ? And this indeed is 
 the question to which we are drifting, and which 
 it behoves us fairly to meet ; — Was the Jewish 
 dispensation from God, or was it not ? The studied 
 depreciation of the Scriptures of the old covenant, 
 which has ever marked the course of rationalism 
 abroad, and which is one of the most unfavourable 
 symptoms of recent theological movements at home. 
 
136 LECTURE IV. 
 
 betrays a consciousness that these Scriptures must 
 be deprived of their authority before any success 
 can be hoped for in the enterprise of republishing 
 a Gospel without a priest, without a sacrifice, 
 without a real atonement. 
 
 But not less is the discredit which is thus cast on 
 the writers of the Christian Scriptures as competent 
 expounders of the Gospel with which they were 
 entrusted. For what, on the hypothesis in question, 
 is the case ? The inspired teachers of a new reli- 
 gion, as we believe them to have been, are found 
 describing, and this not once or casually, but repeat- 
 edly and of set purpose, certain capital truths of the 
 religion under figures which are sure to mislead, 
 and which in fact have given rise to serious and 
 universal error in the Church ever since there 
 was a Church in the world. If they had even 
 informed us that their expressions were to be 
 taken figuratively, and had explained what they 
 really meant, it would have been some alleviation 
 of the diflficulty ; but this they have in no instance 
 done : we may challenge the production of a 
 single passage in which the Apostles tell us that 
 their references to the Jewish religion are not to 
 be taken in their natural sense ; they make use 
 of the so-called figurative expressions, but they 
 leave us to discover the import, and, as was very 
 likely to happen, to blunder in the exposition. 
 It must be observed that this is not a case in 
 which no misconception could occur, as when we 
 
LECTURE IV. 137 
 
 call a man figuratively a lion on account of his 
 being eminent for courage ; here of course it is 
 impossible to mistake the one for the other ; but 
 in the comparisons of Christ's work with the 
 Jewish atonements we have real corresponding 
 circumstances, like in kind, and in relation, though 
 of disparate value : we have a human priest and 
 a divine Priest ; the death of an animal and the 
 death of Christ ; the shedding of blood, and a similar 
 atoning power ascribed to the blood, in both 
 cases : it was inevitable therefore that the error 
 alleged to have arisen from the use of this lan- 
 guage should arise, no precautions on our part 
 could have obviated the mischief. But what re- 
 liance can we place in general on those whom we 
 have been accustomed to regard as inspired guides, 
 or what notion can we form of their inspiration, 
 when we find them apparently mistaken them- 
 selves, and certainly misleading us, on so capital 
 a point ? 
 
 May we not advance a step further, and ask, 
 (though the Christian can with difficulty bring 
 himself to state the inference,) what confidence 
 can we, if the Law is no trustworthy source of 
 instruction on the Gospel, repose in Christ Himself, 
 who, it seems, was so far mistaken as regards the 
 import of His own death, as to compare it with the 
 expiatory sacrifices with which the Mosaic covenant 
 was inaugurated ; and this on the most solemn 
 occasion conceivable, the last supper with His 
 
138 LECTURE IV. 
 
 disciples; when, delivering to them the cup, He 
 said, " This is my blood of the New Testament," 
 or covenant, " which is shed for many for the 
 remission of sins"." 
 
 Happily there is no need to fall back on this 
 theory of accommodation to explain any difficulty 
 in the Apostolic testimony. The Apostles could 
 not have spoken figuratively of a sacrifice of 
 atonement offered by Christ, for what they were 
 describing was a reality ; the reality to which the 
 Levitical appointments had been purposely ac- 
 commodated. Were there any discrepancy between 
 those representations of Christ's work which the 
 inspired writers give us in general, and without 
 any particular reference to the Mosaic law, and 
 the ideas expressed in that law, it might have 
 occasioned some embarrassment ; but it has been 
 already shewn, that we can establish the doctrine 
 of the Atonement from neutral passages, to affirm 
 of which that their language was derived from 
 the legal economy is a mere arbitrary assertion. 
 In fact, the whole argument is a preposterous 
 one, in the literal sense of the word\ So far 
 from the scheme of the Gospel having been ac- 
 commodated to the Law, the very reverse was 
 the case ; the Law was framed with a prospective 
 reference to the Gospel. Such is the distinct 
 explanation of the Apostles themselves. The 
 
 " Matt. xxvi. 28. 
 
 ^ Davison, Prim. Sacrifice, note, p. 195. 
 
LECTURE IV. 139 
 
 sacrifice and priesthood of Christ dated from all 
 eternity ; He was a " Lamb slain from the found- 
 ation of the world''," He was "a Priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchisedec ;" these were the 
 heavenly things of which the Mosaic appointments 
 were the earthly patterns. So that the work of 
 Christ was first in the counsels of God, and then 
 came the typical representation ; not in the 
 reverse order. What was first in the counsels 
 of God was last indeed in the revelation, but this 
 is of no consequence to the argument ; the mys- 
 tery was, for wise purposes, hidden until the 
 appointed time for its disclosure, but it was ever 
 present to the Divine mind, and ruled and moulded 
 all the appointments that took place in time. 
 Disclosed, it illuminated the whole of the typical 
 dispensation with a light from heaven. Then 
 was seen, what could not have been seen before, 
 why the legal institutions assumed the shape they 
 did ; why priesthood, and sacrifice, and atonement 
 by the sprinkling of blood, formed such pro- 
 minent features of the ancient economy. The 
 Apostles' task therefore was, not to construct the 
 Gospel in confornaity to the Mosaic system, 
 but either, like the writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, to prove to the wavering Jewish con- 
 verts that their prophetical types were fulfilled in 
 Christ, and being fulfilled were not to continue 
 in the Christian Church; or, by recurring to the 
 y Rev. xiii. 8. 
 
140 LECTURE IV. 
 
 symbolism of the Law, to illustrate and explain 
 to stedfast Christians the peculiarities of the 
 Christian scheme. 
 
 And this latter is a use to which we may still 
 apply the Levitical ritual. Having once esta- 
 blished, independently of the Law, the proper 
 sacrifice and priesthood of Christ, as the arche- 
 typal originals in adaptation to which the Mosaic 
 religion was framed, we may most profitably go 
 back to the Law for the elucidation, or confirm- 
 ation, of any point which may be thought to need 
 such additional light. Let me select, as ex- 
 amples, two not unimportant doctrines, the vica- 
 riousness of the Redeemer's sacrifice, and the 
 representative character of the Redeemer Him- 
 self. In the preceding Lecture, I took occasion 
 to point out how strongly the vicarious principle 
 appeared in the Mosaic sacrifices ; how life made 
 atonement for life, and the offerer by the impo- 
 sition of hands identified himself with the victim 
 offered. The Gospel teaches us why this was 
 inculcated. It was because Christ was, in due 
 time, to "bear our sins in His own body on the 
 tree'';" because He was to be made " sin," not a 
 sin-offering but a sin-substitute, "for us, that we 
 might be made the righteousness of God in Him";" 
 our sins and their penalty being laid on Him, 
 His obedience, active and passive, being laid to 
 our account. But if any one should be in doubt 
 
 ^ 1 Pet. ii. 24. a 3 Cor. v. 91. 
 
LECTURE IV. 141 
 
 concerning the meaning of these and similar 
 passages in the New Testament, let him turn to 
 the vivid symbolism of the Mosaic ritual, and he 
 will find there a commentary which will set his 
 doubts at rest. 
 
 Our attention was also directed to the repre- 
 sentative relation in which the Jewish high priest 
 stood to the rest of the nation. On several 
 important occasions he acted, not merely as 
 mediator between the people and Jehovah, but 
 as representing them in His own person, as the 
 federal head of the commonwealth. The New 
 Testament furnishes the explanation of this cir- 
 cumstance. For Christ was to stand in a similar 
 relation generally to redeemed humanity, and 
 specially to the members of His mystical body. 
 He was to be the second Adam, occupying the 
 same position in reference to the new creation 
 which the first Adam did to his posterity, both 
 being federal heads from whom in the one case 
 sin and death, in the other righteousness and life, 
 are derived''. As by one man and in one man 
 the race fell, so by one man, the new scion grafted 
 upon the stock of corrupted humanity, the race 
 was potentially restored, and is actually restored 
 in those who are united to Him by a living faith. 
 With a true Christian instinct, therefore, the 
 Church has held fast that doctrine of imputation, 
 both of sin and of righteousness, with which the 
 " Kom. V. 12 — 19. 1 Cor. xv. 46. 
 
14.2 LECTURE IV. 
 
 name of Augustin is associated, against the Pela- 
 gian or semi-Pelagian view, which regards men 
 as isolated atoms, sinners or righteous in the 
 sight of God, respectively, solely from their per- 
 sonal actions, and with which Socinianism has 
 ever been found so readily to assimilate. For in 
 truth it is but St. Paul's doctrine under another 
 form, concerning the representative character of 
 Adam and Christ respectively, and which is not 
 this Apostle's doctrine only, but that of all the 
 inspired writers. Christ is the Vine, Christians 
 the branches"; Christ is the Head, Christians the 
 members*; Christ is the Corner-stone, Christians 
 the stones, of the spiritual temple" : let it not be 
 said that these are mere figures ; the figures of 
 Scripture in reference to Christ contain deep truths. 
 It is from their being thus coimted one with 
 Christ, that Christians are so frequently identified 
 with Him in the various stages of His redeeming 
 work, that they are said to have died and been 
 buried with Him', to have risen with Him^, to 
 have sat down with Him in the heavenly places'"; 
 expressions unintelligible save on the hypothesis 
 of His being their federal Head. In its bearing 
 on our present subject, the atonement of Christ, 
 the importance of the Augustinian, or imputative, 
 theory is evident ; if Christ were but a man, one 
 
 <: John XV. 1. " Ephes. i. 22, 23. 
 
 <^ Ephes. ii. 20—22. I Pet. ii. 4, 6. 
 
 '^ Bom. vi. 3 — 5. 6 Col. iii. 1. h Ephes. ii. 6. 
 
LECTURE IV. 143 
 
 of the many. His death becomes an isolated fact ; 
 and, however it may be supposed to affect our 
 condition, loses its vicarious import : how different 
 is the aspect which it assumes when we regard 
 Him as in our stead, and as our representative, 
 obedient unto death, so that in Him the redeemed 
 may be said, in a real sense, to have satisfied the 
 demands of the Law both passively and actively. 
 This great truth is so clearly taught in the New 
 Testament, that it needs no further confirmation 
 from any quarter ; but it may be interesting to 
 the student to observe, that precisely the same 
 public, representative, character is, in the Old 
 Testament, ascribed to the Jewish high priest, 
 the type of the one great High Priest of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 It is thus that while the New Testament proves 
 the prophetical character of the Mosaic ritual, this 
 latter in its turn elucidates, in many points, the 
 work of Christ, and so both the Jewish and the 
 Christian Scriptures combine, in harmonious ope- 
 ration, to establish the believer in his most holy 
 faith. If he wishes to know why the Law bore 
 the characters it did, he must sit at the Apostles' 
 feet ; if he wishes to know what the work of Christ 
 was and is, both Law and Gospel will instruct him. 
 And let him mark how under the latter all the 
 imperfections of the Levitical atonements are 
 supplied. The legal priests " were not suffered 
 to continue by reason of death ; but this Man, 
 
144 LECTURE IV. 
 
 because he continueth for ever, hath an unchange- 
 able priesthood/' and " ever hveth to make in- 
 tercession" for us\ The victims which bled on 
 the Jewish altar were only in a negative sense 
 sinless ; sinless because the terms sin and guilt 
 are inapplicable to the brute creation ; but in 
 Christ a victim is seen positively " holy, harmless, 
 undefiled, and separate from sinners'"." The blood 
 of bulls and goats owed its atoning power solely 
 to its typical reference, and to mark its inherent 
 worthlessness the sacrifices were repeated year by 
 year ; the blood of Christ, being of infinite power, 
 cleanses at once from all sin ; " by one offering," 
 never to be repeated, " He hath perfected for ever 
 them that are sanctified'." The inferiority of the 
 typical ordinance was shewn by the separation of 
 its constituent parts, the offerer, the victim, and 
 the priest, being all distinct ; in Christ they are 
 united : He freely offered Himself as our sub- 
 stitute"; by His own blood He washed us from our 
 sins"; and He now, in His sacerdotal office, applies 
 the efficacy of that blood-shedding to all who by 
 faith come to Him. 
 
 The truth of the position which was to form 
 the subject of the present discourse, that the 
 Mosaic appointments of priesthood and sacrifice 
 were both typical and illustrative of the corre- 
 sponding Christian facts ; and that, being so, the 
 
 ' Heb. vii. 23—25. " Heb. vii. 26. ' Heb. x. U. 
 
 "■ Heb. ix. 14; x. 5—9. " Eev. i. 5. 
 
LECTURE IV. 145 
 
 religion of which they formed the most con- 
 spicuous features can be referred to no other than 
 a divine origin ; has now, I conceive, been made 
 sufficiently manifest. On the philosophy, or theory, 
 of the great transaction by which the sin of the 
 world has been taken away, it is the less necessary 
 to make any lengthened remarks, as the subject 
 has been lately presented to us under almost every 
 aspect of which it is capable. Let me, however, 
 before I conclude^ add an observation or two to 
 those which have so abundantly vindicated the 
 divine appointments of a Mediator and a pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice in the Person of Christ. 
 
 The old objections, that by the doctrine of the 
 Atonement, as commonly received, we represent 
 God as an implacable Deity, and as influenced by 
 human passions, have been so often refuted, that 
 it is not without surprise that we see them in the 
 present day recalled from their merited obscurity. 
 As it was Jehovah Himself who gave the atoning 
 ordinances of the Law to Israel to cover sin, so 
 God " so loved the world, that He gave His only- 
 begotten Son" to die for it. Again, how could 
 the unfathomable depths of the Divine mind be 
 made intelligible to us, or be brought to bear 
 upon our practice, save by means of analogies 
 drawn from sentiments which we experience in 
 ourselves and see in others ? But there is one 
 topic especially prominent in the mystical, or 
 philosophical, religionism of the day ; — the so-» 
 
146 LECTURE IV. 
 
 called moral sense, or moral consciousness of man, 
 it is urged, is irreconcileable with the popular 
 ideas respecting the atonement of Christ. The 
 ideas of the payment of a debt, of the cancelling of 
 a bond, of satisfaction to Divine justice, are at 
 once repelled by the unsophisticated heart as 
 unworthy of the Deity, and inapplicable to the case 
 in hand". 
 
 Now it has been well replied, in general, that, 
 whatever may have been the case with man :before 
 he fell, the moral sense, or reason, oi fallen man 
 is no competent judge of the divine appointments; 
 but unless I am mistaken, the objection admits 
 of direct refutation. Let it be considered then 
 whether the representations alluded to do not 
 
 o See Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, p. 314—328. This 
 writer must not be ranked with unbelievers, but there is 
 reason to fear that his speculations on religion have proved 
 of serious detriment to reflective minds, unable as yet cordially 
 to accept the humbling doctrines of the Gospel. Like too 
 many of his school, he caricatures the opposite view: e.g. 
 " Sin " (according to this view) " represents an infinite debt, 
 a debt due to the vindictive justice of God the Father, which 
 can only be liquidated by the everlasting misery of Adam and 
 all his posterity." It is easy to frame yourself your adversary's 
 argument, and then to overthrow the work of your own hands. 
 One concession however, in the present writer's view a very 
 important one, appears in the work; viz. that St. Paul's 
 "figures" are "so judiciously selected, that the prominent 
 forms, the figures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn 
 from points of belief and practice, forms and laws, rites, and 
 customs, that then prevailed through the whole Eoman 
 world, and were common to Jew and Gentile." p. 315. 
 
LECTURE IV. 147 
 
 leave out of view an idea most deeply rooted in 
 the moral sense of, at least, fallen man, and vsrhich 
 finds constant expression in the common language 
 of life, the idea of expiation as distinguished from 
 reconciliation. Let me explain myself by a familiar 
 instance. Nothing, then, is more common than to 
 hear it said of a criminal that he has expiated his 
 crime on the scaffold ; or for the observation to 
 be made that a youth of folly and vice has been 
 expiated by years of subsequent suffering. Let 
 us consider attentively what is meant by this 
 expression. We obviously speak of punishment 
 here not as a means of repairing mischief done, 
 which in some cases, as that of murder, is impos- 
 sible; nor as a means of deterring others from 
 the commission of a like crime ; nor of reforming 
 the criminal, for in capital punishments this too 
 is impossible' : a far deeper idea than any of these 
 lies at the root of this ordinary language, that of 
 the necessity of the restoration of right, infringed, 
 but not to be infringed with impunity. The state, 
 as a divine institution intended to maintain right 
 in the form of law f, purges itself, by the punish- 
 ment of the criminal, of participation in his crime ; 
 the criminal himself by suffering the punishment 
 restores matters, as far as in him lies, to their 
 former position, and, in a certain sense, is as if he 
 had never transgressed ; whence the observation of 
 the Apostle, that " he that is dead is freed," or 
 P See Eom. xiii. 2. 
 
 l2 
 
148 LECTURE IV. 
 
 justified, " from sin \" Punishment under this 
 aspect, is the recoil of the eternal law of right 
 against the transgressor; the act itself of trans- 
 gression cannot be reversed, but its unrighteousness 
 is thus, by the counterstroke of justice, removed, 
 or expiated. This is the true idea of expiation ; 
 and any theory of state punishments which omits 
 it is so far defective. 
 
 Now so far from this notion's being contrary 
 to the moral sense, the whole history of crime 
 proves how agreeable thereto it is. Instances 
 are on record in which criminals, whose sin would 
 never in this world have found them out, have 
 been impelled by the secret craving for atonement, 
 in the sense of expiation, to deliver themselves 
 voluntarily into the hands of justice ; and this 
 being done, have expressed their satisfaction, as if 
 a burden which had long lain on the heart had 
 been removed. The feeling in such cases is, not 
 merely that injury has been done to individuals, 
 but that a righteous law has been violated, that 
 a debt to justice has been incurred, and that, by 
 suffering the penalty, the breach will be, in some 
 sense, repaired, the debt cancelled. 
 
 The application of this to the work of Christ 
 will be obvious ; for translate the theological term 
 satisfaction, whether to the divine law, or the 
 divine justice, into common language, and what 
 does it signify but that, in the sense just explained, 
 
 1 Rom. vi. 7. o yap awo6ava>v SeStKaiaiTat dwo Trjs dfUtpTias- 
 
LECTURE IV. 149 
 
 sin has been expiated by the death of Christ ? 
 The term may not be the most happy one that 
 could have been chosen^ and it may have given 
 rise to unwise speculations''; but penetrate beneath 
 the surface, and you will find a solid foundation 
 for the idea as applied to the Christian atone- 
 ment. To say that the divine law must be 
 satisfied, is to say that sin must be expiated ; and 
 no feehng is more innate, and more universal, 
 than this. In fact, so deeply is it lodged in the 
 human heart, that even now, after a full and 
 sufiicient expiation for sin has been revealed in 
 Christ, the tendency on man's part is to introduce 
 supplementary atonements of his own devising : 
 it is difficult to bring him to rest satisfied in the 
 one great atonement. And let this doctrine, which 
 is emphatically the Gospel, the doctrine of plenary 
 remission of sin through faith in Christ, be re- 
 moved from sight, or obscured, and instantly you 
 will find man erecting a structure of his own to 
 supply its place. What are the gloomy secrets 
 of the penitential discipline of Rome but an effort 
 on the part of the guilty conscience, robbed of its 
 proper remedy by the assumed priestly power of 
 the keys, and the intervention of created medi- 
 ators, to supply itself with expiations which al- 
 leviate, though they never can remove, the gnaw- 
 
 ' As, for example, when it was debated whether the satis- 
 faction were rendered to God or to Satan. See Hagenbacli's 
 Dogmengeschichte, §. 134 and 180. 
 
150 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ing of the worm within? Yes, sinful man may 
 forgive others, but he is inexorable to himself. 
 You may tell him that God is merciful, that re- 
 pentance is sufficient to procure forgiveness of 
 sin, but it is of no avail ; the craving for repara- 
 tion, for atonement, remains unsatisfied, and as 
 long as it is so, there can be no true peace. We 
 want the assurance not merely that our sins are 
 forgiven, but that they are forgiven because ex- 
 piated. Such an assurance the Gospel gives us 
 when it proclaims the fact, that God reconciled 
 the world to Himself by giving His Son to be- 
 come the substitute for sinners, and to bear the 
 penalty of their sins upon the cross. 
 
 Let me exhort you then, my younger brethren, 
 to hold fast, in this most important point, the 
 faith once delivered to the saints, and let not any 
 pretensions to superior illumination induce you 
 to exchange it for the fancies of un chastened 
 speculation, which may amuse the intellect, but 
 which chill the heart. The great danger to 
 which we are here exposed is intellectual pride, 
 the affectation of freedom from vulgar prejudice, 
 operating on a speculative cast of religion which 
 has never been tested by the cares and trials of 
 common life, or by actual dealings with men in 
 the exercise of the pastoral function. A little 
 experience of this kind will scatter to the winds 
 the gossamer theories of the intellect, and force us 
 to fall back on the simple scriptural faith which 
 
LECTURE IV. 151 
 
 alone conveys strength in life, and consolation 
 at the hour of death. Be assured that what are 
 called large, or philosophical, views of Chris- 
 tianity are often in reality shallow and contracted 
 compared with the simple, yet mysterious, reve- 
 lations of Scripture, which the mightiest intellect 
 cannot fathom, but which the humble Christian, 
 too wise to be philosophical, feels exactly to meet 
 his case. These theories commonly betray their 
 human origin by ignoring some great truth re- 
 specting the Divine nature, or the nature of man, 
 and then, as is easy to do, constructing a system 
 out of the mutilated conception. Thus Socini- 
 anism is based on the assumption, that God is a 
 God of pure and unmixed benevolence. And not 
 only hold fast the Scriptural doctrine of the 
 Atonement as Christians, but, if you are called, 
 or intend to be called, to the more arduous office 
 of the Christian ministry, be mindful to give it 
 that prominence in your ministrations which right- 
 fully belongs to it. For in truth this is the only 
 tahsman which has ever been found effectual to 
 unlock the closed heart, and to restore its wander- 
 ing affections to their rightful Master. " I, if I be 
 lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
 rae V Apart from the full exhibition of this central 
 object under its various aspects, our ministrations 
 lose all their power, both because the Holy Spirit 
 will not cooperate with a mutilated, or concealed, 
 
 " John xii. 32. 
 
152 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Gospel, and because the animating spring of all 
 Christian obedience, the "love of Christ" which 
 " constraineth us," is wanting. Let us tremble at 
 the thought of being unfaithful stewards of the 
 mysteries of God, and withholding the bread of 
 life from those whose spiritual interests are com- 
 mitted to our care, and for whom we shall have 
 to give account at the day of Christ. All Christian 
 holiness springs from the consciousness of peace 
 with God through Jesus Christ; but this con- 
 sciousness never visits the heart which has not 
 been taught, and has not learned, to believe that 
 sin has been once and for ever expiated by Christ's 
 death, and that -faith is the connecting link be- 
 tween that expiatory sacrifice and individual 
 justification. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 Acts x. 43. 
 
 To Him give all the Prophets witness. 
 
 The ceremonial Law was not the only means 
 of instruction vouchsafed to the ancient Church : 
 besides the teaching of the typical ordinances, 
 direct communications respecting God's designs, 
 in the kingdoms both of providence and of grace, 
 proceeding from a succession of inspired persons 
 raised iip for this purpose, opened up to the Jewish 
 believer glimpses of the future dispensation, to 
 which his own was introductory, and in which it 
 was to terminate. It becomes then of moment 
 to consider whether these two great branches of 
 revelation coincide in their general results ; whe- 
 ther the lessons of prophecy correspond with 
 those of the Law, the ceremonial, so far as it sym- 
 bolized the truths of the Gospel, as well as the 
 moral ; and so both bear a united and harmonious 
 testimony to Him that should come, in whom 
 both, we believe, have been fulfilled. For it is 
 obvious that any serious discrepancy of import 
 
154 LECTURE V. 
 
 between them would go far to annul the autho- 
 rity of each, and especially their use towards 
 determining the nature of the Christian dispens- 
 ation ; not to mention that one of the main 
 evidences of our faith would be seriously impaired. 
 I have said, so far as the ceremonial Law sym- 
 bolized the truths of the Gospel, because the 
 range of subjects to which it extended is obviously 
 much more contracted than that which prophecy 
 takes in. While it is the priesthood and sacrifice 
 of Christ which form the main subjects of the 
 Levitical types, prophecy enlarges not only upon 
 these but upon other particulars connected with 
 the Redeemer ; — His person. His sufferings as 
 well as death. His subsequent glory, and the 
 nature of His kingdom. But if prophecy had 
 thus the advantage in the scope of its revelations, 
 it was far more tardy in the communication. The 
 Jewish sacrificial system contained, as we have 
 seen, a full and accurate adumbration of the parti- 
 cular Christian facts to which it refers ; and this at 
 a time when the notices of prophecy on the same 
 subjects were but meagre. What the law con- 
 veyed in one representation, prophecy slowly, in 
 the lapse of centuries, disclosed, and its greatest 
 oracles respecting the atoning work of Christ are 
 perhaps inferior in completeness of detail to the 
 corresponding symbolism of the Levitical ritual. 
 This indeed is one of the advantages of the mode 
 of teaching by symbol ; that it can express in one 
 
LECTURE V. 155 
 
 and the same action both the general thing in- 
 tended, and the subordinate particulars which fill 
 up the conception; can combine simplicity of 
 meaning with complexity of detail ; and present 
 to the eye in one group the ideas which oral 
 instruction is compelled to exhibit separately, and 
 in succession. Had the Jew possessed the key to 
 his ritual, no discoveries of prophecy could have 
 added to his knowledge in the points which that 
 ritual was intended to illustrate. 
 
 Before making some observations on the subject- 
 matter of prophecy as introductory to the Gospel, 
 I would draw attention to the important place 
 which the prophetical office occupied as one of 
 the standing institutions of the Theocracy. 
 
 I would observe then, in the first place, that 
 the nearest approach which we find in the ancient 
 economy to that great ordinance of the Gospel, 
 the ministry of God's word, was exhibited in the 
 prophetic function. Properly speaking, the Jewish 
 Church had no standing means of grace of this 
 kind; for though to the Levites was committed 
 the charge of studying and teaching the law", it 
 does not appear that they attempted more than 
 the task of interpretation in points involving diffi- 
 culty'' ; while prophecy itself was irregular in its 
 exercise, and often intermitted for long periods 
 of time. Yet the pastoral office, so far as it did 
 
 » Deut. xxxiii. 10. 
 
 * Vitringa De Synog. Vet. 1. i. p. 3. c. 8. 
 
156 LECTURE V. 
 
 then exist, was discharged by the prophets, or 
 those trained under their superintendence. For 
 it seems to have been the custom for these inspired 
 teachers to gather round themselves associations 
 of disciples, or students, who lived together under 
 a common rule, and who frequently appear in 
 Scripture under the title of the sons of the pro- 
 phets"; from which notices it may likewise be 
 gathered that they existed in considerable numbers. 
 Instructed thus by one himself taught of God, 
 they became fitted to teach others, and we cannot 
 doubt that by their means the knowledge of divine 
 truth, in its various stages of communication, be- 
 came widely disseminated amongst the people. 
 
 In the next place, the prophetic office operated 
 as a safeguard, so far as any institution could do 
 so, against the dangers to be apprehended from a 
 corrupt government, or priesthood. Its corrective 
 influence, in relation to these orders of the state, 
 must have been very great. An ungodly king 
 might attempt to draw away his people from the 
 worship of Jehovah, or an ambitious hierarchy 
 might devise schemes for its own undue aggran- 
 disement ; but neither could be secure from the 
 unwelcome intrusion of some inspired messenger 
 from God, taken indiscriminately from any tribe, 
 who, with the utmost intrepidity and faithfulness, 
 dealt rebuke on all sides, and denounced the 
 divine judgments against a guilty land. I have 
 " 1 Sam. X, 5. 2 Kings ii. 5. iv. 38. 
 
LECTURE V. 157 
 
 had occasion, in a preceding discourse, to point 
 out how the growth of spiritual despotism was, 
 under the Mosaic constitution, checked by the 
 publicity of the national code which was equally 
 the property of the priests and of the people ; 
 but the prophetic function must have formed 
 a still stronger impediment to sacerdotal en- 
 croachments. And, in fact, it proved an effectual 
 one. The Jews killed their prophets, but they 
 were never enslaved to their priests. King, people, 
 and priesthood, sometimes combined against the 
 common disturber of their false peace ; but his 
 reproofs, however unheeded, must have dissipated 
 any superstitious veneration which mere official 
 claims, or an ostentatious sanctity, without the 
 reality, might have given birth to in the popular 
 mind. 
 
 But I proceed to the substance of the pro- 
 phetic revelation ; adopting the usual, and com- 
 prehensive, division of it, into its didactic, and 
 predictive matter. 
 
 I. That is a narrow conception of Hebrew pro- 
 phecy which would limit its use to the prediction 
 of future events. The prophets combined in them- 
 selves the two characters which heathen antiquity 
 has distinguished by the names of fidvTis and 
 Trpo^Tr]s; the former, the immediate recipient 
 of the pretended divine inspiration, being properly 
 the foreteller of what was to come ; the latter the 
 interpreter of the oracular responses thus de- 
 
158 LECTURE V. 
 
 livered*. Thus in prophecy we find distinct pre- 
 dictions, the fulfilment of which stamps them 
 as genuine communications from heaven ; but 
 likewise a large body of instruction touching 
 upon almost every point of morals and religion, — 
 the nature of God, His attributes. His universal 
 providence, the evil and danger of sin, and the 
 happiness and safety of pious obedience ; — a body 
 of doctrine which, not less than the predictive 
 matter, attests its divine source by its immeasurable 
 superiority to the most boasted productions of 
 uninspired reason. No insignificant part of the 
 
 ^ Br}(r(T0i 6e Tap ^arpecov eia"t oi npo^r^Tevovres tov ipov, Trpo/xaiTis 
 8e ^ Xpiovua, Kara jrep ev AeXcjioicn. Herod. b. vii. C. 111. It is a 
 
 remarkable circumstance, that while the art of divination was 
 every where professed and practised, (vetus opinio est — omnium 
 gentium firmata consensu, versari quandam inter homines 
 divinationem, quam Graeci fiavnKtjv appellant, id est, praesen- 
 sionem et scientiam rerum futurarum. Cic. De Dlv. 1. i. c. 1.) 
 the gift of moral prophecy, as described in the text, was never 
 assumed or exercised by the heathen oracles. Superstition 
 could ally itself with the former more readily than with the 
 latter. None of the Hebrew appellations of the prophet 
 (nH'nn, Npan, 1lipr\, l Chron. xxix. 29.) direct our minds 
 principally to the power of divination, but rather to the office 
 of interpreting the divine counsels. "If we consider the 
 benefit derived to the ancient Church, from prophecy in its 
 strictest sense, we shall find it consisted not in making men 
 prophets, or enabling them to foretel future events, but rather 
 in maintaining high and consolatory views of the providence 
 and attributes of God, accompanied with a firm but humble 
 assurance of his gracious interposition in their concerns.'' 
 Eobert Hall, Works, vol. ii. p. 208. 
 
LECTURE V. 159 
 
 prophetic writings is occupied with matter of this 
 kind. So far indeed is the Scripture notion of 
 prophecy from being that of a mere power of 
 divination, that in the spiritual gift of the Apo- 
 stolic age to which, doubtless from its analogy to 
 that of the elder covenant, this name is given, 
 the predictive character quite recedes from view, 
 and its chief use, according to St. Paul, was to 
 edify the Church, and convince unbelievers : 
 "He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to 
 edification, and exhortation, and comfort";" "If 
 all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth 
 not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is 
 judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his 
 heart made manifest ; and so falling down on his 
 face, he will worship God, and report that God 
 is in you of a truth '." 
 
 It is obvious that, under this aspect, prophecy 
 was to the Jewish Church a means of present 
 edification, more so perhaps than in its properly 
 predictive character. To the prophets, as foretel- 
 ling "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that 
 should follow, it was revealed that not unto them- 
 selves but unto us they did minister" these things «; 
 but in their capacity of teachers of religion they 
 addressed their contemporaries as clearly and as 
 forcibly as they do ourselves. Whatever lessons of 
 piety we derive from the perusal of their writings 
 equally belonged to the ancient believer ; and on some 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xiv. 3. f 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 35. e 1 Pet. i. 12. 
 
160 LECTURE V. 
 
 points of great importance to the purity and sta- 
 bility of our faith we must still go back to the Old 
 Testamentfor the most explicit lessons of instruction. 
 If it be, as it is, the fact, that doctrines which in 
 the New Testament appear as elementary prin- 
 ciples of religion were, under the old covenant, 
 great discoveries, tardily announced, and to the 
 very end enveloped in some degree of obscurity ; it is 
 not the less true that the Jewish Scriptures have 
 their own range of topics on which they enlarge 
 with a copiousness, clearness, and force, which the 
 Apostolic writings, intended for a different purpose, 
 do not exhibit. Thus each great division of the 
 divine word is the complement of the other ; each 
 supplies what is wanting in the other ; each teaches 
 the same great truths but with a different measure 
 of clearness and expansion ; and both combine to 
 render " the man of God perfect, thoroughly fur- 
 nished unto all good works''." Let me specify a 
 few of the points on which the prophetic reve- 
 lation in its didactic portions especially enlarges. 
 
 1. In all, then, that relates to the nature and 
 attributes of God, — His personality. His spiritual 
 being. His holiness. His omnipotence, and His 
 omniscience, — the prophetic teaching is particularly 
 copious and emphatic. It is not the mysterious 
 nature of Deity, as expressed in the Christian 
 doctrine of the Trinity, that the prophets disclose ; 
 the traces of this mystery in the Old Testament, 
 » 2 Tim. iii. 17. 
 
LECTURE V. 161 
 
 if indeed such exists are scanty, and lie beneath 
 the surface ; but with unequalled force of thought 
 and language they delineate the perfections of 
 Jehovah as contrasted with the limited powers of 
 man, and the lying pretensions of the gods of the 
 heathen. What the law symbolically taught on 
 these points, the prophets reiterate and expand. 
 The unity of Jehovah was represented by the one 
 tabernacle where alone the national worship could 
 be solemnized ; His spirituahty by the prohibition 
 of any graven image for worship ; His holiness by 
 the necessity of mediation and sacrifice : but these 
 properties are taken up by the prophets, expounded, 
 illustrated, enforced, so as to impress a distinct 
 character on the Jewish faith. Especially is this 
 the case with the Divine personality. The philo- 
 sophic speculations of antiquity touching the Divine 
 nature, while with just contempt they rejected the 
 gross superstitions of the popular creed, seldom 
 rose above pantheism : they could arrive at the 
 conception of one primary fountain of Deity, but 
 they identified their deity with nature, and so the 
 Divine Being became a mere abstract essence, 
 at once every thing and nothing, not a living, 
 personal, operative, agent. Hence in the ancient 
 mythology, it is never the one invisible God who 
 interferes with the affairs of men ; who gives ora- 
 cular responses, and hears prayer: no sooner 
 does the Divine Essence come forth from the void 
 abyss which is its proper residence, and manifest 
 
 M 
 
162 LECTURE V. 
 
 itself in action, than it becomes multiplied into 
 polytheism, and appears under the forms of the 
 manifold heathen divinities, to whom the real ad- 
 ministration of the world was held to be committed. 
 Altogether different is the God of the Hebrews. 
 The Author and Upholder of creation. He is not 
 one with it ; He alone is Jehovah, the self-existent, 
 the unchangeable, while every thing apart from 
 Him is illusory and fleeting ; He Himself orders 
 all things in heaven and in earth, and delegates 
 this function of government to no inferior. Hence 
 the strong anthropomorphism of the Old Testa- 
 ment, in which the members of the human body 
 and the passions of the human mind are spoken of 
 as belonging to God ; representations which have 
 afforded occasion of scoffing remark to the un- 
 believer. But let us ask, If God was to be de- 
 scribed as a Person and not a mere influence, how 
 could the conception be conveyed save but by 
 ascribing to Him attributes associated in our minds 
 with personality 1 Our idea of God must consist 
 either of a mere series of negations, or it must 
 clothe itself in analogical terms, (true, however, as 
 far as they are applicable,) drawn from our own 
 consciousness, or from facts around us. And it 
 may be questioned whether, in their laudable 
 desire to vindicate the majesty of the Divine 
 nature, some modern writers have not run the 
 risk of reducing it to an abstract entity with which 
 we can have no affinity, and which therefore can 
 
LECTURE V. 163 
 
 excite in us no emotions of love, fear, or gratitude : 
 I allude to the speculations which seem to aim at 
 establishing a difference, not merely in degree but in 
 kind, between the divine attributes and the human 
 virtues described by the same names ; as if justice, 
 or mercy, or faithfulness, are not merely inade- 
 quate, but equivocal, terms, when transferred from 
 man to God'. But if this be so, what serious 
 relations can God enter into with man, or, which 
 amounts to the same thing, what knowledge can 
 we have of such relations ? However jealously 
 we must maintain the transcendency of the Divine 
 perfections, as compared with those of the crea- 
 ture, we must never forget that man was originally 
 created in the image of God ; that the likeness is 
 still not quite eflFaced ; and that therefore there is, 
 and must be, a real conformity of our moral ideas 
 to the infinitely higher, but, in some sense, cor- 
 responding attributes of the Most High\ 
 
 Those who have watched the course of ratio- 
 nalistic speculation abroad, will be sensible how 
 needful it is to recur to these elementary lessons 
 of theology, which it is especially the province of 
 the earlier revelation to inculcate. Rationalism in 
 Germany, after passing through various stages of 
 
 ' See Archbishop King's Sennon on Predestination. 
 
 '' Havemick acutely remarks, that the imperfection of the 
 Old Testament idea of God is, not that it is too anthropo- 
 morphitic, but the reverse ; that it does not exhibit, as 
 Christianity does, God and man perfectly united in the 
 Person of Christ. Theologie des A. T. p. 53. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LECTURE V. 
 
 decadence, has at length reached that of an un- 
 equivocal denial of the Personality of God ; and 
 treatises, worthless save as beacons of warning 
 against the tendencies of a purely intellectual re- 
 ligionism, have appeared which, while purporting, 
 with, I suppose, a quiet irony, to unfold the essence 
 of Christianity, start from the fundamental prin- 
 ciple that God and man are absolutely identical'. 
 Consciousness of God is self-consciousness ; the 
 knowledge of God is self-knowledge ; the anti- 
 thesis of the divine and human is illusory, and is 
 nothing more than that between human nature in 
 general and the individual ; and consequently the 
 object and the contents of the Christian religion 
 are altogether human ; — such are some of the 
 most recent discoveries which continental re- 
 searches have brought to light. We may well 
 request the ingenious propounders to leave Chris- 
 tianity alone until they have mastered the prin- 
 ciples of the earlier dispensation, and to become 
 scholars of the prophets before they appear as 
 critics of the Gospel. 
 
 2. Another topic very prominent in the pro- 
 phetic writings is, the superintending and directing 
 providence of God in the affairs of the world. 
 True it is, that this doctrine appears also in the 
 New Testament, but it is there found under a 
 more special form in its application to Christians 
 
 1 See Feuerbaoh's Wesen des Christenthums. A trans- 
 lation of this work has been lately published in New York. 
 
LECTURE V. 165 
 
 as such, as the children of God by faith in Christ 
 Jesus. We are assured, and the value of the 
 assurance it is impossible to exaggerate, that " the 
 very hairs of" our "head are all numbered"";" 
 that " all things work together for good to them 
 that love God, who are the called according to 
 His purpose";" that as Christians, "all things are" 
 ours, "whether Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, or 
 the world, or life, or death, or things present, or 
 things to come" :" but it is the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ whom we are thus taught 
 to contemplate, as interfering not only in the 
 spiritual, but the temporal, concerns of His people. 
 For a view of Divine Providence on a larger scale, 
 as guiding the destinies of nations ; raising up 
 mighty conquerors, and determining the parts 
 which they are to play in the great drama ; in- 
 flicting national chastisements by secondary causes, 
 the sword, the famine, and the pestilence ; and, in 
 short, controlHng every movement of the mighty 
 and intricate mechanism of human thought and 
 action, apparently free and really responsible, but 
 still working out the Divine counsels ; — we must 
 turn to the Old Testament. The God of the 
 Jewish revelation is emphatically the God of his- 
 tory, and no truth is more strongly impressed on 
 the ancient believer than the Divine agency in the 
 distribution of the various events which affect his 
 own condition, or that of neighbouring nations. 
 " Luke xii. 7. " Eom. viii. 28. " 1 Cor. iii. 22. 
 
166 LECTURE V. 
 
 It is not merely that Jehovah foresees what is to 
 be, and communicates this knowledge through the 
 prophets, but that He vindicates to Himself a part 
 in the planning and accomplishing of the issues of 
 futurity, and tells His people that nothing happens 
 without His appointment : " I form the light, and 
 create darkness ; I make peace, and create evil ; I 
 the Lord do all these things'" ;" " See I have this 
 day set thee over the nations, and over the king- 
 doms, to root out, and to pull down, and to 
 destroy, and to throw down, and to build, and to 
 plant ''." As the gloomy, or gorgeous, pictures of 
 prophecy pass in review before us, we are admitted 
 behind the scene to see the unseen power that is 
 secretly at work; in whose hands the visible actors 
 are but instruments, the unconscious agents of 
 Almighty vvisdom and power. We are never per- 
 mitted to forget that the apparently tangled threads, 
 intersecting each other in all directions, which 
 make up the life of an individual, or the existence 
 of a state, or the whole course of the world, all 
 run up eventually into one hand, which, with un- 
 erring exactness, traces each separate one from 
 the commencement to the end, and directs the 
 whole in combination to one great result. 
 
 This consolatory truth is never indeed without 
 its use ; and the Christian, amidst the vicissitudes 
 of the world, the tumults of war, the threatening 
 aspect of public affairs, recurs with peculiar satis- 
 
 p Is. xlv. 7. 1 Jer. i. 10. 
 
