V. Friends and brethren, it is not without reluctance that on a Sunday in Lent, when penitential thoughts should rather occupy us,—and in this place too, where the promotion of practical piety should rather be our aim,—I have so addressed you. But indeed, I seem to have no choice. It is idle crying "peace, peace," when there is no peace. If the Inspiration of Holy Scripture be a deceit, and the Divine meaning of Holy Scripture a superstition,—then, farewell to all our hopes in Life and in Death; farewell to peace in days of despondency and gloom. Our faith is gone, and our teaching becomes a hollow heartless thing. Since, under the name of freedom of discussion, unbounded licentiousness of speculation is openly the fashion of the age, we are constrained to give a reason for the hope which is in us; and to defend, without compromise or hesitation, that Bible, which is the great bulwark of the Faith. It shall not be said that we can condemn, but that we make no answer. It must be seen that we put forth in reply the ancient Truths; and it will be felt that before the majesty of those ancient Truths, the arts of the enemy will prove weak and unavailing,—rather, will stand revealed in all their native deformity. If English Clergymen, coming abroad in the cast-off clothes of German unbelief[522], and decked out with the exploded sophisms of the last century, are to declare openly that the faith of our Fathers is already looked upon among ourselves as 'a kind of fossil of the Past,'—then is it high time that voices should be heard vindicating that ancient method of our Fathers; and boldly proclaiming that this imputation against the Clergy of England is a disreputable untruth. The Church of England, (God be praised!) hath not left her first love; hath not given up her ancient method; Christianity is not 'a difficulty to the highest minds.' The Christian Religion embraces, as much as ever it did, "the thought of men upon the Earth." "All the tendencies of Knowledge" are not "opposed to it." The Gospel is still immeasurably before the age. Intellect has not gone,—the loftiest order of well-trained intellects will never go,—the other way[523]. It is, on the contrary, none but a very shallow wit which errs. Had it confined its speculations to the cloister, or come abroad with sorrow and shame, we should have pitied in silence, and in silence also have lamented. But when it comes insultingly abroad, and sets up a claim to intellectual superiority even while it denies the most sacred truths;—then pity gives way before indignation and disgust. Crown the whole with the iniquity of imputing these views generally to the more thoughtful of the English Clergy[524],—and we are constrained openly to resent the grievous wrong. We declare it to be an unfounded calumny; a calumny which, in the name of the whole Church, I solemnly repel before God,—and His Holy Angels,—and you!

Vain, utterly vain,—worthless, utterly worthless,—must any superstructure of intellectual, moral, or religious training be, which is built up on the doctrine that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other Book; in other words, that the Bible is a common Book; in other words, that Inspiration is a fable and a dream. We have no fear whatever that your high instincts, (with all your faults!),—your English manliness,—will, to any extent be led astray, by sophistry worthless as that which we have been exposing. But we know you look to your appointed Teachers from this place, (as well you may,) for advice, and support, and encouragement, in your better aspirations;—and let me, at least, in plain language, warn you that novelties in Religion never can be true. "Philosophia," says the great Bishop Pearson speaking of Physical Science; "Philosophia quotidie progressu: Theologia nisi regressu non crescit[525]." "Ask for the old paths!" ... The faith, remember, was ἅπαξ,—once for all,—delivered to the Saints. There will be no new deposit. There can be no new doctrines. There has been no fresh Revelation,—no new principle of guidance vouchsafed to man. A new method of interpreting Scripture is quite impossible. And the true method,—the only true method—must be that which was adopted by our Saviour, by His Evangelists, and by His Apostles: a method which they taught to their first disciples, and which those early Bishops and Doctors handed on in turn to the generation which came after them. That method, by God's great goodness, has descended in an unbroken stream, even to ourselves; who have described it this morning, feebly indeed and unworthily,—yet, in the main, as it would have been described at any time, by any of the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs,—by any of the Doctors and Fathers of the Holy Church throughout the world! O let it be our great concern,—yours and mine,—to preserve with undiminished lustre the whole deposit of Heaven-descended teaching which is the Church's treasure!... Like runners in a certain ancient race of which we all have read, let it be our pride and joy,—yours and mine,—to grasp the torch of Truth with a strong unwavering hand; to run joyously with it so long as the days of this earthly race shall last; and dying, to hand it on to another, who, with strength renewed like the eagle's, may again,—swiftly, steadily, exultingly,—run with it, till he fails!... So, when the Judge of quick and dead appeareth,—so let Him find you occupied,—O young men, (many of you, my friends,) who are already the hope of half the English Church! So faithfully may we, Brethren and Fathers, one and all, be found employed, when He cometh,—whose answer to the Tempter is emphatically the text of the present solemn season, as well as a mighty voucher for the Divine origin, and sustaining efficacy of that Book concerning which I have been detaining you so long,—"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!"

