Page images
PDF
EPUB

cities, towns, and villages, to intend their welfare, and solicit their good at the court of the Great King. And to this agree the words of the parable: "I will make him ruler over ten cities." Be this as it may-and if there were not more important matters before me, I could shew that there is much ground for the notion, both in the holy Scriptures, and in the Papacy, which is the world to come anticipated and diverted to Satan's uses-we pass onward, merely quoting as we proceed one of the songs of Zion, which beautifully embodies the feeling we have sought to express. "His foundation is in the holy mountains. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah. I will make mention of Rahab, and Babylon, to them that know me; behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia: this man was born there. And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah. As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there all my springs are in thee." (Ps. lxxxvii.)

The prediction itself consists of two parts; the one defining the office to which God destined this Bethlehemite, the other his primeval and eternal dignity: the former being expressed in these words, "For to be ruler in Israel;" which in the version of the Scribes delivered in to Herod is, "a Governor that shall feed my people Israel;" which as to the letter is different, as to the spirit substantially the same. The word in the original is often rendered "Governor:" as in Ezek. xxxiv. 24, Psa. xxii. 29; two passages which refer to Christ, the one by the name David, who in almost all things typified his royalty, and in this also that he was born in Bethlehem; the other as "the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," who did from Bethlehem begin to run his race of labour and grief. The word is also used in the viiith Psalm, where his high and large dominion over the earth in the age to come is set forth; and in Isaiah xvi. 1, where he is represented as the Ruler of the earth, gathering his outcasts in that day when "in mercy shall the throne be established, and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness." (ver.5.) And in divers other parts of Scripture is it used in the same high and unlimited sense: as, Judg. viii. 23, 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, Jer. xxx. 21, Zech. vi. 12, 13; of which I shall quote the last, as presenting us with a worthy conception of that government which he is for ever to fulfil in Israel, and from mount Zion over the whole earth. "Behold the man whose name is the Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord : even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall

:

66

be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both "-that is, as I understand, between Him and his God and Father; a continual harmony of will, an eternal work of perfect mediation; the same idea which is expressed in the passage before us by the the word "to me" or for me:" as if God had said, "I want such a governor in Israel as will fitly and fully rule for me, and Bethlehem shall be the place honoured to produce him." The same harmony is beautifully thus expressed in the passage of Jeremiah referred to, " And their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me." God ever speaks as one beholden unto Christ, as indeed he is; seeing all his rulers of mankind, from Adam downwards, have only vexed and grieved him; even David at times, though he was "the man after his own heart." So that, when God finds this Bethlehemite fit for his service, one in whom he can be glorified, a High Priest both merciful and faithful, he is right glad, and rejoiceth over him as one who has found great spoil. Of this there is a beautiful example in the lxxxix th Psalm: "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him with whom my hand shall be established," &c. God wanted a man in whom he might set his strength and glory. All whom he had travailed with had proved in his hand as a deceitful bow and as a broken staff; but this one was his true and faithful servant, who, after proving by all kinds of suffering, he exalteth to the supremacy of all creation. But the supremacy of spiritual as well as temporal things, of heavenly as well as earthly places, into which Messiah hath attained in reward of his perfect holiness, is a New-Testament rather than an Old-Testament mystery; and therefore not properly coming into our text, which is chiefly, or entirely, conversant with the fates of Israel and the Assyrian, of the land of Canaan and the land of Nimrod; of the daughter of Zion, which is Jerusalem, and of the daughter of troops, which is Babylon. But because these symbols are in the New Testament taken from the earthly and applied to the heavenly also, from the temporal and applied to the spiritual; we of the Gentiles, upon whom the glory hath arisen, may well see, and ought ever to see, the universal purpose of God by Christ and his people and the heavenly city set forth therein. It is not because they apply Israel to the church, and Jerusalem to heaven, and Canaan to the celestial reward, that we object, but because, in this true spiritual application of them, they are so schismatical as to cut off their literal application also to the things which they name. If there had not been a passover, would we have understood what Christ our Passover

would we

meant? if there had not been a serpent lifted up, ever have known what the Son of man lifted up meant? and so, if there is not to be a Jerusalem of the lost and scattered tribes, in which Messiah ruleth over the earth and blesseth it, we shall never know what the Jerusalem above, that cometh out of the heavens, full of the risen saints, with Christ at their head, to rule all visible creation and be served by all the invisible, doth mean. Ah me! what a curse it is to have a divisive and sectarian spirit, which grasps all the kernel to itself, and will not give even the husk to another. The Jew, I maintain, the literal Jew, and the literal Jerusalem, and the literal Zion, have the first right in these prophecies, have the second right who may. The literal interpretation of them is the basis and foundation of the spiritual; and without the strictest adherence thereto, the spiritual is a speculation of partial men, no true interpretation of God's word by the catholic church.

