works of God?"* the question expresses the spirit of the ancient dispensation in which, not the Word, but a course of coercive discipline, the "bodily exercise" of the law, was the external means whereby the Spirit operated on men's hearts; and not to believe, but to do, was the special requirement of God in reference to His people. Equally indicative of the spirit of the new economy is the reply, "This is the work of God, that ye believe upon him whom He hath sent;" the reception of purchased and proffered blessings, not the performance of prescribed works, or, as St. Paul calls it, "the law of faith," being the distinctive feature of the Christian life. True it is that the Jew also had the Word of God, as delivered to him from time to time by the prophets; but he had it not as a standing ordinance, and means of grace: the ministry of it was not a perpetual, still lest a predominant, feature of the legal dispensation. The Levitical ceremonial, and the temple worship, constituted the distinctive and permanent service of the Jewish system; while the prophetic function, which approaches more nearly to that of the Christian ministry, was irregular in its exercise, and often intermitted for long periods of time. Under the Christian economy the temple service is not symbolical, but verbal; the Word now occupying the place which the Levitical ritual did formerly. By the Word, regeneration is effected, or begun; by it the Church is built up, and advances to perfection, it being for this end that "prophets," "evangelists," "pastors," and "teachers," all ministers of the Word, have been given by Christ; by it the Church is, or ought to be, governed, and controversies decided. All this is plain enough from Scripture; but the point now to be observed is, that the approaching change, by which the external instrument of the Spirit was to become spiritual in nature, addressing itself to the understanding, not to the senses, was inaugurated by Christ himself. For His was a ministry of teaching, not of type and ceremonial; as was that also of His immediate followers and assistants, the twelve and the seventy who were sent forth "to preach the kingdom of God." The ministration of the Spirit through the Word commenced while Christ was upon earth, though it did not assume its properly ⚫ John, vi. 28. ↑ On this subject some good remarks will be found in Hinds' "Three Temples," pp. 83-96. 1 Pet. i. 23. Jas. i. 18. Ephes. iv. 2. &c. 1 Luke, ix. 2. sacramental character until Christ had been glorified, and the Spirit Himself had come to take Christ's place upon earth. To believe upon Christ—that is, to recognise in Him the Son of God, the Saviour of the world-was the great act of fait which the Jews of our Lord's time were called upon to exercise, the principal part of the final probation to which the nation was subjected. And the requirement was well suited to try the moral habits of men. For what Christ really was-His essential glory was not preceptible to the eye of sense, being hidden under the veil of His earthly humiliation. To the unenlightened eye the "consolation of Israel" was but Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the carpenter, whose father, and mother, and brethren, they knew: His visible appearance corresponding with the predictions of prophecy, that he should "grow up as a tender plant, and a root out of a dry ground; without form, comeliness, or any beauty that men should desire him."* Hence the fallaciousness of the inference, that, because the Word became flesh, the Church must be (in the Romish sense) a visible corporation: a favourite line of argument with the modern school of Romanists. For, if it be undoubtedly true that the Word was made flesh, it is not less true that to discern that Jesus of Nazareth was the eternal Word required the eye of faith, not of sight: it was not in that which could be seen in Him that the essential glory of the Saviour resided. Multitudes saw Christ "after the flesh," heard His word, and witnessed His miracles, who yet never beheld in Him the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world: "He was in the world, and the world knew him not." If some perceived what He was, it was owing to a special work of the Holy Spirit, unsealing their eyes. The faith of Peter, for example, which led to the confession, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," was a divine gift: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Let it be granted, for argument's sake, that the Church is the perpetual incarnation of Christ upon earth, it must yet be remembered that it was possible to see. Christ outwardly, without apprehending Him spiritually; that His real glory —“the glory as of the only begotten of the Father"-lay remote from sense that Jesus, as "God manifest in the flesh," was an object, not of sight, but of faith;—which is precisely what Protestants affirm of His body, the Church. * Is. liii. 2. † John, i. 10. Matt. xvi. 17. Finally, it is worthy of remark, that, as in the prophetic teaching, the more interior the character which religion assumes, the more of Christian doctrine does the revelation contain; so in the ministry of Christ, in which, both in the Saviour's person and teaching, the perfect pattern of evangelical righteousness is set forth, every essential doctrine of the Gospel was promulgated. The doctrines of the Trinity, of the distinct personality of the Holy Ghost, of redemption through the death of the incarnate Son, of the necessity of the new birth, and of a resurrection of the body to life, or to death eternal; all these, the distinctive verities of the new economy were enunciated by Christ Himself; and the teaching of the apostles is but a fuller exposition of the heads of doctrine furnished in the discourses of their divine Master. What remains to be said concerning the specific character of our