turn back into Egypt, and our heart consents to the justice of the sentence which doomed that generation to die in the wilderness for their unbelief, and for their contempt of the promised land. All through their parable in both Testaments we mark their blindness, their hypocrisy and their continual idolatry, until our amazement and indignation are raised to the highest pitch in view of the murderer Barabbas preferred before the loving Jesus, and in view of the Lamb of God nailed to the accursed tree. We think it retributive justice that Roman armies hanged them on crosses outside of Jerusalem, till, as Josephus relates, there remained neither wood nor room for their crosses, besides leveling their city to the ground and selling its surviving inhabitants for slaves.

CHRISTENDOM IN THE APOSTASY.

All this is natural for Christendom, as it was for royal David to condemn to death the heartless man who had trifled with the affections and taken the property of his poor neighbor. But when we come to understand the words of the prophet, saying, “THOU art the man!" our heart, that was hard with indignation at the Jews, now melts into contrition under conviction that the same features reflected in the historic parable of Israel are displayed in Christendom, and are fully portrayed in our common humanity, even to the wounds in his hands made in the house of his friends. For Christendom knows the wonders of Israel's deliverances, accepts the bread which comes down from heaven in the written word, drinks of the living waters flowing from the rock Christ, listens with full approval to the covenant given on the mount, and to the preaching of the kingdom of heaven at hand, and of the king's coming with power and great glory "to judge the earth," and yet people despise the pleasant land of God's promise; they believe not his word. Christendom, like Jerusalem, demands possession of the kingdom of this world in the King's It refuses to wait for his coming in glory to give them

name.

the kingdom. It refuses the promised EARTH for the inheritance after he does come. It demands the government while the world lasts, and after that ends is content with nothing less than some realm of the imagination in the remote heavens!

THE SCRIPTURES A HEAVENLY MIRROR.

The Scriptures are "lively oracles," animated by the Spirit which explores the secrets of the natural heart in its dark corners, hidden from the man himself, which brings those secrets forth and sets them before his eyes, as in a mirror, that the beholder may see and know what is in him, and flee from self-justification to cover his nakedness in the King's garments of praise. The Scriptures are the ever-living, breathing, teaching and comforting word of the Eternal, given to the twelve tribes of the natural Israel not for themselves only, but for the instruction and consolation of all ages and nations, to the intent that every soul which honestly receives and obeys the Scriptures may become "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,' and may become a "man of God thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

Tried by the Scriptures, Christendom to-day is little better than backsliding Israel of old-the church universal is little better than fallen Judah. The church, like Israel under Rehoboam, is rent in twain, the Latin and the Greek, and these again into sects, many entertaining very little fraternal regard.

HOLY TRUTH AGAINST SERAPHIC FANCIES.

Strangers and pilgrims in the earth, as all our forefathers were, the parable of Israel teaches us that here we have only a life estate-teaches us that "the children of the kingdom," the citizens of the King, pay small regard to their promised land, or to the law given to guide our feet in the narrow way leading to the heavenly country. Seraphic fancies of heaven in boundless space are fondly indulged by young and old. These delight the imag

ination, with little advantage to the understanding and the heart. Fancy builds castles in the air that man cannot inhabit, that faith has no power to grasp and that hope fails to convert into realities. Like ghosts, these fancies slip away from the arms that would embrace them, or like the rainbow resting on the ground they vanish in thin air the moment one is expecting to enter into them. The pleasant land which Israel in the wilderness despised through unbelief is the same promised to Abraham and to us. No mortal, not the King himself, receives it in this world; it is not here.

The parable of Israel presents the promised earth in symbols of this world, enkindling a joyful hope of the world to come, with a holy city, a heavenly country of hills and valleys, of fountains and running streams, with fruits and flowers, flocks and herds, multitudes of people from infancy to age which children can understand "all precious things of the sun, all precious things of the moon and all precious things of the earth." These things are promised to Abraham and to his "seed, which is Christ," not for a mortal life, though protracted to a thousand years, but for an everlasting possession. If they be figures, they belong to the earth alone, and not to this fallen world at all.

THE JEWS WITNESSES FOR CHRIST.

The Jew of the holy parable is the representative of our common humanity. His life and conduct, depicted in the history, is a true and fearful picture of human depravity and infirmity, enlightening all nations in the knowledge of God and of our personal responsibility, for it is to thee and with thee personally that the Eternal speaks by the mouth of his apostles and prophets. It has pleased the Almighty to send his holy calling unto every one, through Abraham and his seed, which is Christ, and to assure the inheritance of the earth for ever to all believers in Jesus. Abraham's natural seed are set apart from all the nations of the earth to be a symbol of the seed of promise who are

by faith in Christ separated from this world, its maxims and its evil manners. Scattered among all nations, the Jews are living witnesses that Jesus came of the lineage of David, and they received him not; that he spake as never man spake, and they believed him not; that he wrought miracles more and more wonderful than all who came before him, and they rejected him; that he refused the offer of their crown, and they crucified him, for no evil he had done, but for blasphemy, because he confessed to the high priest before the Sanhedrim, and before Pontius Pilate, and denied not: "Thou hast said, I am the Christ, the Son of God."

THE RESULT OF THIS INTERPRETATION.

Everlasting salvation terminates the grand cycle of dispensations extending from Adam to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ "again the second time," with the victory of our Lord over all his enemies. This manner of interpreting the parable of Israel finds the testimony of Jesus in the spirit of prophecy from Genesis to Revelation. No possible harm is discoverable in it, or can come out of it, either to the heart, the hope or the life of the humble believer, neither does it conflict with the faith of the most ancient and widely acknowledged creeds of Christen. dom. On the contrary, the analogy of faith is by this interpretation made manifest to the common sense of mankind, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified. Mysteries yet discerned amidst the brightness of the light of holy prophecy serve by the contrast more strikingly to show the unspeakable glory of the Sun of righteousness with healing beams in Jesus and the resurrection unto the coming of God on the regenerate earth.

CHAPTER VI.

MESSIANIC PROPHECIES.

The second psalm. The prayer, “Ask of me." Isaiah's prophecy of Emmanuel. A general rule of prophetic interpretation. Emmanuel's kingdom. One Emmanuel, and his kingdom one. Emmanuel in glory. For what waits Emmanuel, and how long? Fallen kingdoms never rise again. The incredible thing. The Lord's parting testimony. The error of this world's hope. The magnitude of that error. The coming in glory.

THE name Messiah is Hebrew, and means the anointed, answering to Xpatos in Greek, which is Christ the anointed one. In the English Scriptures the name Messiah is found only in Daniel the prophet and in John the Evangelist, each twice. But anointed is used in the Hebrew Scriptures a score of times. In the second psalm "anointed" has no connection with any person visible, and the word is uniformly taken by both Jews and Gentiles to mean "the Christ of God," "the Son of the Blessed." "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed." "For," said St. Peter, "of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and with the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." Acts iii. 25.

THE SECOND PSALM.

"Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee," a birth not of the Virgin Mary's womb, but of the earth.