The thing, therefore, which is here declared is, that one who is to issue forth from Bethlehem is to be Ruler for God in Israel, against that day whereof the glories have been set forth in the preceding chapters; which describe Zion's elevation and power, and an universal government of peace, the recovery of her people from all lands, and their supremacy among the nations of the earth. This wonderful purpose, which our prophet had described as about to be accomplished in Jerusalem and her people, being set forth, God proceeds to describe, in this chapter, the Person whom he had chosen as his instrument for bringing out that train of glorious predictions, and ruling over the kingdom of peace and blessedness which his own hand should win from the Assyrian.. This I hold to be the mind of the Spirit in the words of the Prophet Micah, the body of the hope which God set forth by him to Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and the other kings who followed in the throne of Judah; that they might be strong in the Lord, and glory, as Abraham had done, to see the day of Messiah, though afar off. I, a Christian taught by the Spirit, do see more than this in it all. In the Assyrian I see the last Antichrist, holpen, if not possessed, by Satan, to rise up against Christ the Son of God in Jerusulem I see the Jerusalem which is above, in the heavens in the Bethlehemite warring against the Assyrian, I see Christ in his spiritual glory, with his saints, also in their spiritual glory, warring against the armies of the beast and the false prophet: and in the consummation of all, I see Christ and his church in the New Jerusalem ruling over all the things which God hath created and made. But because I see all this, I do not cease to see the other also; because the Spirit hath opened this to my eyes, he did not therefore present a false thing to the eyes of the Jews. I am not to make him a deceiver of others, in order to make him an endower of me and mine. Yet such is the

envious and treacherous dealing of this generation by the people of Israel, over whose restoration to their own land they will demur and doubt, and with sagacious looks confer, as if it were a thing of which God had not certainly spoken, but which depended upon their decision. I thank God that I have learned not to be angry and bitter against them, but I do from my heart pity them, as the most treacherous dealers with his word, and underlying the heaviest threatenings which are written therein. God have mercy upon those who in this day, and under these calls, will give no heed or no credence to the personal coming of Christ and the actual restoration of the Jewish people! They will meet with a sad awakening some morning, if they repent not to the acknowledgment of the truth. Of which ignorance and misinterpretation of God's plain and honest truth the real cause is, that their eye is not single, or their body would be full of light, instead of being full of darkness, upon the great purposes of God. Some of them have no time to give to such studies, being full of secularities and occupations; some of them can believe no otherwise than the church, that is, their favourite sect believes; and others are so set upon standing well with the multitude, that they can believe nothing until it hath been approved and applauded at the market cross. The Lord have mercy upon us! for our sins are more than can be numbered; therefore my heart faileth me.

Next after the dignity of being Governor in Israel comes his claim of right to his title, his worthiness thereof: "Whose goings forth have been from of old, even from everlasting." Glorious recognisance, pedigree of renown, and sufficient title, not to the government of Judah only, but of the whole world! It consisteth of two parts, time and action: the time in these words, "from the beginning, from the days of eternity;" the action in these words, "his goings forth." The expression "from of old," or "from the beginning," is used as a prerogative of God in many places, as Deut. xxx. 27, Psa. lv. 20, Hab. i. 12; of which I will quote only the last, as presenting a worthy instance of the meaning of this expression: "Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine holy one?" Of another person besides God it is found used in one remarkable passage of the Old Testament, Prov. viii. 22, 23: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." And twice over in the New Testament is the kindred Greek expression (by which the LXX. translate it in the passage before us) used of Christ: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God" (John i. 1, 2). "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with

our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life" (1 John i. 1). And in the book of Revelation this, which is elsewhere but an attribute, is embodied into a name of Christ," the Beginning of the creation of God." The other expression, "from the days of eternity," by which the preceding one is confirmed, is found conjoined with it in the passage of Proverbs referred to above, and is likewise the attribute of no person save of Him who is God (Psa. xc. 2, Isa. xi. 28); wherefore also God is called "the Ancient of days," Dan. vii. 9. From these examples it is manifest that he who is to be born in Bethlehem for the ruler of Israel, and who is to wax famous and great unto the ends of the earth, is the same person spoken of in Proverbs under the name of "Wisdom," in John under the name of "The Word," and, "The Life with the Father," because he it is who had existence with God before the world was, in the beginning, from the days of eternity. That Person with whom God took counsel, saying, "Let US make man in our own image;" that Person who was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and the Creator of all things, for whom all things were created: He it is whom God in his purpose hath set to be the gatherer and the ruler of the tribes of Israel; of whom it is said, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." If to have created all things, and to have preserved them, and to be unchangeable, and to be eternal, be attributes of the Godhead, then this King of Israel is God, and not man; or, being man, he is man in addition to his Godhead. In so many words doth Isaiah declare this, in a passage which is referred to Christ Rom. xiv. 10, 11; Phil. ii. 10: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" (Isa. xlv. 22, 23). Here then is a distinct declaration of the Godhead of the King of the Jews, and at the same time of his distinct personality from Jehovah, to whom he is to come forth for the purpose of delivering and revenging his people Israel. This may serve to convince us that the mystery of Abraham and his seed, of Jerusalem and Zion and the promised land, is an integrant part of the eternal purpose of God, and not merely a piece of typography for expressing something else. It is a type of the spiritual election, and their supremacy over all things both terrestrial and spiritual, but it is all the while a reality in itself, and an essential part unto the end, and I believe for ever, of the great mystery of godliness. The constitution of man is spirit and flesh; answerable to which there is, in the outward world, heavenly things and earthly things, to the headship of which those who are one with Christ

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »