Now the tabernacle and the silence of Scripture concerning it are closely mixed up with a parallel subject on which is observed a similar silence. This subject is summed up in the inquiry,When did the Levitical system authoritatively cease? Inspiration, speaking thirty years after our Lord's death, applies to the old covenant the mild expression that it is ready to vanish away' (èyyùs àQavioμoũ, Heb. viii. 13). The priests and Levites can never be said to have received the divine command to cease their ministrations until that period when the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of the nation came as equivalent to an inspired decree. The rent veil at the time of the crucifixion may symbolize to well-instructed Christians the opening of the way into the Holiest,' but to the priest it was an unexplained mystery. Shall we say that if he had received the teaching of the Messiah and learned the true significance of his atonement, he would have ceased to offer bulls and goats? If a Christian priest had ceased to minister, a Christian apostle would have ceased to join as a worshipper. But here we are met by finding Peter and John (Acts iii. 1) at the temple at the hour of prayer joining in worship of which a slain lamb was the most conspicuous element. throughout the subsequent history we look in vain for any relaxation of Levitical ordinances as respects Hebrew converts to the faith. We may form our conjectures how we will on this fact, but in contrasting the revealed accounts of the beginning and ending of the Jewish dispensation, we cannot but find an analogy in the minutely elaborate foreground of a painted landscape, as compared with the misty and far distant horizon, in which the blue of the ocean melts imperceptibly into the azure of the firmament.

Indeed

A silence not dissimilar to this is observable in the history of that portion of the Christian church which consisted mainly of Hebrews, and to whom the apostles of the circumcision were sent. St. Paul was emphatically the apostle of the Gentiles, receiving for that object a distinct commission from our Lord, and being thus independent of the original apostolic college, the numbers of which, if we may so judge from the circumstances attending the election of Matthias, appear to have received a definite limit. Now the remark has been often reiterated that the book which has received the name 'Acts of the Apostles' was rather a narrative of the acts of St. Paul. Consequently ، the twelve ' have laboured almost in silence, so far as regards any inspired narrative of their ministrations. When we make them the subject of inquiry, even when we ask no more than the scene of their toils or the place of their death, we are answered, with one exception only, by the feeble voice of tradition. The apostle of the Gentiles, on the other hand, speaks by his acts as well as by the recorded workings of his inner

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mind. Indeed, with the exception of David, he is more known to the Church than any other character portrayed by inspiration.

This silence as regards the Jewish people and the termination of their polity, a silence which extends even to what may be termed the Hebrew-Christian Church, is at the least mysterious. To those who watch the present condition of that nation it will suggest much thought, especially taken in reference to those hopes to which, even in their exile, they so fondly cling, and the prophecies concerning their future history with which Scripture abounds. But we may pass from a subject wherein we are not prepared to draw any definite conclusion from the silence to which it has been consigned, to one on which the Scripture itself appears to give us some clue. The arguments regarding the priesthood of Melchizedec in the early portion of Heb. vii. are based on the silence of the inspired narrative. To substantiate this position it will be necessary to prove that the expressions (ver. 3) without father,' without mother,' without descent,' 'having neither beginning of days nor end of life,' are deduced from the 'absence of any mention of these particulars in the book of Genesis. We must observe the conclusion at which the writer aims; this was to remove Jewish prejudices that subsisted against a priesthood not formed on the basis of that of Aaron. "The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law (ver. 12). Now a priest, according to the Jewish law, must be a lineal successor of Aaron, and, consequently, one of the tribe of Levi. The father must be a priest, his mother a woman taken in her virginity (Lev. xxi. 13), his genealogy must be clearly drawn out (Num. iv. 3), he must commence his ministrations at the age of thirty and bring them to a close at fifty. Now our Lord belonged to the tribe of Judah, and was of kingly, not of priestly descent. How then does the inspired writer overcome this difficulty? He brings a weapon to bear against the Jew which the latter cannot resist, viz., the language of inspiration; he quotes from Ps. cx. a passage that would be acknowledged as applicable to Messiah (Ps. cx. 4), Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec.' But is the priesthood of Melchizedec subjected to the same rules as that of Aaron? If so, accurate mention will be made of the father, the mother, the genealogy, the ages of entering and of retiring from office. But no; on all these points Scripture is silent. As regards any record of these particulars he is without father, without mother, without genealogy (yeveaλóyntos), having neither beginning of days nor end of life. The necessity of a succession from Aaron is set aside by the fact that Melchizedec lived when Aaron was not yet born. If I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid

tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedec met him' (Heb. vii. 9, 10). Consequently, the claim of our Lord to a priesthood independent of that of Aaron is fully established, and, what is important to our inquiry, the argument is based on the silence of Scripture, on the comparison of what the Jew might have expected with what God chose to reveal. Alleged disqualification for the priestly office is overruled by a simple reference to the absence of any laws on which such disqualification could be established.

This apostolic argument on the priesthood of Melchizedec strongly confirms what we shall always be able to deduce from other instances of scriptural silence, namely, the wise adaptation of the revealed message to the purpose for which it was given. The narrative in the book of Genesis taken alone would be an historical fragment to which we should be able to attach but little meaning. Until we listen to the prophecy of the 110th Psalm the existence of Melchizedec is a scriptural fact the interest of which terminates in itself. The priesthood of the Messiah is, however, the most intensely important subject of revelation, and when we observe how narrowly every Jewish type was fulfilled, a particular deviation from Levitical ordinances becomes a matter of close interest. We have a new priesthood, following that of Aaron in type, but not in direct succession; its details are in general the same, but it has a fundamental difference in setting aside a genealogy from Aaron, and being constituted after the order of a royal priest to whom the progenitor of the Jewish nation paid tithes, and bowed to receive his blessing. The lapse of ages (or, to use the inspired expression) 'the fulness of time,' brings the antitype before us. His priesthood is asserted, and in examining it as the fulfilment of prophecy we refer to the history; then does the obscure mention of the royal priest of old shine out, and what is necessary to observe, the facts stated are exactly sufficient for the purpose and no more. We are first informed that such a personage had a real existence, and his freedom from Jewish enactments and ceremonial is inferred from the dignified silence of the inspired writer.