LECTURE V. 167 
 
 faction to the repeated assurances contained in 
 the prophetic writings, that the world is governed 
 neither by fate nor by chance. But we, to whom 
 the full revelation of a future life has been vouch- 
 safed, in which all inequaUties shall be rectified 
 and all difficulties explained, can form little idea 
 of the support and consolation which the doctrine 
 of universal providence must have proved to the 
 pious Jew, who was taught by his law to regard 
 temporal prosperity, both national and individual, 
 as a mark of the Divine favour, and to whom the 
 veil that hides the unseen world was but partially 
 uplifted. Contrast with his privilege in this point 
 the melancholy condition of the heathen moralist. 
 In place of an omniscient and omnipotent Being, 
 upon whose goodness and justice perfect reliance 
 might be placed, fate, superior to Gods and men, 
 held all things in its chain, and with stern and 
 inexorable aspect cast a gloom upon the whole 
 scene of human life. But in the sequestered 
 valleys of Judaea, different and better notions 
 prevailed. Amidst the convulsions of political 
 revolution around him, and the visitations of cala- 
 mity which befel the chosen nation itself, the mind 
 of the perplexed believer was restored to tran- 
 quiUity by the knowledge that his covenant God, 
 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, presided 
 over every change, administered every stroke of 
 chastisement, and out of apparent evil was eliciting 
 substantial good. 
 
168 LECTURE V. 
 
 3. Once more, it is one of the characteristics 
 of the prophetic teaching, that it expounds the 
 full meaning of the moral law, and assigns to 
 moral duties their proper place of superiority as 
 compared with the ceremonial precepts. The 
 direction which prophecy takes is, as compared 
 with the earlier promulgation of the Law, mani- 
 festly less corporate and more personal; less 
 external and more spiritual. In the earlier reve- 
 lation of Moses it is to the nation as such that the 
 promises and threatenings of God are addressed ; 
 the individual is merged in the body ; and even 
 in the book of Deuteronomy, which presents, in 
 the point of predominance of moral exhortation, 
 a great advance upon its predecessors, the rehgion 
 enjoined is more national than personal. But the 
 prophets address themselves directly to the con- 
 cerns of personal religion. The Law had declared 
 the efficacy of national repentance to avert, or 
 alleviate, the consequences of national transgres- 
 sion ; the language of prophecy on the same 
 subject is, " I dwell in the high and holy place, 
 with him also that is of a contrite spirit, to revive 
 the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart 
 of the contrite ones'." The consolatory promises 
 of God to the penitent are, as every reader will 
 have observed, no longer the property of the 
 nation as such, but of the pious portion of it, the 
 mourners in Zion ; who, oppressed by a sense 
 ' Is. Ivii. 15. 
 
LECTURE V. 169 
 
 of individual and national sin, and frequently the 
 subjects of persecution from their unbelieving 
 brethren, needed, and received, the consolatory 
 assurance that they, and not the mere carnal 
 descendants of Abraham, were the inheritors of 
 the blessing promised to the patriarch and his 
 seed, the special objects of God's providential care 
 and tender mercy. 
 
 With what energy the prophets denounce the 
 legal formalism which affected a scrupulous com- 
 pliance with the ritual, while neglecting the gravest 
 duties of the moral, law, is known to all the 
 readers of them. " To what purpose is the mul- 
 titude of your sacrifices to me ? saith the Lord. 
 Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an abo- 
 mination unto me ; the new moons and the 
 sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away 
 with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 
 Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of 
 your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do 
 evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve 
 the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the 
 widow ^" The tendencies of human nature in 
 every age are the same, and we, not less than the 
 Jews of old, need to be reminded that God is a 
 Spirit, and they that worship Him must do so in 
 spirit and in truth ; but we can perceive, in this 
 comparative depreciation of the ritual of the Law, 
 a remarkable, and no doubt designed, adaptation 
 ' Isa. i. 11—17. 
 
170 LECTURE V. 
 
 to the circumstances of the Jewish Church in the 
 chief age of prophecy. For at that period the 
 first covenant began to draw to its close. The 
 temporal condition of the Jewish people, when 
 the earliest writer' in the prophetic canon flourishedj 
 was no longer what it had been in the reigns of 
 David and Solomon ; and before its close, the 
 main part of the nation had been dispossessed 
 of its earthly inheritance, while the portion that 
 remained was expiating its sins by a seventy years' 
 captivity in Babylon. Amidst the apparent failure 
 of the covenant, and especially when, Jerusalem 
 and the first temple being in ruins, it might well 
 seem to the pious Jew that God had altogether 
 cast off His ancient people ; when, in fact, the 
 process by which the interior Judaism, or Chris- 
 tianity of the Old Testament, was to be extricated 
 from its external shell, had commenced, and was 
 advancing to its consummation ; how suitable and 
 consolatory to the afflicted people of God was the 
 intimation conveyed by the prophets, that this 
 interior religion — the worship of the heai't, the 
 faith of a humble and contrite spirit — is alone of 
 any real estimation with Him ; that the temple 
 services and the ceremonial law, the observance 
 of which was, during the period of invasion and 
 exile, necessarily interrupted, were, in their own 
 nature and essentially, inferior in value to inward, 
 personal, piety ; and that whether the worshipper 
 ' Jonah B.C. 825. 
 
LECTURE V. 171 
 
 were in Judaea or in Babylon, if only the heart 
 were right with God, the substantial, because 
 spiritual, blessings of the better covenant were his. 
 Such was the tenor of prophecy in its didactic 
 aspect : let me ask whether any similar instance 
 can be found of a series of teachers extending 
 over a period of several centuries, whose instruc- 
 tions, on the greatest topics that have occupied 
 the human mind, uniformly tend to the same 
 edifying result ? Did the state of intellectual 
 or social cultivation among the Jews, at any period 
 of their history, supply the materials for such an 
 unusual elevation of religious and moral sentiment 
 as their prophets exhibit 1 Can we suppose this 
 body of doctrine to have been elaborated from 
 the ordinary resources of reason? None who are 
 acquainted with the most successful efforts of the 
 foremost philosophers in the most polished states 
 of antiquity, will be inclined to think so ; and 
 rather than adopt such an improbable hypothesis 
 will fall back upon the explanatory statement, that 
 "all Scripture is given by inspiration of GodV 
 For setting aside, for a moment, the matter of the 
 prophetic teaching, let us consider its manner. 
 It is stamped with the ethical character which 
 belongs to the whole economy. Speculations 
 which do not bear on practice it sedulously avoids ; 
 the dreams of a poetical imagination which are so 
 readily substituted for habits of piety find no place 
 in it : it is a law of life, delivered with the dignity 
 
 - 2 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
172 LECTURE V. 
 
 and authority which befits a message from God. 
 Which even of the most practical treatises on 
 morals which time has spared us from the mass of 
 heathen literature can compete, in impressiveness 
 of style, in power of appeal to the conscience, 
 in a severe yet consolatory strain of admonition, 
 with the productions of the Hebrew teachers? 
 In what light the Jews themselves regarded their 
 prophets is well known. They turned a deaf ear 
 to their instructions, they put them to death, but 
 they never denied their divine mission. The 
 credentials were too plain to be rejected ; and 
 notwithstanding the natural tendency that must 
 have existed to suppress, or interpolate, or muti- 
 late, writings which display the nation in such an 
 unfavourable light, such was the force of the con- 
 viction of their divine origin, that no attempt of 
 this kind is ever recorded to have been made. 
 
 I would only add on this head, that a pro- 
 gressive tendency in the religious teaching of the 
 prophets is perceptible ; I mean, that in pro- 
 portion as larger disclosures are made of the 
 doctrines peculiar to the Gospel, the preceptive 
 portion of their writings assumes a more inward 
 and spiritual complexion. Thus tlie Psalms con- 
 tain a more perfect portraiture of individual piety 
 than the books of Moses ; and the Prophets, pro- 
 perly so called, particularly the writings of Isaiah, 
 advance still further in the same direction". A 
 
 ' See Mr. Davison's remarks, Discourses on Prophecy, 
 pp. 44 — 47. 
 
LECTURE V. 173 
 
 consideration which is not unimportant in deter- 
 mining our views of the true character of the 
 Christian dispensation. 
 
 II. I proceed, in accordance with the method 
 proposed, to consider briefly the leading points 
 which the prophetic revelation, in its anticipatory 
 notices of the Gospel, took up, and on which it 
 enlarged. I would observe, however, that we can- 
 not here distinguish absolutely between prophecy 
 as didactic and prophecy as predictive ; for the 
 teaching of the prophets plainly bore, in reference 
 to Christianity, an introductory character, and 
 their predictions were not without a present use. 
 By the glimpses which prophecy unfolded of a 
 better covenant, and a glorious future, in store 
 for the ancient Church, a more extended range 
 of ideas and subjects of hope than his present 
 condition could supply was presented to the mind 
 of the pious Israelite ; and he was trained to look 
 upon his peculiar relation to Jehovah, and the 
 privileges of his nation, as but of temporary 
 duration, destined to merge hereafter in blessings 
 of a higher nature, and of wider application. 
 How necessary it was that the Jewish mind 
 should thus be led beyond the appointments in 
 being appears from the fanatical and narrow spirit 
 which became the characteristic of the people in 
 later times, and which led them to suppose that 
 to their nation, however corrupt, was appropriated 
 the peculiar favour of heaven, to the exclusion of 
 
174 LECTURE V. 
 
 all others. These predictions too must have 
 tended to support a failing faith under circum- 
 stances of outward trial, and, even when carnally in- 
 terpreted, to maintain the nation in its allegiance 
 to Jehovah. 
 
 But to come to the Christian predictions them- 
 selves : — perhaps a brief sketch of the course of 
 prophecy under the three heads of the person 
 and work of the Redeemer ; the doctrine of eternal 
 life with its proper complement, the resurrection 
 of the body ; and the nature of Christ's kingdom ; 
 will, for our present purposes, suffice. 
 
 1. No sooner had man fallen, than a hope of 
 recovery was held out to him, and absolute despair 
 was never the portion of our race. But the first 
 announcement of redemption was couched in the 
 most general terms. " I will put enmity between 
 thee and the woman, and l)etween thy seed and 
 her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
 bruise its heeP." The principle of interpretation 
 by which our Christian knowledge is transferred 
 to the earlier periods of revealed religion ; which 
 makes the Jew to have enjoyed a clear insight 
 into the typical references of his ritual, and to 
 have exercised an explicit faith in the Redeemer ; 
 has been at work in the case of prophecy also : 
 and has discovered in this passage more than can 
 be fairly shewn to be expressed in it. But in 
 estimating the amount of information conveyed, 
 
 ' Gen. iii. 15. 
 
LECTURE V. 175 
 
 at the time, by any prophetical communication, 
 we must not consider what may be imph'citly 
 involved in it, still less v^^hat may have been 
 present to the Divine mind to which the end was 
 manifest from the beginning, but what the words 
 would naturally convey to those to whom they 
 were addressed. In this instance, all, I conceive, 
 that could have been clearly gathered is, that a two- 
 fold seed, of opposite character, should henceforth 
 exist in the world at enmity with each other ; but 
 that the power of evil should eventually be broken, 
 and the effects of the fall reversed, by the seed 
 that should spring from the woman. Whether 
 an individual or a race were meant '', and if the 
 former, whether he was to be more than man ; 
 by what means the victory was to be achieved ; 
 and whether the effects of it would be simply to 
 
 y The word ^TiJ., though properly a collective, can be used 
 for an individual (Gen. iv. 25.) ; but in Gen. iii. 15. the con- 
 text does not determine which sense we are to adopt. It may 
 be better therefore to imderstand it as applying neither to the 
 Eedeemer, nor to the holy seed, the Church of God in the 
 world, alone ; but to both inclusively : just as St. Paul speaks 
 of Christ as being Abraham's seed to whom the promises 
 were made (Gal. iii. 16.), while the original passage (Gen. 
 xii. 7.) plainly speaks of the patriarch's descendants. In 
 the Apostle's mind the true seed of Abraham was identified 
 with Christ their Head. Compare 1 Cor. xii. 12 ; " As the 
 body is one and hath many members — so also is Christ," i. e. 
 Christ and His Church. Thus understood, the first prophecy 
 simply announces a victory, with suffering, of the woman's 
 seed (Christ and His people) over the powers of darkness. 
 
176 LECTURE V. 
 
 reinstate man in his former position, or advance 
 him to a higher one ; the prophecy did not specify. 
 To our first parents it must have conveyed little 
 beyond a general prospect of deliverance from the 
 consequences of sin. 
 
 But the stream soon begins to flow in a par- 
 ticular channel. The call of Abraham is accom- 
 panied with the promise that from his offspring 
 the promised Deliverer should descend, and that 
 all the families of the earth should be sharers in 
 the blessing. But a cloud of obscurity still°rested 
 on this divine oracle, and if Abraham in any 
 special sense saw the day of Christ, as we are 
 assured he did% it must have been by means of a 
 peculiar revelation which has not been transmitted 
 to us. The tribe of Judah is next singled out as 
 that from which the Messiah should spring" : and 
 finally it was promised to David that in his seed 
 the kingdom should be for ever established'' ; any 
 ambiguity in which promise is removed by the 
 clearer statements of subsequent prophecy, that 
 there should " come forth a rod out of the stem of 
 Jesse, and a branch out of his roots," upon whom 
 
 '■ John viii. 56. 
 
 ^ Gen. xlix. 10. Whether in this prophecy we retain flie 
 punctuation iibiJZ? and translate it, Prince of peace, (Heng- 
 stenberg, Christologie i. p. 68 ; Gesenius s. v. prefers the 
 abstract, "peace;") or, with the ancient interpreters, write 
 the word l^t^, that is, " until He come, to whom the sceptre 
 belongs;" is immaterial: in either case the reference to 
 Christ is beyond doubt. 
 
 » 2 Sam. vii. 13—16. 
 
LECTURE V, 177 
 
 "the Spirit of the Lord should rest";" that the 
 Lord would " raise unto David a righteous Branchy 
 and a King" who should "reign and prosper;" in 
 whose days Judah should " be saved, and Israel 
 dwell safely," and whose name should " be called. 
 The Lord our Righteousness*." 
 
 Thus was the human nature, the birthplace, 
 and the lineage, of the promised Saviour fixed 
 by the Divine Word ; and another series of pre- 
 dictions instructed the ancient believer to look 
 for, not merely the Seed of the Woman, and the 
 Son of David, but Jehovah manifest in the flesh, 
 David's God and Lord. In the person of David, 
 and the other sacred lyrists of Israel, prophecy 
 assumed a particular form, under which it made 
 large accessions to the faith of previous ages. It 
 consisted, partly in enlargements upon former, 
 more general, predictions, and partly in typical 
 applications of the circumstances of the writers 
 to the higher purpose of dehneating the principal 
 facts of the Messiah's history. It is in the former 
 class of prophetic Psalms that we find the first 
 intimations of the exalted nature of the promised 
 Saviour. Of the great Theocratical King who 
 should occupy the throne of David, the divine 
 testimony was, " Thou art my Son, this day have 
 I begotten Thee" ;" " Thy throne, O God, is for 
 ever and ever';" " The Lord said unto my Lord, 
 
 •= Isaiah xi. 1. ^ Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. 
 
 ' Psalm ii. 7. f Psalm xlv. 6. 
 
178 LECTURE V. 
 
 Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes 
 thy footstool 8 :" while the glory of His kingdom 
 is described in terms far too elevated to be applied 
 to David's or Solomon's empire at its highest 
 pitch of splendour\ The later prophets take up 
 the theme, and present us with combined views of 
 the twofold nature of the Messiah. " A virgin " 
 was to " conceive and bear a Son, and call His 
 name Immanuel';" "unto us a Child" was to be 
 " born, unto us a Son given," who should bear 
 the appellation, that is, should be, " the mighty 
 God'' ;" from Bethlehem was to proceed " the 
 Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been of 
 old, from everlasting' :" and one of the last of 
 these predictive notices announces in express 
 terms, that " the Lord," whom the pious Israelites 
 sought, should " suddenly come to His temple, 
 even the Messenger of the covenant"," in whom 
 they delighted. 
 
 The offices and atoning work of the Saviour 
 are in like manner gradually unfolded to the view. 
 Moses directed the attention of the people from 
 himself to that greater Prophet, whom God should 
 raise up to declare His will" ; while the Psalms 
 establish His eternal Priesthood", and the great 
 facts which preceded His assumption of the sacer- 
 
 e Ps. ex. 1. ^ See Psalms ii. xlv. Ixxii. J Is. vii. 14. 
 
 '' Is. ix. 6. 1 Mic. V. 2. ■" Mai. iii. 1. 
 
 ° Deut. xviii. 15 — 18. o Ps. ex. 
 
LECTURE V. 179 
 
 dotal office. His resurrection from the dead, and 
 His ascension to heaven ■"- The idea of suffering 
 had been from the first connected with the vic- 
 tory over the serpent's seed, but only in the most 
 general manner ; the Psalms take up this subject, 
 and the afflicting circumstances in which David, 
 on several occasions, found himself are, under 
 the Divine inspiration, so expressed as, in the 
 most striking manner, to correspond with the 
 historical incidents of the Saviour's cross and 
 passion. But in these delineations, it is not 
 stated either that Christ's sufferings should be 
 consummated in death, or that they should possess 
 an expiatory power. To supply the omission was 
 the province of later prophecy. " He hath borne 
 our griefand carried our sorrows ; — Hewaswounded 
 for our transgressions, He was bruised for our ini- 
 quities ; He hath poured out His soul unto death, 
 and He bare the sin of many'' ;" to these revelations 
 of the great Evangelical Prophet respecting the 
 atoning sacrifice of Christ little in the way of 
 clearness could be added, even by the simple his- 
 torical statement of Daniel, that after the lapse of 
 a fixed time, " Messiah" should " be cut off, but 
 not for Himself, to finish transgression, and to 
 make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation 
 for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righte- 
 ousness '." 
 
 P Ps. xvi. 8 — 10. Ixviii. 18: compare Acts ii. 25 — 31. 
 and Ephes. iv. 8. i Is. liii. 3— la. ' Dan. ix. 24—26. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LECTURE V. 
 
 Thus were communicated, one by one and 
 gradually, all the leading doctrines which centre 
 in the Saviour's person and work ; each successive 
 age of prophecy adding something to the com- 
 pleteness of the description, and presenting a more 
 definite object to the faith of the ancient Church : 
 until at length by the advent of "the Sun of righte- 
 ousness °" Himself every cloud was dissipated, and 
 the full effulgence of a finished redemption streamed 
 over a fallen world. 
 
 2. With the increasing light vouchsafed from 
 age to age on the method of redemption, the pro- 
 mulgation of the doctrines of eternal life and of 
 the resurrection of the body kept pace : just in 
 proportion as the one subject became more dis- 
 tinctly defined, so does the other ; and not earlier. 
 Let us endeavour to trace, briefly, the course of 
 revelation on this great topic. There is no reason 
 to believe that man, though destined to live for 
 ever, was created incapable of death : on the con- 
 trary, his immortality depended upon a condition, 
 that of partaking of the tree of life in Eden. 
 Deprived of this sacrament, as it has been called, 
 of life, he became subject to death ; and from that 
 time till the Saviour Himself, by His doctrine and 
 His resurrection from the dead, illuminated the 
 regions of the unseen world, a shade, more or less 
 gloomy, rested upon man's prospects after this 
 life. 
 
 5 Mai. iv. 2, 
 
LECTURE V. 181 
 
 "That the old fathers did" not "look only for 
 transitory promises V we learn from inspired 
 testimony"; and that "both in the Old and New 
 Testament everlasting life," so far as it is offered 
 at all in the former, " is offered by Christ V' is 
 most true : but the revelations on which the " old 
 fathers" grounded their expectations of future 
 bliss have not been recorded, and to suppose that 
 an esoteric doctrine on this point was handed down 
 by tradition involves many difficulties. These 
 divine communications, when given, were pro- 
 bably, as in the case of Abraham and Enoch, 
 the rewards of eminent piety, and confined to the 
 individuals thus distinguished. No public de- 
 claration on the part of Him who alone could 
 clear up the mystery appears as part of the pri- 
 mitive revelation. Nor, as has been previously 
 observed, does the law of Moses make mention of 
 any save temporal sanctions. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, gloomy or cheerful views of the state 
 of the soul after death (for the future existence 
 of the soul was never doubted) prevailed, accord- 
 ing to the strength of the behever's faith ; but on 
 the whole, the former were most common. While 
 occasionally, as in Psalm xvi., the inspired writer, 
 soaring on the wings of hope, looks forward to 
 his eventual release from the bands of death, the 
 common language in the prospect of dissolution 
 is that of despondency, and gloomy pictures are 
 ' Arl VII. - Heb. xi. 13— 3 6. - Art. VII. 
 
182 LECTURE V. 
 
 drawn of the other world. The place of departed 
 spirits is represented as a subterranean cavity or 
 pit^; a place of darkness and silence"; "a land of 
 forgetfulness," where there is no remembrance of 
 God, and no expectations from Him'. It is in 
 this life that the pious Jew of that age enjoys 
 fellowship with God ; in the temple services, and 
 in the earthly blessings of the covenant : beyond 
 it lies an impenetrable mist which no mortal eye 
 can pierce. Such, I conceive, is for the most part 
 the meaning of expressions frequently occurring 
 in the Psalms, and from which it has been argued 
 that the writers must have enjoyed a clear prospect 
 of eternal life''; I allude to the passages in which, 
 under circumstances of separation from the temple 
 or of affliction, a hope is expressed of future recom- 
 pense and satisfaction from the presence of God. 
 " As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; 
 I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy like- 
 ness ;" " With Thee is the fountain of life, and 
 in thy light shall we see light ;" " Thou shalt 
 guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive 
 me to glory ;" " When shall I come and appear 
 before God°?": it is on texts like these that the 
 
 y bisp; not, probably, from b«a7, to ask, but from ^^ 
 i. q. b^E? to be hollow. See Gesenius, s. v. 
 ' Job X. 3]. Ps. Ixxxviii. 13. 
 " See Ps. vi. 5. and xxx. 9. 
 •> Graves, on Pentateuch, Part iii. Lect. iv. 
 ■^ Ps. xvii. 15. xxxvi. 9. xlii. 3. 
 
LECTURE V. 183 
 
 opinion alluded to has sought for a foundation. 
 But it may be questioned whether they really 
 express more than either a desire of restoration to 
 the covenanted presence of God in the temple, or 
 a firm confidence that God would in this life 
 appear for the deliverance of His servants from 
 temporal calamity. Let it be remembered, that 
 the Jewish dispensation was one of sight not of 
 faith, one of present not of future covenanted 
 blessings : to a pious Israelite therefore in the age 
 of David, before the temporal dispensation had 
 begun to be shaken, or any oracle of prophecy 
 delivered bearing distinctly on a future state, fel- 
 lowship with God, and the favour of God, must 
 have been, for the most part, associated with local 
 nearness to the place where Jehovah dwelt, and 
 with the experience of present divine benefits. 
 And let it be remembered, that the essential 
 elements of religion, — faith, hope, and love, — might 
 find room for exercise as well on the earthly 
 objects presented to the Jew as on the heavenly 
 ones revealed to the Christian ; for the truth of 
 religion consists, not so much in the motives by 
 which it is sustained, as in the truth of its object 
 and of its sentiments ; the motives, in the shape 
 of reward or punishment, may be very scanty and 
 limited, while the duty and the sentiments remain 
 the same. It may be a question then whether a 
 greater measure of spiritual light in the point 
 under consideration, has not been ascribed to the 
 
184 LECTURE V. 
 
 Psalmists of Israel than they actually enjoyed; 
 though most true it is that their language, under 
 the guidance of inspiration, is so framed as to 
 express the highest aspirations of Christians ; more, 
 in fact, than the writers themselves intended ; 
 and so we can now make use of their compositions 
 in the exercises of public and private worship. If 
 from the lyrical effusions of Hebrew sacred lite- 
 rature we turn to writers who formally discuss 
 the subject, or to cases in which death was 
 actually in prospect, we find the colours of the 
 picture assuming their usual sombre tint. The 
 language of the Book of Ecclesiastes is, if not 
 hopeless, solemn and doubtful : " All go unto one 
 place ; all are of dust, and turn to dust again. 
 Who knoweth the spirit of a man that goeth 
 upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth 
 downward to the earth ?" " The living know that 
 they shall die : but the dead know not any thing, 
 neither have they any more a reward ;" " There 
 is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom 
 in the grave whither thou goest ;" " The dust 
 shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit 
 shall return unto God who gave it*." More than 
 two hundred years later, even after Hosea had 
 delivered the great prophecy to which St. Paul, 
 speaking of the general resurrection, seems to 
 allude", Hezekiah, in the immediate prospect of 
 death, gives utterance to similar sentiments: "The 
 '^ Eceles. iii. 21 ; ix. 5, 10; xii. 7. = 1 Cor. xv. 65. 
 
LECTURE V. 185 
 
 grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate 
 Thee : they that go down to the pit cannot hope 
 for thy truth. The hving, the hving, he shall 
 praise Thee, as I do this dayV Such, according 
 to the extant evidence, appears to be the state in 
 which this capital article of our faith was for a 
 long period left. 
 
 Not but that hints were given from which a 
 reflective mind might have surmised a state of 
 happiness hereafter in the presence of God. Of 
 such a kind were the translations of Enoch^ and 
 Elijah''; and perhaps the declaration from which 
 our Lord refuted the Sadducees, " I am the God 
 of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of 
 Jacob ;" though it is by no means certain that 
 before this inspired comment was given, the truth 
 which the passage involved could have been dis- 
 covered'. If the well-known text in the book of 
 Job is rightly interpreted of a proper resurrection 
 from the dead, it must have given encouragement 
 to others to entertain a like confidence of hope ; 
 though it must be allowed that there is a difference 
 between the expressions of a strong faith, and a 
 positive announcement on the part of God. The 
 latter was still wanting. Nor was the want fully 
 supphed until Christ Himself "brought life and 
 immortality to light," by declaring, with the au- 
 
 ' Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19. e Gen. v. 24. >> 2 Kings ii. 
 ' See Mr. Davison's remarks on this passage, Discourses 
 on Prophecy, p. 126. 
 
186 LECTURE V. 
 
 thority of a teacher sent from God, that the hour 
 was "coming in the which they that are in the 
 grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth ; 
 they that have done good to the resurrection of 
 life ; and they that have done evil to the resur- 
 rection of damnation^'." 
 
 It must not be supposed that the condition of 
 the Jews was worse in this respect than that of 
 their heathen neighbours, or that the absence of 
 express allusions to a future state in the Mosaic 
 revelation places it in an unfavourable light, as 
 compared with uninspired systems of religion. 
 The same natural inducements to belief which 
 gave rise to the pagan notions of Elysium and 
 Tartarus the Jew possessed, and they were not 
 contradicted, but rather aided, by the tenor of his 
 law ; while in the solemn silence which the in- 
 spired records preserved on the condition of the 
 soul after death, the fancies of imagination, or 
 that frivolity of temper which could sport with 
 such a subject, found no, nutriment. Of what real 
 value was the pagan faith, if it can be called so, 
 as a motive to virtue ? What seriousness of mind 
 did it inspire, either among people or philosophers ? 
 The range of early Jewish speculation on a future 
 state may have been limited, but at least it was 
 free from the debasing elements which mingle so 
 largely in the ti'aditions of other nations of anti- 
 quity : to the heathen death was a natural event, 
 ' John V. 28, 39. 
 
LECTURE V. 187 
 
 to the Hebrew it was the penalty of sin ; and the 
 unknown existence to which it led became in- 
 vested in his eyes with a painful and solemn 
 interest, which must .have produced a far greater 
 practical effect than the fantastic details of pagan 
 fable. 
 
 With the commencement of the principal age 
 of prophecy the subject begins to open, and 
 distinct notices appear, not merely of the separate 
 existence of the soul after death, but of the much 
 more distinctive doctrine, the resurrection of the 
 body. In several passages of Isaiah'', in the re- 
 markable vision of EzekieP, and, above all, in the 
 unequivocal announcement in the book of Daniel, 
 " that many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
 earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt"," the 
 pious Israelite could not fail to see the doctrine 
 of the resurrection implied, if not distinctly ex- 
 pressed ; and from these notices, and not, as War- 
 burton supposes, from pagan sources, the general 
 belief of the nation, as we find it in our Lord's 
 time, no doubt took its rise. Some degree of 
 obscurity, however, still hung over the subject ; 
 especially as regards the nature of the resurrection- 
 body. That the body will rise again had become 
 a settled point; but it was still "a mystery," a 
 thing formerly hidden but now revealed, that 
 
 ' See especially chap. xxv. 8 ; xxvi. 19. 
 
 ' Ezek. xxxvii. 1 — 12. " Dan. xii. 2. 
 
188 LECTURE V. 
 
 though "we shall not all sleep, we shall all be 
 changed;" that "this corruptible" shall "put on 
 incorruption, and this mortal immortality" ;" a 
 change the pledge of which was exhibited, and 
 not before, in Christ's own glorious transformation, 
 and respecting which we have the assurance, that 
 " when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for 
 we shall see Him as He is°." 
 
 On the whole, on an impartial survey of the 
 facts of the case, we shall probably be led to take 
 a middle course between the exaggerated views 
 that have been put forward on either side of this 
 question ; between the strange assertion of War- 
 burton, that " the doctrine of a future state never 
 once appears to have had any share in this people's 
 thoughts V' and the theology which in this as in 
 other points would place the Jew on an equality 
 with the Christian. How the eminent writer just 
 mentioned could have hazarded such a statement 
 it is difficult to say ; so far from its being correct, 
 the subject of a future state seems, if we may judge 
 from those books of Scripture which especially 
 pourtray the feelings of the writers, to have deeply 
 exercised reflective minds under the ancient eco- 
 nomy. Whatever the results may have been at 
 which they arrived, it cannot be said that the 
 subject was not frequently in their thoughts. On 
 the other hand, it must be confessed that their 
 state of mind, in the contemplation of the last 
 " 1 Cor. XV. 53, 53. ° 1 John iii. 2. p Div. Leg. b. v. §. 5. 
 
LECTURE V. 189 
 
 enemy, was far removed from that which the 
 Christian enjoys. " They were all their life-time, 
 through fear of death, subject to bondage \" Ar- 
 rived at the boundary of human existence, they 
 looked forward into the abyss of a vast eternity, 
 not indeed wholly unilluminated, for here and 
 there a promise, or a prophecy, like stars sus- 
 pended in the dark firmament, shed a cheering 
 ray ; but the radiance of all the nocturnal lights 
 of heaven together cannot compensate for the 
 absence of the sun, and the ancient believer ven- 
 tured into the comparative obscurity upheld rather 
 by an implicit faith in the Divine goodness and 
 mercy, than by any specific prospects of what 
 awaited him in those unknown regions. 
 
 3. A very few words must suffice on the third 
 head under which the Christian prophecy arranges 
 itself, the prophetical notices of the future kingdom 
 of the Messiah. 
 
 In describing the approaching Gospel dispens- 
 ation, the prophets, as might be expected, enlarge 
 upon the promised extension of the blessings of 
 true religion to the Gentiles : the comprehensive- 
 ness of the new covenant, as contrasted with the 
 restricted and local character of the existing one, 
 is spoken of as one of its main characteristics. 
 But this expansion is to place on the basis of 
 existing arrangements. " Thou shalt break forth," 
 is the promise to Zion, " on the right hand and on 
 1 Heb. ii. 15. 
 
190 LECTURE V. 
 
 the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles';" 
 " in every place incense shall be offered unto my 
 name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be 
 great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts'." 
 What meaning are we to attach to these predic- 
 tions ? The Jews, as we know, interpreted them 
 literally and carnally ; Messiah was to be a tem- 
 poral prince, who should restore the kingdom to 
 Israel', and compel the nations to acknowledge 
 His universal sway : a large section of the Christian 
 body likewise interprets them literally, and ac- 
 cordingly reproduces in the Christian Church a 
 visible counterpart of the Jewish appointments of 
 priesthood and sacrifice. Of the latter error I shall 
 have occasion to speak hereafter ; but with respect 
 to the former, it is strange that such misconcep- 
 tions respecting the nature of the Gospel kingdom 
 should have prevailed, when prophecy had clearly 
 marked out in what sense the Theocracy was to 
 be perpetuated under the reign of Christ. For it 
 is no longer the nation in its corporate capacity 
 to which the prospect is held out of a future 
 enlargement by the coming in of the Gentiles; 
 the Zion which is the subject of these prophecies 
 is described as " a woman forsaken and grieved 
 in spirit," as " afflicted, tossed with tempest, and 
 not comforted",'' as needing consolation at the 
 hand of the Lord, and not chastisement. It was 
 
 ' Is. liv. 3. » Mai. i. 11. ' Acts i. 6. 
 
 ° Is. liv. 1 — 6 ; lii, 2. 
 
LECTURE V. 191 
 
 the " holy seedV' therefore, the posterity of Abra- 
 ham not merely after the flesh but after the spnit, 
 that was to " break forth on the right hand and on 
 the left," and ultimately to form, in conjunction 
 with the olive branches graffed in from the Gentile 
 world, one spiritual body under Christ its Head, 
 one kingdom the essence of which should consist, 
 not in worldly splendour or external characteristics, 
 but " in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost V In short, that part of the covenant with 
 Abraham which related to temporal promises 
 having been fulfilled, and now approaching its ter- 
 mination, the other part of it, which spoke of spiri- 
 tual blessings, began to come into view, and to 
 merge into the future Gospel covenant, from which, 
 by the intervention of the Law", it was temporarily 
 separated, but vrith which it was, in reahty, one. 
 And the features of this latter covenant, new in 
 one sense but old in another as being, in fact, prior 
 to that of Sinai% are such as these : — It was to 
 usher in an era of light and truth as distinguished 
 from the preceding one of type and symbol* ; it 
 was to be accompanied with an extraordinary 
 outpouring of the Spirit, whose gifts, instead of 
 being confined, as heretofore, to a few, were to be 
 bestowed in rich abundance, and promiscuously"^; 
 
 ' Is. vi. 13. 7 Kom. xiv. 17. 
 
 ' No/ioiSe 7rapeia-!j\eev, 1van\eovd<rj] t6 napama>iia. Eom.v.20. 
 
 ' Gal. iii. 17. b Is. xl. 5_9. ix. i_3. 
 
 = Joel ii. 28. Is. xxxii. 15. 
 
192 LECTURE V. 
 
 an effectual atonement for sin, and a cleansing of 
 the heart, of which the legal sacrifices and lus- 
 trations were but the shadows, were to be amongst 
 its provisions*. My hearers will for themselves 
 fill up from Scripture the outline thus given : 
 I content myself with adducing one passage in 
 which all the characteristics of the Gospel dis- 
 pensation seem summed up. " Behold the days 
 come," is the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, 
 " that I will make a new covenant with the house 
 of Israel, and with the house of Judah : not ac- 
 cording to the covenant that I made with their 
 fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring 
 them out of the land of Egypt ; which my cove- 
 nant they brake, though I was an husband to 
 them, saith the Lord : but this shall be the cove- 
 nant that I will make with the house of Israel; 
 After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my 
 law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
 hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be 
 my people. And they shall teach no more every 
 man his neighbour, and every man his brother, 
 saying. Know the Lord ; for they shall all know 
 me, from the least of them unto the greatest, saith 
 the Lord : for I will forgive their iniquity, and I 
 will remember their sin no more^" 
 
 And thus I conclude this inadequate sketch of 
 the nature of the prophetic function, and of the 
 principal contents of the volume of prophecy. 
 
 •' Ezek. xxxvi. 35—37. xi. 19. = Jer. xxxi. 31—34, 
 
LECTURE V. 193 
 
 If I have succeeded in describing these contents 
 aright, it will be seen that a perfect harmony 
 exists between the lessons which the law taught 
 by symbol, and those which prophecy more 
 directly enunciated ; that each illustrates the other, 
 and both combine to direct us to Him who was at 
 once their Author and their Object. The survey 
 of some of the principal of the Mosaic institutions 
 which has now been completed,, suggests many 
 practical reflections. Perhaps the most obvious, 
 but not the least important, is, the responsibility 
 which the possession of spiritual privileges brings 
 with it, and the danger of unfruitfulness under the 
 means of grace. "What could have been done 
 more to my vineyard," was the just complaint of 
 the Owner, "that I have not done in it?" but 
 when " He looked that it should bring forth grapes, 
 it brought forth wild grapes V The nation, as 
 such, entirely fell short of the blessing proposed 
 to it; but the failure was owing to no lack of 
 means and appliances on God's part, but to an 
 obliquity of temper on man's, which neither mercies 
 nor chastisements could rectify. "And now, go 
 to ; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard ; 
 I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be 
 eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and 
 it shall be trodden down ; and I will lay it waste ; 
 It shall not be pruned nor digged : but there shall 
 come up briars and thorns : I will also command 
 ' Isaiah iv. 1 — 4. 
 
194 LECTURE V. 
 
 the clouds that they rain no rain upon it^." The 
 past and present history of the Jewish people, in 
 their unexampled sufferings, their dispersion, and 
 their humiliation, is the best comment upon this 
 threatened judgment ; monuments of the severity, 
 as they once were of the goodness, of God, they 
 illustrate the principle, that " unto him that hath 
 shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be 
 taken away even that which he hathV Yet by 
 a wonderful Providence they have been preserved, 
 we trust for a brighter destiny yet to come. The 
 admonitory lesson will be lost upon us who occupy 
 their place, as the people of God, if it lead us not, 
 individually and nationally, to prize more highly, 
 and cultivate more faithfully, our spiritual ad- 
 vantages, and the talents committed to our charge; 
 talents bestowed not to be buried in a napkin, 
 or to be misapplied to the purposes of selfish 
 indulgence, but to be employed in the service of 
 the gracious Giver ; talents not our own, but lent 
 to us as stewards, and for the due cultivation of 
 which we must give account at the day of Christ. 
 
 s Isaiah v. 5. ^ Matt. xxv. 29. 
 
LECTURE VJ. 
 
 Rom. ii. 28, 29. 
 
 He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is 
 that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he 
 is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is 
 that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter ; 
 whose praise is not of men, but of God. 
 
 In the preceding discourses the Mosaic economy 
 has been considered under its external aspect, as 
 a system intended to operate on the Jew from 
 without inwards, and expressive of the ideas proper 
 to true religion ; in this point of view the Theo- 
 cracy in general as a polity, and its two principal 
 institutions, the ceremonial law and prophecy, 
 have successively engaged our attention. I pro- 
 ceed, according to the arrangement indicated in 
 my first discourse, to make some remarks on the 
 Jewish religion in its interior features, or, to 
 inquire into the effect actually produced on the 
 pious part of the nation by the various appliances 
 of discipUne and instruction which it was its 
 privilege to enjoy. 
 
 o2 
 
196 LECTURE VI. 
 
 That a preparatory process in this sense, as 
 well as in a more outward and historical one, 
 was needed to facilitate the merging of Judaism 
 into Christianity is obvious : there needed to be 
 present, when the Saviour should appear, not 
 merely written oracles of prophecy, and a typical 
 system, to which He might appeal as testifying 
 of Himself, but a people waiting for the consolation 
 of Israel, hearts prepared to welcome His arrival : 
 it was not enough that a Theocratical institute 
 should be erected to shadow forth Christian veri- 
 ties, but that elements of Christian sentiment, so 
 far Christian as to enable us to recognise in the 
 pious Israelite one with whom we can hold com- 
 munion, should be at hand to coalesce with the 
 distinctive work of the Spirit under the Christian 
 economy. That an ulterior effect of this kind 
 was contemplated is confessed. He was " not 
 a Jew," was not what his privileges and institutions 
 were intended to lead to, who was one outwardly 
 merely ; who remained, without progression, in 
 the state in which the Theocracy took him up; 
 instead of yielding himself to its influences so as 
 eventually to become a Jew inwardly, a spiritual 
 as well as earthly descendant of Abraham. Such 
 a result is implied in the very notion of a school 
 of training, under which the Mosaic economy is 
 represented to us in the New Testament ; for no 
 system of education is intended to terminate in 
 itself, it looks forward to a future enlarged sphere 
 
LECTUJRE VI. 197 
 
 of action, in which the habits and capacities ac- 
 quired in the more elementary otie may find their 
 application. 
 
 We know that, in point of fact, the Theocracy, 
 in every age, contained within its bosom those 
 who loved and feared God. The gracious purposes 
 of Divine Providence in framing this system, though 
 grievously thwarted by man's perverseness, were 
 not wholly frustrated; if the nation in general 
 proved unfaithful and forfeited the blessings of 
 the covenant, the holy seed never entirely failed ; 
 and at one of the darkest periods of religion, when 
 the prophet gave utterance to the too hasty con- 
 clusion, that he only remained of the servants of 
 God, he was surprised, and reproved, by the 
 announcement, that there were 7000 left in Israel 
 who had not bowed the knee unto Baal. Through- 
 out the course of Jewish history the twofold line 
 of Abraham's posterity, — the mere outward cir- 
 cumcision, and the circumcision of the heart, — 
 is traceable ; existing side by side under the same 
 visible polity, but distinct in character ; just as 
 now the members of the true Church are found 
 commingled in each local Church with those who 
 are Christians but in name. " They are not all 
 Israel," St. Paul tells us, " which are of Israel ; 
 neither because they are the seed of Abraham, 
 are they all children ; but in Isaac shall thy seed 
 be called. That is, they which are the children 
 of the flesh, these are not the children of God, 
 
198 LECTURE VI. 
 
 but the children of the promise are counted for 
 the seed^" It is the rehgion of this part of the 
 nation, the true Israel, that I purpose to pourtray, 
 while I endeavour to describe the process by 
 which the Christianity of the Old Testament, in 
 its inner aspect, was gradually drawn forth and 
 matured, " until at length it only needed the 
 joyful evp-qKafxev of a Philip to bring the Israelite 
 without guile to Christ*." 
 