Bishop Bull, Harmonia Apostolica, cap. xi. sect. 3.

Dr. W. H. Mill.

SERMON VI.[526]

It is quite marvellous in how many different ways different classes of professing Christians have contrived to nullify the value of their admission that the Bible is inspired. Some would distinguish the inspiration of the Historical Book from that of those which we call Prophetical. Others profess to lay their finger on what are the proper subjects of Inspiration, and what are not. Some are for a general superintending guidance which yet did not effectually guide; while others represent the sacred Writers as subject, in what they delivered, to the conditions of knowledge in the age where their lot was cast. The view of Inspiration which Scripture itself gives us,—namely, that God is therein speaking by human lips[527]; so that 'holy men of God' delivered themselves as they were 'impelled,' 'borne along,' or 'lifted up,' (φερόμενοι) by the Holy Ghost[528];—this plain account of the matter, I say, which converts 'all Scripture' into something 'breathed into by God,' (θεόπνευστος,)[529]—men are singularly slow to acknowledge. The methods which they have devised in order to escape from so plain a revealed Truth, are 'Legion.'

Second to none of the enemies of Holy Writ, practically, are they who deny its depth and fulness. It is only another, and a more ingenious way, of denying the Inspiration of the Bible, to evacuate its more mysterious statements. Those who are for eluding the secondary intention of Prophecy, the obviously mystical teaching of Types, the allegorical character of many a sacred Narrative,—are no less dangerous enemies of God's Word than those who frame unworthy theories in order to dwarf Inspiration to the standard of their own conceptions of its nature and office. I say, it is only another way of denying the Inspiration of Scripture, to deny what is sometimes called its mystical, sometimes its typical, sometimes its allegorical sense.... And thus,—what with the arbitrary decrees of our own unsupported opinion, or the self-sufficient exercise of our own supposed discernment;—what with our insolent mistrust; or our shortsighted folly and presumption; or, lastly, our coldness and deadness of heart,—our slender appetite for Divine things, which makes us yearn back after Earth, at the very open gate of Heaven;—in one way or other, I repeat, we contrive to evacuate our own admission that the Bible is an inspired Book: we fasten discredit on its every page: we become profane men, like Esau: we despise our birthright.

But the most subtle enemy of all remains yet to be noticed. It is he, who,—finding the plain Word of God against him: finding himself refuted in his endeavour to fix one intention only on the words of the Holy Ghost, and that intention, the most obvious and literal one; finding himself refuted even by the express revelation of the same Holy Ghost, elsewhere delivered;—bends himself straightway to resist, and explain away, that later revelation of what was the earlier meaning. It is a marvellous thing but so it is, that the very man who contended so stoutly a moment ago for the literal meaning of Scripture, now refuses, and denies it. Anything but that! If he allows that St. Matthew, or St. Paul,—yea, or even our Blessed Lord Himself,—are to be literally understood; are severally to be taken to mean what they say;—then, Moses and David,—narrative, law, and psalm,—besides their literal meaning, have, at least sometimes,—and they may have always,—a mystical meaning also. Under the evident, palpable signification of the words, there lies concealed something grander, and deeper, and broader; high as Heaven,—deep as Hell.