Lord's doctrinal teaching, will more fitly come under a subsequent section. And here, before passing from the old dispensation to the new, we may pause for a moment to take a cursory review of the ground passed over. The chief point which the foregoing observations have been directed to establish is, that the revelation of God has from the first been progressive, the direction being from a less to a more spiritual and interior character. We have seen how the discipline of the Law, especially when considered in conjunction with the word of prophecy, must have worked towards the formation and development, in the pious part of the Jewish people, of a religion which, if we cannot call it Christian, yet contained in itself the chief elements of a Christian. spirit; and just in proportion as it did so, receded from the legal system, under the shelter of which it had grown up. The moral law convinced the worshipper of sin, and thereby led him to long for a spiritual cleansing from sin; the rites of the ceremonial law suggested the idea, and raised an expectation, of such an atonement yet to come: impressions which were fixed and strengthened by the prophetic revelation. But while thus training its pupils, the legal system paved the way to its own abolition, and only waited the appearance of Him, who is the end of the law, to resign its charge to the liberty and responsibilities of religious manhood. "To Him give all the prophets witness ;" and in proportion as they bring out to view the distinctive features of the new covenant, do they inculcate the superior importance of the moral law, and dwell upon religion in its personal aspect. In the fulness of time the Saviour appeared, Himself made under the - law, but not the promulgator of a new law intended to supply the place of that which, having decayed and waxed old, was ready to vanish away. Both His forerunner and Himself follow in the track of the prophets, and announce the approaching kingdom of God as, primarily, an internal operation of the Spirit upon the heart of man. At the same time, what was wanting in the prophetic anticipations of Christian doctrine was supplied, what was obscure in them was cleared up by Christ Himself; who thus, as none before Him had done, brought life and immortality to light. The mode of operation proper to the new economy, viz., the ministration of the Spirit through the Word, as an instrument, was both established and exemplified in the Redeemer's own personal ministry. All preliminary dispositions having been thus made, the next step in God's dealings with mankind was to be the actual introduction of the new dispensation itself; and surely we can already pronounce, with confidence, that whatever features it may present, they will not be those of the elementary legal system, which had long since become antiquated: it will not be a return to the rudiments of religion which had sufficed for the spiritual infancy of the people of God. Should the outward theocracy which controlled men's actions be found giving place in Christianity to an inner one-the theocracy of the Spirit administered through the Word, it is only what we have been led to expect from an observation of the course which revelation has held from its commencement. How far these anticipations are actually realised in the Gospel dispensation, is the question to be now considered. But before quitting this part of the discussion, we may observe that the view that has been taken of the progressive course of revelation removes a difficulty connected with the present condition of the Jews, which probably has occurred to most students of the history of that people, viz. that whereas, in their former calamities, idolatry was the sin that provoked God to anger, in their last and greatest one, no such sin could be laid to their charge: the Jews after their return from the captivity exhibiting a strong detestation of idolatrous practices. True it is, that the Jews, in the time of Christ, were as remarkable for their abhorrence of idolatry as their forefathers had been for their propensity to it; and had religious illumination remained amongst them what it was when the law was first promulgated, we might be at a loss to understand why they were at length cut off from being the people of God. But it had not so remained. The full import of the Sinaitic covenant-the nature of the religious service which God requires-had been unfolded by the prophets; who at the same time, for the consolation of those who felt that they could not attain to the required standard of righteousness, had given promise of a better covenant, to be founded in the person of Messiah, under which sin should be forgiven, and strength imparted as a matter of grace. It was for their rejection of this new covenant—a rejection proceeding from a distaste to the moral law, as fully exemplified in Christ that the predicted judgment finally fell upon the Jews. To the prohibitions of the law in reference to idolatry they gave heed; but the moral duties of it—"judgment, justice, and mercy" -they disregarded; and these were the duties which by their own prophets had been enforced, as infinitely superior in value to the legal rites. Sunk in religious formalism, they obstinately clung to the letter, to the disparagement of the Spirit; displayed an equal indifference to the warnings and promises of prophecy; and at length rejected Him who came, not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them. Moses and Elias had both borne witness to Christ, as their fulfilment; but the Jews, with a blindness which was the consequence, and the punishment, of moral depravity, clung to the shadow, while they cast away the substance; and though they did well to adhere to the literal commandment, were rejected because they did not do more, viz. accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour. |