 But when we speak of religion as not merely 
 an external revelation, but a sentiment of the 
 heart, we naturally revert in our thoughts to that 
 divine Agent from whom all holy desires and all 
 good works proceed ; and thus I am led, from its 
 connexion with the subject of the present dis- 
 course, to introduce here some observations on 
 one of the most obscure, but at the same time 
 interesting, questions connected with the discus- 
 sion in which we are engaged, viz. how far spiritual 
 influences were vouchsafed under the Law, and 
 what the difference is, if there be any, between 
 them and the gift of the Spirit which is peculiar 
 to the Gospel. 
 
 I have had occasion, more than once, to observe, 
 that the Law contained no promise of the Holy 
 Spirit as part of its covenant blessings ; but it 
 cannot, nevertheless, be a matter of doubt, that 
 under the Law spiritual influences were vouch- 
 
 = Rom. ix. 6 — 8. 
 
 ^ Twesten Dogmatik, i. p. 304. See John i. 42 — 46. 
 
LECTURE VI. 199 
 
 safed. We may argue this from the facts of the 
 case, and from the statements of Scripture. From 
 the facts of the case ; I mean, from the ascertained 
 existence of religion, as distinguished from mere 
 morality, under this dispensation. As soon as this 
 fact is estabhshed, we may at once advance to the 
 conclusion that supernatural aids were present. 
 For it is the doctrine of Scripture, and of our 
 Church, that " the condition of man after the fall 
 of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare 
 himself, by his own natural strength and good 
 works, to faith and calling upon God";" if therefore 
 these exercises of piety had, under the old cove- 
 nant, a place, they must have proceeded from a 
 supernatural source. Whether we suppose that a 
 certain amount of spiritual assistance was vouch- 
 safed to the nation as such, (as we now speak of 
 the ordinary influences of the Spirit bestowed 
 upon the Church collectively,) which it was the 
 piety of some to cherish, and the sin of others to 
 stifle ; or that grace was communicated, as before 
 the Law, here and there to individuals ; is imma- 
 terial: enough that in every case in which spi- 
 ritual, as distinguished from natural, sentiments 
 prevailed, it is the Spirit of God to whom we must 
 ultimately refer the result. "The natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God*;" 
 a solemn truth which, in these times and under 
 present circumstances, it especially becomes us to 
 ' Art. X. ' d 1 Cor. ii. u. 
 
200 LECTURE VI. 
 
 lay to heart. No improvement of the race in 
 knowledge, in civilization, in moral sentiment, can 
 &ver bridge over the gulph which separates the 
 natural from the spiritual, the first Adam and his 
 posterity from the second Adam and the new 
 creation in Him : there is a fundamental difference 
 between morality, however exalted, and religion; 
 between the world, however amehorated by Chris- 
 tian influences, and the Church. Before fallen 
 man can rise into this higher sphere of life, he 
 needs the communication of a spiritual principle 
 from above, which, specific in its quality, leads to 
 specific results. 
 
 But Scripture also teaches us, that the ancient 
 dispensation was not without its appropriate spi- 
 ritual influences. I speak not of the recorded 
 communications of God to the Patriarchs, nor of 
 the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Prophets, 
 for these were exceptional and intermitted illapses; 
 but of a permanent, and ordinary, operation of 
 Divine grace. From the Pentateuch itself we 
 should hardly, I think, have gathered that this 
 was the privilege of Israel ; butiJ later Scriptures 
 mention it as having been so from the first. Thus 
 Isaiah speaks of the backsliding people as having 
 "vexed" the "Holy Spirit';" Nehemiah, of God's 
 having given " His good Spirit to instruct them':" 
 Stephen, in his address, reproaches the unbelieving 
 Jews with their habit of resisting the Holy Ghost ; 
 " ]s. Ixiii. 10. f Neh. ix. 30. 
 
LECTURE VI. 201 
 
 "as your fathers did," he says, "so do ye« :" to 
 which passages we may, perhaps, add the state- 
 ment of St. Paul in his typical apphcation of the 
 water from the rock at Horeb, "they drank of 
 that spiritual rock that followed them, and that 
 rock was Christ^" It has been argued too, and 
 perhaps not without reason, that the command to 
 love and fear God implies the grant of grace suffi- 
 cient to render obedience possible, since the divine 
 Lawgiver is not a hard Master, reaping where He 
 has not sown, and gathering where He has not 
 strawed ; but it would hardly be safe to lay much 
 stress on this consideration, for it might have been 
 part of the painful but salutary disciphne under 
 which the Jews were placed, to be subject to the 
 demands of the Law without possessing, or know- 
 ing that they possessed, a title to corresponding 
 spiritual power. 
 
 But while we have every reason to believe that 
 God never left His people destitute of the assist- 
 ance of His Spirit, it seems equally clear that in 
 this point Scripture recognises a marked distinction 
 as existing between the two dispensations. The 
 prophets announce that the last, or Gospel times, 
 should be distinguished by an outpouring of the 
 Spirit such as had never been before vouchsafed, 
 remarkable both for its energy and its universality': 
 our Lord promises His disciples that, after His 
 ascension, the Comforter should be sent to abide 
 
 s Acts vii. 51. hi Cor. x. 4. ^ Joel ii. 28—33. 
 
202 LECTURE VI. 
 
 with the Church for ever, which imphes that, in 
 the sense intended. He had not as yet come ; and 
 St. John, in recording an allusion of Christ to the 
 same subject, expressly tells us, "that the Holy 
 Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was 
 not yet glorified''." The striking circumstances 
 under which the fulfilment of the promise took 
 place, the rushing mighty wind and the cloven 
 tongues of fire ; and the miraculous gifts which 
 accompanied the descent of the Holy Ghost, and 
 which were evidently intended to impress upon 
 the early Christians the importance of the event ; 
 corroborate these statements, inaugurating as they 
 plainly did a change in the divine administration, 
 a new era in the economy of grace. Of the differ- 
 ence between the gift of the Spirit under the Law 
 and under the Gospel thus generally stated, various 
 explanations have been oflFered, more or less 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Thus by some it has been maintained, that the 
 promise of Christ is satisfied, and has been fulfilled, 
 by the gift of the Christian Scriptures ; those 
 Scriptures in which, under the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit, the nature and sanctions of the new 
 covenant are revealed for the benefit of the Church 
 in all ages. A theory which, however supported 
 by some learned and some pious names', seems so 
 inadequate to sustain the weight of the Scripture 
 
 ^ John vii. 39. 
 
 1 See Bishop Heher's Bampton Lectures. 
 
LECTURE VI. 203 
 
 statements alluded to, that it may be dismissed 
 without any lengthened notice. We cannot indeed 
 estimate too highly the advantage we possess over 
 the Jew in the more perfect revelation of God's 
 counsels and will vouchsafed to us ; nor can we 
 fail to recognise in the word of God, first preached 
 and then recorded by the Apostles, — in its power 
 to vanquish opposing influences, in its triumphant 
 progress throughout the world, in the effects it 
 produced on the heart and life, — the sword of the 
 Spirit, the visible instrument of such an effusion of 
 spiritual power as had not hitherto descended upon 
 the Church. But we are inquiring not into the 
 effects of the divine gift, but into the nature of 
 the gift itself; contemplating not the breadth and 
 fulness of the streams, but the source whence they 
 took their rise. It is not a preached or a written 
 word, but a Person, that was promised to take 
 the Saviour's place upon earth ; the rivers of living 
 water to which our Lord compared the future 
 influences of the Spirit were to be, not outside or 
 around the believer, but in him ; and, moreover, 
 such an interpretation would leave no essential 
 difference between the two dispensations, for the 
 Old as well as the New Testament Scriptures were 
 written by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Nor does their view seem nearer the truth who 
 conceive that the gift of the Spirit peculiar to the 
 Gospel consisted in the miraculous powers be- 
 stowed upon the first converts, such as those of 
 
204 LECTURE VI. 
 
 healing, of tongues, or of prophecy. For, in the 
 first place, these sensible operations of the Spirit 
 were not, as we know from the event, to con- 
 tinue in the Church, whereas our Lord plainly 
 speaks of an abiding blessing ; and in the next, 
 they cannot be called peculiar to the new dis- 
 pensation, inasmuch as similar ones, however in 
 comparison scantily or occasionally dispensed, 
 existed under the old. 
 
 Nor again does it seem a satisfactory solution 
 of the difficulty to suppose, that a greater measure 
 of sanctification is now attainable than was the 
 case under the Law, and that thus St. John's 
 statement may be explained. The fact itself is 
 not so clearly made out. The sanctification of 
 a fallen creature consists so much in conviction 
 of sin, and the sentiments connected therewith, — 
 humility, faith, resignation, — that we cannot safely 
 draw conclusions as to the measure of sanctity 
 from either remarkable excellencies or signal 
 blemishes in the outward life. Let me not be 
 misunderstood ; the test, " by their fruits ye shall 
 know them," is the only one on which we can 
 ultimately rely in discriminating between those 
 who are led by the Spirit and those who are not : 
 but what I mean is, that isolated acts either in the 
 one direction or the other afford no certain 
 evidence of the inward state in the sight of God. 
 We can no more gather from the lamentable fall 
 of David, for example, that he was inferior to the 
 
LECTURE VI. 205 
 
 Christian in general holiness of character, than we 
 can from the heroic deeds of a Barak, a Samson^ 
 or a Jephthah, which yet, in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, are ascribed to faith, that they were 
 eminent saints. It is very possible, however, that 
 this may be among the points of superiority which 
 distinguish the Gospel from the Law ; and certain 
 it is that in the New Testament, especially in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, we have a portraiture of 
 the Christian character which not only presents 
 a genera] standard of practice to which nothing 
 in the Jewish Scriptures can be compared, but is 
 marked by special features for the first time brought 
 out into view : and as the standard is higher, so 
 the measure of sanctifying grace may be greater. 
 But, even if this be the case, it will hardly account 
 for the strong expressions of Scripture on this 
 subject, which seem to intimate that the difference 
 between our condition and that of the Jews, in 
 the point under consideration, is more than one 
 merely of degree. " The Spirit was not yet given, 
 because that Jesus was not yet glorified." 
 
 These considerations have led some to suppose 
 that the distinction lies, not in the degree or nature 
 of the gift itself, but in the formality of the con- 
 veyance". Remarking that in the passage just 
 cited the word "given" does not exist in the 
 original, they interpret it of the revelation of the 
 Personality of the Holy Ghost, and His covenanted 
 ™ Whately, Essays on St. Paul, Essay IX. 
 
206 LECTURE VI. 
 
 presence in the Church; the Spirit was not yet 
 revealed as the permanent Ruler of the Church, 
 His influences had not yet been made the subject 
 of covenant or promise. And no doubt we have 
 here a marked diflFerence between the two dis- 
 pensations. I believe it will be found, that, how- 
 ever suggestive many statements of the Old Testa- 
 ment may be on the subject of spiritual influences, 
 the passages are very few in which there is express 
 mention of the Holy Spirit : and certainly His 
 aids, not to speak of His presence, formed no part 
 of the stipulated advantages of the Jewish cove- 
 nant. But in their rendering of the passage, our 
 translators were undoubtedly right, and the word 
 "given," or something equivalent, must be added 
 to complete the sense. For our Lord, in the 
 preceding verse, speaks, not of a revelation or of a 
 promise, but of an indwelling presence ; out of the 
 inner man of the believer "shall flow rivers of 
 living water ;" with which the corresponding pas- 
 sage in the fourth chapter may be compared, 
 " The water that I shall give him shall be in him 
 a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." 
 The theory in question therefore, correct as far 
 as it goes, leaves it still undetermined how far, or 
 in what respects, the state of the Christian, as 
 regards an actual communication of spiritual influ- 
 ence, diflFers from that of the Jew of old. 
 
 It is with some degree of hesitation that on so 
 difficult a point I venture to throw out the fol- 
 
LECTURE VI, 207 
 
 lowing observations. Perhaps then the special 
 connexion which Scripture establishes between 
 the gift of the Spirit peculiar to the Gospel dis- 
 pensation and the Incarnation and subsequent 
 Ascension of Christ may furnish a clue to the 
 solution of the difficulty : " Thou hast ascended on 
 high. Thou hast led captivity captive ; Thou hast 
 received gifts for men";" "The Spirit was not 
 given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." 
 Every blessing of the new covenant, however 
 prefigured under the Law, comes to us in effect 
 through Christ, in whom, and in whom alone, 
 promise, and prophecy, and type, receive their 
 accomplishment. Now just as there was no per- 
 fect atonement for sin, no actual recovery of the 
 forfeited gift of eternal life, until Christ died and 
 rose again ; so until He ascended to heaven in His 
 glorified body, it is conceivable that there may not 
 have existed the peculiar indwelling of the Holy 
 Spirit which makes Christians members of Christ ; 
 so really, however spiritually, members, that the 
 Apostle does not hesitate to say, " We are mem- 
 bers of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones °." 
 Let me dwell awhile on this point, which, if I 
 mistake not, deserves our attention, as likely to 
 throw some Ught on the subject. It was a new, 
 and important, step of progress in the work of 
 redemption, when the Holy Ghost made the human 
 nature of our Lord His habitation ; when, both 
 " Psalm Lxviii. 18. " Ephes. v. 30. 
 
S08 LECTURE VI. 
 
 by the miraculous conception and the subsequent 
 descent of the Spirit, the body of Jesus became, 
 in the highest sense of the words, a temple of the 
 Holy Ghost. Hitherto, it was a temple of human 
 structure, a building, in which Deity had manifested 
 His presence; and in this only by symbol, the 
 bright cloud which filled the tabernacle : if man 
 had been the subject of such a spiritual inhabit- 
 ation, it was only, as in the case of the prophets, 
 for special purposes, and therefore temporarily and 
 irregularly ^ ; while ordinarily the impulses of the 
 Spirit came from without, and operated upon the 
 soul sufficiently for the purposes of sanctification, 
 but without a permanent indwelling. But now, in 
 Christ, our nature became the chosen abode of Deity, 
 and, as it should seem, specifically of the third 
 Person of the Holy Trinity : " I saw the Spirit," 
 is the record of the Baptist, " descending from 
 heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him'." 
 But though the Saviour thus at the commence- 
 ment of His ministry received the formal inhabit- 
 ation of the Spirit, He was not to become a source 
 of life to us, until redemption had been actually 
 effected : the corn of wheat must fall into the 
 ground and die, before it could bring forth fruit : 
 hence the comparatively small effect of our Lord's 
 personal ministry on earth. The right to bestow 
 
 p So Bezaleel was " filled with the Spirit of God" to frame 
 the furniture of the tabernacle. Exod. xxxi. 3. 
 1 John i. 31. 
 
LECTURE VI. 209 
 
 spiritual blessings must be purchased, and that 
 right must be publicly acknowledged by the 
 Ascension and Session of Christ at the right hand 
 of God, before the plenary effusion of the Spirit, 
 characteristic of Gospel times,^ could take place : 
 " If I go not away, the Comforter will not come 
 unto you ; but if I depart, I will send Him unto 
 you'." But when this event had taken place, and 
 leading captivity captive the Victor, in our nature, 
 assumed the reins of universal dominion, and 
 entered upon the exercise of His mediatorial 
 functions, as Prophet, Priest, and King, then the 
 promise of the Father and of the Son was ful- 
 filled, and on the day of Pentecost, the birthday 
 of the Christian Church, the rushing mighty wind 
 was heard, and the cloven tongues of fire appeared, 
 and the assembled disciples were all filled with 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In what respects was their spiritual condition 
 affected by this descent of the Holy Ghost ? In 
 the first place, they became, as Christ had been 
 made, temples of the Holy Ghost ; an expression, 
 which, familiarly, as we know, applied to Christians, 
 is never, as far as I am aware, used of those who 
 Hved under the ancient economy. The human 
 nature of Christ, the second Adam, the Head of 
 the new spiritual creation, having received this 
 privilege, those who are united to Him by a living 
 faith receive it too ; their bodies become the 
 ' John xvi. 7. 
 
210 LECTURE VI. 
 
 temples of the Spirit'; God dwells in them as He 
 never did in man before, as a distinct Personality ; 
 they are not merely moved from M^ithout by spiritual 
 influences, as pious men of old were, but the Spirit 
 takes up His abode in them, working from within 
 outwards, a fountain of living water pouring forth 
 its refreshing streams around to heal and to fertilize. 
 And in the next place, the gift thus bestowed on 
 the day of Pentecost seems, in the New Testa- 
 ment, associated peculiarly with the eternal 
 Sonship of the Saviour. Here indeed we find our- 
 selves enveloped with the clouds which surround 
 the throne of God, and all we can do with safety, 
 in speaking of the Holy Trinity, is to adhere as 
 closely as may be to the usage of Scripture. And, 
 in the present instance, this usage appears to be, 
 that while in the Old Testament the phrase is, 
 the Spirit of God, or the Spirit of the Lord, in 
 the New we have the additional idea of the Spirit 
 of Christ, or the Holy Spirit viewed in immediate 
 connexion with, and proceeding from, the glorified 
 Saviour'. May we suppose, merely as an aid to 
 
 s "It ought to be kept in mind, that it is only to Christians 
 collectively, that is, to the Church, that this term (Temple) is 
 applied. Individual Christians are called ' living stones,' but 
 never ' temples.' " Whately, Sermon, " Christ the only Priest 
 under the Gospel." The writer must surely have forgotten 
 the passage, " Know ye not that your body is the temple of 
 the Holy Ghost?" (1 Cor. vi. 20.), where the context compels 
 us to understand, "Each of your bodies, &c." 
 
 ' St. Peter (I. i. 11.) speaks of " the Spirit of Christ" as 
 having been in the prophets ; but it is to be remarked, that 
 
LECTURE Vr. 21.1 
 
 the conception, and not with any view of founding 
 a dogmatical theory on the supposition, that the 
 influences of the Divine Spirit, after having gra- 
 dually interpenetrated the human nature of Jesus, 
 carrying it forward from one degree of glory to 
 another through the various stages of birth, life, 
 and resurrection, at length, the process being by 
 the Ascension completed, overflowed their re- 
 ceptacle ; — like the precious ointment on the head 
 that ran down upon Aaron's beard, even unto the 
 skirts of his clothing ; — and descended in plentiful 
 effusion on the members of His mystical body ? 
 Whatever notion we may form on the subject, it was 
 not, it should seem, without reason that the Western 
 Church deemed the original Nicene Creed, in its 
 statements on the third Person of the Trinity, an 
 inadequate expression of the faith, and to the pro- 
 cession from the Father added that of the Son. 
 For, however imperfect our conceptions of such 
 high mysteries may be, it is no small addition to 
 the Christian's faith, no small consolation to him, 
 to know that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit that 
 dwells in him, uniting him to the exalted Saviour 
 so vitally, so closely, that he may be said to be one 
 with Christ, one as the branches are with the vine, 
 the members of the body with the head, expres- 
 sions quite peculiar to the New Testament ; and be- 
 lt is the revelation of Christ's " sufferings, and the glory that 
 should follow," to which he specially alludes; so that the idea 
 of an incarnate and glorified Saviour still connects itself with 
 the expression. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 cause one, a sharer in the glory bestowed upon Christ 
 as the first-begotten among many brethren; an heir 
 of God because a joint-heir with Christ''; already, 
 by anticipation, an occupant of the heavenly 
 places whither Christ is gone before ' ; and an ex- 
 pectant of the same glorious transformation when 
 his mortal body shall be raised " because of" the 
 Spirit that dwelleth in" him, and the corruptible 
 shall put on in corruption, the mortal immortality. 
 Hence perhaps is to be explained the peculiar 
 language of the New Testament on the subject of 
 divine influences ; language which, without de- 
 termining whether it could have been used or not 
 under the legal dispensation, we may safely say 
 does not, in point of fact, occur in the Old Testa- 
 ment. To one instance of this kind I have already 
 alluded, that in which Christians are called temples 
 of the Holy Ghost ; but there are others not less 
 distinctive and significant. Thus we read of " the 
 Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father'';" 
 of "the Spirit" bearing "witness with our spirit 
 that we are the children of God^;" of "the Spirit 
 Himself making intercession for us with groanings 
 which cannot be uttered";" of "the love of God" 
 being " shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
 Ghost which is given unto us";" of God's revealing 
 unto us " the things which He hath prepared for 
 
 " Eom. viii. 17. " Ephes. ii. 6. 
 
 ■^ Rom. viii. 11. The marginal rendering. 
 ^ Eom. viii. 15. y Ibid. 16. ^ Ibid. 26. ' Eom. v. 5. 
 
LECTURE, VI. 21,^i 
 
 them that love Him/' "by the Spirit," who "search- 
 eth all things, yea the deep things of God;" of the 
 spiritual man's "judging all things" because he has 
 the very "mind of Christ\" The Church of 
 England at one period of her history laboured 
 under such a chronic dread of enthusiasm on the 
 subject of spiritual influences, that she was in 
 danger of sacrificing to this dread the very pith 
 and marrow of the Gospel ; as appears by the 
 rather jejune interpretations of such passages as 
 the foregoing, which may be found in the works 
 of some of our divines, especially of the close 
 of the seventeenth, and of the early part of 
 the last, century. In their case this proceeded 
 from the reaction against Puritanism ; but it 
 should awaken a suspicion of the adequacy of 
 these interpretations, that both Rationalists and 
 Romanists are prone in a similar manner to lower 
 the sense of the passages in question : the former 
 from their tendency to annihilate the distinction 
 between nature and grace, the latter from their 
 instinctive aversion to any thing approaching the 
 doctrine of assurance, or justification by faith in 
 its interior aspect, which, they feel, interferes with 
 their theory of absolution, and of the priestly 
 power. No want perhaps is more urgent than 
 such a connected view of the influences of the 
 Spirit, under the new economy, as shall at once 
 give their full force to the statements of Scripture 
 on the subject, and yet guard against the excesses 
 •> 1 Cor. ii. 9—16. 
 
214 LECTURE VI. 
 
 to which, by being misunderstood, they have given 
 rise. At present, our observations must be limited 
 by the subject in hand. I would observe then, that 
 it is neither a mere influence, nor a mere work of 
 sanctification, that is spoken of in such passages 
 as those just now cited. It is not merely that the 
 Christian is moved by the Spirit to pray, and 
 assisted in the performance of the duty ; not 
 merely that from a reflex observation of the fruits 
 of holiness which the Spirit has enabled him to 
 bring forth he gathers that he is a child of God, 
 (the result of such observation could never be 
 wholly satisfactory, for as the Christian grows in 
 grace, he becomes proportionably alive to the 
 imperfections of his best services ;) not merely 
 that the love which God has to him, (for such no 
 doubt is the correct interpretation of this passage 
 (Rom. v. 5.), and not the other according to which 
 it is our love to God of which the Apostle speaks,) 
 may be inferred by the Christian from the provisions 
 made for his salvation ; these may be, and are, 
 truths necessary in their place, but in the present 
 instance they but inadequately express the mind of 
 St. Paul. His words bear no lower meaning than 
 that the unutterable aspirations of true prayer are 
 the very voice of the Spirit Himself, dwelling in the 
 Christian, and employing the human spirit as His 
 organ ; and that the same Spirit, through the 
 same organ, testifies to the believer his acquittal 
 from condemnation, and his adoption into the 
 family of God, filling him with joy and peace, not 
 
LECTURE VI. 215 
 
 in the contemplation of the fruits of faith, but in 
 the act of beheving". Nor need we fear to enun- 
 ciate these subhme and consolatory truths, lest they 
 should be abused, as long as we hold fast the 
 scriptural and protestant notion of justifying faith, 
 which, as distinguished from the mere historical 
 belief to which the Roman formularies give the 
 name of faith, contains in it the element of trust 
 and dependence, under a sense of sin, and though 
 not to be identified with, is never separable from, 
 sanctification. And I cannot but observe, in 
 passing, that this peculiar operation of the Holy 
 Spirit in the heart of the Christian supplies the 
 proper answer to the objections which Romanists 
 and others are in the custom of urging against 
 the protestant, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
 forensic, view of justification. The objection is, 
 that we make justification merely an external 
 matter : God imputes righteousness to the believer, 
 but this righteousness is in Christ; God declares 
 the believer free from the guilt of sin, {justum 
 pronunciat,) but only as a judge pronounces the 
 acquittal of a criminal, without any accompanying 
 internal result^ But this is an imperfect, and erro- 
 neous, view of the subject. It is true that justifi- 
 cation, as distinguished from sanctification, consists 
 in an imputation, a declaration, of righteousness, 
 but this never remains a mere external act on the 
 
 ■^ Kom. XV. 13. 
 
 •* Moehler, Symbolik, p. 138. Bellarmine, De Justif. 1. ii. c. 7. 
 
216 LECTURE VI. 
 
 > 
 
 part of God ; for by the Spirit the divine acquittal, 
 the divine adoption, which, in Scripture, is promised 
 generally to believers, is proclaimed in the inner 
 man, and becomes a matter of individual con- 
 sciousness. The Spirit sheds abroad in the heart 
 the love of a reconciled God ; the Spirit bears 
 witness with our spirit that we are the children of 
 God, not by an audible voice, or by excited animal 
 feeling, or by enthusiastic impressions apart from 
 the word of promise received in faith, but by the 
 peace, the inward joy, the sense of sonship, which 
 He infuses. And it is particularly to be remarked, 
 that this work of the Spirit is not in itself sanctifi- 
 cation, but the root and source of sanctification. 
 For the Gospel method is, not as Rome would 
 have it, to attain forgiveness of sin through holi- 
 ness, but to attain holiness through forgiveness of 
 sin : first, the guilt must be blotted out through 
 faith in a crucified and risen Saviour, and the 
 assurance of the divine reconciliation shed abroad 
 in the heart by the Holy Spirit ; and then the 
 Christian, delivered from the spirit of bondage, 
 and in the spirit of a child, impelled by gratitude 
 for undeserved mercy, and love for prior love, 
 proceeds to do those " good works which God hath 
 ordained that" he "should walk in themV And 
 because the sense of reconciliation, the assurance 
 of God's pardoning mercy, is not the fruit but 
 the source of Christian holiness, it is not to be 
 <! Ephes. ii. 10. 
 
LECTURE VI. 217 
 
 regarded as a privilege of the advanced Christian 
 only ; rather is it to be placed at the threshold of 
 the Christian life, to be connected directly with 
 faith, and to be expected and cherished from the 
 first, as supplying our best, I may say our only, 
 vantage ground for cheerfully encountering the 
 trials of our course, and the assaults of our spiritual 
 enemies. 
 
 Before I quit this point I may remark, that the 
 question, how far regeneration existed under the 
 Law, is but the same, under another form, that has 
 been occupying our attention. Protestants, espe- 
 cially of the reformed as distinguished ' from the 
 Lutheran type, have, owing to the reaction against 
 the sacramental system of Rome, been unwilling 
 to admit any difference between the regenerate 
 Jew, and the regenerate Christian. We cannot 
 be too much on our guard against the errors of 
 the so-called sacramental system ; especially its 
 notion of a physical union with Christ's manhood 
 by means of the Sacraments, as if the manhood of 
 Christ in particular were the source of grace to 
 Christians, and as if Sacraments were the only 
 means of union with Christ'; but this need not 
 prevent us from discriminating where Scripture 
 appears to lead the way. Regeneration in the 
 sense of " a new heart and right spirit," must of 
 course have existed no less under the Law than 
 under the Gospel ; for with this, its essential 
 ' See Wilberforce on the Incarnation, passim. 
 
218 LECTURE VI. 
 
 aspect, salvation is connected, and salvation be- 
 longed to the pious Jew not less than to the 
 Christian. But in its specifically Christian sense 
 the term possesses a deeper meaning ; deeper 
 exactly in proportion as the gift of the Spirit under 
 the Gospel is superior to that which belonged to 
 the Law. For it is this divine agent who is the 
 Author of regeneration ; and in proportion to the 
 fulness and peculiarity of His indwelling, will be 
 the higher or lower sense of the term by which 
 we describe its commencement. Now it should 
 seem from Scripture, that even the pious Jew 
 needed to be " born of water and the Spirit," 
 not before he could be saved, but before he 
 could enter the kingdom of God, or the Chris- 
 tian economy^. Of His own forerunner, John 
 the Baptist, our Lord declares, that, though no 
 greater had arisen among those that are born of 
 women, " he that is least in the kingdom of heaven 
 is greater than he'' ;" not merely, I conceive, from 
 the superior knowledge which the humblest Chris- 
 tian, as compared with the saints of the old cove- 
 nant, enjoys, but from the higher mode of the 
 Holy Spirit's indwelling under the Christian dis- 
 pensation. Of these saints John was one of the 
 greatest, but he did not possess, nor could he 
 confer, the baptism of the Holy Ghost'; this was 
 His privilege in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily, and who out of that fulness can 
 8 John iii. 5. '» Matt. xi. 11, i Matt. iii. ]]. 
 
LECTURE VI. 219 
 
 communicate to His people, and grace for graced 
 The regenerate man now is " born of the Spirit ;" 
 "Christ" is "formed in him';" "to as many as 
 received Him, to them gave He power" (rather, as 
 the margin has it, the right or privilege, a privilege 
 they did not possess before) " to become the sons 
 of God':" in short. Christian regeneration involves 
 the idea of incorporation in Christ, (by which, of 
 course, we are not to understand any thing phy- 
 sical,) an idea which we may conclude does not 
 belong to the ancient economy, from the fact that 
 the language expressive of it is not found in the 
 Jewish Scriptures. 
 
 My limits forbid me to pursue the subject 
 further ; but I trust enough has been said to 
 indicate, at least, the true points of distinction 
 between the gift of the Spirit under the old and 
 under the new dispensation. How far our pri- 
 vilege transcends that of the Jew is easily seen. 
 The latter may, indeed must, have had sanctifying 
 grace ; but it does not appear that he possessed 
 that higher fellowship with God which flows from 
 the indwelling presence of the Spirit as a Person, 
 pleading in the heart, speaking peace to the agitated 
 conscience, testifying to the privilege of adoption 
 through union with Christ, and the pledge and 
 earnest of the resurrection of the body. These, 
 my brethren, are our distinguishing blessings ; 
 may they be duly prized, and cherished ! May 
 ' John i. 16. ^ Gal. iv. 19. ' John i. 13. 
 
220 LECTURE VI. 
 
 the heavenly Guest never be induced, through our 
 indulgence of known sin, or neglect of known 
 duty, to diminish, perhaps to withdraw. His gracious 
 influences ! How strongly to us Christians does 
 the admonition come home, " Grieve not the Holy 
 Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day 
 of redemption™ !" 
 
 And now, to return from what however I trust 
 will not be considered a digression, let us endeavour 
 to trace the process by which, under such a measure 
 of spiritual influence as then existed, the loyal and 
 docile portion of the Jewish people was led on 
 from the rudiments of religion, to some maturity 
 of preparation, in sentiment and feeling, for the 
 coming of Christ. Drawn towards his heavenly 
 Benefactor by an earthly redemption, and earthly 
 blessings, the Jew, unless morally depraved, could 
 not but love God who had done such things for 
 him, could not but fear God who in the destruction 
 of the oppressor had so signally manifested His 
 almighty power. These sentiments, however na- 
 tural, were in some sense spiritual also ; for even 
 the inclination to reflect on the goodness and 
 greatness of God must have been the result of 
 a spiritual operation, however feeble, on the heart". 
 Under their influence the upright Jew would cor- 
 dially yield himself to be wrought upon by the 
 external system of training under which he was 
 
 " Bphes. iv. 30. 
 
 " " Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto 
 the things spoken of Paul," Acts xvi. 14. 
 
LECTURE VI. 221 
 
 placed. He would abstain from forbidden sins, 
 and endeavour to walk in " all the commandments 
 and ordinances of the Lord blameless"." And 
 now would commence a twofold development of 
 the religious sentiment, in the direction of a more 
 spiritual system. A serious and reflective mind 
 would, in the first place, begin to extricate the 
 spirit of the Law from the letter ; to supply from 
 independent reflection what the letter had not 
 prescribed ; and, above all, to assign to the various 
 precepts their relative importance. Let us recur, 
 for a moment, to the analogy of ordinary education. 
 In the case of untoward natures the efforts of the 
 teacher may be of no avail, as the Mosaic system 
 in reference to far the greater part of the Jewish 
 nation produced no fruit : with natures, from 
 whatever cause pliant and docile, they v^ill pro- 
 bably succeed, and the evidence of success will 
 be the formation of an inner sentiment, which to 
 the individual will abrogate the oldness of the 
 letter; will dictate, more or less spontaneously, 
 what, under changing circumstances, is the proper 
 course of action ; will become competent to deal 
 with points which the written code has left un- 
 touched ; and among its rules to distinguish which 
 are the more and which the less important. In 
 short, we consider a system of education to have 
 failed which does not issue in moral and mental 
 habits as distinguished from a mere mechanical 
 ° Luke i. 6. 
 
222 LECTURE VI. 
 
 obedience to literal precepts. It is thus that the 
 mass of floating sentiment, which we call national 
 character, is the result of the gradual operation 
 of the laws by which the nation is governed; 
 though it is also true that laws are the expression 
 of the national character : there is, in fact, a 
 process of action and reaction constantly going 
 on ; the external enactment giving a direction to 
 the national sentiment, and the latter again pro- 
 ducing such enlargements, or modifications, of the 
 enactment as circumstances may require ; or some- 
 times even abrogating the original letter to make 
 way for a fitter expression of the spirit embodied 
 in it. There is no reason to doubt that a some- 
 what similar process must, in the case of the pious 
 Jew, have taken place. By degrees more en- 
 lightened perceptions would take the place of the 
 rudimental ideas of an earlier age : the nature of 
 God, and of true religion, would become better 
 understood ; the ceremonial law would resign the 
 place of superiority to the moral ; the state of the 
 heart would become a point of consideration, and 
 it would come to be felt that obedience and mercy 
 are better than sacrifices however costly. And 
 once the process commenced, it would continue. 
 For religion, when, as in the present case, its 
 fundamental conceptions are just and true, is 
 essentially progressive ; developing surmises into 
 matters of belief, bringing to light doctrines before 
 unnoticed, and handing down the stock of truth 
 
LECTURE VI. 223 
 
 which belongs to each generation to a succeeding 
 one, to be added to or coiTected. 
 
 Now had this tendency stood alone, it would 
 probably have issued in a mere philosophical 
 latitudinarianism, such as became, centuries later, 
 the characteristic of Alexandrine Judaism. Accord- 
 ing to Philo, the best representative of his class, 
 the mission of the Jews was to be prophets and 
 priests of mankind. The law of Moses contained 
 the germs of all that the ablest philosophers had 
 taught, only it needed an enhghtened mind to 
 discover the hidden treasure, to extricate the 
 kernel from the husk. Of this illumination phi- 
 losophy was the instrument. Too much stress 
 must not be laid on the letter, the grammatical ex- 
 position, of the law ; the ceremonies must be lightly 
 passed over. The stern, peremptory, tones ; the 
 vigorous anthropomorphism ; the prevalent ethical 
 tendency ; of the Old Testament, must be softened 
 down to render Judaism palatable to heathen phi- 
 losophers, whose speculations had commonly little 
 to do with the practical direction of hfe''. The 
 fatal defect of this phase of Judaism was, that the 
 Mosaic rehgion became with it not a means but 
 an end : Philo and his school cherished no higher 
 anticipations respecting the destiny of his nation, 
 than that the law, in Alexandrian guise, should go 
 forth from Jerusalem, and make all men disciples 
 
 P For an account of Philo's views, see Neander, Church 
 History, i. p. 61 — 77. 
 
224 LECTURE VI. 
 
 of Moses. The expectation of a personal Messiah, 
 whose reign should inaugurate a new state of 
 things, this, the central idea of the ancient Theo- 
 cracy, became lost in cold abstractions. So vague, 
 so rationalistic, a view of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures could supply no historical basis for Chris- 
 tianity ; and the sects in which it prevailed proved 
 less susceptible of the Gospel than the Pharisees 
 themselves, who, corrupt as they were, were the 
 representatives of orthodox Judaism, and sat in 
 Moses' seat. From this danger the genuine Theo- 
 crat, the true descendant of Abraham, was pre- 
 served by a leading sentiment of his religious life, 
 which grew up simultaneously with that just 
 mentioned, viz. conviction of sin. 
 
 The reader of the Old Testament will perhaps 
 have observed, not without surprise, how little 
 this sentiment, the very basis of our religious 
 experience, mingles in the religion of the early 
 patriarchs. The intercourse of Noah, Abraham, 
 Jacob, with God appears to have been marked by 
 a childlike simplicity of faith, but not, as far as 
 appears, with any overpowering sense of God's 
 holiness and their own sinfulness : Job justifies 
 himself before God, and needs a special commu- 
 nication from heaven to convince him that he is 
 vile. This is quite in analogy with what we see 
 in the earliest period of human life. The religion 
 of a young child seldom exhibits a deep sense of 
 sin ; this painful, but salutary, discovery belongs 
 
LECTURE VL 223 
 
 to a riper age, when the powers of reflection 
 become matured, and self-oblivion gives place to 
 the consciousness of personal implication in moral 
 evil. The primitive fathers of Scripture history 
 were, as regards religion, in a state of spiritual 
 childhood^ and exhibit the simple unconsciousness 
 proper to such a state. But the introduction of 
 the law produced a great change in this respect. 
 "By the law" came "the knowledge of sin^;" 
 " The law entered that the offence might abound';" 
 not merely that the righteousness of God in per- 
 mitting death to reign over all men might be 
 vindicated^, but that men might become ahve to 
 the corruption of their nature, of which, in the 
 absence of a written law, they were likely to 
 remain in ignorance. Now the ceremonial law, 
 as was observed in a preceding Lecture, did indeed 
 visibly teach the lessons of man's sinfulness in the 
 sight of a holy God, but, from its nature, it could 
 not produce conviction of sin ; it exhibited the 
 truth that man, owing to his natural pollution, 
 cannot directly approach the Divine Presence, but 
 it could not reveal to the conscience the extent of 
 the righteousness which God requires. This oflBce 
 belonged to the immutable moral law ; incorpo- 
 rated, as we must suppose, for this very purpose 
 in the national code, and a provision quite peculiar 
 to this economy. In ordinary political legislation, 
 the insertion of the moral law is obviously out of 
 1 Eom. iii. 20. ' Rom. v. 20. « See Eom. v. 13. 
 
 Q 
 
226 LECTURE VI. 
 
 place, and is never attempted ; but the divine 
 Lawgiver of the Jevs^s entertained ulterior purposes, 
 and the national constitution was, in this as in 
 other instances, framed in reference, and sub- 
 ordination, to the one great object of preparing 
 the way for the advent of the Saviour. Now in 
 proportion as the full spiritual import of the moral 
 law became, in consequence of gradually advancing 
 illumination, unfolded to the Jew, so would his 
 consciousness of failure to come up to its require- 
 ments increase : the attributes and character of 
 Jehovah would begin to stand out in painful con- 
 trast, if not with the outward life, with felt inward 
 pravity of will : the holiness required of the crea- 
 ture would come to be measured by the holiness of 
 the God who required it : the childlike love and 
 trust towards an earthly benefactor, beyond which 
 the rehgion of an earUer generation seems hardly to 
 have advanced, would give place to graver appre- 
 hensions and painful struggles of mind, and the 
 more so, the more the foundations of the outward 
 Theocracy appeared to be shaken by temporal 
 visitations : and thus thelndispensable groundwork 
 of all true religion, a broken heart and contrite 
 spirit, a longing for deliverance from the spiritual 
 thraldom of sin, — dispositions equally removed from 
 the mere speculative temper of the Alexandrian 
 school, and the gross formalism of the Pharisee, — 
 would become the prominent characteristic of the 
 pious Jew. Great, in this point, was the advan- 
 
LECTURE VI. 227 
 
 tage of the Jew in possessing the oraeles of God. 
 The heathen worlds having no knowledge of the 
 divine law except what might be gathered from 
 the faint traces of it " written on their hearts," 
 and attested by the accusing and excusing voice of 
 conscience*; having no express revelation of it 
 which they could not modify or adulterate ; fell 
 into the natural course of lowering the requirements 
 of the Law so as to come within the capacities of 
 fallen human nature.. Hence in the ancient sys- 
 tems of practical philosophy, whether as applied 
 to individuals or communities, confidence in the 
 powers of unassisted human nature is the con- 
 spicuous and fatal defect ; as it is also in the 
 Christian socialism, and its parent the philosophic 
 rehgionism, with which we are now threatened. 
 From this error, so destructive of all true religious 
 sentiment, the Jew was preserved by his possessing 
 an objective standard of duty, which might indeed 
 by corrupt minds be explained away, or superseded 
 by human glosses, but which could not be obli- 
 terated from the written record ; where it remained 
 for the instruction and conviction of those (doubtless 
 not a few in every age) who, under serious im- 
 pressions of rehgion, had recourse to the divine 
 word, with a sincere purpose of understanding 
 and obeying the will of God therein revealed. 
 
 Simultaneously with this feehng of immeasurable 
 distance from what the true Jew ought to be, 
 ' Eom. ii. 15. 
 Q 2 
 
228 LECTURE VI. 
 
 would develope itself a sense of the weakness and 
 imperfection of the Levitical appointments. That 
 they were to be placed below the moral law in 
 point of intrinsic importance the worshipper had 
 already perceived ; but now he would feel that, 
 as atoning ordinances, they were in themselves 
 ineffectual. " They could not make him that did 
 the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience";" 
 and the cleansing of the conscience was what, 
 with his growing spiritual perceptions, he would 
 chiefly crave. The Law, like a friendly physician, 
 had drawn forth to the surface the hidden corrupt 
 humours which were festering within, and now 
 the cry would be, in the words of one who himself 
 had experienced this conflict of mind, "O wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me from this 
 body of death" 1" to which the existing economy 
 could give no satisfactory reply. And thus what- 
 ever hopes of a future better atonement the cere- 
 monial law, or the earlier hints of prophecy, 
 may be supposed capable of suggesting, would be 
 eagerly embraced, and the attitude of expectancy 
 become that especially characteristic of the pious 
 Israelite. 
 