A similar inference may be drawn from the obscure termination of the Jewish history to which we have alluded. We must regard the New Testament as addressed not merely to the Jewish converts of the period, but to the Church living throughout the successive centuries of the times of the Gentiles.' The Levitical types, it is true, occupy a considerable portion of its sacred pages, thereby showing that the Christian dispensation was a necessary development of that which preceded it. But as Gentile converts were from the first expressly freed from every Jewish ordinance, even from

the

the circumcision, it is clear that we have no more to do with that system, except to study its several parts as figures and shadows of the true. This portraiture of Christian doctrine is, of course, independent of the history of the ordinances themselves, and has full prominence in the sacred page, whilst the obligations of the system upon the Jews as a nation are at present wrapped in unrevealed mystery. In brief, the members of the Gentile Church may infer from the peculiar bearings of the several parts of the sacred canon the importance of those deep truths to which the Levitical ordinances afforded numerous types, while of the precise duration of the old system they are left in ignorance, enough however being recorded to show that they themselves are freed from its obligations.

Bearing in view the principle just enunciated, that the silence of Scripture everywhere gives prominence to that which is revealed, we shall find this verified in the history of our Lord himself; indeed, it is the peculiar glory of the Scriptures in both Testaments, old and new, that they are they which testify of him.' Consequently, we shall find the voice of inspiration and its silence alike tending to this end; yet, when we allude to the silence of Scripture in reference to our Lord, it will be necessary to point out the peculiar testimony which it bears to Him; and here we discover that isolated portions of his life are set in strong relief. In no instance is a particular history more strikingly characterized by its abrupt contrasts of light and shade. Remembering that the manifestation of our Lord is the object of both Testaments; that He is the theme of prophecy, the antitype of all Levitical emblems, the subject of devotional poetry; that to his person and office the arguments of the apostolic epistles are directed—we are struck with the discovery that thirty years of his short life are passed over in almost total silence. How different from the ponderous biographies of modern times, wherein the thoughts and actions of men are laboriously recorded; men whose influence was in some cases as transitory as it was feeble. An uninspired narrator would have been specially eager to have drawn the completest portrait. But do we not infer from the very suppression of particulars the reserve of inspiration? None but a divinely guided author would have bequeathed to the Church the Gospels in their present form. But let us examine the revealed incidents in the biography, that appear like isolated rocks piercing the dark waves of silence. They may be briefly enumerated in the order of time: first, we have our Lord's birth; then circumcision at the eighth day; the presentation in the temple at the fortieth; the adoration of the Magi; the flight into Egypt, with the subsequent return to Nazareth; an interval of at least eleven years;

years; then the visit to Jerusalem, when he was found discoursing with the doctors in the temple; then an interval of eighteen years; from which time the biography is comparatively full and con

secutive.

To these notices of our Lord's personal history we may add the two genealogies. Now all these points taken up by the inspired historian (with the exception of the adoration of the Magi) may be shown to have the closest connection with Levitical types and ordinances. Strictly speaking, our Lord's history substantially begins at his thirtieth year, the previous allusions being exceptional to the general silence, and these we can separately account for. Observing the age at which our Lord commenced his ministry, we find that the revelation sets him prominently before us in his priestly office, and as the genealogies prove his descent from David, we have the typical conditions essential to the priest after the order of Melchizedec. As we follow the course of the inspired narrative we discern great prominence in all that pertains to his fulfilment of Jewish obligations. Whenever he is mentioned as being at Jerusalem, it is almost in every case a feast that occasioned his presence. On the very eve of his sufferings he assembled his disciples to eat the Passover. No iota of the law was disregarded, but in every respect he fulfilled all righteousness. The incidents of his life, moreover, synchronized with the prescribed dates of Levitical ordinances, especially that which brought it to a close, whereby he was so strikingly manifested as 'Christ our passover.' Viewing the inspired history from the commencement of his ministry as relating so distinctly to the parallel with Levitical ordinances, we turn to the breaks in the silence in which his early history is buried, and this principle is found to explain them. The infant of the early chapters of St. Luke is the future priest, the member of the house of Israel. How accurately is his parentage recorded! what careful proofs of the purity of his virgin-mother! The future priest must be circumcised on the eighth day; he must be presented in the temple on the fortieth, and the offerings made as prescribed by the law of Moses. The descent into Egypt perfected the typical connection of our Lord with the Jewish nation, so as to make the prophecy equally applicable to both: Out of Egypt have I called my Son' (Hosea xi. 1). Our Lord's first appearance at a

b Mr. Greswell (Dissertations on a Harmony of the Gospels, vol. i. p. 338) shows with much probability that our Lord was a year old when he left Egypt; that after a residence in that country of 215 days, corresponding to the years of Israelitish bondage, he set out for the land of his birth on the feast of the Passover, thus accurately maintaining the parallel with the series of events to which allusion is made in this prophecy. In whatever degree this calculation may be depended upon, it confirms the reason alleged for a break in the silence observed by the inspired Evangelist.

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