And this supposition is so monstrous an one; seems so derogatory to their notions of the mind of God;—it is deemed so improbable a thing, that the words of Him, whose ways are not like Man's ways, should span the present and the future, at a grasp;—that He whose "thoughts are very deep," should, with language thereto corresponding, be setting forth Christ and His Redemption, while He tells of Patriarchs and Lawgivers,—Judges and Kings,—priests and prophets of the Lord:—I say, it is deemed so incredible a thing that Moses should have written concerning Christ, (though our Saviour Christ Himself declares that Moses did write concerning Him)[530]; or that the occasional expressions of the Prophets should really contain the far-reaching allusions which in the New Testament are assigned to them; that the men I speak of,—men of learning (sometimes), and of piety too,—will condescend to every imaginable artifice in order to escape the cogency of the Divine statement. St. Paul—was infected with the Hebrew method of interpretation. (It is of course assumed that this method was essentially erroneous! It is overlooked that our Lord had recourse to it, as well as St. Paul! It is either forgotten, or denied, that the Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of St. Paul, acquiesced in every instance of such interpretation on the part of His chosen vessel!) ... As for St. Matthew, he addressed his Gospel to the Jews, and therefore reasoned as a Jew would. (St. Matthew's Gospel was not of course intended for the Christian Church! The blessed Evangelist was also deeply learned,—it is of course reasonable to suppose,—in the sacred hermeneutics of the Hebrew Schools!) ... The other Sacred Writers, it is pretended, all wrote according to the prejudices of the age in which they lived.—In all these cases, it is contended that merely in the way of Accommodation, is the language of the Old Testament cited in the New. What was said of one thing is transferred to quite another,—to suit the purpose of the later writer; to illustrate his reasoning, to adorn or to enforce his statements.... And this brings me to a question of so much importance, that I pause to make a few remarks upon it. In the present discourse, it shall suffice to remark on the doctrine of Scriptural Accommodation; for which it is presumed that the text, (selected not without reference to the present Sacred Season,) affords ample scope, as well as supplies a fair occasion.

Now, it is not to the term "Accommodation," that we entertain any dislike; but to the notion which it seems intended to convey; and to the principle which we believe that it actually embodies. That the Holy Spirit in the New Testament sometimes accommodates to His purpose a quotation in the Old,—is very often a mere matter of fact. In all those places, for instance, where St. Paul inverts the clauses of a place cited,—there is a manifest accommodation of Scripture, in the strictest sense of the word. When two, three, or more texts, widely disconnected in the Old Testament, are continuously exhibited in the New,—a species of accommodation has, of course, been employed. The same may be said when a change of construction is discoverable. Again, there is accommodation, of course, when narrative,—legal enactment,—or prophecy, is so exhibited that the point of its hidden teaching shall become apparent. Nay, in a certain sense of the word, there is "accommodation," as often as a prophecy, however plain, is applied to the historical event which it purports to foretel. The prophecy may be said,—(with no great propriety indeed, but still, intelligibly,)—to have been accommodated to its fulfilment.—Occasionally, a general promise is made particular,—as in Hebrews xiii. 6; and perhaps this might be called an accommodation of the text to the needs of an individual believer. Yet is it plain that in all these cases 'application' or 'adaptation' would be a better word.

But such ways of adducing Holy Scripture, we suspect, are not by any means what is meant by 'Accommodation;' and they do not certainly correspond with the notion which the term is calculated to convey. The place in the Old Covenant, seems, (from the term employed,) to have been forced, against its conscience, as it were, to bear witness in behalf of the New. It has been wrenched away from its natural bearing and intention; and made to accommodate itself,—and, on the part of the writer, quite arbitrarily,—to a purpose, with which it has, in reality, no manner of connexion. This, I say, is the notion which the term "Accommodation" seems to convey.