 Is the picture we have been drawing alto- 
 gether an imaginary one ? Or can we gather 
 from Scripture that what we have supposed to be 
 the natural progress of religion, in its interior cha- 
 racter, is that which actually took place ? One 
 « Heb. ix. 9. v Ko„j. vii. 34. 
 
LECTURE VI. 2^9 
 
 book there is which is not only a manual of in- 
 struction vouchsafed to the ancient Church, but 
 a portraiture of the religion of the authors ; in 
 which the inward life of the pious Israelite is 
 laid open to the view under a variety of aspects. 
 Let the book of Psalms be perused simply as a 
 record of spiritual experience, and, if I mistake 
 not, the direction of religious sentiment will be 
 found to have been such as I have described it. 
 From the structure of these compositions we might 
 expect that the sorrows and joys, the temptations 
 and deliverances, of the individual believer, rather 
 than the fortunes of the nation, would form the 
 staple of their argument, that religion would here 
 be represented under a personal, rather than a 
 corporate, character ; but the features of this per- 
 sonal religion are just what we should have ex- 
 pected them to be. Take but one specimen, the 
 fifty-first Psalm : the Psalmist feels that God 
 requires "truth in the inward parts," but that 
 he himself " was shapen in iniquity," as well as 
 guilty of actual transgression ; he implores not 
 only the pardon of his sin, but " a clean heart, 
 and a right spirit ;" he knows that the legal 
 sacrifices are, in his case, of no avail, and that 
 under any circumstances " a broken and contrite 
 heart" is the sacrifice in which God chiefly de- 
 lights ; yet he does not despair of mercy, and 
 seems, through the veil of the present, insufficient, 
 appointments, to discern a better atonement of 
 
230 LECTURE VI. 
 
 which they were suggestive ; " Purge me with 
 hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I shall 
 be whiter than snow." Such was the religion of 
 the pious Israelite before the chief age of prophecy 
 commenced ; exhibited no doubt, in this instance, 
 under special circumstances, but fully corroborated 
 by the general tenor of the book of Psalms. It is 
 essentially Christian in character ; the difference 
 being that the objects of faith are but imperfectly 
 apprehended, and that the feir blossoms of piety 
 are still sheltered by the outward fence of the 
 Law, lest in their comparative immaturity they 
 should perish by exposure. 
 
 It is needless to remark, that the lessons which 
 the Jew had thus gradually learned would be fixed, 
 and improved upon, by the moral teaching of the 
 prophets. For the very same cast of religious 
 sentiment which the Psalms exhibit, — the felt 
 superiority of a moral to a legal righteousness, 
 a sense of sin, a humble reliance upon God's faith- 
 fulness and mercy, — is, as was observed in the 
 preceding discourse, in prophecy stamped with the 
 Divine approval ; and the faithful follower of Abra- 
 ham was thus assured, that the direction which his 
 religion had assumed was not a wrong one, but 
 had the explicit sanction of God. And at this 
 point it is that, as I conceive, the typical import 
 of the Mosaic ritual, as distinguished from the 
 merely symbolical, must have begun to disclose 
 itself to a reflective mind. For how stood the 
 
LECTURE VI. 231 
 
 case with the Jew in the later period of his history ? 
 On the one hand, the Law had attached to the 
 Levitical sacrifices the power of atonement ; " I 
 have given it (i. e. the blood) upon the altar to 
 make atonement for your souls ;" " on that day 
 shall the priest make an atonement for you to 
 cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your 
 sins before the Lord ;" expressions which can by 
 no means, I apprehend, be limited to purely cere- 
 monial offences. On the other, both the Psalms 
 and the Prophets speak in depreciation of these 
 sacrifices, while the fact of their repetition year by 
 year, and the natural progress of religious know- 
 ledge, must have convinced the worshipper of 
 their inherent insufficiency. It seems as if the 
 contradiction could hardly have failed of arresting 
 attention ; and how could it be explained ? Plainly 
 only on the supposition of a future effectual sacri- 
 fice, apart from their connexion with which the 
 Mosaic sacrifices were worthless, but from their 
 connexion with which they derived an atoning 
 virtue. That such is the explanation of the ap- 
 parent discrepancy we know ; but what I would 
 observe is, that it was no difficult matter for the 
 Jew to arrive, from independent reflection, at 
 some insight into the truth. And when to this 
 we add the prophetical delineations of the Messiah's 
 office of vicarious atonement, couched, as in Isaiah 
 liii, in terms drawn from the legal sacrifices, their 
 
232 LECTURE VI. 
 
 mindy must have been dull, and their hearts slow% 
 who were not able to connect law and prophecy 
 together, and surmise an Object in whom both 
 should be fulfilled. 
 
 Thus amidst the ruins of the visible Theocracy 
 did the inner Theocracy of the Spirit gradually 
 develope itself, and become more and more distinct 
 in character as the advent of the Saviour ap- 
 proached ; and so inwardly as well as outwardly was 
 the way of the Lord prepared. A contrite spirit, a 
 longing for deliverance from both the guilt and the 
 power of sin ; trust in the promises of God ; and a 
 hope of future redemption ; such was the general 
 frame of mind which the discipline under which he 
 was placed tended to form in the ancient believer. 
 The Law indeed having conducted its disciple thus 
 far could do no more for him ; for further advance- 
 ment it must resign him to a more efficient teacher. 
 What Moses began, Christ came to perfect. Yet 
 the religion of the Christian differs in degree only, 
 not in kind, from that of his predecessor under the 
 old covenant ; the same essential elements which 
 in a heightened form, corresponding to the fuller 
 measure of knowledge, and of spiritual influence, 
 vouchsafed, are found in the former, belong also 
 to the latter. In the Jew who was one inwardly 
 we see all the lineaments of the Christian character, 
 though not as yet the perfect image ; and thus by 
 "^ Luke xxiv. S5. 
 
LECTURE VI. 233 
 
 the inner bond of the spiritual life not less than by 
 the external one of history and the written word 
 are the two dispensations connected, and pass the 
 one into the other. " These all died in faith, not 
 having received the promises, but having seen 
 them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and 
 embraced them, and confessed that they were 
 strangers and pilgrims on the earth''." What life 
 does the Christian more wish to live, what death 
 to die ? We recognise in such confessors a true 
 portion of the body mystical of the Lord ; one 
 with us in the essential unity of the Spirit ; one in 
 hope and destination ; and hereafter, at the mani- 
 festation of the sons of God, to form, vrith us, one 
 redeemed Church, in which there will be " neither 
 Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision. 
 Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free ; but Christ" 
 will be "all, and in allV 
 
 y Heb. xi. 13. " Col. iii. U. 
 
LECTURE VIT. 
 
 Acts xv. 21. 
 
 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach 
 him, being read in the synagogue every sabbath day. 
 
 It is generally admitted that our Lord came, 
 not merely to promulgate certain doctrines, or to 
 establish an unseen fellowship of the Spirit, but 
 to found a visible society, or rather visible societies, 
 in which the doctrines should be professed, and 
 the invisible unity of the Spirit outwardly mani- 
 fested : Christianity, in short, was to possess, not 
 merely a religion, but a church. During His earthly 
 ministry, Christ more than once intimated that 
 His followers were to form associations among 
 themselves^; and before He left the world He 
 appointed the two visible ordinances, one of which 
 marks the commencement, the other the con- 
 tinuance, of fellowship with Himself and with His 
 people. When on the day of Pentecost the Holy 
 Spirit descended, the apostles and disciples were 
 assembled together ; and thenceforward it was 
 ^ Matt. xvi. 18; xviii. 17. 
 
236 LECTURE VII. 
 
 the rule of the divine administration to " add to 
 the Church," the existing society of Christians, 
 "such as should be saved*." Moreover to the 
 Church thus constituted vi^as committed the 
 charge both of perpetuating itself, and of evan- 
 gelizing the world ; the unseen influence of grace 
 which makes men Christians operating not inde- 
 pendently, but in the use, of the appointed means, 
 the preaching of the Word, Christian instruction, 
 and the Sacraments. 
 
 The next step therefore of the inquiry in which 
 we are engaged is to examine whether any, and 
 what, preparations were made, during the con- 
 tinuance of the ancient dispensation, for the visible 
 establishment of Christianity in the world ; whether, 
 as the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel were 
 prefigured by the Law and foretold by prophecy, 
 so anticipatory arrangements may be discerned 
 in Jewish history for the foundation of the Christian 
 Church ; by that term being meant the aggregate 
 of local societies which collectively constitute 
 visible Christendom. 
 
 Now it is antecedently probable that some 
 such preparatory provision would be made, for it 
 was obviously the intention of the divine Author 
 of both dispensations that they should pass the 
 one into the other without any abrupt changes, 
 just as childhood gradually gives place to man- 
 hood, or the bud expands into the flower. And 
 
 •> Acts ii. 47. 
 
LECTURE VII. 237 
 
 I have failed in my object if the preceding dis- 
 courses have not, in some measure, shewn how the 
 religion of the old covenant, both in its external 
 and internal aspect, approximated more and more 
 to that of the new, until at length nothing could 
 be more natural than for the pious Jew to become 
 a Christian. We see this principle exemplified in 
 the particular ordinances adopted by Christ to be 
 the distinctive notes of His Church ; for they were 
 not, either of them, as regards the outward sign, new 
 ones : baptism, in one form or another, had long 
 been in common use among the Jews, and it was 
 from among the ceremonies usual at the well- 
 known feast of the Passover that our Lord selected 
 one to become the sacrament of His body broken, 
 and His blood shed, for the sins of the world. It 
 would be strange then, if, in the matter of church- 
 polity, a similar shading off of the Law into the 
 Gospel could not be traced ; if Christianity had 
 found nothing at hand wherewith to connect itself 
 in the visible aspect which it was to assume. That 
 a special providence in this as in other points pre- 
 pared the way for the advent of Christ I hope to 
 be able to shew in the present discourse, in which 
 I propose to make some observations on the Jewish 
 Synagogue, and its connexion with the Christian 
 Church ; a subject of great importance in every 
 point of view, and which does not seem to have 
 received the attention which it deserves. 
 
 The Babylonish captivity produced great and 
 
238 LECTURE VII. 
 
 permanent changes in the temper and social con- 
 dition of the Jewish people. From this period is 
 to be dated the abhorrence of idolatry, and the 
 unsocial spirit, which attracted the attention of 
 heathen historians ; characteristics by no means 
 those of the nation in earlier times. About this 
 time also the doctrines of a future state and of 
 the resurrection of the body appear more distinctly 
 in the popular creed ; a result brought about, 
 partly by the visible failure of the first covenant 
 in its temporal provisions, and partly, no doubt, 
 by the increasing light which prophecy threw upon 
 these great subjects. But no change was more 
 striking, or more pregnant with important con- 
 sequences, than the rise and progress of the 
 synagogical, as distinguished from the temple, 
 worship ; which, according to the best authorities", 
 is to be ascribed to the period of which we are 
 speaking. 
 
 To what extent any system of regular religious 
 instruction prevailed in the earlier ages of the 
 Jewish commonwealth cannot be exactly deter- 
 mined. We know that Moses enjoined that the 
 Law should be read in the hearing of the people 
 every seventh year at the feast of tabernacles'^ ; 
 that it was the office of the Priests and Levites 
 to expound its meaning in doubtful cases " ; and 
 
 " Viti-inga, ds Synag. Vet. 1. i. p. 3. c. 13. Prideaux, Con- 
 nections, p. i. b. 6. 
 
 " Deut. xxxi. 10, 11. ' Deut. xvii. 8, 9. 
 
LECTURE VII. 239 
 
 that the Levites were dispersed throughout the 
 land, for the purpose, no doubt, of forming centres 
 of knowledge to the rest of the people. It has 
 already been observed, that the schools of the 
 prophets must have tended to promote the study 
 of the word of God. But it seems probable that 
 in the disordered state of public affairs under the 
 judges, and many of the kings, these provisions 
 for pubhc instruction were suffered to fall into 
 abeyance : that gross ignorance sometimes pre- 
 vailed, may be gathered from the surprise of 
 Hilkiah the high priest at the discovery of the 
 book of the Law, and the consternation of Josiah 
 on hearing its contents'. Such a state of things 
 is obviously incompatible with the supposition of 
 its being at that time the practice to form as- 
 semblies for the purpose of hearing the Law read 
 and expounded. To the synagogue therefore, 
 properly so called, we cannot assign a higher 
 antiquity than some period subsequent to the 
 Babylonish captivity : and this event sufficiently 
 accounts for the rise of the institution. The exiles 
 "by the waters of Babylon," deprived of the 
 temple services, endeavoured to supply the omis- 
 sion by such religious exercises as still remained 
 within their reach. They prayed with their face 
 toward Jerusalem^; they came together, when 
 opportunity offered, to hear at the mouth of a 
 prophet words of consolation and instruction. 
 ' 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14—19. « Dan. vi. 10. 
 
240 LECTURE VII. 
 
 More than once in the book of Ezekiel we find 
 mention of such assembhes, presided over by the 
 prophet himself, and consisting sometimes • of the 
 elders ^ and sometimes of people and elders to- 
 gether'. Restored to their native land the Jews 
 continued these weekly assemblies, the homiletic 
 services of which would be the more valued when 
 the gift of prophecy was withdrawn. In the book 
 of Nehemiah we have an account of a religious 
 service, which presents a close resemblance to 
 what afterwards became the stated worship of the 
 synagogue : Ezra the Scribe ascended a pulpit of 
 wood, read portions of Scripture, which (since the 
 ancient Hebrew was no longer understood by the 
 people) were interpreted by persons appointed 
 for the purpose, and the whole concluded with 
 prayer and thanksgiving ^ The service on this 
 occasion took place in the open air : the first 
 erection of buildings for the purpose of holding 
 the weekly sabbath assemblies is probably to be 
 ascribed to the extra-Palestine Jews, whose ex- 
 ample however was speedily followed by their 
 brethren in Judaea; and synagogues so multiplied, 
 that in Jerusalem alone, in our Lord's time, there 
 are said to have been, though we cannot but 
 suspect that the number has been exaggerated, 
 480 of these structures \ 
 
 The remarkable dispersion of the Jews which 
 
 i> Ezek. xiv. 1 ; xx. 1. i Ezek. xxxiii. 31. '' Neh. viii. 1— 8. 
 1 Vitringa De Synag. Vet. i. p. 3. c. 12. 
 
LECTURE VIL 241 
 
 took place after the captivity", produced a corre- 
 sponding diffusion of the new mode of worship. 
 At that feast of Pentecost which witnessed the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost, there were found in 
 Jerusalem, " Jews, devout men, from every nation 
 under heaven";" who, by these stated attendances 
 at the principal festivals, maintained their con- 
 nexion with the temple, the centre of the national 
 polity and worship ; while in the particular localities 
 in which they resided, they were fain to content 
 themselves with the simpler devotions of the 
 synagogue. And thus in every considerable city 
 of the Roman empire, Jews, and Jewish syna- 
 gogues, were, at the time of Christ, found esta- 
 blished. 
 
 From what has been said, the nature of the 
 synagogical worship may be gathered. The syna- 
 gogue was not properly one of the Mosaic insti- 
 tutions, and could lay no claim to a divine origin, 
 save in so far as all the changes which took place 
 in the condition of the Jewish people are referable 
 to a special providence. With the temple, or the 
 Levitical worship, it had no immediate connexion. 
 The services were not sacrificial and typical, but 
 verbal and homiletic : a priest, as such, had in the 
 synagogue no function to discharge. He was not 
 
 ™ Tonov ovK eari paoias evpiiv rrjs oiKOVficvrjs os ov wapadeSfKTm 
 TovTO t6 ^\ov, /iiyS' iireKpaTelrm in avrov. Strabo, quoted by 
 Vitringa, i. p. 'Z. c. 13. 
 
 " Acts ii. 5. 
 
 R 
 
;,H2 LECTURE VII. 
 
 indeed incapable of officiating, but no preference 
 was shewn him, save that he was ordinarily called 
 upon to pronounce the solemn benediction with 
 which the assembly was dismissed ; a duty, how- 
 ever, which, in the absence of a priest, could be 
 performed by one of the ordinary officers". With 
 respect to those who might teach and expound, a 
 considerable degree of liberty prevailed. While 
 this office properly belonged to the rulers of the 
 synagogue, and could not be exercised without 
 their permission, it was commonly delegated by 
 them to any properly quahfied member of the 
 assembly who might intimate his wish to discharge 
 if. Hence it excited no surprise when our Lord in 
 the synagogue of Nazareth " stood up for to read^ ;" 
 the book was delivered to him, in his character of 
 Rabbi, or Teacher, as a matter of course ; and we 
 read that thus, without hindrance, " He preached 
 in their synagogues throughout all Galilee'." So 
 it was with the Apostles. When Paul and Barnabas 
 entered the synagogue in Pisidia, and took their 
 seats upon the doctors' bench, the rulers sent to 
 them, who were in all probability perfect strangers, 
 a permissive message, "if they had any word of 
 exhortation for the people," to " say on'." 
 
 The form of government which prevailed in the 
 
 ° The -il^iiJ TT'buy or Legatus Ecclesias. See Vitringa, 
 1. iii. p. 2. c. 30. 
 
 I' Vitringa, 1. iii. p. 1. c. 7. i Luke iv. 16. 
 
 ' Marie i. 39. ^ Acts xiii. 14, 15. 
 
LECTURE VII. 243 
 
 synagogue was not every where the same. In the 
 more populous cities it was framed on the presby- 
 terian model; a college, or senate of persons, 
 skilled in the law, being invested with the chief 
 authority; while in the smaller villages, where 
 there were not learned men in sufficient number 
 to form such a senate, the synagogue was placed 
 under the presidency of a single doctor of the law, 
 who bore the title of Master (m), or Teacher. 
 Hence may be reconciled the varying statements 
 of the New Testament, which sometimes speaks of 
 the " rulers," and sometimes of the " ruler," of the 
 synagogue ; in the one case a corporate governing 
 body being, apparently, meant, in the other an 
 individual holding the same office'. The proper 
 Jewish appellation of the members of the presiding 
 council was " elders," (}^'^^P\), and the duties apper- 
 taining to their office were to teach and to rule ; 
 the latter comprehending the regulation of all 
 matters connected with pubhc worship, the care of 
 the poor, and the administration of discipline. 
 Besides its governing college of elders, the syna- 
 gogue had its inferior ministers, upon whom de- 
 volved the care of the sacred books, and other 
 subordinate offices : of this order was the "minister," 
 to whom our Lord, on the occasion already referred 
 
 ' There is however but one passage (Luke xiii. 14.) in 
 which a single ' Apxi-a-vvdycoyos is mentioned. The ordinary 
 form of government was that of a Presbytery. 
 
 r2 
 
2U LECTURE VII. 
 
 to, returned the book of Isaiah, from which He 
 had been reading, to be deposited in its place". 
 
 The synagogues were used, not only as places 
 of worship, but as courts of judicature for smaller 
 offences ; and frequent references occur in the 
 New Testament to the punishments of scourging, 
 and of excommunication", which it was within their 
 province to inflict. Finally, in the synagogues it 
 was usual for the principal doctors of the Jewish 
 law to give instruction : seated on an elevated chair 
 or platform, they were surrounded by their disciples 
 who stood beneath ; to which circumstance St. Paul 
 alludes, when, in his address to the Jews, he declares 
 that he was " brought up at the feet of Gamaliel^." 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of the origin and constitution 
 of the Jewish synagogue ; an institution which, 
 under Divine Providence, had, in the lapse of ages, 
 gradually established itself wherever there were 
 Jews, that is, every where, and the design of which 
 evidently was, that it should form the groundwork 
 of the polity of the Christian Church. And per- 
 haps there is no circumstance in the history of the 
 Jewish people more strongly indicative of a super- 
 intending Providence, more clearly intended to 
 prepare the way for the Gospel, than the one 
 before us. Christianity, instead of being, like 
 Judaism, confined to a particular locality, was to 
 
 " Luke iv. 20. 
 
 ^ Matt. A. 17. Lukexii. 11. Actsxxii. 19. John xi. 33. and 34. 
 
 y Acts xxii. 3. 
 
LECTURE VII. 245 
 
 embrace all men within its pale ; but if the Jews 
 had not, in their dispersed state after the captivity, 
 formed themselves into synagogues, there could 
 not have existed any religious centres to which 
 the promulgation of the Gospel could have attached 
 itself, as the Apostles, in the exercise of their 
 mission, traversed the world. For the temple, and 
 the temple services, were, as we know, incapable 
 of multiplication : they were, by Divine appoint- 
 ment, fixed to one spot, and no Jew, rightly in- 
 structed in the principles of his religion, ever 
 could, or did, think of erecting in a foreign land a 
 counterpart of the sacred structure \ But in the 
 synagogue exactly what was wanting was supplied. 
 These places of worship could be multiplied in- 
 definitely, without affecting the unity of the temple, 
 or the connexion of the worshippers therewith: 
 by them the knowledge of the Law and of the 
 Prophets was maintained amidst the corrupting 
 influences of heathenism ; by them the Jevv'ish 
 mind became habituated to the offerings of prayer 
 
 '■ When Onias, driven from Judaea and disappointed in 
 his hope of succeeding to the high priesthood, persuaded 
 Ptolemy (B. C. 180 — 145.) to permit the erection of a temple 
 at Leontopolis in Egypt, " his greatest difficulty was to re- 
 concile the .Tews to this new invention ; their constant notion 
 having hitherto been, that Jerusalem was the only place which 
 God had chosen for His worship ; and that it was sin to 
 sacrifice to Him upon any altar elsewhere." Prideaux ; Con- 
 nect, p. ii. b. 4. Even Josephus calls this project of Onias 
 iliapriav ku\ toii j/d/iou napafiaa-LV. Antiq. -Jud. 1. xiii. C. 3. 
 
246 LECTURE VII. 
 
 and praise instead of the bloody sacrifices of the 
 Law, and to the ministry of the Word instead of a 
 ministry of types. Thus, on their arrival at any 
 new scene of labour, the missionaries of Christ, 
 themselves Jews, had but to repair to the syna- 
 gogue, and, as far as regards external facilities, 
 they found every thing prepared for a successful 
 promulgation of the Gospel. The transitional 
 character of this institution, standing as it does 
 between the Law and the Gospel, is deserving of 
 most careful study: perhaps no subject among 
 those connected with the ancient economy is more 
 instructive, except it be the ceremonial Law itself. 
 That the polity of the Church, in its earlier 
 stages at least, was modelled after that of the 
 synagogue, admits of no reasonable doubt. We 
 may argue the point indirectly, and directly. In- 
 directly ; or from the extreme improbabihty that the 
 Apostles could have adopted the temple as their 
 pattern. Why this improbability exists has already 
 been pointed out. The first Christian society came 
 into existence in Jerusalem : now it could never 
 have occurred to Jews, as long as the temple stood, 
 and especially in the very locality which it oc- 
 cupied, to establish a religious society after its 
 pattern, unless indeed they had received from 
 their divine Master an express command to that 
 effect. But so far is this from having been the 
 case, that Christ Himself contemplated His Church, 
 prospectively, as assuming the synagogical form, 
 
LECTURE VII. 247 
 
 both when He promised that where two or three 
 should be gathered together in His name. He 
 would be in the midst, and still more distinctly 
 when He gave authority to every society of His 
 followers to bind and loose % and to inflict the 
 penalty of excommunication in case of disobe- 
 dience''; functions which belonged, not to the 
 temple, but to the synagogue. 
 
 It is of great importance to the due under- 
 standing of early Church history to bear in mind, 
 that the visible separation of Christianity from 
 Judaism was effected not at once, but gradually. 
 The Apostles and their followers were at first 
 regarded simply as a new Jewish sect, to be 
 classed with those which sprang up in great 
 numbers in the latter period of the Hebrew com- 
 monwealth ; as such they evidently appear in the 
 address of Gamaliel to the chief priests". These 
 sects had their pecuHar opinions and practices ; 
 but they never considered themselves, nor were 
 they considered by their Jewish brethren, as 
 separatists from the Theocracy. Such evidently 
 was the feeling of the Apostles, until the de- 
 struction of the temple unequivocally announced 
 the close of the first dispensation. They fre- 
 quented the temple at the appointed hours of 
 
 " Matt. xvi. 19. K Matt, xviii. 17. 
 
 " Acts V. 34. The title which the Christians bore was, 
 ■ the sect of the Nazarenes.'' Acts xxiv. 5. 
 
248 LECTURE VII. 
 
 prayer*; and even the great Apostle of the iin- 
 circumcision, who so zealously vindicated the 
 liberty of the Gentile converts from the yoke of 
 the Lavi^, thought it not inconsistent with his opi- 
 nions to comply, as a matter of expediency, with 
 the legal ordinances °. It was the testimony of 
 St, James, when advising his brother Apostle to 
 prove his attachment to the Law, by associating 
 himself with certain persons about to undergo the 
 purifications connected with a vow, that the be- 
 lieving Jews at Jerusalem were "all zealous of the 
 Law';" and he mentions the fact without any mark 
 of disapprobation. So far were the Apostles from 
 assuming a hostile, or separatist, attitude in refer- 
 ence to the divinely-appointed Jewish ordinances 
 as long as they existed : they waited for the course 
 of events to make it clear that the old dispensation, 
 having " waxed old," was about " to vanish away*." 
 But to have established in the Christian Church a 
 transcript of the temple and its sacrificial services, 
 and that in close proximity to the original building, 
 would have placed them in direct opposition to 
 the existing economy ; and, as far as human hin- 
 drances could do so, would have seriously impeded 
 the progress of the Gospel. We should expect 
 then that since the Apostles could not, of their 
 own proper motion, have adopted this form of 
 
 •i Acts iii. 1. 
 
 " Acts xxi. 26. See also xviii. 18; xx. 26. 
 
 f Acts xxi. 20. B Heb. viii. 13. 
 
LECTURE VII. 249 
 
 polity, and since that of the synagogue was the 
 only other one with which they were acquainted, 
 the latter would be the model after which they 
 would proceed in the visible organization of Chris- 
 tian societies. 
 
 But the point may be established directly and 
 decisively from the actual correspondence between 
 the polity of the Church and that of the Syna- 
 gogue. The two inferior orders of the Christian 
 ministry were derived from the latter institution. 
 The first enlargement of the simple arrangement 
 by which the Apostles themselves were the sole 
 governors and teachers of the infant Church took 
 place in the institution of the diaconate ; an office 
 which both in name and in function bore the 
 closest resemblance to a well-known one in the 
 Synagogue ^ Whether the so-called seven deacons, 
 whose appointment is mentioned in Acts vi., dis- 
 charged the same functions as the ministers known 
 by that name in later times, is immaterial' ; it is 
 certain that the deacons of St. Paul's Epistles, and 
 of church history, occupied essentially the same 
 position which the inferior ministers of the syna- 
 gogue did. The next grade of the ministry, that 
 
 ^ The Ohazzan, or vTn/pcVi/s. See p. 14. Vitringa, 1. iii. 
 p. 2. c. 4. 
 
 ' Vitringa (1. iii. p. 8. c. 5.) argues, that the office with 
 which Stephen and his companions were invested, was dif- 
 ferent from the diaconate of later times ; but it should seem 
 on insufficient grounds. See Neander, " History of the 
 Planting, &c.'' i. p. 46. 
 
250 LECTURE VII. 
 
 of presbyters, was still more clearly borrowed from 
 the Jewish prototype. The appellation is here a 
 literal translation of the Hebrew word for the 
 elders of the synagogue ; and the functions were 
 identical. As the elders of the synagogue were its 
 governing body, and sometimes its teachers, so 
 the presbyters of the Church appear in St. Paul's 
 Epistles under this twofold aspect. I need not 
 remind an audience like the present, that the 
 words episcopus and presbyter denote, in the 
 Apostolical Epistles, the same office''; the appro- 
 priation of the former term to the highest order of 
 ministers belonging to a later period : let us then 
 hear St. Paul describing the functions of this office: 
 "A bishop" (or presbyter) " must be apt to teach':" 
 " A bishop must be blameless — holding fast the 
 faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may 
 be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to 
 convince the gainsayers"" :" " Let the elders that 
 rule well be counted worthy of double honour, 
 especially they who labour in the word and doc- 
 
 ^ " From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders 
 (jrpfa-pvTepovs) of the church." "Take heed therefore unto 
 yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy 
 Ghost hath made you overseers (enia-Konovs)." Acts xx. 17. 
 and 28. " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou 
 shouldest — ordain elders (Trpccr/Surepouf) in every city.'' " For 
 a bishop {ima-Kcmos) must be blameless, &c.'' Tit. i. 5. and 7. 
 "Paul and Timotheus — to all the saints — with the bishops 
 {eTri(nt.o7Toie=wp€a-^vT(pois) and deacons.'' Phil, i. 1. 
 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 3. >" Tit. i. 9. 
 
LECTUHE VII. 251 
 
 trine"." It is obvious that here we have, with 
 the necessary modifications, the elder of the syna- 
 gogue ; the office reappears, the same in all 
 essential points, in the Church. But not a pas- 
 sage can be adduced in which the sacerdotal term 
 proper to the temple, that of 'lepew, or Pi'iest, is 
 applied to any order of Christian ministers. Nor 
 is the priestly function of sacrifice ever found 
 enumerated among those proper to the ministry of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 It must be admitted, that, as regards the third 
 order of the ministry, of which in the persons of 
 Timothy and Titus we see the rudiment, — the 
 episcopate properly so called, — the analogy of the 
 synagogue fails us°. For it does not appear that 
 that institution possessed any office exactly corre- 
 sponding in idea to that of the Christian bishop. 
 The jurisdiction of the ruler, or rulers, of the syna- 
 gogue, according as it was under the presidency 
 of an individual or a presbytery, extended not 
 beyond that particular society ; while the epis- 
 copate, according to the ancient idea of it, formed 
 a centre of unity to several Churches : the former 
 were merely congregational officers, the episcopal 
 office possessed an oecumenical character. It 
 would be easy to shew that this, the latest addition 
 to the polity of the Church which can be shewn 
 to be of Apostolical origin, had no connexion with 
 the temple any more than its predecessors, but it 
 " 1 Tim. V. 17. ° Vitringa, 1. ii. c. 10. 
 
252 LECTURE VII. 
 
 is not necessary : we may be quite sure that the 
 Apostles, having laid the foundations on the syna- 
 gogue, would not borrow from the temple to 
 complete the superstructure : a heterogeneous 
 compound of this kind would have been not less 
 foreign to their thoughts than a complete transfer 
 of the temple ritual in all its integrity. 
 
 Various additional proofs might be adduced in 
 support of the point before us, to which I can 
 only briefly allude. The exercise of discipline, — 
 a note of the Church nearly if not quite as es- 
 sential as the pure preaching of the Word, and 
 the right administration of the Sacraments, — with 
 its final penalty of excommunication, passed from 
 the synagogue to the Church ; for no such custom 
 belonged to the temple. So did the rite of im- 
 position of hands which the Apostles practised in 
 setting apart ministers to their office : by this 
 ceremony the doctors of the synagogue were ac- 
 customed to invest such of their scholars, as had 
 given proofs of adequate proficiency, with authority 
 to teach in public. We have seen that the syna- 
 gogue exercised, to a certain extent, judicial 
 functions ; to which power our Lord alludes, in 
 His prospective reference to the organization of 
 Christian societies ; " If he shall neglect to hear 
 them, tell it to the Church," that is, to the par- 
 ticular congregation with which the injured party 
 should be connected; "but if he neglect to hear 
 the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen 
 
LECTURE Vir. 253 
 
 man and a publican p." St. Paul blames the Co- 
 rinthians for not referring their disputes to arbi- 
 trators chosen from the Church, instead of going 
 to law before the heathen magistrate ; " Is there 
 not a wise man among you," he says; " no not one 
 that shall judge between his brethren ' ?" But it 
 is needless to insist further on so plain a point : 
 nothing may be considered as more certainly esta- 
 blished than that the synagogical platform of poHty 
 was that which furnished a pattern to the Chris- 
 tian Church. 
 
 But if this be so, some very important inferences 
 follow which open up leading points of contrast 
 between the Law and the Gospel, as in the pre- 
 ceding discourses it is principally their essential 
 agreement to which I have been directing your 
 attention. 
 
 1. In the first place, we see now how impossible 
 it was that Apostolic Christianity could have 
 embodied the ideas of a human priesthood, and 
 visible sacrifice. On this subject we are embar- 
 rassed rather by the abundance than by the 
 scantiness of the evidence, which refutes the 
 dogma of Rome. The repeated declarations of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the sacrifice of 
 Christ is never to be repeated' ; the absence 
 of any allusion to sacrificial functions in the 
 pastoral Epistles of St. Paul, addressed especially 
 
 ■■ Matt, xviii. 17. i ] Cor. vi. 5. 
 
 ' Heb. ix. a4— 28; x. 10—14. 
 
£54 LECTURE VII. 
 
 to Christian ministers ; the marked abstinence 
 of the Apostles, when speaking of the Christian 
 ministry, from the use of terms proper to the Law ; 
 and the general character of the Christian dis- 
 pensation, which being the completion of the types 
 necessarily put an end to them ; all prove, beyond 
 doubt, that the dogma in question is no part of 
 the Apostolic deposit of faith. But if any thing 
 were wanting to complete the argument, or rather 
 to account for the circumstances just mentioned, 
 it is the derivation of the visible Church from the 
 synagogue. Familiar as the Apostles were with 
 sacrificial ideas and terms, they never associated 
 them with the synagogue ; and that is the reason 
 why they never associate them with the Christian 
 ministry. Just as little as the elders, or inferior 
 ministers, of the Jewish institution were necessarily 
 priests, so little are Christian presbyters and 
 deacons ; just as little as the exposition of the 
 Law, or prayer and thanksgiving, were sacrifices, 
 so little of a sacrificial element belongs to the 
 worship of the Christian synagogue, as St, James 
 expressly calls the assemblies of Christians '. Now 
 it is incomprehensible, if a human priesthood was 
 to exist under the Gospel, that the Apostles should 
 have been guided to adopt a platform of polity 
 which directly excludes it ; and still more that they 
 should in no instance have corrected the mistake into 
 
 ^ eai' yap elaeXdrj els rrjv a-vvayayfjv vjxav avrjp f^pvao&anTvXms. 
 
 James ii. 3. 
 
LECTURE VII. 255 
 
 which it might be expected that the Church of sub- 
 sequentages would be thereby led. It was incumbent, 
 I say, on the Apostles, on this hypothesis, to have 
 explained to the first disciples, that notwithstanding 
 the synagogical form which Christian societies had 
 assumed, their breaking of bread was an "unbloody 
 sacrifice," and their elders and deacons sacrificing 
 priests ; otherwise these disciples must have drawn 
 the opposite conclusion. But they did not coun- 
 teract the impression, because it was a just one ; 
 that, in fact, which was intended to be conveyed. 
 
 The Apostles do indeed transfer the terms of 
 the Jewish Law to the Gospel, but it is in such 
 a way as to exhibit, most plainly, the modification 
 of meaning which we are to attach to them. The 
 Jewish temple, as every reader of the New Testa- 
 ment knows, has in Christianity no material 
 counterpart : the temple was the type first of the 
 human nature of Christ, in whom dwelt all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily'; and then of those 
 united to Him by His Spirit, Christians, individually 
 and collectively ". These, His Church, His mystical 
 body, now constitute the temple of God ; and not 
 a local centre. In like manner, it is true that the 
 Gospel has priests, but it is the Church, the body of 
 Christ, to which this term is applied, and not to a 
 particular order. St. Peter declares all Christians to 
 
 ' " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
 up." John ii. 19. 
 " 1 Cor. vi. 19. 1 Pet. ii. 4—9. Ephes. ii. 20—33. 
 
256 LECTURE VII. 
 
 be "a royal priesthood"," and regards the congre- 
 gation, not the pastors alone, as the Lord's portion, 
 or clergy ^ We offer sacrifices too ; but they are the 
 sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving'', or the "living 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God," of ourselves to 
 serve Him '. A very interesting analogy, bearing on 
 the point before us, exists between the relation 
 v^rhich the synagogue bore to the temple, and that 
 in which local Christian Churches stand to the one 
 true, or, as Protestants call it, the invisible. Church. 
 However much synagogues might be multiplied, 
 there was but one temple, one altar, one priest- 
 hood ; and the synagogues, otherwise distinct 
 societies, were connected together by their common 
 relation to the temple. Just so, visible Churches, 
 otherwise distinct societies, are one, not merely 
 from their professing the same faith and ad- 
 ministering the same sacraments, but from their 
 common connexion with the mystical body of 
 Christ, of which they are the visible manifestation, 
 though from the inevitable admixture of foreign 
 elements, an imperfect and inadequate one. For 
 it is not local Churches as such that are called the 
 temple of God, the spiritual building in which God 
 dwells by His Spirit, but the one true Church, 
 the bride of Christ, the heavenly Zion, which, 
 though consisting of visible members, is at present 
 
 ^ 1 Peter ii. S. 
 
 * IJ,T}S as KaraKVpifvovrfs rS>v KkfjpaiV' 1 Peter V. 3. 
 
 y Heb. xiii. 15. ^ Rom. xii. 8. 
 
LECTURE VII. 257 
 
 invisible in its corporate capacity, as its Head 
 Christ is invisible, and must remain so until 
 the day of the " manifestation of the sons of 
 God;" when, the Saviour appearing. His Church 
 shall also appear with Him, purged from every 
 taint of evil, whether the sin that remains 
 even in the regenerate, or the tares, the Chris- 
 tians but in name, from which, in its present 
 form of local Churches, no human discipline 
 can perfectly free it. Hence the sacerdotal ele- 
 ments of Judaism, its temple services, have 
 passed into Christianity, not literally but figur- 
 atively, or rather in the spiritual reality : whatever 
 there is in the Christian Church of a sacerdotal 
 character, is of the same nature with the Christian 
 temple itself, that is, it is spiritual and invisible : 
 while the synagogue, an institution which possessed 
 nothing of a sacerdotal character, reappears literally 
 and visibly in the form of local Christian societies, 
 in which societies therefore neither priest nor 
 sacrifice, in the proper sense of the words, can 
 appear. Let me add, that it is not Romanists only 
 who, on this point, misapprehend the nature of the 
 new dispensation. Surely those of our premil- 
 lenarian brethren, who interpret the concluding 
 chapters of the prophet Ezekiel to signify a hteral 
 restoration of the temple-worship and sacrifices at 
 Jerusalem, when the Jews, being converted, shall, 
 as they suppose, be restored to their native land, 
 have not sufficiently considered how by the one 
 
258 LECTURE VII. 
 
 offering of Christ, visible sacrifices have been for 
 ever superseded. 
 
 2. Secondly, the connexion of the Synagogue 
 with the Church throv^^s light on the true idea of 
 the Christian ministry, in its origin and perpetu- 
 ation. On this point there are but two theories 
 conceivable. We may suppose either that the 
 sacred office is constituted from without, and 
 descends in a certain line irrespectively of in- 
 tellectual or spiritual qualifications; or that it 
 springs up from within, and descends, it may be in 
 an ascertainable line of succession, but not without 
 a regard to the fitness of the administrator. The 
 power is the mode of operation peculiar to the Law, 
 the latter is that which belongs to the Gospel. 
 The Levitical priesthood was imposed ah extra on 
 the ancient Church ; that is, a certain family was 
 arbitrarily selected to discharge the office ; and 
 the priesthood descended from father to son by 
 natural birth, liable, no doubt, to forfeiture for 
 gross misconduct, as in the case of Eli, but other- 
 wise independent of personal moral qualifications. 
 This was quite in harmony with a system like that 
 of Moses, typical in its structure, and operating 
 upon the subject from without inwards. And as 
 the principle of Romanism in general is the trans- 
 mutation of the Gospel into the Law, so in this 
 particular its doctrinal theory approximates most 
 closely to that of the legal economy. There is 
 the same idea of a purely external succession with 
 
LECTURE VII. 259 
 
 its inherited powers, for the want of which no 
 fulness of natural or spiritual endowment can com- 
 pensate"; only instead of priests by natural, we 
 have priests by spiritual, descent; the existing 
 body of bishops possessing the power, in and by 
 the sacrament of orders, of spiritually generating 
 pastors for the Church ; language for which Rome, 
 it is to be regretted, finds a precedent in too many 
 of the fathers. If we ask, what is the power, or 
 influence, transmitted, we receive for reply that it 
 is the grace of the sacrament of orders ; that is, 
 not increase of sanctifying grace, not grace to use 
 natural or acquired endowments aright; but the 
 mystical grace of priesthood for the valid perform- 
 ance of holy functions, which is quite separable 
 from saving faith in Christ. Finally, as the priests 
 of the Law were always priests, no one having it in 
 his power to reverse his natural birth, so to confer 
 the same permanency of function on the priests of 
 the new law, the doctrine of the " impressed 
 character," or spiritual stamp, was invented, which, 
 conferred at ordination, for ever distinguishes him 
 who receives it from his brethren in Christ *". 
 
 • Fateri oportet in ea (Ecclesia) Bovum esse visibile et 
 externum saeerdotium, in quod vetus translatum est. Hoc 
 autem ab eodem Domino Salvatore nostro institutum esse, 
 atque Apostolis, eorumque successoribus in sacerdotio, potes- 
 tatem traditam consecrandi, offerendi, et ministrandi, corpus 
 et sanguinem ejus — sacrfe literse ostendunt. Cone. Trid. Sess. 
 23. c. 1. 
 
