IV.

into the world. But, while the heathen was thus LECTURE groping in the hourly thickening darkness, and fruitlessly striving to behold the light, the Jew, amidst all his backslidings and persecutions, even in the blackest night of his national troubles, with unswerving, nay, if you please, obstinate faith, looked forward to the rising of the morning star, the harbinger of an ever- Rev. xxii. 16. brightening and never-ending day.

Furthermore, we have seen that around Moses, as the mediator, the covenant between God and His people had centred; but Moses himself had told them, “The Ex. xviii. 15. LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken." While, therefore, the Israelite was taught to look to a new development of his religion, it was around a new personal head that this religion was to be formed. One who was to be the Messiah,— the anointed Prince, Prophet, and Priest of Israel

-"was to come." The sceptre was not to Matt. xi. 3. depart from Judah until Shiloh came, and to Him Gen. xlix. 10. should the gathering of the people be; for this Pro

phet of the future, unlike Moses in this, was to sit on

a throne, and "His dominion was to be from sea even Ps. lxxii. 8. to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." His was to be an "everlasting kingdom," and Ps. exlv. 13. "of the increase of His government there was to be Is. ix. 7. no end." Again, unlike Moses, He was to have no Aaron as an anointed priest, for He Himself was to be a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

The golden age of the Israelite was therefore in prospect, when his Prince and his Saviour was to come;

Heb. v. 6.

14.

27.

IV.

LECTURE and, in the hope of the glories therein to be revealed; he lived, he suffered, and he died; and not only this, but amid the failing faith of heathenism, even to the Dan. vii. 13, Gentile was preached this "kingdom of heaven" of the future; to him the advent of a Prince was proPs. lxxxix. claimed, Who was to be "higher than the kings of the earth;" and, through the Jew, the heathen began to look falteringly forward. Yea, even the heathen world caught the echo of the voice that spake at Sinai, "I am the Lord thy God." Its baser minds were indeed prepared to ask in scorn, when they saw the John xviii. Prince of the heavenly kingdom, "Art thou a king

37.

then?" But there were also many good and true hearts, who were longing for a kingdom of light and truth, and who, therefore, at once found in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ whom the Jew in his pride rejected.

And what but the long preparation, or what seems to us men long, of the Jewish dispensation could possibly have raised up such men as the apostles and evangelists of Christ, through whose ministry heathendom was brought into subjection to the LORD? Jehovah, then, during the centuries of the old dispensation was "making ready a people prepared for the Lord." Thus was Israel a trustee to the Gentiles.

Third. There is yet another point which shows the comprehensive nature of this scheme.

Is Israel's trusteeship for the Gentiles even yet exActs vii. 38. pired? By no means. It survives still in those “lively 1 Cor. x. 11. oracles," committed to their keeping. "For these things were written for our admonition, upon whom

IV.

the ends of the world are come." And what are those LECTURE Jews themselves now, scattered as they are through all lands, Christian, Mahomedan, and heathen, but living witnesses for Him who spake at Sinai? A people whose present condition it is impossible to understand, without granting the truth of the revelation then made by God to them.

And does their trusteeship end even here? No. For the Jews,—as the ancient covenant people,—are yet to perform some great part in the history of the Christian church, "when the fulness of the Gentiles Rom. xi. 25. shall have come in." We are too apt, I fancy, to speak and think of the Jewish scheme, as though it were something quite past and gone,-as though it were something standing altogether apart from the Christian scheme. Scripture indeed tells us, that such is the case,

as to "the oldness of the letter," but in the new Jeru- Rom. vii. 6. salem,―in the Church of Christ,-the Jew, as a Jew,

is yet, we are assured, to perform a work, second only to his work in the first preaching of the Gospel. "Rom. xiii.12. say then," argues St. Paul, in speaking of the Israelites, "have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?" "For if the casting Rom. x. 15. away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” And what "the receiving" of Israel means, the Apostle explains a little further on: "For I would

IV.

LECTURE not, brethren," he says, "that ye should be ignorant should be wise in your own

Rom. xi.2529.

37-40

ye

of this mystery, lest
conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so
all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall
come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto
them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning
the Gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as
touching the election, they are beloved for the father's
sake. For the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance." The Jew, then, is still a trustee for the
Gentile.

Such was that God who revealed Himself at Sinai : such the providential dealings through which He formed a peculiar people unto Himself: such the covenant He made with them. Well, then, might He command,

III. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." This division of the subject, in order to prevent repetition, we must examine in the fifth and sixth lectures. But listen now to His own words, addressed to His backsliding people: "Where are their gods, Deut. xxxii. their rock in whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand. For I lift up My hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever!"

LECTURE V.

GOD IN CHRIST, THE RECONCILER, FULFILLING
THE LAW.

EXODUS XX. 1—3.

"And God spake all these words, saying,

"I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

WE have seen, in the preceding lecture, in what manner God formed from the rest of the world a people to be to Him a nation of priests; how He committed to them the revelation of Himself and His law, and put them in trust for the world.

LECTURE
V.

I shall now endeavour to show what a mighty and blessed trust it was; and, in so doing, the great truth will be unfolded which, beyond all others, I am anxious to explain: namely, that the law delivered through Moses is the same law now more spiritually re-delivered in and by Christ. For we must keep constantly before our minds what the prophet wrote of Him, “He will magnify the law, and make it honour- Is. xlii. 2. able," and what He said of Himself, "I am not come to Matt. v. 17. destroy the law, but to fulfil it." The covenant ratified

at Sinai was all-embracing; for, though it was primarily

L