I am supposing, of course,—(as the opposite school is, of course, supposing,)—not an illustration,—which obviously any writer, whether ordinary or inspired, has a right to introduce at will; but a case where the cogency of the argument depends entirely on the place cited. A sudden and unforeseen requirement arose;—nothing entirely fit and applicable occurred to the memory: but by an arbitrary handling of the ancient Oracles of God,—(altogether illogical and inconclusive indeed, yet entitled to a certain measure of respectful consideration at our hands, and certainly having a strong claim on our indulgence,)—the later writer saw that he should be able to substantiate his position, or to strengthen his argument, or to prove his point. And he did not hesitate to do so. It is surprising that his hearers or his readers should have accepted his statements, and admitted his reasoning;—very! But they did. And it is for us, the heirs of the wisdom of all the ages, to detect the time-honoured fallacy and to expose it.—This, I say, is the notion which the term "Accommodation" seems calculated to convey; and it is to be feared, does very often represent.

And the introduction of this principle, as already explained, I cannot but regard as the most insidious device of all. It admits fully all that we have elsewhere laboured to establish. It freely grants that Apostles and Evangelists were inspired. But then, it denies that much of what they deliver in the way of interpretation of Scripture, is to be regarded as real interpretation. By a taste for Allegory; by Rhetorical license; on any principle, it seems, but one, is the Divine method to be accounted for; and the plain facts of the case to be obscured, or explained away.

Now I altogether reject this principle of arbitrary "Accommodation." I hold it to be a mere dream and delusion. And I reject it on the following grounds:—

1. It is evidently a mere excuse for Human ignorance,—a transparent deceit. Men do not see how to explain, or account for, the apparent license of the Divine method; and so they have invented this method of escape. Most cordially do I subscribe to the opinion expressed by Bishop Bull, in his discussion of the very text which we are now about to consider:—"Atque, ut verum fatear, semper existimavi, allusiones istas, (ad quas confugiunt quidam tanquam ad sacrum suæ ignorantiæ asylum,) plerumque aliud nihil esse, quam sacræ Scripturæ abusiones manifestas[531]."

2. The "theory of Accommodation," (as it is called,) is attended with this fatal inconvenience,—that, (like certain other expedients which have been invented to get over difficulties in Religion,) it altogether fails of its object. For even if we should grant, (for argument's sake,) that some quotations from the Old Testament can be explained on this principle,—so long as there remain others which defy it altogether, nothing is gained by the proposed expedient. Thus, so long as attention is directed to certain of the places in St. Paul's writings already referred to[532], there is certainly no absurdity in adducing them as instances of Rhetorical license. But how can it be pretended that the text whereby St. Paul establishes, (on two distinct occasions,) the right of the Christian Ministry to a liberal maintenance,—with what propriety can it be thought that Deut. xxv. 4 lends itself to such a theory? Those words seem,—and, apart from Revelation, might without hesitation have been declared,—to have nothing at all to do with the matter[533]! To talk of the "accommodation" of words so eminently unaccommodating, is unreasonable, and even absurd.

3. But, allowing the advocates of this theory all they can possibly require, the result of their endeavours is but to make the Sacred writers ridiculous after all. For it attributes to them a method, which, if it be a mere exhibition of human fancy, often seems to be but a species of ingenious trifling,—scarcely entitled to serious attention at our hands. There is no alternative, in short, between certain of the expositions which we meet with, being Divine,—and therefore worthy of all acceptation; or Human,—and therefore entitled to no absolute deference whatever.

4. On the other hand, learned research has hitherto invariably tended to shew that the meaning claimed for Scripture by an Apostle or Evangelist, does actually exist there. Thus, it has been admirably demonstrated that the Evangelical meaning attributed by St. Matthew, (in the first chapters of his Gospel,) to certain places in the ancient Prophetical Scriptures of the Jewish people, derives nothing but corroboration from the inquiries of Piety and Learning[534].... It is proposed on the present occasion, without pretending to bring to the question any such helps as these, to examine the portion of Holy Scripture already under our notice, with a view to ascertaining what light it will throw on the main question at issue. To this task, I now address myself.