 * Episcopus (in Sacramento ordinis) inquit, Accipe potes- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Such is the theory of Rome, but such is not the 
 teaching of the New Testament on this subject. 
 The latter may be briefly summed up thus : The 
 Christian ministry is primarily a gift, secondarily 
 an office. Its true idea is best understood by 
 recurring to the first age of the Church. It is one 
 of the great distinctions, and privileges, of our dis- 
 pensation, that it enjoys an outpouring of the 
 Spirit never before vouchsafed ; it is emphatically 
 the dispensation of the Spirit. This was made 
 manifest to the first believers by an extraordinary 
 profusion of spiritual gifts, all manifestations of the 
 same Spirit, and all intended for edification. " To 
 one," says St. Paul, " is given by the Spirit the 
 word of wisdom ; to another the word of know- 
 ledge by the same Spirit ;" and to others, in like 
 manner, " the working of miracles," " prophecy," 
 " the discerning of spirits," " divers kinds of 
 tongues," " the interpretation of tongues ;" " the 
 Spirit" dividing " to every man severally as He 
 will"." And again : " God hath set some in the 
 Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly 
 teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, 
 
 tatem offerendi sacrificium, &c. quibus verbis semper docuit 
 Eeclesia, dum materia exhibetur, potestatem consecrandse 
 Eucharistiffi, charactere animo impresso, tradi, cui gratia 
 adjuncta sit ad illud munus rite et legitime obeundum. Cat. 
 Cone. Trid. p. ii. c. 7. §. 22. Si quis dixerit .... eum qui 
 sacerdos semel fuit laicum rursus fieri posse, anathema sit. 
 Cone. Trid. Sess. 33. Can. 4. 
 ■■ 1 Cor. xii. 4—13. 
 
LECTURE VII. 261 
 
 helps, governments, diversities of tongues \" 
 Among these gifts, as will be seen, are those con- 
 nected with the various functions of the ministry, 
 such as " prophets," " teachers," " helps," and 
 " governments." Still more pointedly, in the cor- 
 responding passage in Ephesians iv. is the ministry 
 referred to the direct agency of the Holy Spirit : 
 " He gave some apostles ; and some prophets ; and 
 some evangelists ; and some pastors and teachers ; 
 for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
 body of Christ ^" Much error has arisen from 
 supposing that St. Paul here enumerates different 
 orders of the ministry : but other orders than those 
 of apostles, presbyters, and deacons. Scripture does 
 not present us with ; and what the Apostle is 
 speaking of is, with one exception, not offices but 
 gifts'; as appears from the fact, that several of these 
 
 " 1 Cor. xii. 28. ' Ephes. iv. U, 12. 
 
 *' " To make us understand that we must not confound the 
 functions in the Church with the gifts of the Spirit, much less 
 mistake the one for the other, let us number the gifts of the 
 Spirit that are noted in this one chapter," (1 Cor. xii. 28.) 
 " and se"e whether the public functions of the Church can any- 
 way be proportioned to them. Here are nine gifts of the 
 
 Holy Ghost numbered I trust there were not so many 
 
 distinct offices in the Church." " He," (St. Paul,) " speaketh 
 indeed" (Rom. xii. 6.) " of divers gifts and graces of the Holy 
 Ghost, for so xapiV/iara bid<popa doth import ; of divers offices 
 he speaketh not." Bilson, Perpet. Government, c. x. pp. 193 
 and 198. "I beseech them therefore which have hitherto 
 troubled the Church with questions about degrees and offices 
 of ecclesiastical calling, because they principally ground 
 
262 LECTURE VII. 
 
 functions might be united in one person. Thus 
 an apostle might be an " evangehst/' and a 
 " teacher ;" a " prophet" might be a " pastor," and 
 a pastor a prophet ; and both might be " helpers" 
 or " governors." Whence we learn, that the min- 
 istry, as it comes directly from Christ, is a gift 
 rather than an office, and that it is the Holy Ghost 
 who, in the last resort, gives overseers to the 
 Church. What may be called the natural ministry, 
 by which expression is meant persons gifted by 
 Christ, but not yet commissioned by the Church, 
 exists before the formal : the gift precedes the 
 office : the office is conferred on those supposed 
 to possess the inward qualification ; and the quali- 
 fication comes from the Spirit, who refuses to be 
 tied in His operations, and divides to every man as 
 He will. 
 
 Is every one then who conceives that he has 
 a ministerial gift, at liberty, without authority 
 
 themselves upon two places," (1 Cor. xii. 28. and Ephes. iv. 
 11.) " that, all partiality being laid aside, they would sincerely 
 weigh and examine whether they have not misinterpreted 
 both places, and all by surmising incompatible effects, when 
 nothing is meant but sundry graces, gifts, and abilities, which 
 Christ bestowed." Hooker, E. P. 1. v. c. 78. The exception 
 alluded to in the text is the Apostolate, which, we know, was 
 an office ; but it is possible that St. Paul here considers the 
 office rather in reference to the grace peculiar to it, the various 
 gifts it comprised, than in its outward aspect as a distinct 
 order. Be this as it may, the other designations are clearly 
 not of offices, but of spiritual gifts. 
 
LECTURE VII. 26ii 
 
 committed to him, to exercise it ? No ; for if the 
 ministry is primarily a gift, it is secondarily an 
 office. Here commences the function of the Church. 
 Christ bestows the gift ; but it belongs to the 
 Church to examine into the validity of the claim, 
 to authenticate it, and by prayer and imposition of 
 hands to give the external commission. As in the 
 Synagogue acquired endowments were necessary 
 for the discharge of its offices, and yet these could 
 not be exercised without the permission of the 
 governing elders ; so in the Church the spiritual 
 gift finds its way into official exercise only through 
 the existing formal ministry, to which, according 
 to scriptural precedent, is committed the office of 
 perpetuating itself. And thus a visible succession, 
 and even an unbroken one, becomes possible, and 
 in point of fact proceeds from age to age, unless 
 violently interrupted ; but not a succession in the 
 Romish sense. The existing body of ministers 
 cannot, and do not, transmit what is divine in the 
 ministry, viz. the gift^; to confer this is the pre- 
 rogative of the great Head of the Church : but 
 they transmit that which is human in it, viz. the 
 
 ^ The Apostles indeed possessed a power of conferring the 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit by the imposition of their hands ; but 
 this prerogative seems to have been confined to its first 
 possessors : St. Paul could thus impart a gift to Timothy, 
 (2 Tim. i. 6.) but we do not read that Timothy could do the 
 same to his successors. Moreover, the Apostles conferred 
 these gifts indiscriminately upon all believers ; not upon the 
 ministers of the Church only. 
 
264 LECTURE VII. 
 
 commission, the public recognition of the spiritual 
 endowment previously existing. To enable the 
 Apostles^ and their fellow-labourers, to place in 
 office those whom Christ had given to be pastors 
 and teachers, a special spiritual gift, the " discern- 
 ing of spirits," manifested itself in the Apostolic 
 Church, by the exercise of which unworthy claim- 
 ants were detected and rejected : meanwhile the 
 door ever lay open for the natural ministry to 
 pass into the formal ; and even before it became 
 formal, it was not to be violently suppressed : 
 " Quench not the Spirit ; despise not prophesy- 
 ings\" As in the Synagogue considerable liberty, 
 in reference to the office of teaching, prevailed, so 
 it seems to have been in the assemblies of the 
 Apostolic Church. In 1 Cor. xiv. we have a lively 
 picture of what took place on such occasions. 
 The Corinthian Church had, of course, its regular 
 pastors and governors, but every gift which proved 
 itself to be from above was permitted to minister 
 to edification ; with the one provision, that " all 
 things should be done decently and in order'," and 
 the one limitation, that "women should keep silence 
 in the churches^" These rules being observed, 
 speaking with tongues, the interpretation of tongues, 
 and prophesying, might all have their place. The 
 prophets were to " speak two or three ;" while the 
 hearers were to "judge" whether what was de- 
 livered were agreeable to the doctrine of Christ. 
 " 1 Thess. V. 19, 20. ' 1 Cor. xiv. 40. ' Ibid. 34. 
 
LECTURE VII. 265 
 
 If, while one was speaking, a "revelation" was 
 communicated to another, the first was to " hold 
 his peace :" for " all" might " prophesy one by one," 
 that " all" might " learn, and all be comforted''." It 
 is obvious that the possessors of these gifts could 
 not all have belonged to the positive ministry, yet 
 the free exercise of them was in no way impeded. 
 How many schisms might the Church of England 
 have been spared, and they not of narrow sectarians 
 but of men whom she could ill afford to lose, men 
 of burning zeal, of true catholic largeness of heart, 
 and eminently endowed with gifts to edify their 
 brethren, had she, throughout her history, borne 
 in mind these Apostolic principles : had she re- 
 membered, that the ministry is natural before it is 
 formal, and that there is, and must always be, a 
 natural ministry, which, from various circumstances, 
 may never become official ; and instead of stifling 
 the manifestations of the Spirit within her pale, 
 found a sphere for them to operate in safely ! 
 
 It will not, I suppose, be urged, in extenuation 
 of these remarks, that the age of miraculous gifts 
 having long since ceased, we cannot reason from 
 such a state of the Church to any subsequent one. 
 It is true that we no longer expect extraordinary 
 endowments, such as we find in the primitive 
 Church ; they were bestowed for a temporary 
 purpose, and ceased when the Church no longer 
 needed them to sustain her own faith, or to make 
 
 '■ 1 Cor xiv. 29—31. 
 
266 LECTURE VII. 
 
 an impression on the torpid mind of heathenism. 
 In St. Paul's pastoral epistles we plainly see the 
 process of transition from the period of miraculous 
 gifts to the normal state into which the Church 
 was to settle. The gift of the discernment of 
 spirits begins to give place to careful examination 
 of candidates for the sacred office by those to 
 whom it appertains to ordain ; training and ex- 
 perience to supply the place of "helps" and 
 "governments." Natural aptitude, moral quali- 
 fications, the habitual graces of " power, and love, 
 and of a sound mind," are what St. Paul directs 
 Timothy to require in presbyters and deacons. 
 But though the particular circumstances of the 
 Church may change, the principles of the new 
 economy surely remain the same in every age; and 
 these principles, on the point before us, are, that 
 the ministry is not given from without^ but springs 
 up from within the Church, and is, in fact, inherent 
 in its spiritual constitution ; that, before it is any 
 thing else, it is a gift, or power, emanating directly 
 
 1 It may be urged that, at any rate, the Apostolate was 
 instituted before the Church came into existence, and stood 
 related to it as an external authority. This is true, and shews 
 clearly that the Apostles, as such, were to have no successors. 
 It was their province and commission to found the Church, 
 and therefore they could not well have formed part of its 
 permanent natural ministry. Their task completed, they 
 were removed; but they still, in their writings, act as the 
 supreme authority to which Christians must appeal and 
 submit. 
 
LECTURE VII. 267 
 
 from Christ, and not subject to any law of trans- 
 mission ; and that the external commission, though 
 necessary, is but the public authentication of the 
 inward call by those who have "authority given 
 unto them in the congregation, to call and send 
 ministers into the Lord's vineyard"." Hence the 
 positive ministry is never actually identical with 
 the true ; it partakes of the imperfection which 
 belongs to the Church itself in its visible aspect. 
 Since infallibility is not promised to the elders or 
 bishops, in the work of " trying the spirits," or pro- 
 nouncing upon the fitness of those who seek ad- 
 mission to the sacred office, mistakes will occur ; 
 and just as many in the visible Church are not 
 living members of Christ, so some whom Christ 
 has not called will be found in the outward ministry, 
 and their ministrations may be efficacious, though 
 they themselves, awful thought! be cast-aways. 
 Admirably, as is her wont, has our Church com- 
 bined the twofold qualification in her formularies ; 
 placing at the threshold of the entrance into the 
 ministry the solemn question, " Do you trust that 
 you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to 
 take upon you this office and ministration"?" 
 while in her Articles she pronounces, " that it is 
 
 '" Art. XXIII. " Out of them thus endued with the gifts of 
 the Spirit upon their conversion to the Christian faith the 
 Church had her ministers chosen, unto whom was given 
 ecclesiastical power " (i. e. the external commission) " by 
 ordination." Hooker, E. P. b. v. c. 78. s. 9. 
 
 " The Ordering of Deacons. 
 
268 LECTURE VII. 
 
 not lawful for any man to take upon him the 
 office of pubUc preaching, or ministering the sacra- 
 ments in the congregation, before he is lawfully 
 called, and sent to execute the same"." 
 
 It is needless to add, that a mystical grace of 
 priesthood, by which holy functions are rendered 
 valid, passing from and to unconscious agents, is 
 an idea unknown to the New Testament Scriptures. 
 It is a transfer, and a misapplied one, of the prin- 
 ciples of the Law to the Gospel ; it betrays a mis- 
 apprehension of the ministry proper to a spiritual 
 dispensation like ours ; and it is connected, as we 
 well know, with other serious errors, which need 
 not now be specified. In Romanism it has its 
 place, it is an essential part of the system : in a 
 Protestant Church, like ours, it is an abnormal 
 inconsistency, which finds no connecting point, no 
 nutriment, in the system that surrounds it. And 
 would that pious men, actuated by the best 
 motives, were more cautious in employing weapons 
 against dissent, the temper of which, in the hour 
 of trial, will be found to be very different from 
 that of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word 
 of God ! 
 
 3. Once more, we learn from the derivation of 
 the visible Church from the Synagogue the true 
 conception of Christian worship. The services of 
 the Synagogue were verbal and homiletic, not 
 typical or symbolical ; and such in the main are 
 " Art. XXIII. 
 
LECTURE VII. 269 
 
 those of every Christian assembly which would 
 conform to the Apostolic model. Christian worship, 
 in its essence, or before it becomes external, consists 
 in faith, hope, and love, the affections of the 
 sanctified heart : to these correspond the outward 
 vehicles of expression, the word of God, prayer, 
 and the sacraments, the three main elements of 
 the services of the Christian temple. Now it is 
 true that one of these, the sacraments, is partially 
 symbolical in character ; but even this not wholly 
 so, for the word and faith must be combined 
 with the outward act to complete the sacra- 
 ment p; while the other two are confessedly purely 
 verbal. Here then we have a leading point of 
 distinction between the Law and the Gospel : in 
 the worship of the former the predominant feature 
 was symbolism, or teaching by action ; in that of 
 the latter the verbal element is predominant, a 
 more spiritual instrument befitting the more spiritual 
 dispensation. 
 
 Recurring for a moment to the passages already 
 alluded to, in which ministerial gifts are mentioned, 
 we find that, without an exception, they are all 
 connected with the ministry of the word. Apostles, 
 prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, tongues, 
 all come under the same category, that of the 
 ministration of the word ; while of a ceremonial 
 
 P Accedit verbum ad elementum, et fit Sacramentum, etiam 
 ipsum tanquam visibile verbum. Aug. in Joann. Evang. 
 Tract. 80. 
 
270 LECTURE VII. 
 
 law, the proper instrument of a symbolical mode of 
 worship, the New Testament presents no trace. 
 If the Corinthian assembly is to be regarded, and 
 we cannot doubt that it is so, as a specimen of 
 what Christian worship, at least in its idea, is, the 
 same conclusion will follow : the congregation, we 
 know, came together " to eat the Lord's Supper''," 
 but the governing function in it was the word of 
 God, under one or another of the various forms 
 which the spiritual gifts of the Apostolic age assumed. 
 Whence we draw the inference, that a tendency 
 towards the substitution of symbolical for verbal 
 instruction is, so far, a retrograde movement from 
 the perfection of the Gospel dispensation to the 
 shadows of Judaism. 
 
 But to prevent a misunderstanding, a distinction 
 is here necessary. The question then is not con- 
 cerning the legitimate application of art to Chris- 
 tian purposes ; which, provided it be not carried 
 to excess, is allowable, and may, in some cases, 
 prove edifying. Christianity repels not the aid of 
 architecture, or of music, if they are so employed 
 as to promote devotion, and not to substitute for it 
 a mere excitement of animal feeling : it was a 
 narrow-minded view that led the old puritans to 
 object to the use of organs in churches. Even 
 here indeed caution is needful, lest the simplicity 
 of Christian worship be obscured by the adjuncts 
 which profess to promote it : every one imbued 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 30. 
 
LECTURE VII. 271 
 
 with the spirit of ApostoHc Christianity feels that 
 the sensuous ritual of Rome is, apart from the 
 other more serious errors which it involves, out of 
 harmony with the general character of the Gospel. 
 But pomp and ceremony of ritual are not neces- 
 sarily symbolism, which latter rests upon a theory, 
 and implies dogmatical tendencies of erroneous 
 character. The ultimate principle on which sym- 
 boHsm in the Christian Church rests is, that the 
 Church is the representative, or, as modern Ro- 
 manists are fond of terming it, the continued 
 incarnation, of Christ ; the true meaning of which 
 is, that Christ Himself is not present amongst His 
 people, in His word and by His Spirit, but has 
 retired from the administration of the spiritual 
 kingdom, having first delegated His powers, 
 priestly, prophetical, and regal, to the Church, 
 that is, to the clergy. Wherever this dogma gains 
 an entrance, we have drifted far away indeed from 
 Apostolic doctrine. And symbolism is connected 
 with it. The parts of a cathedral, the dresses of 
 the officiating ministers, the holy furniture, repre- 
 sent Christ and the truths connected with His 
 work ; they are a substitute for an absent Saviour, 
 just as the Jewish ritual was necessarily symbolical 
 because Christ had not as yet come. But as God 
 Himself abolished the ceremonial law when Christ 
 appeared, so the return to such a system can 
 never be rendered compatible with Apostolic 
 Christianity. It brings us back to the dimness 
 
27^ LECTURE VII. 
 
 and imperfection of the elder economy ; it belongs 
 to a lower stage of religious knowledge, than that 
 which we are supposed to possess ; it contem- 
 plates Christians as children, not as men, in spiritual 
 understanding. And experience shews that it has 
 not only given rise to an undue depreciation of the 
 word of God, as the great instrument of edifying 
 the Church, but is intimately associated with the 
 sacrificial system of Rome, and its train of un- 
 scriptural doctrines and practices. 
 
 The subject we have been discussing is not 
 without its practical bearing, especially in reference 
 to those of us who are either actually engaged in 
 the ministry, or look forward to undertaking the 
 sacred office. Beware, my younger brethren, of 
 permitting any object, whether it be the Church, 
 or the Sacraments, or human mediators, to in- 
 tervene between the Saviour and those whom He 
 came to redeem : the effect will be an instan- 
 taneous chill of Christian feeling, which will make 
 itself felt in your ministrations, and fatally check 
 the progress of the work of God among your 
 people. Recollect, that justification by faith only, 
 one of the great scriptural truths recovered at the 
 Reformation, implies, not merely the gratuitous 
 nature of salvation, but the directness of the 
 Christian's access to God in and through Christ ; 
 "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
 life'," and waits not for the intervention of the 
 
 ' John iii. 36. 
 
LECTURE VII. 273 
 
 Church to confirm, or withhold, the blessing. Let 
 it be your aim to present directly to the eye of 
 faith a crucified and ascended' Redeemer, present 
 to bless and to sanctify, " a very present help in 
 time of trouble," the great refuge and sanctuary 
 of sinful man. 
 
 The temptation has always presented itself to 
 the clergy to magnify their ofiice in forbidden 
 ways, and by unscriptural claims. Magnify it too 
 much we cannot, but it must be on proper grounds. 
 Ambassadors for Christ, we bear the message of 
 reconciliation to a fallen world ; we are intrusted 
 with a ministry which angels might desire to dis- 
 charge, with interests which are commensurate in 
 importance with eternity ; our trials are more 
 severe than those of our brethren, our supports 
 and consolations, if found faithful, proportionably 
 great. What more do we need than such a dis- 
 charge of these high functions as shall be answer- 
 able to their importance, to secure for our office 
 the estimation that rightfully belongs to it ? But 
 if we rest our claims to the respect and attachment 
 of our flocks upon the sacerdotal theory ; as if the 
 sacraments, from being administered by us, pos- 
 sessed a validity which would not otherwise belong 
 to them, or as if we occupied a mediatorial position 
 between man and God ; we not only tread upon 
 unscriptural ground, but run imminent risk of 
 alienating from us those who constitute the pith 
 and sinew of our Church. For nothing is more 
 
 T 
 
274 LECTURE VII. 
 
 certain than that the great body of our lay- 
 brethren are strongly, and not without reason, 
 opposed to the recognition of any such sacerdotal 
 claims. 
 
 Let us be cautious too, how we permit the 
 revived taste for ecclesiastical architecture and 
 decoration, characteristic of our times, to divert 
 our minds from the infinitely more important 
 object of adding spiritual stones to the Christian 
 temple. A movement, praiseworthy in itself, may 
 become, especially to refined and imaginative 
 minds, a snare : the present one will become so, 
 if the objects of it occupy other than a very sub- 
 ordinate place in our regards. A frivolous Chris- 
 tianity is the most vapid of all things ; and what 
 can be more frivolous than for the mind to be 
 occupied by aesthetic considerations, as the modern 
 phrase is, while souls are hungering for the bread 
 of life ? The Roman Emperor, indulging his 
 musical tastes while the city was burning, is but a 
 feeble image of such a misemployment of time and 
 talents. Let us pray, ray brethren, for a deeper 
 sense of the value of souls, of the shortness of 
 time, of the solemn vows we have taken upon us, 
 of the solemn account we must give of our steward- 
 ship ; — and then all thoughts will be swallowed 
 up in the desire to become the instruments, under 
 God, of turning the hearts of the disobedient to 
 the wisdom of the just, and building up the stedfast 
 in their most holy faith. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Galatians iii. 3. 
 
 Are ye so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now 
 made perfect hy the flesh ? 
 
 To the teacher of religion, as well as to the 
 private Christian, it must ever be the most grateful 
 occupation to contemplate divine truth as it pro- 
 ceeds directly from its Author, and is contained 
 in His word, without turning aside to examine 
 how it has been soiled and disfigured in passing 
 through the hands of men. Gladly would he 
 linger in the green pastures, ever fresh, and by 
 the still waters, deep but pure, whither the good 
 shepherd leads his flock ; and leave the arid 
 byepaths of error and controversy to be explored 
 by others, whose taste or vocation may especially 
 lead them thereto. But such a choice is impos- 
 sible. Christianity, in its passage through the 
 world, has been affected by so many adverse in- 
 fluences, that the history of the Church is little else 
 but a history of religious error, and of the efforts 
 made, from time to time, by the faithful servants 
 
 T 2 
 
276 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 of Christ to counteract it: one doctrine after 
 another has been assailed, and has been defended : 
 a theological language has grown up, which, being 
 the product of controversy, inevitably suggests the 
 history of its formation : and thus it has become 
 diflficult to handle any topic of religion, without 
 glancing at the erroneous views that, in the lapse 
 of ages, have become associated with it, and have 
 exercised a sway more or less lasting over the 
 minds of men. 
 
 What we cannot avoid may be rendered in- 
 structive, if we approach such inquiries in a spirit 
 of candour and charity towards those who differ 
 from us, accompanied with a sincere desire to 
 profit by the lessons of history, and a sense of the 
 probability of ourselves labouring under prejudices 
 which warp the mental vision, and need to be 
 allowed for in the conclusions at which we arrive. 
 The asperity of theologians has passed into a 
 proverb ; yet surely it cannot be an inherent 
 quality of religious study that it should narrow 
 the sympathies, and embitter the minds, of those 
 who engage in it : we should rather expect, that 
 the views it opens up of human infirmity in the 
 brightest examples, of the force of early asso- 
 ciations, of the extreme difficulty of preserving 
 the balance of the judgment in the heat of con- 
 troversy, and of the genuine piety which is com- 
 patible with many, and sometimes serious, differ- 
 ences of opinion, would predispose the mind to 
 
LECTURE VIII. 277 
 
 forbearance, and to a charitable construction of 
 what, at first sight, might seem of ambiguous 
 import, or even dangerous to the integrity of the 
 Christian faith. If, having completed the survey 
 which it was proposed to take of the ancient 
 economy, as introductory to the Gospel, I proceed, 
 in this the concluding discourse, to draw your 
 attention to some of the principal errors that have 
 prevailed in the Church respecting the relation of 
 the Law to the Gospel, it is because such a review 
 may, under God's blessing, minister to edification, 
 while we take warning from the mistakes into 
 which our predecessors in the faith, men fre- 
 quently of a piety and a usefulness superior to 
 any to which we can make pretension, have 
 fallen ; and because I believe it is possible to 
 argue theological points without acrimony, and 
 even to throw ourselves, to a considerable extent, 
 into the position and feelings of those from whom, 
 on the whole, we are constrained to differ. 
 
 It was intimated, in the introductory discourse, 
 that the early Church had to contend against two 
 extreme views on the subject before us : that of 
 the ancient heretics, who denied the divine origin 
 of the Old Testament, and entirely dissociated it 
 from the New ; and that of the Judaizing Christians, 
 who insisted on the continued obligation of the 
 Law of Moses, and would have had Christians not 
 only baptized but circumcised, and so rendered 
 subject to all the legal ordinances. Many of these 
 
278 LECTURE VI II. 
 
 ancient errors, at least in their former shape, have 
 passed away, and it would be a fruitless task to 
 resuscitate the dead for the purpose of slaying 
 them again ; but the division may still be adopted, 
 according as tendencies are perceivable, on the 
 one hand, to dissever the Gospel from the Law, 
 and, on the other, to reconstruct the Gospel on 
 the principles of the legal economy. 
 
 I. All Christian Churches seem to agree in 
 holding that the civil, and ceremonial, laws of 
 Moses are no longer binding on Christians ; but 
 very soon after the commencement of the Reform- 
 ation, the Protestants found it necessary to in- 
 corporate in their confessions of faith a statement 
 to the effect, that " no Christian man whatsoever 
 is free from the obedience of the commandments 
 which are called moral ■' ;" or, as it was more 
 explicitly worded in the Articles of 1552, ''they 
 are not to be hearkened unto, who affirm that 
 Holy Scripture is given only to the weak, and do 
 boast themselves continually of the Spirit, of whom, 
 say they, they have learned such things as they 
 teach, although the same be most evidently re- 
 pugnant to the word of God." It is probably 
 under this form, that of Antinomianism, that any 
 disposition will still be found existing unduly to 
 sever the two dispensations ; at least any that 
 requires notice. For the depreciation of the Old 
 Testament which meets us in modern rationalistic 
 " Art. vii. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 279 
 
 writers, both at home and abroad, so manifestly 
 springs from its exphcit testimony to certain doc- 
 trines of the New which these writers dishke, that 
 it can hardly be classed with the errors we are 
 now considering ; it is on the ruins of both dis- 
 pensations, that reason, thus misapplied, would 
 erect her temple. Moreover, these are the aber- 
 rations of a few speculative minds, which may 
 dazzle for the moment, but are not likely to leave 
 any permanent traces of their existence behind. 
 The popular mind cares little for refinements in 
 religion ; and either strongly grasps Christianity 
 in its broad, essential, features, in the points which 
 come home to the business and bosoms of men, 
 or abandons it altogether. But Antinomianism 
 has preserved a lingering vitality, which shows its 
 power of assimilation with the corrupt tendencies 
 of the heart : it meets us in our manufacturing 
 towns amongst that part of the neglected popu- 
 lation which has not fallen away to infidelity or 
 socialism ; in the dregs of dissentient bodies, left 
 behind after the separation of the purer part ; in 
 the mystic sects which spring up from time to 
 time ; and, if we search for it, we shall find it 
 lurking in our own hearts. 
 
 Amidst the effervescence of feeling produced 
 by the preaching of Luther and his contemporaries, 
 it is not to be wondered at that many impure 
 elements were thrown up to the surface. By the 
 promulgation of a recovered Gospel the yoke of 
 
280 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 bondage, which had pressed so heavily upon men's 
 consciences, was broken : the reasserting of the 
 great Scriptural truths of the indwelling of the 
 Spirit, not in a particular order, but in the whole 
 body of the faithful, and of the universal priesthood 
 of Christians, shook the edifice of sacerdotal usurp- 
 ation to its base, and vindicated to the Christian 
 laity their inalienable rights. A reaction of senti- 
 ment so great would naturally give rise to occa- 
 sional excesses on the other side ; and in some 
 instances the recovered liberty of the Church ran 
 wild into license. Together with the authority 
 of the Church that of the written word was re- 
 pudiated ; and the inner Christ of the heart, the 
 supposed voice of the Spirit within, superseded 
 the more authentic declaration of His will in the 
 Scriptures. Inconvenient precepts were set aside 
 under the plea of their being " the letter" that 
 "killeth," while the ''Spirit" that " giveth life" 
 became any thing but a Spirit of love and purity. 
 The natural good sense of Luther at once perceived 
 the dangerous character of these tenets, which, 
 besides their inherent mischief, brought discredit 
 on the Protestant movement with which, in the 
 minds of careless inquirers, they became associated; 
 and with his usual earnestness he laboured to 
 check their progress. But the spirit of enthu- 
 siasm, kindling as it proceeded, burst all bounds : 
 it announced the doctrine, that Christians are free 
 from obedience to the moral law ; it next extended 
 
LECTURE VIII. 281 
 
 this exemption to the case of the civil magistracy, 
 which was denounced as inconsistent with spiritual 
 freedom ; passing into fanaticism, it began to 
 contract a malignant character ; and at length, 
 impatient of the slow progress of their views, (men 
 in general remaining unconvinced by the reasonings 
 employed,) the leaders of the movement adopted 
 the more speedy and decisive argument of the 
 sword, and pleading that " the saints" were " to 
 inherit the earth," at the head of their misguided 
 followers, committed fearful excesses throughout 
 Germany. They were at length dispersed, and 
 put down, but not without considerable bloodshed. 
 Such was the origin, and such the opinions, of 
 the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, with 
 whom the modern sect known by that name must 
 by no means be confounded. The latter indeed, 
 like the former, reject infant-baptism and epis- 
 copacy, but with this exception, they have little 
 in common ; Antipsedobaptists therefore would 
 seem to be their more appropriate title. The 
 student must bear this in mind, when he feels 
 surprised at the excessive severity of the laws 
 enacted against the Anabaptists of former times 
 both in this country and on the continent : the sect 
 was as much a political as a religious one ; or rather 
 its professed religious tenets were incompatible with 
 the existence of social order and security \ 
 
 ^ For an account of the ancient Anabaptists, see Mosheim, 
 Cent. 16. s. 3. p. 2. c. 3. 
 
282 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The suppression of the Anabaptist tumults by 
 no means prevented the spread of their opinions. 
 Calvin as well as Luther found it necessary to 
 protest against the doctrines of a sect of libertines, 
 who appeared in Flanders, and who, like their 
 brethren in Germany, taught that Scripture is a 
 dead letter ; that the spiritual man is raised above 
 both divine and human laws ; and that those who 
 had attained, by sublime contemplation, to union 
 with the Deity, are at liberty to indulge their 
 passions without restraint". The Family of Love, 
 originally from Holland, and other enthusiastic 
 sects, followed in the same track. A vague spi- 
 ritualism was mostly the characteristic of these 
 bodies ; but during the period of the civil wars 
 in this country Antinomianism began to ally itself 
 with the more rigid forms of Calvinism, and to 
 assume the aspect of a logical theory. Since 
 those who are elected to eternal life must, in 
 consequence of an irreversible decree, be led to 
 the practice of holiness, while the reprobate can 
 by no possibility be moved to repent and reform 
 their lives, it is needless for the ministers of Christ 
 to press the moral duties of the first and second 
 tables : some even propounded the revolting doc- 
 trine, that the sins of the elect are not properly 
 sins, though they may appear so in the eyes of 
 men ; since God sees no sin in those who are in 
 Christ ; and that consequently watchfulness against 
 ' Calvin. Tract, adversus Libert. Opera, torn. viii. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 283 
 
 temptation^ and repentance after falling, are to 
 the Christian equally unnecessary. 
 
 The disservice to the cause of truth occasioned 
 by these excesses was incalculable. A suspicion, 
 not as yet, it is to be feared, wholly removed, 
 came to attach universally to certain doctrines, 
 clearly contained in Scripture, but liable, like every 
 Scriptural truth, to be abused : spiritual influences, 
 even those which we now happily speak of as the 
 common property of Christians, were deemed a 
 fitting subject of contemptuous sarcasm : in their 
 laudable endeavours to counteract the exorbitancies 
 of Antinoraianism our preachers became moral 
 essayists : and a torpor stole over the Church, 
 which in its turn produced an outburst of religious 
 feeling, not without its enthusiastic elements, and 
 ending in a lamented schism. Such is the penalty 
 we pay for faiUng to maintain in the body spiritual 
 an equable glow of religious fervour. We permit 
 the coldness of an apathetic spirit to creep over 
 us ; and then it is usually by a violent reaction, 
 proceeding much further than is desirable, that 
 equilibrium is restored. 
 
 It is difficult to say on what dogmatical grounds, 
 if any, the fanatical sects of the Reformation erected 
 their system ; but their fundamental errors were 
 obviously a severance of the spiritual life from the 
 external, written, word, and an attempt to con- 
 struct a perfectly pure visible Church upon earth. 
 <! Mosheim, Cent. 17, s. 2. p. 2. c. 2. 
 
284 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The visionary mystic, weary of the solid nutriment 
 furnished by Scripture, which, while it abundantly 
 provides for our real spiritual wants, ministers 
 little food to the imagination, begins to live in a 
 world of his own : he dreams dreams, he hears 
 voices, he sees visions ; animal impulses are mis- 
 taken for the work of the Spirit ; he becomes, in 
 his own estimation, the favourite of heaven, a pro- 
 phet, specially commissioned to testify against a 
 corrupt Church, and a guilty world. Finding that 
 the community to which by birth and baptism he 
 belongs is not disposed to recognise his claims, he 
 separates from it, gathers around him others of 
 like mind, and engages in the enterprise of 
 establishing a society perfectly defecated from 
 impure admixtures. An uncommon severity of 
 discipline usually marks the commencement of 
 such attempts. And it were well if the delusion 
 terminated here ; but it commonly does not so. 
 The mind, exhausted by feverish excitement, be- 
 comes in too many cases incapable of correct 
 moral judgment, or of resisting temptation ; and 
 instances are on record of the mystic's having 
 been precipitated from the heights of ecstatic 
 devotion into gross sin. The community too, 
 founded on these principles, soon begins to give 
 evidence of the inevitably mixed character of 
 every local Church : tares appear amongst the 
 wheat ; and either fresh schisms ensue, to be thus 
 perpetually repeated, or discipline becomes en- 
 
LECTURE VIII. ^85 
 
 tirely relaxed, and with the pretension to superior 
 purity the practice is abandoned. 
 
 With respect to doctrinal Antinomianism, it 
 commonly appeals to a few passages in St. Paul's 
 Epistles, in which Christians are said to be free 
 from, or dead to, the law. " We are delivered 
 from the law, that being dead wherein we were 
 held : that we should serve in newness of spirit, 
 and not in the oidness of the letter V "The law 
 is not made for a righteous man, but for the law- 
 less and disobedient?' Now it cannot, I think, be 
 argued that the Apostle is here speaking of the 
 ceremonial law only ; the whole tenor of his 
 reasoning shews that, on the contrary, it is par- 
 ticularly the moral law to which he alludes : for 
 in immediate connexion with the former of the 
 passages just cited, he proceeds to speak of the 
 power of the law to produce conviction of sin^ 
 drawing his illustration from the tenth Command- 
 ment; "I had not known lust, except the law 
 had said. Thou shalt not covet ^." But does it 
 follow, as the Antinomian would have it, that the 
 moral law is no longer binding on Christians ? 
 Far from it ; this is to mistake St. Paul's meaning. 
 We must interpret these statements of his so as 
 to make them harmonize with his own on other 
 occasions ; as when he says, " Do we then make 
 void the law through faith ? God forbid ; yea 
 we estabhsh the law*" ;" and with those of our 
 
 =^ Rom.vii.6. flTim.iv.9. gRoin.vii.7. ^ Rom.iii. 31. 
 
286 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Lord respecting the perpetual obligation of the 
 moral law ; " Till heaven and earth pass away, 
 one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the 
 law, till all be fulfilled V' Christians, then, are 
 dead to the law, in the first place, as a means of 
 justification. To suppose that by obedience to 
 the law eternal life could be attained was the 
 great error of the later Jews ; an error for which 
 they found no ground in the law itself, which no 
 where promises eternal life as the reward of 
 obedience. Let it be observed, once for all, that 
 mankind never has, since the fall, been placed 
 under a covenant of works in this sense. But 
 misled by a fond notion of the perfection of their 
 economy, and in a spirit of proud self-righteous- 
 ness, the Jews first made the legal covenant one 
 of eternal life, and then insisted that they had 
 fulfilled the conditions. Against this error St. 
 Paul protests ; proving that all are under sin, 
 that Abraham himself was not justified by works, 
 and that by the vicarious atonement of Christ 
 Christians are formally released from a covenant 
 which, if it ever existed, could only have done so 
 during the time of man's innocency. But the 
 law has not lost its use, even under this aspect. 
 For it is still necessary, in order, by its application to 
 the conscience, to produce that conviction of sin 
 which impels men to desire and accept the justi- 
 fication offered to them in the Gospel. Christians, 
 i Matt. V. 17—19. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 287 
 
 secondly, so far forth as they are Christians, are 
 dead to the law, in respect of its being an external 
 code, confronting man but not yet written on the 
 heart. Prophecy announces it as one of the cha- 
 racteristics of the new covenant, that the law of 
 God should under it become thus the law of the 
 inner man''; that is, that Christians should be 
 impelled to holy obedience by the spontaneous 
 promptings of a sanctified heart, and not merely 
 directed by a literal rule. And that Christian has 
 made but scanty progress in his religion who is 
 not thus a law to himself. " The law of the Spirit 
 of life in Christ Jesus" makes him "free from the 
 law of sin and death ^;" "love is the fulfilling of 
 the law™," but the very element in which the 
 Christian lives is love to God^ and to man for 
 Christ's sake. Yet here even less than in the 
 former case can we dispense with the written 
 code. For it is only so far forth as he is a new 
 creature in Christ that the Christian is a lavp to 
 himself; and we know that in this life the victory 
 over sin is never perfect. Hereafter, when the 
 work of sanctification shall be complete, there will 
 be no need of any external monitor to say, " This 
 is the way, walk ye in it" ;" at present, with the 
 flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
 against the flesh, the stern, but friendly, tones of 
 the law are necessary, both to testify against the 
 
 ^ Jer. xxxi. 33. ' Eom. viii. 2. ■" Eom. xiii. 10. 
 
 " Isaiah xxx. 21. 
 
288 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 sin that still cleaves to the Christian, and to 
 furnish an objective standard of duty which no 
 sophistry of the corrupt heart shall be able to 
 adulterate. 
 
 We hold then that the moral law is still binding 
 on Christians, and this even in its concrete, Jewish, 
 form. For the view which some writers of 
 eminence have maintained, — that the law is indeed 
 binding, but not because it is part of the Mosaic 
 code, but because it expresses the eternal prin- 
 ciples of morality ; so that in its present form of 
 the Decalogue it is to us abrogated no les^ than 
 the ordinances of the Passover or of the year of 
 Jubilee", — seems not altogether free from danger. 
 Can we safely trust to the natural principles of 
 morality as a guide ? The Gentiles had such 
 principles, yet we know what their standard ulti- 
 mately became P. The spirit of a law, or a con- 
 stitution, is apt to evaporate, unless enshrined in a 
 form ; the form is not the spirit, but it is a pro- 
 tection thereto. In the Prophets, and still more 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, the full spiritual 
 import of the Decalogue is unfolded : but just as 
 both the Prophets and our Lord fall back on the 
 original code as the foundation of the super- 
 structure which they raise, so it is well that 
 the teachers of religion now, while inculcating 
 moral duties, can appeal to a divinely given com- 
 
 ° Abp. Whately, Essay on Abolition of Law. 
 v Eom. i. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 289 
 
 pendium, which cannot be hurtful^ and may, on 
 occasions, prove of use. 
 
 Permit me, before I qiiit this part of the dis- 
 course, to add a practical hint or two. First, then, 
 my brethren, beware of charging Antinomianism 
 on doctrines which you may not rehsh, and 
 especially of misrepresenting them in order to 
 bring the charge home. Thus, for example, if 
 you are contending against the doctrine of im- 
 puted righteousness, which, though it seems to 
 be the doctrine of our Church and of Scripture % 
 may, to some extent, be regarded as an open 
 question, at least do not invidiously describe it as 
 meaning that each particular act of Christ's holy 
 life is counted the believer's act, and in such a 
 sense as to absolve the latter from the necessity 
 of personal holiness : this is a caricature, not 
 a fair statement, of the doctrine in question^ In 
 like manner, be cautious of insisting that there is 
 a necessary connexion between what is called 
 Calvinism, even the highest forms of it, and laxity 
 
 1 " Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly 
 do believe in Him. He for them paid their ransom by His 
 death. He for them fulfilled the law in His life, so that 
 now in Him, and by Him, every true Christian man may be 
 called a fulfiller of the law." Homily on Salvation, Part 1. 
 "We are accounted righteous before God &c." Art. xi. " — that 
 righteousness might be imputed unto them also." Eom. iv. 1 1. 
 " Who of God is made unto us — righteousness." 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 " That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 
 2 Cor. V. 21. 
 
290 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 of practice : for facts will not bear you out, and 
 the Calvinist may reply that, so far from leading 
 to such a result, his system is the only one that 
 effectually provides for holiness of life ; since this 
 latter is no less a part of the decree than effectual 
 calling or perseverance. 
 
 Secondly, in dealing with cases of avowed Anti- 
 nomianism, as they arise in our parochial expe- 
 rience, let us take care how we permit the question 
 to be transferred from the domain of Scripture 
 and conscience to that of metaphysical theology. 
 The disease, being one much more of the heart 
 than of the head, is only inflamed by argument. 
 Besides, the disputant will always find some loop- 
 hole whereby to escape from logical consequences, 
 however cogent. If any salutary impression is 
 ever to be made, it must be by appeals of a practical 
 character : we must hold such a religionist fast 
 by " reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come," and endeavour to rouse the 
 dormant conscience to a sense of sin and danger. 
 
 II. But if occasionally tendencies may be per- 
 ceived to abrogate the authority of the moral 
 law, incomparably more powerful and more widely 
 spread are those which exist towards the opposite 
 error, viz. to reconstruct the Gospel on the prin- 
 ciples of the legal economy. I am not now 
 alluding to certain salient points, such as the 
 introduction of a human priesthood into Chris- 
 tianity, on which sufficient has been already said ; 
 
LECTURE VIII. 291 
 
 but to the general aspect which the new dispens- 
 ation has been, under the influence of this mode 
 of thinking, made to assume. 
 
 Let the student open the decrees of the Council 
 of Trent, and under the head of Justification, he 
 will find the following Canon : " If any one shall 
 say that Jesus Christ was given to man as a 
 Redeemer to trust in, but not as a Legislator 
 to obey, let him be anathema"." At first sight 
 there appears nothing remarkable in this : the 
 words seem simple enough, and are susceptible 
 of a good meaning. We are bound to obey 
 Christ ; and if it might excite attention that the 
 word Legislator, rather than King, is used, the 
 difference might not seem important. But it is 
 not so : the expression was used of set purpose : 
 and in the view thus briefly indicated the errors 
 of more than a thousand years are implicitly con- 
 tained. We have here, in short, nothing less than 
 the principle which has presided over the con- 
 struction of false, or spurious, Catholicism, from 
 nearly the Apostolic age to its crowning achieve- 
 ment in the Papacy. That principle is, the trans- 
 mutation of the Gospel into a ceremonial law like 
 that of Moses ; or, more specifically, the investing 
 of the whole of the visible system of the Church, 
 as we find it, for example, in the fourth and the 
 succeeding centuries, with the character of an 
 
 ' Sess. vi. Can. xxi. 
 
 u2 
 
292 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 express divine appointment, and with a mediatorial 
 efficacy between man and God. 
 
 It has been remarked, in a preceding discourse', 
 that one of the most striking differences between 
 the Old and the New Testament is the absence in 
 the latter of any code regulating from without the 
 religious life of the Christian as that of the Jew 
 was regulated. Christ assuredly was no Lawgiver 
 in the sense in which Moses was. Where are the 
 constituent elements of the Christian law ? Where 
 the graduated hierarchy ; where the ritual ; where 
 the liturgical formularies ; where the specific direc- 
 tions how divine worship should be conducted? 
 Not in the New Testament ; which contents itself 
 with general principles, with Apostolical precedents, 
 and neither enacts laws on these subjects, nor fills 
 up details to any considerable extent. Survey 
 the Church on her birthday, the day of Pentecost : 
 and what aspect does she present ? A company 
 of men filled with the Holy Ghost, are seen under 
 the guidance and teaching of the Apostles : no 
 visible organization has as yet even commenced. 
 In the upper chamber where the first Christians 
 are assembled, no liturgies guide the unpremeditated 
 effusions of prayer and praise wliich ascend to God. 
 The converts break bread from house to house 
 vdth gladness and singleness of heart ; but what 
 ritual they used in celebrating the Lord's Supper we 
 are not informed. Believers are baptized on pro- 
 * Lecture II. p. 42. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 293 
 
 fession of repentance, and faith in the holy Trinity ; 
 but on the use of creeds, at that time. Scripture is 
 silent. Let us now transport ourselves in ima- 
 gination to the fifth century, and how different is 
 the spectacle which we behold. We see an or- 
 ganized Episcopacy extending like a network over 
 the whole of Christendom, each Bishop being at 
 once the chief pastor of his own Church, and the 
 instrument of union between it and all other 
 Churches : this Episcopate is itself united and 
 consolidated by the institution, first of metro- 
 politans, then of patriarchs. The primitive upper 
 chamber has given place to gorgeous struc- 
 tures ; if we enter which there will meet our eye 
 first, in the outer vestibule, the penitents and 
 catechumens ; then, in the nave, the faithful, to 
 whom alone access was permitted to the Lord's 
 table ; and at the upper end, divided by the 
 chancel rails from the rest of the congregation, 
 the Bishop with his Presbyters. Formal liturgies 
 lead the devotions of the people : and carefully 
 worded creeds test the orthodoxy of candidates 
 for baptism, and of suspected heretics. In what 
 light are we to regard these additions to the simple 
 polity and worship of the infant Christian Church ? 
 As divine appointments ; or as corruptions, the 
 offspring of superstition and priestcraft ? Neither 
 the one nor the other. If we cannot approve of 
 all that belongs to the visible system of the Church 
 of this age ; if we cannot shut our eyes to the pal- 
 
294 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 pable advances of superstition ; the greater part, 
 nevertheless, of these external developments must 
 be regarded as simply the natural, necessary, and, 
 to a considerable extent, salutary, ejBForts of Chris- 
 tianity to adapt herself to changing circumstances, 
 and to manifest outwardly the unseen unity of the 
 Spirit. Some of them, as Episcopacy, can be 
 traced to the Apostles themselves ; the rest are 
 mostly post-apostolical : but all followed the same 
 law, the law, as it may be called, of natural 
 development. 
 
 Let us take the instance of Church-polity, and 
 examine on what principles the Apostles proceeded 
 in the formation of so much of the structure as 
 can be ascribed to them. Did they traverse the 
 world, carrying with them an iron model, which 
 they set up at once, and in all its integrity, as a 
 necessary constituent of Christianity, in every 
 place where they founded a Church ? Far from 
 it. The work of visible organization proceeded 
 gradually, and as need required : the want was 
 always allowed to be felt before it was supplied. 
 As long as the simpler arrangements sufficed, they 
 were suffered to remain : it was only when dif- 
 ficulties arose, or the extension of Christianity 
 rendered additional organization necessary, that 
 the Apostles interfered to supply the defect. Sole 
 governors at first of the Christian society, they 
 soon discovered that secular occupations withdrew 
 them too much from the ministry of the word and 
 
LECTURE VIII. 295 
 
 prayer ; hence the institution of Deacons to re- 
 lieve them of this burden. As Churches multi- 
 plied, it became impossible for them to teach in 
 each local society, or administer its affairs, in 
 person ; hence the next step, the appointment of 
 Presbyters. Finally, when they were about to 
 leave the world, they gave Episcopacy to the 
 Church, as the best instrument of preserving 
 unity, and repelling the incursions of heresy. And 
 all this they did, not as if there could be no 
 Church where a certain form of pohty did not 
 exist, but on common, tangible, grounds of order, 
 and of necessity. After their death, the Church 
 pursued the same course. The Bishops of a 
 district evolved from themselves a metropolitan 
 centre of unity ; metropolitans a patriarchal. 
 Synods, first diocesan, then provincial, then gene- 
 ral, discussed the affairs of the Christian common- 
 wealth, and issued regulations binding the whole. 
 The Christian society followed the law of all 
 societies which have their true being within : it 
 developed itself from within outwards ; not, like 
 the Mosaic system, in the reverse direction. In- 
 stead of passively receiving a superinduced stamp 
 from without, it threw itself out, by force of the 
 Spirit within, into natural, organic, forms. The 
 Bishop of Rome begins to acquire an undefined 
 superiority, arising chiefly from the political im- 
 portance of his episcopal seat : so early as the age 
 of Cyprian, as every reader of his Epistles knows. 
 
296 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 the idea of a central primacy for the Western 
 Church had begun to present itself to men's 
 minds. Once presented, it rapidly gathered 
 strength, and ended in a recognised supremacy, 
 with fixed rights and privileges. Let not Pro- 
 testants be offended if we say, that thus far the 
 Papacy is both a natural phenomenon, and one 
 not necessarily antichristian. If it was not against 
 the principles of the Gospel for a number of 
 Bishops to gather round a metropolitan centre, 
 no more does it seem to have been for the metro- 
 politans of the Roman empire, as long as it held 
 together, to create a centre of unity to themselves, 
 and therefore to the whole of that branch of the 
 Church. We recognise here a striking instance 
 of the uniting, consolidating, power of Christianity, 
 which loves to see visible representations of the 
 hidden unity of the Spirit, and, where not sectarian, 
 succeeds in producing them. 
 
 The same remarks apply to the other changes 
 which the external aspect of the Church under- 
 went. When a mixed multitude began to crowd 
 into the sacred inclosure, it became necessary to 
 make distinctions, to erect barriers ; to sever in- 
 quirers from catechumens, catechumens from 
 baptized Christians, the lapsed from the stedfast : 
 and especially to guard the Eucharist from pro- 
 fanation. For the same reason, it was no longer 
 safe to trust the exercises of public devotion to 
 unpremeditated efforts : false prophets, and false 
 
LECTURE VIII. 297 
 
 spirits, began to manifest themselves in the Chris- 
 tian assemblies, the monstrous doctrines of a semi- 
 heathen gnosticism to be taught: the more needful 
 was it that forms of prayer, embodying sound 
 doctrine, should be used in public. Heresies one 
 after another made their appearance ; to meet the 
 shifting aspects of error, creeds, more and more 
 precise, were framed. Thus, to a great extent in 
 an apostolical spirit, and with no small measure 
 of wisdom, did the Church adapt her system, both 
 of polity and of worship, to the inevitable changes 
 which the lapse of time brought with it. 
 
 Such is the history of genuine Catholicism, 
 Catholicism which we can recognise as Protestant. 
 Neither to explain nor defend the rise and pro- 
 gress of ecclesiastical Christianity, have we need 
 to have recourse to a supposed divine legislation, 
 or to a covenanted connexion between the grace 
 of the Holy Spirit and apostolical, or post-apo- 
 ^tolical, forms of polity. When the first warmth 
 of spiritual feeling, by which the primitive society 
 ■of Christians was knit together as one man, began 
 to subside, external organization naturally, and 
 necessarily, stepped in to supply, as far could be, 
 its place : forms, and organization, are the remedy 
 which nature supplies for a diminution of the 
 animating spirit : when effervescence ceases, chrys- 
 tallization commences. And we cannot refuse our 
 meed of praise to the great churchmen of the 
 period of which we are speaking, for the skill with 
 
298 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 which, on the whole, they availed themselves of 
 this remedy. 
 
 When then did legitimate Catholicism become 
 false, become un scriptural ? When the Church 
 began to confound effect with cause, means with 
 end ; to lose sight of the relative importance of 
 what in her was inward, and what outward ; to 
 mistake the outward manifestations of the life 
 within for the life itself: when she began to place 
 her essential unity in visible uniformity, and to 
 maintain that the extensions of polity and ritual 
 which circumstances had led her to adopt pos- 
 sessed an independent, and inherent, value. But 
 especially, when in order to establish these claims, 
 pretensions were put forward which were not con- 
 sistent with fact. For there was not only a danger 
 lest the form should, instead of being a handmaid, 
 usurp the place, of the Spirit ; but the question 
 soon arose, what authority was to be ascribed to 
 the outward system of the Church ? On what 
 ground was its legitimacy to be rested, and, if need 
 were, vindicated ? At this point it was that the 
 ambiguous language, the tampering with truth, to 
 speak plainly, the pious frauds, characteristic of 
 spurious Catholicism, began to make their appear- 
 ance'. A divine origin was, without scruple, as- 
 signed to what could be clearly traced to natural 
 causes. No distinction was made between what 
 
 ' See Nitzsch Prot. Beant. Mohler's, p. 313. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 299 
 
 is commanded, and what is merely recommended 
 by precedent and example ; between the Sacra- 
 ments ordained by Christ Himself and the regu- 
 lations of the Apostles ; between the Apostolic 
 appointments and those of the Church in sub- 
 sequent times : the whole fabric was equally de- 
 clared to be of divine appointment, and adhesion 
 to it made the indispensable condition of salvation. 
 The Papacy was instituted when Christ said to 
 Peter, "On this rock I will build my Church V' 
 or, "Feed my sheep';" from the very beginning 
 of the Church the seven Orders of the Ministry 
 existed''; to the Apostles and their successors 
 in the priesthood was committed the power of 
 consecrating the Eucharist, when Christ said, 
 " Take, eat, this is my body," and, " Drink ye 
 all of this, for this is my blood'' ;" and so on 
 
 " Bellarm. De Eom. Pont. 1. i. c. 10. 
 
 *' Salvator noster Petrum universi fldelium generis caput 
 et pastorem constituit cum illi oves suas pascendas verbis 
 amplissimis commendavit, ut qui ei suecessisset, eandem 
 plane totius Ecclesiae regendse et gubernandse potestatem 
 habere voluerit. Cat. Cone. Trid. p. i. c. x. §. 15. 
 
 ' Ab ipso ecclesiae initio sequentium ordinum nomina, 
 atque uniuscujusque eorum propria ministeria, subdiaconi 
 scilicet, acolyti, exorcistse, lectoris, et ostiarii, in usu fuisse 
 cognoscuntur. Cone. Trid. Sess. 23. c. 2. The two re- 
 maining Orders are, Diaconi and Sacerdotes. Ibid. 
 
 y Si quis dixerit illis verbis, Hoc facite in meam com- 
 memorationem, Christum non instituisse apostolos sacerdotos ; 
 aut non ordinasse, ut ipsi, aliique sacerdotes offerrent corpus 
 et sanguinem suum; anathema sit. Cone. Trid. Sess. 23. 
 Can. 2. 
 
300 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 throughout. At a much earlier period, canons 
 and liturgies, which, whatever their value in other 
 respects, we know to be spurious, had been 
 ascribed to the Apostles, to give them a greater au- 
 thority". Thus were Christians once more brought 
 under the yoke and bondage of the Law ; and as 
 by the intervention of created mediators, the 
 doctrine of Christ's sole and perfect priesthood 
 
 '■ Nitzsch (Prot. Beant. p. 209.) has remarked, very justly, 
 that the spurious writings of the second and third centuries 
 throughout favour the hierarchical spirit which had begun to 
 prevail in the Church. Let the following, on the prerogatives 
 
 of bishops, suffice as a specimen. 'O ima-Konos . . . jieairrfs Beai 
 Kai vjj.<i)V £V Tois npos avrov Xarpiiais ... Si' vSaros Koi TrvfiixaTos 
 dvayevvrjaas vpas els vlodealav . . . ovtos vpav ^ao'tkevs Kai fivi/aoTTyy, 
 ovTos vfiHv Snlyeios 6e6s fiera 6e6v. Apost. Const. 1. ii. C. 66. El 
 oZv eppeSr] Mcova^s vno Kvplov Sebs, Kai vp-av 6 eirltTKOTTOs els Seov 
 T€Ttpr]cr6<a. Ibid. C. 30. O^TOL (eTTttTKOTTOt) napa 3ea ^arjs Kai Qavarov 
 i^ov<Tiav eikri<pacnv iv ra hiKa^eiv Tovs rjpaprqKoras Kai KarahiKa^eiv els 
 6avaT0V TTvpbs alcovlov, Kai \veiv apapnav tovs ewia-TpecfyovTas, Kai 
 ^aoyovelv avTois. Ibid. C. 33. Tois yap iepeva-iv (i. 0. the bishops) 
 eTTeTpairrj Kpiveiv p.6vQis' on e'lprjTai aurot?, (namely, in Deut. i. 26. 
 and xvi. 18.), Kplp.a SiVaioy Kpivere. Ibid. C. 36. TovTous apxovras 
 vp.au Kai f^actKeis riyelaOai i/o/ii^ere, Kai dafrpoiis <Mff /3ao"(Xei;cre Trpofr- 
 <l)epere .... oo'ta Tolvvv i/'i'X'? o-mfiaros KpeiTrajVy to<tovt<o iepaavvrj 
 
 fiaa-tXeias. Ibid. c. 34. Here, in short compass, bishops are 
 described as mediators between God and man, and the 
 representatives of God upon earth ; as holding the keys of 
 heaven and hell ; as sole judges between Christians ; aad as 
 superior to temporal monarchs. Apart from their matter, 
 the form of these so-called Apostolical Constitutions is sufficient 
 to stamp them as spurious. The Apostles are introduced as 
 enacting laws for the Christian community in the minutest 
 particulars ; not, as in Scripture, furnishing merely historical 
 precedents, on the more important points. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 301 
 
 was obscured, so by the view taken of the external 
 system of the Church, the doctrine of the indwell- 
 ing of the Spirit under our dispensation was lost 
 sight of, and it was forgotten that "where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty ^" It would 
 not be correct to say that the whole Church fell 
 into this error ; for there were never wanting, 
 from time to time, protests, however ineffectual, 
 against this return to the principles of the elder 
 economy. 
 
 The first occasions on which the principle of 
 spurious Catholicism began to exhibit itself was 
 when schisms arose in the early Church ; and as 
 nothing is more instructive than to contemplate 
 error in its earlier stages, let me adduce an instance 
 from the third century. We betake ourselves 
 then to the see of Carthage under its great and 
 good bishop, Cyprian ; the true pastor of his 
 flock, and martyr of Christ. Cyprian's episcopate 
 had long been distracted by the factious pro- 
 ceedings of certain presbyters, who had opposed 
 his elevation to the see, and who, after that event, 
 continued to molest him. One of these, Novatus, 
 among other acts of insubordination, ordained a 
 certain Felicissimus deacon, without the know- 
 ledge or consent of his bishop. At length the 
 party broke out into open schism, and appointed 
 Fortunatus, one of their number, bishop of Car- 
 thage, in opposition to Cyprian. Now we seem to 
 » !2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 
302 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 know how St. Paul would have treated this occur- 
 rence. He would have severely censured the 
 contumacious presbyters for their schismatical 
 spirit : he would have pointed out the sin and 
 danger of such breaches of Christian union, and 
 Apostolic order, and exhorted them to return to 
 their obedience. Cyprian, however, advances much 
 beyond this : he denounces the proceeding as a 
 sacrilegious violation of a divine law. He arro- 
 gates to himself, and his order, without scruple, 
 the prerogatives of the Jewish priesthood. " There 
 can be but one altar," he writes, "and one bishop" 
 (sacerdos) ; " whoever else collects, scatters. 
 Whatever is set up by men contrary to the divine 
 appointment is impious, sacrilegious \" " How 
 can they escape the judgment of an avenging 
 God, who heap reproaches not only on their 
 brethren but upon the priests," (that is, the 
 bishops,) "upon whom" (alluding to the law of 
 Moses) " God was pleased to bestow such honour, 
 that whosoever should refuse obedience to the 
 priest for the time being should be put to death V 
 " Heresies spring . . . from not recollecting that in 
 a Church there can be but one priest and one 
 judge, who, for the time being, is the vicar of 
 Christ." " Can that man think that he has com- 
 munion with Christ, who separates himself from 
 the communion of Christ's clergy and people? 
 He wages war against the Church, against the 
 *> Epist. 40. ad Pleb. = Epist. 65. ad Cornel. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 303 
 
 ordinance of God .... not knowing that he who 
 thus opposes himself to the divine ordinance shall 
 experience the divine chastisement of his temerity. 
 Thus it was that Korah, Dathan, and Abirara, in- 
 truding themselves into the priests' office, in de- 
 fiance of Moses and Aaron, received the just 
 reward of their deed. Thus, too, king Uzziah, 
 attempting, contrary to the divine law, to burn 
 incense upon the altar, was struck with leprosy ^" 
 It is on this ground that Cyprian argues the 
 question. And thus it was that great bishops, 
 and pious men, when placed in these trying cir- 
 cumstances, yielded to the temptation to overstep 
 the Hmits of truth ; and, for the sake of a tem- 
 porary advantage over inconvenient opposition, 
 laid the foundations of the gigantic structure of 
 the Papacy. 
 
 Let us, my brethren of the Ministry, bear in 
 mind how liable we are to precisely the same 
 danger ; the danger of exceeding the Hmits of 
 truth in the defence, or promotion, of what we 
 believe to be important in doctrine or practice. 
 It is much to be lamented that Christianity should 
 not be able to present itself amongst us under the 
 aspect of a visible, as well as a spiritual, unity; 
 but this will not be remedied by exaggerated 
 claims, or reasoning that will not bear scrutiny. 
 Rather will the breach be widened by indiscreet 
 statements of this kind. Let us take an instance 
 '' De Unit. Eccles. 
 
304 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 or two, such as we are likely to meet with in our 
 parishes, or elsewhere. Considerable bodies of 
 Christians, even whole Churches, differ from us on 
 the subject of episcopacy, which we maintain, and 
 they reject. Now would it not be more prudent 
 to abstain from urging that this form of polity is 
 essential to the being of a Church, and from a 
 phrase which seems to be identical in import, 
 episcopacy by divine right, when, after all, we can 
 produce nothing more than Apostolical precedent ? 
 We think that in the persons of Timothy and 
 Titus we have, at least, the rudiment of the 
 episcopal office ; but where is the law, emanating 
 from either Christ or His Apostles, making this 
 office of the essence of the Church, making it 
 even of perpetual obligation ? Is every Apo- 
 stolical regulation, or precedent, to be deemed, at 
 once, a divine law ? Then why do we not anoint 
 the sick with oil ? Why do we not possess the 
 order of deaconnesses ? Why have we abandoned 
 the kiss of charity ? Why do we no longer think 
 the prohibition against eating things strangled 
 binding upon us'? And there is no need of such 
 
 ^ The writer would not be understood as placing the 
 Apostolic Orders of the Ministry precisely on the same level 
 with these appointments : but surely the instances are suf- 
 ficient to shew that it has been too hastily assumed, that 
 every regulation which can be proved to be Apostolic is of 
 the nature of a divine law, and therefore absolutely binding. 
 Yet many of our writers on Episcopacy argue in this manner. 
 Thus good Bishop Hall indites a treatise which he calls 
 
LECTURE VIII. 305 
 
 questionable assertions, for we have all we want to 
 determine our practice, when we have shewn Episco- 
 pacy to be Apostolical, and, as we think experience 
 hasproved, salutary ; and therefore 'relatively,hra<i^^g- 
 We meet with others again who reject infant 
 baptism, which we conceive we have excellent 
 grounds for retaining. We wonder what ob- 
 jections can exist to a practice so natural, so 
 consonant to the spirit of the Gospel, so likely 
 to prove a blessing to all concerned in it. But 
 it may be well not to urge particular texts of 
 Scripture, commonly adduced in favour of our 
 practice, beyond what they will fairly bear. Thus 
 if we profess to find in the baptismal commission 
 a command to baptize infants, because the words 
 are, " Go, teach all nations, baptizing them," and 
 infants are a part of "nations';" the opponent 
 
 "Episcopacy by Divine Eight;" but is, subsequently, com- 
 pelled to acknowledge that all that he has proved is that it is 
 Apostolical. " Let me beseech the reader to consider seriously 
 of this difference, in the mistaking of which I have not a 
 little suffered unjustly: and to remember how I have ex- 
 pressed it in my ' Eemonstrance,' fetching the pedigree of 
 Episcopacy from Apostolical (and therefore, in that sense,. 
 Divine) institution, and interpreting myself not to understand 
 by ' divine right ' any express law of God requiring it upon 
 the absolute necessity of a Church, but an institution of 
 Apostles, inspired by the Holy Ghost, warranting it where it 
 is, and requiring it where it can be had." Defence of th& 
 Humble Eemonstrance, Sect. 6. Would it not have been 
 better to have abstained entirely from the phrase ? 
 
 ' " It is clear that the term ' nations ' includes infants. 
 'Ihere is not merely no prohibition against the practice, but 
 
 X 
 
306 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 may, in the first place, reply, that our Lord is not 
 
 speaking of the proper subjects of baptism, but 
 
 simply of the duty of gathering in disciples from 
 
 every part of the world ; and secondly, he may 
 
 call upon us, if we will insist upon the word 
 
 " nations," to carry out our interpretation, and 
 
 literally baptize whole nations, as the Jesuit 
 
 missionaries are reported to have done. He may 
 
 urge that we are not at liberty to " play fast and 
 
 loose" with texts of Scripture ; that is, make use 
 
 of them so far as suits our purpose, but refuse to 
 
 follow them out to inconvenient consequences. 
 
 So, if we are arguing from the texts in which 
 
 households are said to have been baptized, let 
 
 us candidly acknowledge that there are as many 
 
 in which the expression can hardly apply to others 
 
 than adults; as when the households are said to 
 
 have "beheved," or to have "addicted" themselves 
 
 " to the ministry of the saints^." 
 
 Once more : many of us think that the obli- 
 gation to keep the Lord's day holy rests on a 
 higher ground than that of its being a Christian 
 festival, appointed by the Apostles to commemorate 
 the resurrection of Christ''; but if to strengthen, 
 
 the command includes the class " (infants), " in consideration. 
 Our baptist brethren ask for a command, and urge obedience. 
 Here is a plain inclusive command. Let them obey the 
 Lord of heaven and earth." Bickersteth, on Baptism, p. 118. 
 
 8 Acts xvi. 34; xviii. 8. I Cor. xvi. 15. 
 
 *■ Whately, Essays on St. Paul, Essay V. See Dr. Hawkins's 
 remarks on this subject, Bampton Lectures, p. 163. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 307 
 
 as we think, our cause, we insist on the binding 
 force of the fourth Commandment in the letter, 
 we may be brought into a difficulty ; for the ob- 
 jector may remind us, that the particular day is as 
 much a part of the letter as the rest of the Com- 
 mandment, and require us either to obey the 
 whole literally, or to abandon the argument 
 altogether. 
 
 The evil occasioned by a habit of consciously 
 indulging in any thing like a pious fraud is by no 
 means insignificant. In the first place, the mind 
 that indulges this habit becomes at length incapable 
 of discriminating between truth and falsehood : 
 the sensitiveness of the balance becomes impaired : 
 we can never with impunity tamper with the moral 
 sense in this point. And, in the next place, the 
 best cause may thereby be brought into discredit ; 
 for a weak argument, detected, is far worse than 
 none. The opponent, easily overthrowing the 
 defences erected by injudicious zeal, raises the 
 shout of victory ; the byestanders conclude that 
 he does so with justice ; whereas the real strength 
 of the position may never have been assailed. 
 There is not one of the points just mentioned, — 
 episcopacy, infant baptism, and the moral ob- 
 ligation of devoting one day in seven to religious 
 purposes, — but may be established on satisfactory 
 grounds ; not one but may be brought into 
 jeopardy by attempting to push the argument 
 beyond what the evidence justifies. 
 
 x2 
 
308 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Let us then, my brethren, cultivate above all 
 things a love of truth for truth's sake. Let no 
 supposed interests of the Church, or of our party, 
 lead us to deviate consciously one hair's-breadth 
 from a scrupulous adherence to Mfhat the facts of 
 the case warrant. Truth, outraged, will always 
 avenge herself; and God is able to defend His 
 own cause without our laying unhallowed hands 
 on the ark. If we are really convinced that such 
 and such arguments are valid, then, of course, we 
 are at liberty to make use of them ; but if there 
 is a latent suspicion in the mind that they are 
 unsound, that the premises do not warrant the 
 conclusion, let us resist the temptation to frame, 
 or repeat, them ; for in this, as in other cases, the 
 principle holds good, that " whatever is not of 
 feith is sin'." 
 
 And thvis I bring this discourse, and the series 
 with which it is connected, to a close. In looking 
 back upon the subjects that have successively 
 engaged our thoughts, — the structure of the The- 
 ocracy ; the Levitical appointments of priesthood 
 and sacrifice with their corresponding facts 
 under the Gospel ; the prophetic revelation ; 
 the shape and direction which the inward religion 
 of the Jew, under such a measure of spiritual in- 
 fluence as belonged to the elder economy, assumed; 
 and the synagogue in its bearing on the visible 
 establishment of Christianity in the world, — it is a 
 
 * Kom. xiv. 33. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 309 
 
 source of gratification to perceive how large a 
 proportion of them belongs to the common faith 
 of all earnest Christians. It would be impossible, 
 of course, to expect, in our divide'd state of theo- 
 logical sentiment, that the views put forward on 
 some other points should commend themselves to 
 every mind. We have been traversing difficult 
 ground, and the relation of the Law to the Gospel 
 cannot be discussed, to any instructive purpose, 
 without touching on questions on which, unhappily, 
 differences of opinion exist. I can truly say that 
 my aim has been to avoid unnecessarily multiplying 
 such topics ; and only to insist on those which are 
 of paramount importance, and which, according 
 as they are decided, give a colour to our whole 
 Theology. For openly expressing ray convictions 
 on these points I make no apology ; for I cannot 
 think it conducive either to the interests of Theo- 
 logical science, or, ultimately, of Christian union, 
 that we should permit the dread of committing our- 
 selves to any specific opinion to operate to confine 
 us within the circle of whatever is most trite, and to 
 produce in us a seeming, only a seeming, indiffer- 
 ence to the progress of truth or error. Moreover, 
 a Protestant Church recognises no infallible au- 
 thority ; and it is a consolation to any writer who 
 is conscious of seeking truth, to know that what he 
 advances must undergo the ordeal of an impartial 
 criticism. What I have been permitted to advance 
 I desire to submit to the judgment of my brethren, 
 
310 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 desirous as I know they are of being guided in 
 that judgment by Scripture: well assured that 
 whatever shall be found agreeable to that sacred 
 canon will abide, and may be of use ; and that the 
 " wood, hay, stubble," of human error will be swept 
 away, even before the day arrives, when every 
 man's work shall be tried by fire''. 
 
 But controversy has, I trust, throughout occupied 
 but a subordinate place in my regards. My chief 
 objects have been, to attempt to confirm our faith 
 in the divine origin of the Mosaic religion, both 
 from its use at the time to those upon whom it 
 was imposed, and from its prophetical character 
 as introductory to the Gospel ; and to lead my 
 younger brethren to explore for themselves the 
 rich treasures which lie hid in the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. Should the observations that have been 
 made be found promotive of these ends, my labour 
 will not have been in vain. 
 
 " And now," brethren, " I commend you to God, 
 and to the word of His grace, which is able to 
 build you up, and to give you an inheritance 
 among them that are sanctified'." 
 
 " 1 Cor. iii. 12, 13. ' Acts xx. 32. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON CIRCUMCISION CONSIDERED AS A SACRAMENT. 
 
 Page 56, line 7. Nor does it appear that circumcision, 
 &c.] Whether circumcision is to be considered as a 
 sacrament or not, depends on the manner in which the 
 latter term is defined. By the word sacrament, the 
 author means " an outward and visible sign of an inward 
 and spiritual grace," (see Catechism of the Church of 
 England,) and he has been unable to find any passage in 
 the Old Testament in which circumcision is spoken of 
 as, in this sense, a means of grace. Indeed the facts 
 appear to warrant the more general statement, that the 
 grace of the Holy Spirit formed no part of the expressed 
 provisions of the Mosaic covenant. Circumcision was a 
 symbolical ordinance, perpetually reminding the Jew of 
 what he ought to be, but beyond this its efficacy does 
 not seem to have extended. Mr. Fairbairn, in his 
 valuable work on Typology, vol. i. p. 327, remarks, in 
 reference to this subject, that "to be bound to do 
 righteously without being entitled to look for grace 
 corresponding, is simply to be placed under an intolerable 
 yoke ;" but is that not exactly the description which the 
 Apostles give of the elder covenant ? See Acts xv. 10. 
 Heb. ii. 15. Gal. iv. 24. That spiritual aids were 
 
312 APPENDIX. 
 
 vouchsafed under the Law we must believe ; but no in- 
 considerable part of the "bondage" to which the pious 
 Jew was subject, and which led him to long for a Saviour, 
 must have consisted in the felt incongruity between the 
 demands of the moral law, and the absence of a promise 
 of sanctifying grace as part of the covenant which defined 
 his privileges. The statement of Mr. Faber, (Prim. Reg. 
 p. 94.) " that Circumcision, like Baptism, was the out- 
 ward sign of the inward grace of regeneration," if it is to 
 be understood of a covenanted connexion between cir- 
 cumcision and regeneration, is, surely, unguarded. It is 
 true that circumcision was the symbol of inward purity, 
 and, in that sense, a sign thereof; but such language as 
 Mr. Faber uses is calculated to mislead, and is certainly 
 not warranted by either the Old or the New Testament 
 Scriptures. " He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, 
 neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 
 but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision 
 is that of the heart, in the spirit, &c." (Rom. ii. 28, 29.); 
 such a passage as this by no means warrants the conclu- 
 sions which Mr. Faber draws from it. It states that a true 
 descendant of Abraham was an inheritor of Abraham's 
 faith and piety, as well as connected with him by blood ; 
 but nothing respecting any covenanted connexion between 
 the circumcision of the flesh and that of the heart. 
 
 In a looser sense indeed Circumcision may be considered 
 as a sacrament. For Baptism too is a symbolical ordinance, 
 perpetually reminding the Christian what his vocation is. 
 Circumcision, moreover, was to the Jewish infant a seal, 
 or formal confirmation, of the promises of God, first 
 made to the Patriarch Abraham, and then to his seed; 
 just as Baptism now seals to us the higher promises of 
 the Evangelical covenant. It is thus that one of our 
 Homilies speaks of it : " And so was Circumcision a 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 sacrament, which preached unto the outward senses the 
 inward cutting away of the foreskin of the heart, and 
 sealed and made sure in the hearts of the circumcised, 
 the promise of God touching the promised seed that they 
 looked for." Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments. 
 The present writer, however, takes this occasion of 
 acknowledging an alteration of view as regards the 
 flace which circumcision held in the ancient economy, 
 and its consequent relation to baptism under the New. 
 In his work on the Church (Appendix) the view was 
 put forward, that circumcision was not so' much the rite 
 of admission to the Jewish covenant, as a means of con- 
 tinuance in it; a "condition subsequent," the neglect 
 of which entailed the forfeiture of blessings previously 
 enjoyed. He was misled by insisting too strongly on 
 the language of the Law, which prescribes that the un- 
 circumcised "soul shall be cut oiF from his people" 
 (Gen. xvii. 14.), which seemed to imply, that the offender 
 was already by his birth in possession of privileges of 
 which for his contumacy he was to be deprived. The 
 complete view seems to be this: — the (natural) birth of 
 the Jew, which was the real ground of his privileges, 
 answers to the new birth of the Christian in its inner or 
 essential aspect ; while circumcision, the rite by which 
 the Jewish infant became a publicly acknowledged 
 member of the Theocracy, corresponds to baptism, or the 
 new birth in its external aspect, to which sacrament the 
 same function, of visibly incorporating in the Church, 
 now belongs. The argument then for infant baptism 
 from circumcision holds good ; though, no doubt, it is 
 singular that, with the exception of one passage of 
 doubtful import*, (Col. ii. 11, 12.) no formal parallel 
 
 ■ It is strange that the Commentators who affirm that in this passage a 
 parallel is drawn hetween ciroumoision and baptism, as visible ordinances, 
 
314' APPENDIX. 
 
 should in the New Testament be found drawn between 
 the two ordinances. But this may be because the analogy 
 was so obvious as not to need mention. And perhaps the 
 psedobaptist will more safely rest his cause, as far as Scrip- 
 ture is concerned, on general analogies of this kind than 
 on texts more or less ambiguous, or on the scholastic notion 
 of placing no bar (Is original sin no bar ?). Such analogies 
 are, 1. That of circumcision just mentioned; or rather 
 circumcision in conjunction with, 2. The analogy between 
 the Theocracy as a training school, and local Christian 
 Churches which, to some extent, bear the same character. 
 As circumcision marked the entrance of the Jewish infant 
 on his school of training, so does baptism mark the en- 
 trance of the Christian infant on that course of discipline 
 and instruction which, in the Church's expectation, will 
 issue in a saving change of heart. 3. The circumstance, 
 that in the Apostolic administration of baptism to adults, 
 the sacrament was not deferred until visible signs of re- 
 generation had been exhibited, but was administered 
 at once, on an expression of desire for it. See the 
 various instances in the Acts of the Apostles. (It may 
 be questioned, in connexion with this head, whether the 
 modern practice in missions of postponing baptism till 
 after a lengthened period of probation and instruction 
 is according to the Apostolic precedent.) 4. The spirit 
 of such passages as Mark x. 13 — 16. 1 Cor. vii. 14. 
 
 should not have perceived the difficulty arising from the fact, that the 
 circumcision of which St. Paul speaks is ^x^ipovoffiTos, " made without 
 hands," i. b. an inward, invisible, circumcision; in other words, sancti- 
 fioation by the Holy Spirit. Now between this and outward baptism, 
 baptism administered " by hands," there can be no accurate comparison. 
 To make the parallel a just one, we should be compelled to understand 
 avvraipivTes avrif h Tip /Sairrfa/uaTi (v. ]2.) of the inward baptism of tlie 
 Holy Ghost; which certainly is not St. Paul's meaning. 
 
APPENDIX. 315 
 
 B. 
 
 ON THE IDEA OF CHRISTIAN ELECTION. 
 
 Page 70, line 15. The Jewish election, and calling, 
 and adoption, &c.J "To what were they" (the Israel- 
 ites) " chosen by their Almighty Ruler ? Were they 
 elected absolutely and infallibly to enter the promised 
 land, and to triumph over their enemies, and to live in 
 security, wealth, and enjoyment? Manifestly not. They 
 were elected to the privilege of having these blessings 
 placed within their reach, on condition of their obeying 
 the law which God had given them." Whately, Essay 
 on Election. This statement, surely, is not quite ac- 
 curate. The original promise to Abraham was absolute, 
 not conditional ; " Unto thy seed will I give this land :" 
 Gen. xii. 7. (compare xiii. 15; xvii. 8.): the promise was 
 not that the land should be offered to the Israelites, but 
 that they should inherit it. And accordingly they did 
 eventually enter into Canaan. No delay in the fulfilment 
 of the promise, no reluctance of the people to pursue 
 their high destiny, sufficed to frustrate the purpose of 
 God. Abraham's seed occupied the promised land. Had 
 it been merely the " offer" to which they were elected, 
 they never, as far as we can judge from their manner of 
 spirit, would have fulfilled the Divine intention. The 
 cutting off of a generation in the wilderness for dis- 
 obedience cannot be urged as a proof that the promise 
 was conditional ; it was simply a delaying of the fulfil- 
 ment: but a delay of more than 400 years had already 
 interposed, and many generations of Abraham's descend- 
 ants had never enjoyed the blessings of Canaan: yet this 
 did not affect the quality of the promise, which remained 
 an absolute one, though for the present the effect was 
 suspended. 
 
316 APPENDIX. 
 
 There seems to be in the whole of the Archbishop's 
 reasoning some confusion between the grant of Canaan to 
 Abraham's seed, and their continued possession of it. The 
 grant was absolute ; but the continued possession of it was 
 conditional, that is, it was made to depend on obedience 
 to the law. Prophecy foretold that the covenant would 
 be broken, and the nation, in consequence, dispossessed 
 of their inheritance (Deut. xxviii.) ; but the promise that 
 they should be placed in possession, should be subjected 
 to the probation under which they failed, was absolute. 
 
 The corresponding facts under the Gospel have been 
 pointed out in the text. The elect of God, in the New 
 Testament, are supposed not merely to have been placed 
 within reach of salvation, but to have been inwardly 
 moved to accept the Gospel offer; i. e. to be under the 
 influence of the Spirit, and in the enjoyment of spiritual 
 blessings. The " saints and faithful brethren in Christ" 
 at Colosse (c. i. 2.) were supposed by the Apostle to 
 correspond to their profession ; which was, not to be 
 saints merely in name or professors merely of the faith, 
 but to be real saints and believers. They may not have 
 been so in fact; for every local Church is necessarily a 
 mixed body ; but with the fact the Apostle had nothing 
 to do : what they really were was known only to God, and 
 St. Paul was compelled to take them at their profession. 
 But in so doing he did not lower the meaning of these 
 terms so as to comprehend the tares as well as the wheat; 
 but, no account being made of the tares, the Church is 
 designated according to the idea; that is, according to 
 what it ought to be, and would be, if discipline were 
 perfect. For it is only the imperfection of human dis- 
 cipline that prevents the separation of the tares inwardly 
 as well as those outwardly : the former are no more 
 really of the Church (the Church in its truth) than the 
 
APPENDIX. 317 
 
 latter : and when Christ, who knows the heart, comes again, 
 they will be severed from the body with which they had 
 only an external conjunction, and no inward fellowship. 
 The Commentators have not unfrequently perplexed a 
 very simple matter, by not remembering that the mixed 
 character of local Churches arises from the impossibility 
 of applying discipline to more than the overt act : they 
 would be pure if men could exercise discipline as Christ 
 Himself would. " Of these promiscuously contained in 
 the Church, such as are void of all saving grace while 
 they live, and communicate with the rest of the Church, 
 and when they pass out of this life, die in their sins, and 
 remain under the eternal wrath of God ; as they were not 
 in their persons holy while they lived, so are they no way 
 of the Church after their death" (no more, therefore, 
 were they of it during their life, or only so externally), 
 " neither as members of it, nor as contained within it. 
 Through their own demerit they fall short of the glory 
 unto which they were called, and being by death separated 
 from the external communion of the Church, and having 
 no true internal communion with the members and the 
 head thereof, are totally and finally cut off from the 
 Church of Christ." Pearson on Creed, Art. ix. " Not 
 that there are two Churches of Christ ; one, in which 
 good and bad are mingled together ; another in which 
 there are good alone ; one in which the saints are im- 
 perfectly holy ; another in which they are perfectly such : 
 but one and the same Church, in relation to different 
 times," (he might have added, under different aspects, l^ujhv 
 and s(ra>3ev,) " admitteth or not admitteth the permixtion 
 of the wicked, or the imperfection of the ungodly." Ibid. 
 " So likewise do the Apostles speak to all members of 
 the Church as to elect and holy persons, unto whom all 
 the privileges of Christianity do belong ; although really 
 
318 APPENDIX. 
 
 hypocrites and bad men 'do not belong to the Church' 
 nor ' are concerned in its unity,' as St. Austin doth often 
 teach." Barrow, Discourse on the Unity of the Church. 
 " The invisible Church is ordinarily and regularly part 
 of the visible, but yet that only part that is the true one ; 
 and the rest but by denomination of lavsf, and in common 
 speaking, are the Church, not in mystical union, not in 
 proper relation to Christ ; they are not the house of God, 
 not the temple of the Holy Ghost, not the members of 
 Christ ; and no man can deny this. Hypocrites are not 
 Christ's servants, and therefore not Christ's members, and 
 therefore no part of the Church of God, but improperly 
 and equivocally, as a dead man is a man ; all which is 
 perfectly summed up in those words of St. Austin, saying, 
 ' that the body of Christ is not bipartitum,* it is not a 
 double body ; ' non enim revera Domini corpus est, quod 
 cum illo non erit in asternum ;' — all that are Christ's 
 body shall reign with Christ for ever." Bp. Taylor, 
 Dissuasive from Popery, p. ii. b. i. s. 1. 
 
 C. 
 
 ON THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 Page 95, line 15. The evidence seems, on the whole, 
 in favour of the supposition, that this mode of worship 
 commenced under divine sanction.] The following is a 
 summary of the arguments in favour of the divine origin 
 of sacrifice. 
 
 1. However natural the simpler oblations of the fruits 
 of the earth, as expressions of gratitude and dependence, 
 may appear, it is difficult to perceive on what principles 
 unaided reason could imagine that bloody sacrifices could 
 be acceptable to the Creator. As Eucharistic offerings 
 they are manifestly unsuitable : as symbolical repre- 
 
APPENDIX. 319 
 
 sentations of the feeling of guilt on the part of the 
 worshipper they might indeed have a natural use ; and 
 Mr. Davison (Prim. Sac. p. 22.) thus accounts for their 
 introduction. But it seems douhtful whether, in the 
 earliest instances on record, the sacrifice of Abel, for 
 example, this feeling could have been associated vs^ith 
 them, or at least could, in the first instance, have 
 given rise to them. It has been remarked, (Lect. VI. 
 p. 224.) that the spiritual progress of the race bears an 
 analogy to that of the individual, and that we must not 
 expect, and in fact do not find, in the first fathers of 
 mankind, those deep convictions of sin which we discover 
 in later times : even Cain needed a divine admonition 
 from without to remind him of the sin slumbering at his 
 door, which was soon to break forth in savage ferocity. 
 It needed striking visitations from God ; centuries of 
 experience ; and above all, the written law with the 
 inspired expositions of it contained in prophecy ; to 
 produce adequate conceptions of human sinfulness : and 
 it is not likely that, until this feeling existed in some 
 considerable degree, so strong and marked an expression 
 of it as the slaying of a victim, would spontaneously 
 occur to the mind. 
 
 2. In its piacular character, as a rite of atonement and 
 propitiation, it seems admitted that reason could never 
 have surmised the efiicacy of sacrifice. (Davison, Prim. 
 Sac. p. 28.) If therefore the notions of the heathen on 
 this point, by whom, as we know, universally, an ex- 
 piatory power was attributed to animal sacrifice'', pro- 
 ceeded not from the echoes of some primeval tradition, 
 they owe their parentage to gross superstition. Yet that 
 such a superstition should of itself have taken root 
 in the various religions of the world, under circumstances 
 *> Magee, Discourses on Atonement, Note 33. 
 
320 APPENDIX. 
 
 which seem to preclude the idea of derivation the one 
 from the other, seems hardly credible. The theory of 
 some", that the sacrifices in question sprang from the 
 gross anthropomorphism of uncultivated nations, by 
 which the Gods were invested, not merely with human 
 passions, but with animal appetites, and therefore the 
 worshipper conceived himself bound to appear before 
 them, not merely with gifts, as bribes, to procure their 
 favour, but with gifts which imply the gratification of 
 the lower appetites, as the flesh of slain animals, — is open 
 to the objection that such extreme ignorance respecting 
 the nature of Deity is hardly to be ascribed to the very 
 early age in which the custom of sacrifice is found to have 
 prevailed ; according to Scripture soon after the fall : 
 the Apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans, teaches us 
 that the grosser forms of idolatry were the result of a 
 gradual process of deterioration, of neglect to improve 
 the measure of light still remaining to the fallen creature "- 
 Nor can their human origin be satisfactorily explained on 
 the notion of their being federal rites, implying, as eating 
 and drinking did amongst men, friendship with the Deity, 
 or reconciliation when that friendship was interrupted^; 
 for in the earliest species of sacrifice, the burnt-ofiering, 
 no part was reserved for the offerer's use, the whole being 
 consumed on the altar ; and moreover, on this hypothesis, 
 it is difficult to account for the rise and prevalence of the 
 revolting practice of human sacrifices. 
 
 3. Turning to the inspired records, we find, it is true, 
 no positive determination of the point in dispute ; but, 
 on the other hand, nothing that militates against the 
 supposition of the divine origin of sacrifice. If the 
 
 <= Spencer, De Leg. Heb. 1. iii. Diss. ii. 
 
 Eom. i. 19—31. 
 « Sykes, Essay on Sacrifice, Mede, Works, b. ii. c. 7. 
 
APPENDIX. 321 
 
 sacrifices of Abel and Noah cannot, as Mr. Davison 
 contends, be proved to have been of expiatory character, 
 those of Job seem really to approach to this quality (c. i. 
 5. xlii. 8.), and, as v.e know, in one instance of the latter 
 they were offered by the command of God Himself. 
 Moreover, the mode in which the subject of sacrifice is, 
 in the law of Moses, introduced, is such as to impress on 
 the mind the idea, that a well-known and familiar ordi- 
 nance is now only about to receive greater distinctness of 
 idea and additional details of ritual. It is to be observed, 
 that sacrifice is not there instituted for the first time ; 
 but, apparently, on an existing rite are engrafted the 
 various ceremonies which make up the Levitical system, 
 and which distinguish it from the simpler worship of 
 earlier times. See Levit. c. i. 
 
 Against these considerations, the mere fact that Scrip- 
 ture records no express institution of the rite seems 
 hardly sufficient to weigh. Mr. Davison himself concludes 
 his instructive treatise on sacrifice with the words, " I do 
 not press a peremptory decision against its divine origin ; 
 because there may, in fact, have been reasons, undis- 
 cernible to us, why God may have chosen to withhold 
 from after ages the knowledge of His institution of it." 
 p. 168. In this state it is best to leave the controversy, 
 which in no way affects the divine appointment of the 
 Mosaic sacrifices, or their typical character. On the 
 whole subject, see Outram, De Sac. Diss. i. c. 1. Magee, 
 Notes 47 — 58. Davison, Prim. Sac. Warburtcn, D. L. 
 b. ix. c. 2. Fairbairn, Typology, i. c. 4. 
 
322 APPENDIX. 
 
 D. 
 
 ON THE VICARIOUS NATURE OF THE MOSAIC SACRIFICES. 
 
 Page 101, line 12. The passage which I have read seems 
 to assert as •plainly as words can do the vicarious nature of 
 these sacrifices, &c.J The Socinian writers, and those in- 
 clined to Socinian views, have naturally endeavoured to 
 disprove the quality here ascribed to the Mosaic sacrifices; 
 for, this point gained, a step is made towards divesting the 
 Christian atonement of one of its distinctive peculiarities. 
 The arguments of Sykes and Taylor, the chief English 
 writers on this side, will be found stated and refuted in 
 Magee's Discourses on the Atonement, Note 38 : they 
 have been repeated, with the addition of some new ones, 
 by Bahr, in his elaborate work, Symbolik des Mos. Cultus, 
 vol. ii. p. 277 — 284. As it is not improbable that the 
 revived controversy on the subject of the Atonement will, 
 in its progress, extend itself from the New to the Old 
 Testament, it may be not out of place to examine some 
 of the objections which the last-mentioned, and very 
 acute, writer urges against the commonly received view. 
 
 They may be arranged under the following heads : 
 1. The idea oi punishment cannot belong to the Levitical 
 sacrifices, because in them, as in all others of the ancient 
 world, it was the blood, not the death, of the victim 
 that atoned for sin. The law of Moses continually dis- 
 tinguishes between the slaying of the victim, and the 
 sprinkling of the blood ; and ascribes the atoning power, 
 not to the former, but to the latter. Commenting on 
 Levit. xvii. 11, Bahr says : " The first thing which strikes 
 us in this passage, is the prominence given to the blood 
 of the victim ; it is not death that is spoken of as the 
 means of atonement, but the blood : which latter was 
 
APPENDIX. 323 
 
 evidently the principal thing in the sacrifice. Whilst 
 the laying on of hands, the slaying of the victim, and the 
 division of the carcase, were performed by the offerer, 
 none but the priest could sprinkle the blood upon the 
 altar." vol. ii. p. 200. " The same conclusion may be 
 reached othervcise. Among all eastern nations, especially 
 the Israelites, prayer was considered a sacrifice ; after 
 the destruction of the temple, prayer formally took the 
 place of the Levitical offerings : but this could not have 
 happened, had there not been an identity of idea between 
 the two. Now what has prayer to do with the notion of 
 punishment ?" p. 279. 2. " According to the forensic 
 view, expiation was effected by the vicarious death of 
 the victim ; whereby satisfaction was made to Divine 
 justice, and the wrath of God appeased. But this is 
 incompatible with the language of Scripture, which 
 always, as has been remarked, speaks of the blood, and 
 not of the death, as being the means of expiation ; and, 
 with the proper meaning of the word "1Q5> which, signi- 
 fying as it does ' to cover,' can never be applied to God, 
 or to any quality in Him." p. 279. 3. " If the death of 
 the victim is regarded as a (vicarious) punishment, it will 
 follow that every sin for which a sacrifice was enjoined, 
 must have deserved death ; which no one can maintain. 
 For sin-offerings were appointed only for ceremonial 
 offences, inadvertently committed ; not for moral." 
 4. "The forensic view confounds symbolical with real sub- 
 stitution : the victim is no longer a symbol of the offerer, 
 hut his substitute : a permutatio personarum is supposed to 
 take place, by which the act of sacrifice becomes the formal 
 execution of a righteous sentence, a mechanical, outward, 
 act; and so loses its deep religious significance." p. 282. 
 Bahr's own view is, that sacrifice is a surrender of the 
 natural, sinful life to God, in order by union with God 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 to become partaker of His holiness. It possesses a 
 twofold character, symbolical and sacramental : under 
 the former aspect, it represents, by the victim offered, 
 the giving up of the soul, the seat of life, to God ; under 
 the latter, it is an appointed means whereby union vifith 
 God is effected ; the blood covering, or removing, the sin 
 which had prevented such union. The inference, of 
 course, is, that the death of Christ, in like manner, is 
 but an example (though the only true and perfect one) 
 of self-sacrifice to God ; a means whereby sinful man is 
 attracted into union with the Divine Being ; and which, 
 though in some unexplained manner it cleanses from sin, 
 does not, in any proper sense, involve the ideas of 
 vicarious suffering, or of objective propitiation, p. 210 — 
 213. 
 
 I. To the first of these objections the reply is obvious: — 
 " The life is in the blood ;" and the presentation of the 
 blood at the altar was nothing but the consummation of 
 the sacrificial act by which the life of the victim was 
 taken, instead of the life of the sinner. If this act was 
 not complete without the sprinkling of the blood by the 
 priest, no more was it without the death of the victim 
 by which the blood was obtained. Neither of these two 
 main constituent elements of the sacrifice should be 
 exalted at the expense of the other; both were necessary 
 to complete the idea. By the laying of his hand on the 
 victim, the offerer identified it with himself so as to 
 render it (symbolically) laden with sin ; by the death 
 which he then inflicted he confessed his guilt, exhibited 
 what it deserved, and expiated it (symbolically). But 
 something more was necessary to complete the trans- 
 action. Both Jehovah's acceptance of the expiation, and 
 the application of it to the sinner, must be signified; 
 and this took place when by the priest, the representative 
 
APPENBIX. 325 
 
 of God, the blood, now no longer unholy, no longer 
 charged with the sins which by death had been atoned 
 for, was applied to the altar, the place where Jehovah 
 and the people met together for the purpose of recon- 
 ciliation, and which therefore was at once symbolical of 
 the Divine Presence, and of those^to whom that Presence 
 was manifested''. "These ceremonies were so contrived, 
 that to inflict the penalty on the animal was one thing, 
 and to discharge it before God by a sacrificial rite was 
 another. The former was done when the animal was 
 deprived of life : the latter when the life of the animal 
 was solemnly presented to God; which in this ritual 
 service was not done till the blood, the vehicle of the 
 life, was brought to His altar, or sprinkled towards His 
 mercy seat." Outram, De Sac. Diss. i. c. xxi. s. 6. To 
 perceive how essential to the sacrifice was the death of 
 the victim; that it was just as essential as the sprinkling 
 of the blood ; we have but to consider what a difference 
 it would have made had the blood been obtained from 
 the animal without its undergoing death : we see at once 
 that the import of the transaction would have been 
 essentially altered. But Bahr seems to admit that the 
 ideas of death and punishment are correlative ; if there- 
 fore it is clear that the death of the victim was an 
 essential element of the expiatory act, it is equally clear 
 that that act involved the notion of punishment, the 
 
 i" Hence the comparative frequency with which, in the New Testament, 
 the hlood, as compared with the death, of Christ is spoken of in connexion 
 with the Christian life. By the daath of Christ sin was expiated ; Ijy his 
 "blood," as distinguished from his death, is miant the justifying power 
 that flows from Him as a risen, and exalted, Saviour, the participation of 
 His heavenly life. This to the individual, is the commencement of sal- 
 vation, and is appropriated by personal faith. Here the usual expression 
 IS not iri'iTTis els -riv BApaTOv, but iriaris iv r^ avrov ui/iaTt. Rom. iii. 25. 
 " He died for our sins, but was raised again for our justification." Ibid, 
 iv. 25. 
 
3^6 APPENDIX. 
 
 punishment of sin, the infliction of the penalty of the 
 law upon a substitute. And no ingenuity of reasoning 
 can divest the transaction of this character. It was not 
 blood merely, as blood, which covered sin ; but blood 
 obtained by the forfeited and sacrificed life of the victim, 
 which represented Christ, the real bearer of the sins of the 
 world, the real propitiation for our sins. 
 
 As to Biihr's argument from the presumed identity of 
 prayer and sacrifice, it hardly deserves notice. Sacrifice, 
 being, under one aspect, the dedication or surrender of the 
 victim to God, is metaphorically applied to many things 
 which come under that notion, such as praise or thanks- 
 giving, and alms-giving. See Heb. xiii. 15, 16. And 
 prayer may in this sense be termed a sacrifice. But to 
 found any serious argument on such a use of the word as 
 this, is but learned trifling. As to the practice of the 
 Jews after the destruction of the temple, if they con- 
 sidered prayer a substitute for sacrifice, it was merely in 
 the sense of its being the only religious service left 
 them : just as the exiles in Babylon were compelled to 
 substitute homiletic services for those of the temple. 
 See Lecture VII. 
 
 Neither is there any weight in the remark which Bahr 
 more than once makes, that, if sacrifice were the execu- 
 tion of the penalty of sin on a substitute (the victim), it 
 is the priest, not the oflierer, whom we should have 
 expected to perform this act : " God would, in that case, 
 have inflicted the punishment ; that is, the priest acting 
 in His name : so that slaying the victim, not sprinkling 
 the blood, would have been the special function of the 
 priest." p. 279. In the case of the true penitent, the 
 condemning sentence of the law is anticipated ; the 
 sinner condemns himself. "Judge yourselves, that ye 
 be not judged of the Lord." This sentiment was better 
 
APPENDIX. 327 
 
 expressed by the offerer's himself slaying the victim, 
 than if another had performed that office. Thereby he 
 openly acknowledged the justice of the sentence which 
 condemned him to die. Moreover, the typical corre- 
 spondence would not have been so complete, had the 
 priest slain the victim ; for Christ as the Son of Man 
 (not in His priestly office) was to off"er Himself; "no 
 man taketh it" (His life) "from me, but I lay it down 
 of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have 
 power to take it again." John x, 18. Finally, through- 
 out the act of atonement, Jehovah appears not as exe- 
 cuting judgment but as shewing mercy; as accepting the 
 sacrifice and applying it by means of the priest, to 
 cleanse the sinner : another reason why the necessary 
 deathstroke of justice should have been dealt by the 
 offerer, and not by the priest. 
 
 2. But, secondly, it is urged that the "forensic" view, 
 according to which " the wrath of God was appeased by 
 the vicarious death of the victim," is incompatible with 
 the facts, that the blood, not the death, is spoken of as the 
 means of expiation, and with the proper meaning of the 
 word 13?. The first part of this objection, which relates 
 to the blood, has been sufficiently considered : nor is it 
 necessary to notice the second at any length, containing, 
 as it does, only the often refuted, but perpetually re- 
 peated, charge, that the doctrine of the Atonement, as 
 commonly received, represents God as implacable &c. 
 But neither to the Mosaic sacrifices, nor to that of 
 Christ, does such an idea belong. Towards sin the 
 wrath of God, i. e. His displeasure, is, and cannot but 
 he, manifested ; but towards the sinner He has ever 
 shown Himself a God of love, by providing means 
 whereby, consistently with the divine attributes, forgive- 
 ness might be extended. 
 
328 APPENDIX. 
 
 3. The third objection, that, if the forensic view were 
 the true one, every sin for which a sacrifice was appointed 
 must have been regarded as worthy of death ; whereas it 
 was only for ceremonial offences that atonements were 
 permitted ; is based upon erroneous assumptions. In 
 the following note it will be shewn that the dis- 
 tinction between moral and ceremonial offences is hardly 
 tenable ; and that moral offences, not presumptuous, 
 were susceptible of atonement not less than breaches 
 of the ceremonial law. And as regards the penalty 
 of sin, the law here made no distinctions : " Cursed 
 is every one that continueth not in all things that are 
 written in the book of the law to do them :" " The soul 
 that sinneth, it shall die." (Deut. xxvii. 26. Ezek. xviii. 
 4.) We must take care, as Kurtz has remarked, (Das 
 Mos. Opfer. p. 48.), to distinguish between the death 
 here denounced against sin, and the civil penalty of death 
 for murder, &c. : to no case of capital offences did the 
 Mosaic atonements apply. But the death which is the 
 penalty of sin signifies much more than the mere death 
 of the body ; and in interpreting the expressions of the 
 divine law we cannot be guided by political analogies. 
 Though it is true then that the offences expiated by 
 sacrifice were never capital ones, this does not prove that 
 they were not liable to the death which is the wages of 
 sin, and as such fitly purged by the death of the victim, 
 which, though an inadequate, was a true, representation 
 of the penalty which the sinner had incurred. 
 
 It would have been more to Bahr's purpose to have 
 adduced the cases of uncl^anness occasioned by child- 
 birth, contact with a dead body, and leprosy; as here' 
 there could confessedly be no moral guilt, and yet the 
 uncleanness was removed by a sin-offering'. But it has 
 
 ' Archbishop Magee (Note 38.) seems to suppose that the sacrifices 
 
APPENDIX. 329 
 
 been observed (p. 89.) that these cases were all associated 
 with sin, under one or another aspect, and therefore the 
 remarks just made equally apply to them. But even 
 if they did not, it cannot be argued that because some 
 sacrifices were not vicarious, as not being oiFered for sin, 
 they were equally destitute of this quality in cases in 
 which moral guilt was involved. 
 
 Bahr, finally, has too hastily drawn the conclusion, that 
 to constitute a punishment a vicarious one, it is necessary 
 that it should be exactly the same as that which would 
 have been inflicted on the offender. Outram's remarks on 
 this point deserve notice. "It is objected that their" 
 (the victims') " death could not be vicarious, because death 
 was no where denounced in the law, even against the 
 ofienders themselves, on account of those kind of sins 
 which were to be expiated by sacrifices. As if there 
 could be no vicarious punishment, except it was of the 
 same kind as that which would have fallen on the sinner 
 himself : or as if the piacular victims could not stand in 
 the place of the offerer, unless the law had in express 
 terms denounced against the offerers themselves the 
 punishment of death for those kinds of sins which were 
 to be expiated by the death of victims. But neither of 
 these suppositions is true, and one of them is contra- 
 dictory to itself. In the first place, it makes no differ- 
 ence in vicarious punishment, whether the substitute 
 suffers the same kind of punishment which awaited the 
 sinner himself, or some other instead of it. Either, at 
 the pleasure of him to whom the right of punishing 
 belongs, may avail to avert punishment from the offender. 
 
 enjoined in these cases were not vicarious, because the usual ceremonies 
 (laying on of the hand &c.) are not mentioned. But since they are ex- 
 pressly called " sin-offerings," (see Levit. xii. 6. xiv. 19. Numb. xix. 9.) 
 it is not likely that these ceremonies were actually omitted. 
 
330 APPENDIX. 
 
 Hence it appears that to sustain vicarious punishment, 
 and to suffer vicarious death, are not precisely the same, 
 and that one may be inflicted without the other. In the 
 next place, it is not true that piacular victims could not 
 stand in the place of the offerers, unless the law in 
 express terms denounced against the offerers themselves 
 the punishment of death for those kinds of sins which 
 were to be expiated by those victims. Such a denun- 
 ciation would have left no room at all for expiation. 
 For every punishment expressly denounced by the law 
 against offenders, the law would have required to be 
 inflicted upon them ; no sacrifice or expiation could have 
 averted it. It is evident from this consideration that 
 the punishment, whatever it was, which was averted by 
 sacrifices, could fiot be denounced in the law, against the 
 offerers or offenders themselves, without contradicting 
 the commands for the oblation of victims ; and that it 
 was omitted to be denounced for this very reason, because 
 the law made provision for its being averted by sacrifice." 
 Diss. i. c. xxi. s. 9. 
 
 4. But, lastly, the sacrifice thus loses its symbolical 
 meaning, and becomes a mere mechanical permutatio 
 personarum. By no means. The radical defect of Bahr's 
 own view is, that he makes the victim exclusively, or 
 principally, the symbol of the offerer; whereas, properly, 
 it was the symbol, or representative of Christ, and only 
 secondarily so of the ofierer. The train of ideas is as 
 follows : Christ was the true vicarious victim upon which 
 the sin of the vrorld was laid : before this effectual sacri- 
 fice was ofiered, symbolical ones, substitutes for it, were, 
 under the Mosaic law, appointed : in these latter, there- 
 fore, the victim primarily represented Christ; but because 
 Christ was to identify Himself with man and to occupy 
 man's place, it mediately represented the offerer. Thus 
 
APPENDIX. 331 
 
 the transaction, from first to last, was purely symbolical. 
 There was a symbolical translation of the offerer's sin ; 
 a symbolical expiation by death ; a symbolical appli- 
 cation of that expiation by the sprinkling of the blood : 
 the only thing that was real was the effect of the whole, 
 viz. the forgiveness, or covering, of the sin; which, as 
 has been more than once remarked, resulted, not from 
 any inherent efficacy in the legal sacrifices, but from 
 their (in the Divine mind) typical connexion with the 
 one great Sacrifice which they prefigured. And what 
 deeper religious sentiments could be expressed than 
 those of self-condemnation, of penitence, and of faith 
 in the divine promise ? Certainly, these are as strongly 
 characteristic of true religion as the surrender of the life 
 to God, in which Bahr would make the whole import of 
 sacrifice to consist. 
 
 Such are the objections to the judicial, or vicarious, 
 theory of the Mosaic sacrifices which the most distin- 
 guished advocate of the opposite view has been able to 
 muster. For Bahr himself abandons the argument drawn 
 from the permission, in certain cases, to substitute ofl^er- 
 ings of flour for animal sacrifice. Levit. v. 11. He rightly 
 reminds those who lay stress on this circumstance, that 
 this permission was granted only when the offerer was 
 so poor that he could not procure even a pair of turtle- 
 doves or two young pigeons ; and that we must not argue 
 from the nature of an occasional substitute to that of the 
 thing itself, in its proper form. ii. p. 281. How in- 
 su£B.cient the objections are upon which he does insist 
 has, it is hoped, been made evident ; and when in such 
 hands the argument fails, it is not likely to be revived 
 with more success by others. 
 
 Si Pergama dextrjl 
 Defendi potuere, etiam hac defensa fuissent. 
 
332 APPENDIX. 
 
 But the task undertaken was not to be accomplished ; at 
 least by any unprejudiced reader of the Old Testament. 
 
 It may be asked, however, how the vicarious theory 
 can be adjusted to the case of the peace, or thank, 
 oiFerings, in which the ceremonies of laying on the hand, 
 slaying, and sprinkling the blood, are exactly the same 
 as in the other sacrifices, and yet with which it is difficult 
 to connect the ideas of sin and punishment. Bahr has 
 not failed to make use of this circumstance, vol. ii. p. 218. 
 But, as is remarked at p. 98 of the Lectures, to all the 
 Mosaic sacrifices without exception, the ideas of sin and 
 expiation belong, and therefore the ideas of substitution 
 and satisfaction. Let us hear Bahr himself explaining 
 the peace-offerings. "The sprinkling of the blood" (in 
 the peace-offerings) " does not differ from that in the 
 burnt or trespass-offering ; and this is deserving of atten- 
 tion, for, according to the common view of the nature 
 and object of the peace-offerings, expiation, which is 
 denoted by this act, does not belong to them. But if 
 we ascribe an expiatory power to the trespass-offering, 
 (and this we must do,) it is impossible to deny it to the 
 peace-offerings, since the atoning-ceremony is in the 
 latter exactly similar. We can the less ignore this 
 property, or assign to it a subordinate place, because 
 Scripture makes it particularly prominent, when it en- 
 joins that the priest who sprinkleth the blood shall have 
 the shoulder and breast of the victim. Levit. vii. 14, 33. 
 We must here, as well as in other cases, regard this act 
 (the sprinkling of the blood) as the essence of the 
 sacrifice. The idea of atonement is, in fact, inseparable 
 from the Mosaic sacrifices in general, and the peace- 
 offerings would have been no sacrifices, had they not 
 possessed an atoning power: whatever special object 
 these offerings may have had, it must have ultimately 
 
APPENDIX. 333 
 
 rested on the general ground of expiation. According to 
 the principles of the Mosaic religion, man can not enter 
 into any relation or connexion with God, of whatever 
 kind, without atonement. As regards the particular 
 notion of the peace-ofFerings, it is by no means incom- 
 patible with that of expiation. For the word 071^. in 
 its proper meaning, signifies the filling up of what is 
 imperfect, the payment of a debt ; and the offerer, apart 
 from his general need of atonement, is here sq circum- 
 stanced as particularly to need this process of compens- 
 ation. The connexion of the peace-ofFerings with sin 
 and atonement is, curious to say, especially visible in 
 that species of them which seems least to admit those 
 ideas, the thanksgiving-offering. The word n"Tin (thanks- 
 giving) comes from niin, which signifies to confess one's 
 sin before God ; and the connexion of the two meanings 
 arises from Hebrew religious associations. The know- 
 ledge of sin is only attained in the light of God's holiness ; 
 whilst, therefore, man confesses his sin before God, he 
 also confesses that God is holy ; and since the holiness 
 of God was, under the Mosaic revelation. His chief re- 
 vealed attribute, the confession of sin, and the confession 
 of God's attributes, or Name, because one and the same 
 thing. But to confess Him, as the Holy One, is likewise to 
 praise Him. With the sacrifices of thanksgiving therefore 
 the Israelite necessarily connected the confession of sin ; 
 and so proceeded to the idea of atonement : which idea, 
 consequently, was as much a part of this species of 
 sacrifice as of any other." vol. ii, 379, 380. In this 
 instructive passage Bahr relieves his opponents from the 
 labour of replying to his former remark respecting the 
 thank-offerings: he has shewn, most conclusively, that 
 in these, no less than in the sin-ofierings, the ideas 
 of sin, of the penalty of sin, and of atonement, were 
 
334 APPENDIX. 
 
 expressed, and therefore that all the Mosaic sacrifices 
 were expiatory and vicarious. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Mr. Jowett, in his Com- 
 mentary on St. Paul's Epistles, vol. ii. p. 479, should 
 have been unable to see more in either " Heathen or 
 Jevrish sacrifices" than "the dim, vague, rude, (may 
 we not say) almost barbarous, expression of that want in 
 human nature which has received satisfaction in Him 
 only. Men are afraid of something ; they wish to give 
 away something; they feel themselves bound by some- 
 thing ; the fear is done away, the gift oifered, the obli- 
 gation fulfilled in Christ." But the profoundest feelings 
 of human nature, on the subject of religion, are not to 
 be thus summarily disposed of. And if Jewish, not less 
 than Heathen, sacrifices are but a " rude, almost bar- 
 barous," expression of man's spiritual wants, in what 
 light are we to regard the volume in which those sacrifices 
 are described as having been appointed by God Himself? 
 The God of the Old Testament must be diiferent from 
 that of the New, if He could have not only sanctioned, 
 but expressly enjoined, ceremonies of such a character. 
 It is no wonder that, on such an hypothesis, the con- 
 clusion arrived at is, that " Heathen and Jewish sacrifices 
 rather shew us what the sacrifice of Christ was not, than 
 what it was;" that is, in other words, that the Old 
 Testament, at least the ceremonial law, is not only of no 
 use to illustrate the import of Christ's death, but is 
 calculated positively to mislead us on that subject. It 
 seems difiicult to maintain the divine origin of a pro- 
 fessedly preparatory dispensation, when it does any 
 thing but prepare the way for its successor. 
 
APPENDIX. 335 
 
 E. 
 
 ON THE EXTENT OF THE MOSAIC ATONEMENTS. 
 
 Page 106, line 6. This opinion is strongly opposed by 
 others, &c.] The chief writer on this side of the question 
 is Mr. Davison, who, in his work on Prophecy, and 
 especially in that on Primitive Sacrifice, denies to the 
 Mosaic sacrifices the power of atoning for moral offences, 
 or of effecting more than the restoration of the ofiender 
 to Theocratical privileges. See Discourses on Prophecy, 
 p. 147. and Prim. Sac. pp. 86 — 93. In this he is followed 
 by Bahr (Symbolik des Mos. Cult. ii. 386^ but from a 
 different motive : Mr. Davison urges the point in order 
 to prove that sacrifice before the Law was not expiatory ; 
 Bahr that he may gain, as he conceives, an additional 
 argument against the forensic, or vicarious, view of 
 sacrifice in general, both the Mosaic and the Christian. 
 The arguments of neither writer seem quite satisfactory. 
 
 As regards the range of offences to which the Mosaic 
 atonements extended, Mr. Davison presents us with the 
 following fourfold division: " 1. Bodily impurity. 
 2. Ceremonial offences. 3. Sins of ignorance and inad- 
 vertency, or offences ' unwittingly done.' 4. Certain 
 specified cases of Moral transgression, knovnngly com- 
 mitted, in favour of which an exception from the general 
 severity of the Law was admitted, and an atonement 
 ordained." Prim. Sac. p. 90. This arrangement is ob- 
 viously inaccurate; for ceremonial offences might be 
 "unwittingly done," or through " ignorance," and indeed 
 must have been of this character to entitle them 
 to the benefit of atonement. A better division would 
 be: 1. Bodily impurity. 2. Sins of ignorance; sins 
 committed na^tfJa, that is, inadvertently, or without de- 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 liberate design. Under the latter head Mr. Davison 
 refuses to admit more than what he calls purely cere- 
 monial oifences. " As to the reality of this failure and 
 deficiency, we have it demonstrated by the letter of the 
 Law itself, which takes up the ritual, and passes almost 
 untouched the moral, transgression." Prim. Sac. p. 86. 
 Against this statement it may be remarked ; 
 
 1. That the distinction between moral and ceremonial 
 offences is more apparent than real. Even if (which 
 however seems a gratuitous supposition) the cases alluded 
 to in Levit. iv. were those of breaches of the ceremonial 
 law merely, yet they must have partaken of a moral 
 character, inasmuch as they are supposed to proceed from 
 " inadvertence," or carelessness, which, in however slight 
 a degree, is culpable. It is not pretended that the 
 Israelite could not have exactly complied with the pre- 
 cepts of the ritual : the ignorance was not absolutely 
 unavoidable : obedience, however difficult, was possible : 
 hence the offences were censurable ; and, though they 
 fell not under the cognizance of human tribunals, they 
 were treated as " sins," and as needing a sacrifice of 
 atonement. The very word applied to them (riNan) 
 shews this. Thus was the absolute holiness of God 
 impressed on the mind of the Jew. What in the 
 eye of man would be considered as but innocent in- 
 advertencies, became in the eye of God sins, culpable, 
 though pardonable. Most strongly is this exemplified 
 in the case of unpremeditated manslaughter. Accidental 
 manslaughter by the slipping of the head of an axe from 
 the handle (Deut. xix. 5.) is by no human law a crime. 
 We should be disposed rather to pity than to blame the 
 agent : yet it entailed a species of banishment, to last per- 
 haps for many years. (Deut. xix. 5.) The lesson intended 
 to be taught was, that thoughtlessness, want of circum- 
 
APPENDIX. 337 
 
 spection, the unavoidable frailties, as we say, of human 
 nature, are of the nature of sin, and need expiation. 
 There does not, then, appear to be ground for the dis- 
 tinction between ceremonial offences, or sins of ignorance, 
 and moral transgressions ; all, though in different degrees, 
 came under the latter category. 
 
 Indeed under the Mosaic religion this distinction is 
 not recognised. As ceremonial offences, even those inad- 
 vertently committed, partook, in the eye of the divine 
 law, of a moral character; so moral transgressions, properly 
 so called, were also theocratical ones, or breaches of the 
 covenant between God and Israel, This proceeded from 
 the peculiar structure of the Theocracy, as explained in 
 the first Lecture. Hence it might be anticipated that 
 moral as well as ceremonial offences, provided they were 
 not of the kind termed " presumptuous," would be in- 
 cluded in those for which atonements were appointed. 
 
 2. That the text of Scripture by no means warrants 
 this limitation to ceremonial offences. "If a soul shall 
 sin against any of the commandments of the Lord." 
 Levit. iv. 2. " This shall be a statute unto you, to 
 make atonement for the children of Israel, for all their 
 sins once a year." Levit. xvi. 34. It seems difficult to 
 conceive expressions more general than these. What 
 reason can there be to confine them to any one species 
 of offences? It is probable, indeed, that by far the 
 greater number of sins coming under the class mentioned 
 m Levit. iv. must have been ceremonial in character : 
 but there is not a word throughout the chapter which 
 limits the atonement to such offences. In Levit. vi. 1 — 6. 
 trespass-offerings, which it is impossible to distinguish 
 clearly from sin-offerings, are appointed for certain sins 
 purely moral, — such as false swearing, and detaining the 
 property of another obtained by violence, or deceit, — pro- 
 
 z 
 
338 APPENDIX. 
 
 vided the offender confessed his crime, and repaired the 
 damage ; and in Levit. xix., the same indulgence is 
 granted to the violation of a Hebrew bondmaid betrothed 
 to an husband. To argue, as Mr. Davison does, that 
 these were exceptions to the general rule, seems some- 
 thing like begging the question. Rather may it be 
 contended, with Outram, that out of the mass of. moral 
 offences capable of expiation, this class was, after resti- 
 tution made, and sacrifice offered, selected for a special 
 assurance of pardon, in order to encourage those offenders 
 whose guilt could not be proved by witnesses, (for such 
 seems the ease contemplated in Levit. vi.) to make of 
 their own accord compensation ; it being obviously for 
 the general interest of the nation that they should do so. 
 Outram De Sac. i. c. 13. This explanation, indeed, does 
 not apply to the case of violating a bondmaid ; which 
 therefore stands alone, though, doubtless, it rested on 
 some good reason not now discoverable. 
 
 Bahr's chief argument is derived from the graduated 
 scale of the sin-offerings ; which differed according to the 
 rank of the offender, whether it were the high-priest, the 
 whole congregation, a ruler, or one of the common people 
 (Levit. iv.) : whence the inference is, " that since the 
 theocratical position of the offenders determined the 
 sacrifice, the offences expiated were theocratical, (i. e. 
 ceremonial,) and not moral." Bahr, ii. 387. But this 
 appears by no means decisive of the question. The 
 circumstance admits of easy explanation. The same 
 offence is usually considered more or less culpable, 
 according to the position of the offender; e. g. corruption 
 in a judge is thought more criminal than in a private 
 person. All sins being, under the legal economy, theo- 
 cratical, in estimating them, and proportioning the atone- 
 ment for each, account v^as naturally taken of the rank and 
 
APPENDIX. 339 
 
 dignity of the transgressor. But this determines nothing 
 respecting the kind of sins susceptible of atonement. 
 
 Nor does it seem conclusive to urge that the sin and 
 trespass offerings, being new appointments, peculiar to 
 the law of Moses, imply new offences, that is, the cere- 
 monial ones occasioned by the Law ; for moral offences 
 always existed : to the former therefore alone these 
 offerings applied. (Dr. Hawkins, Sermon on Mosaic 
 Atonements, Discourses &c. p. 178.) For, in the first 
 place, though expiatory sacrifice became, under the Law, 
 a divine appointment, and took special forms, yet the most 
 ancient of all sacrifices, the burnt-offering, contained, we 
 cannot doubt, an expiatory element'; so that the sin and 
 trespass offerings were not, in this respect, absolutely 
 new ordinances ; rather they may be considered as special 
 forms of the patriarchal burnt-offering. And, secondly, 
 the eternal moral law (a point to be always borne in 
 mind) assumed, under the Theocracy, a new shape : it 
 became theocratical in character, or part of the civil law 
 of the commonwealth : and to it, in its new form, the new 
 appointments of the sin and trespass offerings, and those 
 of the great day of atonement, were adapted. 
 
 Mr. Davison further argues from the case of David, 
 " who well understood all the resources of the Law, to 
 which he had given his meditation day and night, but 
 yet could find in them no atoning sacrifice for his sin. 
 (Psalm li.)" Prim. Sac. p. 86. It surely escaped him, 
 at the time, that David's sins, adultery and murder, 
 were "presumptuous" ones, for which, as all admit, no 
 atonements were provided. The absence of such a pro- 
 vision was indeed a chasm in the legal appointments ; 
 
 ' This is here assumed. Mr. Davison ajgues to the contrary ; but, as 
 it should seem, on insufficient grounds. Prim. Sac. p. 30. See Dr. 
 Hawkins's Sermon, p. ]89. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 but we are speaking now, not of sins of this class, but of 
 those of inadvertency. 
 
 He also adduces St. Paul's testimony, that the law 
 " was the ministration of deaths." " But how," he asks, 
 " could it be the ministration of death, if its penal 
 sanctions had, opposed to them, any great antagonist 
 charter of remedial expiation ?" Prim. Sac. p. 93, But 
 St. Paul takes care to specify what "law" it is of which 
 he is speaking. It is the law, "written and engraven on 
 stones," the Decalogue, of which he says it was " the 
 ministration of death;" as indeed, taken by itself, it 
 must have been, and must ever be, to sinful man. But 
 the ceremonial law bore a friendly aspect towards the 
 sinner : it spoke, however imperfectly, of mercy, of 
 atonement, of pardon, of reconciliation ; and in no sense 
 could it be called the "ministration of death" to the 
 Israelites. It was to them the substitute for what 
 Christ's sacrifice is to us. 
 
 But, however plausible these reasonings may be, St. 
 Paul's testimony, it is urged, is specific and direct against 
 the view in behalf of which they are employed. " Be it 
 known unto you, men and brethren, that through this 
 man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins ; and by 
 Him all that believe are justified from all things, from 
 which ye could not be justified by the law of Hoses'"." 
 And again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Every priest 
 standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the 
 same sacrifices, which can never take away sins'." (Com- 
 pare Heb. X. 4; ix. 15.) There can be no doubt that, 
 throughout the New Testament, the strongest contrast is 
 drawn between the Mosaic atonements and that of Christ, 
 as regard the efficacy of each : but the question is, do the 
 statements of the inspired writers compel us to the 
 i 3 Cor. iii. 7. i> Acts xiii. 39. ' Heb. x. 11. 
 
APPENDIX. 341 
 
 conclusion, that moral oifences were not comprised in 
 the charter of the former? Is there no other way in 
 which they can be explained, so as to permit the lan- 
 guage of the Old Testament to retain its natural sense ? 
 The law of Moses could not, St. Paul says, justify ; but 
 its application to moral offences and its power of justi- 
 fication are, surely, not necessarily one and the same 
 thing. And Mr. Davison's reasoning seems to rest en- 
 tirely on the assumption that they are. (Prim. Sac. p. 87.) 
 The Mosaic atonements could not justify, because they 
 could not obliterate the guilt of sin: they were effective 
 so far as to cover it, to procure a suspension of the 
 penalty, but the law, and the conscience, still remained 
 unsatisfied. Since the victim was but a symbol, the ex- 
 piation effected was but symbolical, not real ; there was 
 an inherent impossibility, that the " blood of bulls and 
 goats" should "take away sins." Yet to the symbolical 
 atonement God attached a real efficacy, the restoration 
 of theocratical privileges at least, if nothing more : and 
 here to the worshipper must have been the mystery, and 
 the difficulty : to be solved only on the supposition of a 
 future perfect atonement, of which the present appoint- 
 ments were the substitutes and representatives. Inas- 
 much, however, as the typical reference was not made 
 known to the Jew, (especially at first,) the conscience 
 could never have been purged by these sacrifices : their 
 efficacy in the sight of_ God is explained, when we 
 recollect that He had ever Christ's work in view ; but 
 the Jew, who could not connect the symbol with the 
 reality, must have walked in comparative darkness. He 
 was told that certain sacrifices would avail to cleanse him 
 from his sins (Levit. xvi. 16, 20.) : how or why they did 
 so, he knew not. These considerations seem sufficient to 
 account for St. Paul's language respecting the inferiority 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the legal atonements. In themselves they were worth- 
 less ; from their connexion, in the Divine mind, with the 
 Christian sacrifice they possessed an atoning power, hut 
 only a limited one ; and to the worshipper they must 
 have been dark ordinances, save so far as the typical 
 reference became surmised. Moreover, for one whole 
 class of sins, those committed nap 1^5, or presumptuously, 
 the law provided no atonement; whereas "the blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin''." 
 
 Some minor questions yet remain, to which it will be 
 sufficient to draw attention, without entering into any 
 lengthened discussion. Supposing that moral as well as 
 ceremonial offenceswere entitled to thebenefitof the Mosaic 
 atonements, or rather that all the offences contemplated 
 were, in different degree, moral, we may ask, what effect 
 would the expiatory sacrifice have in procuring a release 
 from any temporal penalties that may have been annexed 
 to the offence committed ? According to the view above 
 propounded, not merely were sinful thoughts and words, 
 or breaches of the ceremonial law, in either case arising 
 from inadvertency, capable of atonement ; but the same 
 merciful provision extended to such overt crimes as were 
 not punishable by death ; as, for example, to theft, not 
 committed HKiT TO,^ but under the influence of sudden 
 temptation, or to fornication. (Deut. xxii. 28, 29.) 
 Though these cases do not come under those for which a 
 trespass-offering was permitted (Levit. vi. 1 — 6.), we 
 must suppose, that after the civil penalty was undergone, 
 the transgressor was, by the general propitiation of the 
 day of atonement, restored to theocratical privileges. 
 But not, surely, until after the civil penalty was 
 undergone. The point is here noticed, because Arch- 
 bishop Magee (Note 37.) seems to suppose that, in all 
 
 '' 1 John i. 7. 
 
APPENDIX. 343 
 
 such offences as admitted of expiation, a release from the 
 temporal penalty followed from the atonement. This 
 however would have been inconsistent with public se- 
 curity. If a thief, however unpremeditated the act might 
 be, could escape the civil penalty of his crime by offering 
 a sacrifice, society could not have held together. In 
 such cases then, we must suppose that the civil penalty 
 was first suffered, and then expiation by sacrifice per- 
 mitted. And very likely, deliberate theft, which was 
 one of the crimes to which (for whatever reason) the 
 penalty of death was not attached, (see Exod. xxii. 1 — 4.), 
 became, in like manner, after the appointed restitution 
 had been made, expiable by sacrifice. 
 
 With respect to the extent of the forgiveness which was 
 the effect of these sacrifices ( to which the " cleansing" in 
 Levit. xvi. seems equivalent), the expressed benefit 
 could, of course, only be temporal in character, since 
 the sanctions of the law itself were but temporal. Sin, 
 of whatever kind, being a breach of the civil law of the 
 Jewish state, excluded the transgressor from theocratical 
 privileges, i. e. the blessings connected with the Mosaic 
 covenant ; " forgiveness" could therefore by the Jew only 
 be understood to signify a reinstatement in these privi- 
 leges. But this does not preclude us from supposing 
 that a further efficacy, unrevealed, may have attached to 
 the Mosaic atonements ; and that, by virtue of their 
 being substitutes for the one great sacrifice of the Chris- 
 tian covenant, they may have availed, when offered in 
 penitence and faith, to avert the eternal consequences 
 of sin. In this, as in other instances, the law may have 
 implied more than it expressed, or promised. 
 
 If the view thus taken be correct, the whole matter 
 will stand as follows : 
 
 1. " Presumptuous" sins were punished by death, 
 
344 APPENDIX. 
 
 without the benefit of atonement. But by sins of this 
 kind those seem to have been meant, which, whether 
 ceremonial or not, implied a spirit of open rebellion 
 against Jehovah, and contempt for the law. " The soul 
 that sinneth presumptuously .... the same reproacheth 
 the Lord." Numb. xv. 30. The example that follows is 
 that of the man who gathered sticks on the sabbath day. 
 
 2. All others were susceptible of expiation by sacrifice: 
 but a distinction arises betweeen those that involved civil 
 injury to others, and those which did not, as, for ex- 
 ample, careless breaches of the ceremonial law. In the 
 former case we must suppose that the civil penalty 
 .(restitution &c.) was first undergone, and then the theo- 
 cratical standing restored by sacrifice : in the latter, 
 inasmuch as there was no civil injury to be repaired, the 
 sacrifice alone sufficed to efiect this object. 
 
 3. What particular sacrifices did for the individual 
 offerer, the general expiations of the great day of atone- 
 ment effected for the whole people of Israel. 
 
APPENDIX. 345 
 
 ON THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS IN CONNEXION WITH THE 
 CEREMONY OF THE SCAPE-GOAT. 
 
 Page 103, line 1. Because sins are expressly said to 
 have been thus transferred to the live goat on the day of 
 atonement, &c.J The ceremonial of the day of general 
 expiation harmonises so completely with the judicial 
 theory of sacrifice, that it has always presented a difiiculty 
 to the maintainors of the opposite view. Some, like 
 Sykes and Taylor, arguing, that the scape-goat was 
 polluted by the transfer of sin (Levit. xvi. 21.), on which 
 account it was not ofifered to Jehovah, but sent away 
 into the wilderness, infer, that " it was not to transfer 
 sins upon the sacrifice that hands were laid upon the 
 head of the victim ; as men would not offer unto God 
 what they knew to be polluted." (Sykes, Essay, p. 37.) 
 Others, like Bahr, (ii. p. 683.) have insisted on the cir- 
 cumstance, that it was on the live goat, and not on the 
 slain, that the sins are said to have been laid ; from which 
 they argue, that there was no connexion between the 
 transfer of sin by the imposition of hands and atonement 
 by means of vicarious sacrifice. 
 
 In replying to the arguments of Sykes and Taylor, 
 Archbishop Magee (No. 39.) appears somewhat embar- 
 rassed, from his assumption that the common view respect- 
 ing the pollution of the scape-goat is the correct one. 
 But Bahr himself has furnished the most conclusive 
 refutation of this opinion. He has shewn that all the 
 sin-offerings, so far from being polluted, were holy ; that 
 it was on this account that, in ordinary cases, they were 
 to be eaten by the priests, while, in the extraordinary 
 ones of the victims whose blood was brought into the 
 
346 APPENDIX. 
 
 sanctuary, which it would not have been proper for the 
 priests thus to consume, (see Lecture III. p. 102.), they 
 were to be burnt without the camp, lest they should see 
 corruption. "With respect to the sacrifices of the day of 
 atonement in particular, he remarks : " If the inferior 
 class of private sin-offerings was so far from being un- 
 clean, that the priests could eat thereof, the burning of 
 the higher class without the camp cannot be explained 
 by the supposition of their being polluted, but on other 
 grounds. Had their pollution through the imputation 
 of sin been the cause of it, the other sin-oiFerings must 
 likewise have been burned, since in them the transfer of 
 sin and the supposed consequent uncleanness was exactly 
 the same. It does not follow that because every thing 
 unclean was to be removed from the camp, every thing 
 removed from it was therefore unclean. Moreover, un- 
 clean things were to be carried to an unclean place, as in 
 the case of the wood of a house infected with leprosy 
 (Lev. xiv. 44", 45.) ; but the sin-offerings were to be 
 burnt in a clean place, whence it seems to follow that 
 they were themselves clean. Nothing can be more con- 
 trary to the Mosaic doctrine of sacrifice than the sup- 
 position, that those offerings, the effect of which was 
 expiation in its highest degree, were especially unclean." 
 (ii. p. 397.) What Bahr remarks of the victims sacrificed 
 is true also of the scape-goat, for the latter must not be 
 separated from its fellow ; that part of the ritual with which 
 it was connected was but the complement of the ceremony 
 of expiation begun by the slaying of the goat on which 
 the " Lord's lot" had fallen. Since the atonement effected 
 on this day was the most perfect and general of all those 
 permitted or enjoined in the Law, the symbolism by which 
 it was expressed was fuller than that employed on ordi- 
 nary occasions ; and while in the common sin-offerings 
 
APPENDIX. 347 
 
 the sprinkling of the blood, by which the covering of sin 
 was betokened, sufficed, here the additional idea of the 
 complete removal of sin was introduced, the scape-goat 
 bearing the sins of the people upon him into a land not 
 inhabited. " Had it been possible to recall the slain goat 
 to life again, and then to charge upon him the sins atoned 
 for, for the purpose of removal, the same end would have 
 been attained : since this was impossible, another goat, as 
 it were, an alter ego, in all respects identified with the 
 first, performs this office," (Kurtz, Das Mos. Opf. p. 297.) 
 That the use of two goats arose from the physical impos- 
 sibility of representing by one victim the completeness of 
 the atonement effected, and not from any essential dif- 
 ference between them, as if the one were polluted and 
 the other not, is evident, 1. From the language of Scrip- 
 ture, which speaks of them as together forming one sin- 
 offering, (Levit. xvi. 5.) 2. From the circumstance that 
 it was to be determined by lot which goat was to be 
 slain; from which it may be inferred, that, previously to 
 the choice thus made, both were indifferently destined 
 to form part of one and the same ceremony. But espe- 
 cially, because, 3. The living goat is said (Levit. xvi. 10.) 
 to have had atonement made for it^; that is, to have had 
 communicated to it the expiation effected by the shedding 
 of the blood of the first goat ; so that it now occupied 
 exactly the same place as the first would have done had 
 it been restored to life. This last circumstance is en- 
 tirely inconsistent with the supposition of this goat's 
 
 * Our translation, " to make atonement with him," is undoubtedly in- 
 correct. The atonement was made by the death of the iirst goat; the 
 second goat received the benefit of this atonement, or was symbolically 
 cleansed, like the tabernacle and the altar, in order to fit him to bear away the 
 sins, now expiated, into the wilderness. T'?? "'S^y never signifies to 
 make atonement with a victim. No doubt the blood of the slain goat was 
 sprinkled on the living one. 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 having been polluted by the transfer of the people's sins. 
 (See Bahr, ii. 678 — 684.) Nor does the fact of those who 
 burnt the sacrifices outside the camp, and who led the 
 goat into the wilderness, being obliged to wash before 
 they were again admitted, (Levit. xvi. 26, 28.) invalidate 
 the above reasoning. " For this washing was not in 
 consequence of the pollution of the sacrifices, or of the 
 scape-goat ; otherwise the high priest, who especially had 
 to do with them, must have become unclean : but in 
 consequence of the possibility of uncleanness having been 
 contracted, unconsciously, during absence from the camp; 
 in vrhich case readmission without ceremonial purification 
 could not take place. The high priest indeed likewise 
 washed after the completion of the ceremony; but this 
 was merely in accordance with the law which prescribed 
 that the priests should never perform their sacred func- 
 tions without purification by water. Exod. xxx. 19." 
 Bahr, ii. 684. 
 
 Sykes's argument, therefore, that the living goat was 
 not sacrificed because it was polluted by the imputation 
 of sin, and therefore the goat that was sacrificed must 
 not be supposed to have had sins transferred to it, falls 
 to the ground, with the erroneous assumption on which 
 it rests. But while we welcome Bahr as a fellow-com- 
 batant on this point, we cannot permit him to draw the 
 conclusions which he does, in support of his own peculiar 
 views. The circumstance that the priests were com- 
 manded to eat the flesh of the sin-offerings he trium- 
 phantly insists on, as decisive against the "judicial" 
 view. " If, as is supposed, transgression was imputed 
 to the victim, which, consequently, became unclean and 
 liable to death, how could the priests, to whom contact 
 with unclean things was especially interdicted, have been 
 commanded to eat of its flesh ? The law says, ' All the 
 
APPENDIX. 349 
 
 males among the children of Israel shall eat of it : _it is 
 most holy,' (Levit. vi. 17, 18.); but according to the 
 judicial view, we should have expected exactly the 
 opposite, ' No. one, least of all the priests, shall eat 
 thereof, for it is polluted.' " (Vol. ii. p. 396.) But this 
 reasoning is not satisfactory. In maintaining the vicarious 
 nature of the Mosaic sacrifices we do not contend, or 
 admit, that, after death sufiered, the carcase of the 
 victim was unclean. The broken law demanded the 
 life ; but the life is in the blood : by the shedding of the 
 blood therefore the sin was expiated, and both the blood 
 shed, and the flesh of the victim, became holy. To the 
 former a quality was imparted to cover sin ; the latter 
 became fit to be presented to Jehovah, on whose altar 
 the fat and kidneys were burnt (Levit. v. 10.), and there- 
 fore fit to be the food of the priests. But Bahr further 
 urges, that if the judicial view were the true one, the 
 sins would have been found transferred not to the living, 
 but to the slain, goat. " The whole ceremony decisively 
 contradicts this view. On the first goat the sins are not 
 laid, and yet it is slain ; they are laid on the second, and 
 yet it is sent away alive." (Vol. ii. p. 683.) But the 
 learned writer here too hastily assumes what should have 
 been proved : he assumes that the imposition of hands 
 did not take place in the case of the slain goat. That 
 it did so however we cannot doubt, though Scripture 
 does not mention the fact ; because this ceremony was 
 enjoined in all cases of piacular sacrifice. (Levit. iv.) 
 There was no occasion specially to mention a rite which 
 it would be sufficiently understood must have been 
 observed. But Archbishop Magee has pointed out, that 
 in the description of the sacrifices offered by Hezekiah, 
 the circumstance omitted in Levit. xvi. is more than 
 implied ; " They brought forth the he-goats for the 
 
350 APPENDIX. 
 
 sin-offering, before the king and the congregation, and 
 they laid their hands upon them, and the priests killed 
 them." (2 Chron. xxix. 23.) Magee, No. 39. Hands 
 then were laid on both goats : on that about to he slain, 
 in order to transfer to it the unexpiated sins of the 
 people ; on the living animal, in order that the sins now 
 expiated might be borne away out of sight. 
 
 With respect to the ceremony itself of the imposition 
 of hands, its import seems so plain, that it is a matter of 
 surprise how it can ever have been questioned. But 
 the ingenuity of learned writers has found means of 
 explaining it so as to avoid the dreaded idea of the im- 
 putation of sin. Bahr's view is, that nothing more was 
 intended by it than the surrender of the victim to Jehovah; 
 it was a significant act, by which the owner of the animal 
 parted with his property, and devoted it to holy uses. 
 " The hand, the member with which one holds and 
 gives, is laid by the offerer on the victim, to denote 
 that it is his own ; and on its head, to signify that 
 he devotes it to death." (Vol. ii. p. 341.) He cites the 
 cases of the blasphemer (Levit., xxiv. 14.); of Susanna 
 (ver. 34.); and of the Levites (Numb. viii. 10.), in all of 
 which this rite was used, as proofs that it had no con- 
 nexion with the transfer of sins. But they do not 
 establish his position ; properly understood, they rather 
 make against it. The general meaning of the imposition 
 of hands in Scripture is clear ; it signifies the transfer, 
 or passage, of a virtue, property, or quality, from one 
 person to another. Thus it was used in blessing (Gen. 
 xlviii. 14.) ; in communicating spiritual gifts (Deut. 
 xxxiv. 9. Acts viii. 17.) ; and in miraculous healing 
 (Mark vi. 5. Acts ix. 17.). In its special applications, 
 this its fundamental idea must never be lost sight of; and 
 in the two former of the above cases, as in that of sacrifice. 
 
APPENDIX. 351 
 
 the only interpretation which, consistently with this 
 idea, we can adopt is, the imputation of sin. The 
 congregation laid their hands on the blasphemer, and 
 the witnesses on Susanna, in order, in both cases, to 
 discharge upon the guilty individual the burden of sin 
 which, unexpiated, rested upon the whole body. And 
 if in the third instance, that of the Levites, we cannot 
 connect with the transaction the notion of sin, yet that 
 of substitution is plainly expressed : the Levites were 
 taken instead of the firstborn of Israel ; and to symbolize 
 this substitution, the people laid their hands upon them, 
 and they became the Lord's property. 
 
 Finally, Jewish tradition, if it is to be allowed any 
 weight, is entirely in favour of the vicarious import of 
 the ceremony under consideration. Let the following 
 testimonies from Outram suffice : " The comment of 
 R. Levi Ben Gerson on these words, ' And Aaron and 
 his sons shall put their hands on the head of the bullock,' 
 is, ' This was the imposition of their both hands, and 
 was designed to indicate, that their sins were removed 
 from themselves, and transferred to this animal.' The 
 same author remarks on another passage : ' The imposition 
 of hands was a tacit declaration on the part of every 
 ofierer, that he removed his sins from himself, and trans- 
 ferred them to that animal.' To the same purpose is 
 the language of Isaac Ben Arama : ' Whenever any one 
 sins through ignorance, or even with knowledge, he 
 transfers his sins from himself, and lays them upon the 
 head of his victim. And this is the design of those 
 confessions, — I have sinned, I have been rebellious, I 
 have done perversely; as appears from the confessions of 
 the high priest pronounced over the bullock sacrificed as 
 his sin-offering on the day of atonement.' Among other 
 observations respecting the bullock sacrificed as a sin- 
 
352 APPENDIX. 
 
 oiFering for the whole congregation, Abarbinel says, 
 ' After the confession, the sins of the children of Israel 
 rested upon him.' Whence we may infer it to have been 
 the opinion of this Rabbi, that those sins, of which solemn 
 confession was made over a piacular victim, devolved 
 upon the victim immediately on that confession." De 
 Sac. D. i. c. 22. s. 5. 
 
 G. 
 
 ON THE DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION. 
 
 Page 141, line 28. — that doctrine of imputation, both of 
 sin and of righteousness.] That the vicarious eiScacy of 
 Christ's sacrifice depends upon the representative cha- 
 racter of Christ Himself is obvious : He cannot be said 
 to have died for, or instead of, man, if He did not stand 
 towards man in the relation of a federal Head, whose 
 acts were to have an influence on the condition of the 
 whole race, or at least of that portion of it which con- 
 stitutes His Church. That in Scripture Adam and 
 Christ stand opposed to each other in this capacity 
 admits not of doubt : it appears from the appellations, 
 "first man" and "second man," by which St. Paul 
 designates each respectively (1 Cor. xv. 47.) ; and from 
 the parallel, but contrary, efiects which flow from con- 
 nexion with each. "As by one man sin entered into 
 the world, and death by sin . . , much more the grace of 
 God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus 
 Christ, hath abounded unto many ;" " As by the offence 
 of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; 
 even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came 
 upon all men unto justiflcation of life. For as by one 
 man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the 
 
APPE.Nurx. 353 
 
 obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Rom. 
 V. 12 — 19. The plain and obvious sense of these pas- 
 sages is, that as the race was implicated in the sin of the 
 first man and its consequences, so it is affected by the 
 obedience, active and passive, of the second man ; 
 the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ, being 
 the sources, respectively, of death and life to the world. 
 More than this the Apostle does not expressly assert in 
 this passage ; but even this is enough to establish the 
 Augustinian view, in its general features, as contrasted 
 with that which bears the name of Pelagius. 
 
 The Pelagian theory regards mankind as a collection of 
 individuals, isolated and independent, or affecting each 
 other only in the way of teaching or example : not as an 
 organized whole, propagating itself. Each man comes 
 on the stage of life, free to stand or to fall ; and, though 
 placed in a disadvantageous position, owing to the pre- 
 valence of evil in the world, which is a matter of fact 
 and cannot be denied, not otherwise incapacitated from 
 working out his salvation. According to Augustin, the 
 human race forms a whole, the separate members of 
 which are connected together by their common relation 
 to one stock, in the qualities of which they all par- 
 ticipate ; as the leaves and branches of a tree form an 
 organized system, and spring from one root. Which of 
 the two views is most accordant, with the mind of St. 
 Paul can hardly be a matter of doubt. Let it be granted, 
 that he does not explicitly afl&rm that the guilt of Adam's 
 transgression is imputed to his posterity ; let it be ad- 
 mitted, that the Vulgate rendering of i$' « Travre; yjfji.a§Tov, 
 in quo omnes peccaverunt, will not stand the test of 
 criticism ; it is enough that St. Paul recognises a causal, 
 and not a mere typical, connexion between Adam's 
 transgression and the general corruption of mankind, 
 
 A a 
 
354 APPENDIX. 
 
 a federal relation between our first parent and his poste- 
 rity. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be 
 made alive." It may be remarked, however, that it is 
 not easy to reconcile the Apostle's expressions, or the 
 facts of the case, with the supposition that the corruption 
 of nature which we derive from Adam does not, in God's 
 sight, partake of the nature of guilt. Death is the 
 punishment of sin ; where then death reigns, as St. Paul 
 argues, there must be sin, sin meriting punishment : but 
 " death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them 
 that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's 
 transgression ;" that is, against a positive law. From 
 the principle which he lays down in ver. 13, that "sin is 
 not imputed where there is no law," it might be supposed 
 that the death which reigned over adults in the interval 
 between Adam and Moses was the penalty, not of actual, 
 but of original, sin ; but even if this interpretation be 
 rejected, the case of infants still remains, who cannot 
 have committed actual sin, and yet are liable to death. 
 On what grounds are we to explain this fact ? If we 
 suppose that the race, irrespectively of the sins of indi- 
 viduals, inherits guilt, as well as corruption of nature, in 
 consequence of the fall, it is accounted for; otherwise it 
 remains a mystery. And this is a case in which we must 
 make our choice between difficulties. If it is " at variance 
 with our first notions of the moral nature of God"" to 
 suppose that He regards as guilty those who have never 
 committed actual sin, it is equally, we should think, to 
 us unaccountable that such beings should suffer pain, 
 sickness, and death. But since this latter is a fact, by 
 no means more intelligible than the doctrine of impu- 
 tation, we are reduced to the conclusion that our reason- 
 ings against St. Paul's doctrine are fallacious, if we could 
 
 ■• Jowett, vol. ii. p. 107. 
 
APPENDIX. 355 
 
 only discover where the fallacy lies ; and that if we knew 
 all, we should perceive that it is not irreconcileable with 
 God's attributes that the human race should s^far be 
 identified with its progenitor as to derive from him both 
 corruption and guilt. Meanwhile it may be observed,- 
 that this notion is by no means contradictory to natural 
 reason. The imputation of guilt may be compared to 
 the effect of our ancient laws of attainder, by which a 
 whole family was, for the crime of its ancestors, subjected 
 to various civil disqualifications ; i. e. was treated as 
 guilty, though innocent of the offence in question, or of 
 any other : the derivation of an inherent " fault or cor- 
 ruption" of nature has its analogy in the transmission of 
 diseases, and even moral dispositions, from father to son. 
 It may he observed too, that the difficulty is not alle- 
 viated by interpreting the Apostle's expressions to signify 
 merely temporal death. Let it be granted, that no one 
 will be punished everlastingly, save for his own personal 
 sins ; yet temporal death is assuredly of the nature of a 
 punishment, and we know that beings innocent of actual 
 sin (infants) suffer it ; through the sin of Adam the race 
 has suffered the forfeiture of immortality : it is obvious 
 that the objections and difficulties which may be urged 
 against Augustin's doctrine of the penal consequences of 
 original sin in another world, apply equally to this more 
 limited view. The apparent injustice is the same under 
 either supposition. 
 
 The imputation of Christ's righteousness is the cor- 
 relative of that of Adam's sin ; and by the latter, accord- 
 ing to St. Paul, we are to explain the former. As 
 through Adam's transgression we bring into the world a 
 corrupt nature, and so, antecedently to actual sin, lie under 
 a spiritual attainder; so by new birth we become inte- 
 rested in a righteousness not originally wrought out by 
 A a ^ 
 
356 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 US, which is laid to our account, in order to our justifi- 
 cation. The language of the New Testament is so coii- 
 strucred, as irresistibly to impress upon the mind the 
 representative and vicarious character of our blessed 
 Lord. It is through union with Him that Christians 
 enjoy their distinctive privileges : in Him they die to 
 sin ; in Him they rise to a new life ; with Him they sit 
 down in the heavenly places : and the imputation of His 
 righteousness is but a particular application of the more 
 comprehensive fact, that believers are one with Him. It 
 is true that the expression " righteousness of Christ 
 imputed to us" does not occur in Scripture, the usual 
 phrase being, " faith is counted for righteousness," 
 (Rom. iv. 9.) ; but since faith cannot possess any inherent 
 excellence to justify, and derives its virtue solely from 
 its object, (otherwise justification by faith would, con- 
 trary to the Apostle's doctrine, be justification by works 
 under another form,) we arrive, in explaining this phrase, 
 ultimately at the meritorious work of Christ, active as 
 well as passive, as the true source of justification; or, 
 (to adopt the exact language of Scripture,) Christ "is 
 made unto us righteousness" in the same sense in which 
 He " was made sin for us." 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. v. 21. 
 
 As against Rome the doctrine of imputed righteousness 
 expresses the truth, that the formal cause of our justifi- 
 cation is not any thing in ourselves ; and in this con- 
 nexion it is sufficient to insist on the idea of imputation 
 as distinguished from an inherent quality, without further 
 more definite statements. The forensic view of justifi- 
 cation, which Rome has always assailed, is no other than 
 that set forth in Art. XI., that " we are counted righteous," 
 &c. There is a tendency, however, in some Protestant the- 
 ologians to confine the idea of justification to the pardon of 
 sin ; a type of doctrine at variance with the confessions of 
 
APPENDIX. 357 
 
 the Reformed Churches, and inadequate to the statements 
 of Scripture on this subject. The tendency is to make the 
 death of Christ, by which sin was expiated, the sole object 
 of the Christian's contemplation ; and proportionably to 
 obscure the great doctrine of union, not with a dead, but 
 with a living Saviour, by virtue of which we obtain not 
 only the obliteration of sin, but a share in the rewards of 
 His perfect obedience, a participation in the glory which 
 He now at the right hand of God enjoys. Not that, in 
 fact, we can separate the two elements of justification, 
 forgiveness and the imputation of righteousness ; they 
 ever go together, and form one act of God : but mentally 
 they are separable ; and (if the analogy of human tribunals 
 is to be held applicable to the divine procedure) we recog- 
 nise the difference between the mere pardon of a criminal, 
 and his restoration to the favour of his sovereign. As 
 regards the charge of Antinomian tendencies, supposed to 
 be connected with the doctrine, it can be founded only on 
 the supposition that imputed is separable from inherent 
 righteousness, — the work of Christ for us, appropriated 
 by faith, from the work of Christ in us, the effect of His 
 Spirit, — which, however, both Scripture and experience 
 shew to be impossible. 
 
 H. 
 
 On Rom. viii. 16. 
 
 Page 213, line 8. The rather jejune interpretations of 
 such passages as the foregoing, which may be found in the 
 works of some of our divines, &c.] The reign of Charles 
 the First was, as is well known, marked by a great change 
 in the current theology of the Church ; a change which 
 speedily made itself felt on the subject of spiritual influ- 
 ences. Arminianism, as distinguished from Calvinism, 
 
358 APPENDIX. 
 
 has ever exhibited a Pelagian tendency, and an inclination 
 to reduce the work of the Spirit to the lowest possible, 
 consistent with any adequate interpretation of Scripture. 
 To this may be added, the reaction from Puritanism, 
 which took place after the Restoration, and which pro- 
 duced a general distaste towards such topics. The usual 
 method was to interpret the expressions of our Lord or 
 of St. Paul, in reference to the spiritual influences proper 
 to the Gospel, of the miraculous gifts of the Apostolic age, 
 which were to cease with the occasion which required 
 their presence. As a specimen, we may take the follow- 
 ing remarks of Stabbing, or rather Clagett, on our pas- 
 sage : " This testimony of the Spirit is the public testi- 
 mony which was given by the Spirit that Christians are 
 the children of God. For it is said in the foregoing 
 verse that they had received the Spirit of adoption, 
 which being opposed to the spirit of bondage, shews the 
 Apostle's meaning to be, that the Christians were the 
 children of the promise, and sx tyi; eXsvlega;, of the free 
 woman, as he expresseth it. Gal. iv. 28. Whereas the 
 Jews, i. e. those of them that were under the Law, 
 answered to the condition of Ishmael, who was ex t% 
 TraiSiVxjjf, the son of the bond-woman, to whom there was 
 no promise of an inheritance. Now that none but 
 Christians were the sons of God, and heirs of the promised 
 inheritance, was that which was testified against the 
 Jews, by the miracles and supernatural gifts of the 
 Apostles and primitive believers ; i. e. by the testimony 
 of the Spirit. And thus this text is far from intending 
 any immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost to our minds 
 that we are God's children." (Discourse touching the 
 Operations of the Spirit.) According to this view, the 
 witness of the Spirit with the Christian's spirit is some- 
 thing altogether external to him ; a mere testimony from 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 359 
 
 God, by miracles, that Christianity was now to take the 
 place of Judaism. Nearly to the same effect is Ham- 
 mond's paraphrase of the passage. By Warburton the 
 indwelling of the Spirit in believers is reduced to " His 
 constant abode and supreme illumination in the sacred 
 Scriptures of the New Testament" (Doctrine of Grace, 
 b. i. c. 5.); a theory which, first, I believe, broached by 
 Stillingfleet, unhappily has received the sanction of the 
 pious Bishop Heber in his Bampton Lectures. Yet 
 Barrow had spoken far more scripturally : " By parti- 
 cipation of this immortal seed" (of the Spirit), " we are 
 engrafted into alliance with the heavenly King, become 
 children of God, brethren of Christ, heirs of Paradise; 
 for this is that ?rvsu/xa t/ioOeo-iaj, that Spirit which con- 
 stituteth us the sons of God, qualifying us to be so, by 
 dispositions resembling God, and filial affections towards 
 Him ; certifying us that we are so, and causing us by 
 a free instinct to cry, Abba Father." (Whit-Sunday 
 Sermon.) So Pearson : " It is the office of the Holy 
 Ghost to assure us of the adoption of sons, to create in 
 us a sense of the paternal love of God towards us, to 
 give us an earnest of our everlasting inheritance. .... 
 As therefore we are born again by the Spirit, and receive 
 from Him our regeneration, so we are also assured by the 
 same Spirit of our adoption." (On the Creed, Art. VIII.) 
 Several modern commentators have understood the witness 
 of the Spirit in our passage to mean, the conviction of 
 his being a child of God, which arises in the Christian's 
 mind from an observation of the fruits of faith which he 
 has been enabled to bring forth; a refiex act of the 
 Christian's own mind : but this interpretation is neither 
 suitable to the context, nor does it express the plain 
 meaning of the Apostle's words. 
 
360 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON THE INVISIBLE CHURCH. 
 
 Page 256, line 10. The one true, or, as Protestants 
 call it, the Invisible Church, &c.] The difficulty which 
 the idea of an Invisible Church presents to many persons 
 arises from their understanding the distinction between it 
 and the visible Church as an absolute, and not, as it 
 really is, a relative one : a mistake which has perhaps 
 been occasioned by the language of some of our divines, 
 virho speak of two Churches, a visible and an invisible, or 
 a Church within a Church. Thus Barrow : " For be- 
 cause this visible Church doth enfold the other (as one 
 mass doth contain the good ore and base alloy, &c.)" 
 Discourse concerning the Unity of the Church. 
 
 It is really one and the same Church that is the object 
 of consideration, but which is regarded under different 
 aspects, or from different points of view, according as we fix 
 our attention on its external notes, and its visible condition 
 in this world, or its true essential being. Distinctio 
 ilia, says Gerhard, (Aphor. 19.) non introducit duas 
 veluti distinctas ecclesias, et diversos csetus, sed castum 
 vocatorum xour aKKov xai aXXov {moKr{])e(Oi Tqoirov, videlicet 
 ejcoflsv xai e(ra>6ev, considerat. Or, as he explains it more 
 fully in his Loci, de Eccles. c. vii. ; Ecclesia pro toto 
 vocatorum castu accepta dupliciter consideratur, hmlsv 
 scilicet atque e^cohv, id est, respectu internes et externa 
 societatis. Interna ecclesise societas consistit in unitate 
 fidei salvific£e, spei et caritatis, qua Christo cogniti et 
 reliquis mystici corporis membris vere pii sunt conjuncti. 
 Externa ecclesiae societas consistit in professione fidei et 
 usu sacramentorum, cui disciplinaeecclesiasticse exercitium 
 potest addi. Visibilis est ecclesia respectu societatis 
 
APPENDIX. 361 
 
 externse. Quinam enim ad externam ecclesise societatem 
 pertineant, oculis hominum est obvium ; sed quinam ad 
 internam ecclesise societatem pertineant, non item, quia 
 fides et spiritualis novitas quae est proprium at internum 
 verse ecclesise decus, infirmitatibus carnis obtecta latet. 
 To the same effect Field, on the Church, ex. " Hence 
 it Cometh that we say there is a visible and invisible 
 Church ; not meaning to make two distinct Churches, as 
 our adversaries falsely and maliciously charge us, though 
 the form of words may seem to insinuate some such 
 thing, but to distinguish the divers considerations of the 
 same Church : which, though it be visible in respect of 
 the profession of supernatural verities revealed in Christ, 
 use of holy sacraments, order of ministry, and due obe- 
 dience yielded thereunto, and they discernible that do 
 communicate therein ; yet in respect of those most 
 precious effects, and happy benefits of saving grace, 
 wherein only the elect do communicate, it is invisible ; 
 and they that in so happy, gracious, and desirable things, 
 have communion among themselves, are not discernible 
 from others to whom this fellowship is denied, but are 
 known only to God. That Nathanael was an Israelite, 
 all men knew ; that he was a true Israelite, in whom was 
 no guile, Christ only knew." 
 
 The Church is, according to the idea, or primarily, 
 (proprie, principaliter dicta, Melanchthon, Apol. Conf. 
 Aug. c. iv.), a communion of saints; not merely of pro- 
 fessing, but of real saints. In the presence of Christ's 
 Spirit, uniting the members to the Head and to each 
 other, lies its true being, and differentia. Every de- 
 finition of the Church which makes the possession of the 
 Holy Spirit a separable accident, and places its essence 
 in external notes or polity, is defective ; and, so far, 
 verges towards the doctrine of Rome, according to which 
 
362 APPENDIX. 
 
 every one, however invsrardly corrupt, and destitute of 
 saving faith, who participates outwardly in the sacraments 
 and is in communion with the Bishop of Rome, is a true 
 member of the Church, and therefore a member of Christ. 
 See Bellarmin. de Eccles. Mil. 1. iii. c. 2. To define the 
 Church as the community of the baptized, or of those 
 who profess faith in Christ, is obviously this doctrine under 
 another form ; for according to it the true being of the 
 Church lies, not in that which is to the eye of man 
 invisible, the indwelling of the Spirit, but in that which 
 is external ; so that mere nominal Christians, and true 
 believers, are equally members of Christ ; and to the 
 visible Church the privileges which Scripture assigns to 
 the body of Christ directly belong. The attribute of 
 sanctity becomes a mere external consecration to God, 
 like that of the vessels of the tabernacle ; and that of 
 unity is reduced to sameness of Church polity, or pro- 
 fession of the same faith and administration of the same 
 sacraments. 
 
 It is against this low conception of the Church, which 
 ignores its essential characteristic, the presence of the 
 Spirit as an operative principle, that the Confessions of 
 the Reformed Churches mean to protest, when they de- 
 scribe the true Church as invisible. What they mean 
 is, that that which makes us members of Christ, and of 
 Christ's body, viz. saving faith, is invisible, for Grod alone 
 can see the heart. " Though the men be visible, yet 
 that quality and excellence by which they are constituted 
 Christ's members, and are distinguished from mere pro- 
 fessors and outsides of Christians, this, I say, is not 
 visible. All that really and heartily serve Christ 'in 
 abdito' do profess to do so: — the invisible Church 
 ordinarily and regularly is part of the visible, but yet 
 that part only that is the true one ; and the rest but by 
 
APPENDIX. 363 
 
 denomination of law, and in conamon speaking, are the 
 Church." Bishop Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, part 
 ii. b. i. c. 1. " That Church of Christ, which we pro- 
 perly term His body mystical, can be but one : neither 
 can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch 
 as the parts thereof are now in heaven already v>ith 
 Christ ; and the rest that are on earth, albeit their natural 
 persons be visible, we do not discern under this property, 
 whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. 
 Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless 
 love and saving mercy which God sheweth toward His 
 Church, the only proper subject thereof is this Church. 
 Concerning this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour 
 hath promised, ' I give them eternal life ; and they shall 
 never perish ; nor shall any pluck them out of my hand.' 
 They who are of this society have such marks and notes 
 of distinction from all others as are not object unto our 
 sense; only unto God, who seeth their hearts, and 
 uuderstandeth all their secret cogitations, unto him 
 they are clear and manifest." Hooker, E. P. b. iii. c. 1. 2. 
 What is it that compels us to make the distinction 
 alluded to ? The fact, that the true Church, the one 
 body of Christ, can, under this dispensation, manifest itself 
 visibly only under the form of particular, local, Churches, 
 such as that of Rome, or Ephesus ; and, under the latter 
 form, is affected with heterogeneous admixtures, which 
 do not properly belong to it. Many, as our Lord's 
 parables of the tares and the fish teach us, are members 
 of local Christian societies, who have no saving union 
 with Christ, and therefore do not belong to the unity 
 of the true Church. Otherwise, secret unbelievers, pro- 
 vided they be baptized, would be members of Christ; 
 a profanation of the term which it is impossible to prevent 
 the doctrine of Rome from ultimately arriving at. Local 
 
364 APPENDIX. 
 
 Churches can never, owing to the imperfection of human 
 discipline, perfectly correspond to the idea, or in other 
 words to what Xhey profess to be, communities of saints; 
 and therefore the aggregate of such Churches, or visible 
 Christendom, is never exactly identical with the true 
 Church. What then is the bond of connexion between 
 the two ? The means of grace, the Word and the Sacra- 
 ments; which, administered by visible Churches as such, 
 are the instruments whereby the body of Christ is re- 
 plenished with members, and built up in the faith. And 
 therefore we never can, in this life, separate between 
 the Church as visible, and the Church as invisible: 
 extra vocatorum caetum non sunt quaerendi electi ; the 
 true members of Christ are always found members also 
 of local Churches, of which they form a larger or a 
 smaller proportion according to circumstances ; that is, 
 according as tribulation or persecution for the word's 
 sake thins the ranks of the mere nominal Christians, or 
 prosperity attracts them in greater numbers. The great 
 error of sectarian movements has commonly been, the 
 forgetting that the true Church cannot, at present, 
 separate itself from the impure elements with which it is 
 in external conjunction, and form one distinct body of 
 real saints. This, we know, will take place " at the 
 manifestation of the sons of God," when Christ, the 
 unseen Head, shall Himself appear ; but not until then. 
 
 The distinction between the visible and the invisible 
 Church is absolutely necessary to the due understanding 
 of the statements of Scripture on this subject. " To the 
 latter of these (that is, to the catholic society of true 
 believers and faithful servants of Christ, diffused through 
 all ages, dispersed through all countries, whereof part 
 doth sojourn on earth, part doth reside in heaven, part 
 is not yet extant; but all whereof is described in the 
 
APPENDIX. 365 
 
 r of divine pre-ordinatiou, and shall be re-collected 
 resurrection of the just ;) I say, to this Church, 
 illy, all the glorious titles and excellent privileges 
 ited to the Church in holy Scripture do agree. 
 s 'the body of Christ;' — ' the house of God;' — 
 ity of God ;' — that one ' holy nation and peculiar 
 I,' — the spiritual Israel ; — the ' one flock, under one 
 erd.'" Barrov?, Discourse &c. Let us take the 
 ite of Unity. Unless vi^e adopt the Romish theory 
 visible unity of the Church under one visible head, 
 nly unity of which local Churches, as such, are 
 )tible is sameness of polity, faith, and sacraments ; 
 I no proper sense are they one society, vchich implies 
 ral government : they are independent communities, 
 ed on the same principles, and having the same 
 ts, and so far only are one ; one as tbe monarchies 
 urope are one. But it is certain that Scripture 
 s of a higher unity than this ; of a unity under 
 Head from vchom the whole body" is " fitly joined 
 ler, and compacted";" of Christians being " a 
 ing fitly framed togetberP;" of Christ being the 
 and Christians the branches^ : " As the body is one 
 lath many members, so also is Christ'," i. e. Christ 
 3is Church : of an organic unity, in short, or that 
 1 results from the connexion of the members with 
 lead and with each other. Romanists, by their 
 y of the Papacy, do really succeed in producing 
 ;hing like this : rejecting that theory, we shall find 
 Ives somewhat embarrassed in endeavouring to dis- 
 any thing corresponding to such a unity, unless 
 iderstand the expressions alluded to of the one true 
 ch ; which, in fact, is always one society, or respuhlica, 
 r its unseen Head, governed and animated by one 
 ih. iv. 15, 16. P Eph.ii.21.. i .Tohu xv. 1. ' 1 Cor.xii, 12. 
 
366 APPENDIX. 
 
 Spirit ; but is not as yet manifested in this its organic 
 unity. And this is, indeed, their true application. 
 
 On this point, as on some others, Protestantism can 
 draw its proper nutriment from Augustin's writings. 
 " Cum igitur boni et mali dent et accipiant Baptismi 
 sacramentum, nee regenerati spiriiualiter in corpus et 
 membra Christi cocedificentur nisi boni ; profecto in bonis 
 est ilia Ecclesia cui dicitur, • Sicut lilium in medio 
 spinarum, ita proxima mea in medio filiarum.' " De Unit. 
 Eccles. s. 60. " Propter malam poUutamque conscientiam 
 damnati a Christo jam in corpora Christi non sunt quod 
 est ecclesia ; quoniam non potest Ctiristus habere membra 
 damnata.'" Cont. Cres. 1. ii. s. 26. Compare Cont. Epist. 
 Par. 1. iii. s. 10. ; de Bap. Cont. Don. 1. iv. s. 4. 
 
 In connexion with the subject discussed in the text, 
 the change of meaning which the words "temple," 
 " sacrifices," and the like, undergo under the Christian 
 dispensation, it may be a practical question, whether 
 the service frequently used in the consecrating of Churches 
 be not calculated, where not explained, to mislead. The 
 idea that God takes up His local habitation in a Christian 
 place of worship as He did in the Jewish temple, is not 
 unlikely to be fostered by the employment of such 
 psalms as the xxivth. (" Lift up your heads, ye gates, 
 and the King of Glory shall come in,") and such lessons 
 as Solomon's dedication of the temple. But " the house 
 of God, under the Gospel dispensation, is no house made 
 with hands .... its materials are the sons and daughters 
 of the human family'." Wherever two or three are 
 gathered in the name of Christ; be it in the upper 
 chamber, or on the sea-shore ; there is the temple of 
 God, for Christ is among them. Reverence for the 
 sacred building is very desirable ; but let not the attempt 
 ' Bishop M'llvaine's Sermoa on the Church of Christ, 
 
APPENDIX. 367 
 
 be made to secure it by a " pious fraud," or the tacit 
 recognition of principles which involve serious doctrinal 
 error. Or, at least, if passages from the Old Testament 
 Scriptures are used on such occasions, let the people be 
 instructed in the difference betvreen the two dispensations 
 as regards this point. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 EAXTEB, PSINTEE, OXFOED. 
 
By the same Author, 
 
 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, in its Idea, Attributes, 
 and Ministry. Longmans, London. Price 16s. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL RELIGIONISM POURTRAYED; 
 a SERMON preached before the University of Oxford, 
 March 38, 1853. Hatchard. Price Is. 
 
 THE GOSPEL NOT A CEREMONIAL LAW; a 
 SERMON preached before the University of Oxford, on 
 KING CHARLES the Martyr's Day, Jan. 1854. Hatchard. 
 Price Is.