St. Paul's words, from the 6th to the 9th verse (inclusive) of the xth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, present probably, as fair an example as could be desired of what is sometimes called "Accommodation." To say the truth, I know not an instance of what, in any uninspired writing, I should have been myself more inclined to stigmatize as such. The Apostle begins an affectionate remonstrance with his countrymen by declaring that they "did not understand the Righteousness of God;" (that is, the Divine method whereby God wills that we shall be made righteous, by faith in Christ;) but desired to set up (στῆσαι) a righteousness of their own, on the worthless foundation of their own Works[535]. "For," (he proceeds; with plain reference to what "the Righteousness of God" is;)—"For Christ is the end" (aim, or object,) "of the Law[536] to every one who hath faith" in Christ. St. Paul straightway proceeds, (as his manner is,) to establish this latter proposition. How does he do it? "For," (he begins again,)—"Moses describes the nature of the righteousness which proceeds from the Law, when he declares [in Leviticus xviii. 5,] that 'The man who hath done the deeds commanded by the Law, shall live thereby.'—But concerning the Righteousness which proceeds from Faith,"—[it was called before, 'the Righteousness of God,']—"Moses writes as follows[537]:—'Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down:) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach: because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Here then is a quotation from the xxxth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy,—a quotation introduced in the way of argument, in support of a proposition: the remarkable circumstance being, that St. Paul adduces the words of Moses with extraordinary license. For first, he omits as many of the Prophet's words as make little for his purpose, while he introduces a very remarkable alteration in some of the words which he retains: amounting to a substitution of one sentence for another. And next, there is one single word, which he expands into an important phrase; and that merely to suit his own argument. But the strangest thing of all is the interpretation which he delivers of words, which as we have just seen, are partly his own,—partly, the words of Moses: by which interpretation, the most strikingly Christian character is fastened upon sayings pronounced by the ancient Lawgiver in the land of Moab, to the Jewish people.—We do further, for our own part, most freely admit, that the place,—as it stands in the Old Testament,—neither at first, nor at second sight, seems to have any such meaning as the Apostle assigns to it. I will remind you of the words in Deuteronomy, by reading the entire passage:—"This commandment which I command thee this day, ... is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to Heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." ... Now, I say, one of ourselves might read this passage in the Book of Deuteronomy over a hundred times, and never suspect that Moses, when he so wrote, was writing concerning faith in Christ: and yet we have the sure testimony of the Holy Spirit to the fact that he was.—The inquiry, "Who shall ascend into Heaven?", signifies, we are told, "Who shall ascend,—to bring down Christ from above?"—And just so, the other clause, "Who shall descend into the deep?", is declared to be an incomplete expression: the full phrase being,—"Who shall descend,—to bring up Christ[538] from the dead." ... Now we never desire to see a non-natural sense fastened on the Inspired Word. With Hooker, we "hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that, where a literal construction will stand, the furthest from the letter is commonly the worst." We contend therefore that whereas we have here the explicit assurance that Moses wrote of none other than Christ,—though his words do not bear upon them any evidence of the fact,—it is a mere trifling with holy things, to call the fact in question.

Here, however, we shall be reminded that the great Apostle,—though professing to quote,—confessedly argues in part from his own language, which is not the language of Moses. Moses says,—"Who shall go over the sea for us?" (τίς διαπεράσει ἡμῖν εἰς τὸ πέραν τῆς θάλασσης;) And since the version of the LXX is what the Author of the Epistle to the Romans follows in this place, it is reasonable to expect that he would adhere to that version, or at least to the sense of that version, in the exhibition of so important a clause as the present. Whereas, instead of "Who shall go over the sea," we find St. Paul writing,—"Who shall go down into the deep?" (Τίς καταβήσεται εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον;)—language evidently highly suggestive of the mysterious transaction to which the same St. Paul says it contains a reference[539]; but certainly not the language of Moses. And we shall be reminded that this is not merely phraseology rescued from vagueness, and made definite; but it is the actual substitution of one thought for another. This is what will be said; and if it be followed up by the assertion that here, therefore, we have a clear example of Scriptural Accommodation, it might seem, at first sight, impossible to deny the fact.

For our own parts, we are inclined to meet the present difficulty, and every similar one, in quite another spirit; and dispose of the objection, somewhat in the following way. The same God who gave us the Scriptures of the Old Testament, gave us the New Testament also. The Bible is one. He who inspired the Law, inspired the Gospel. The Holy Ghost pleads with us in both alike.—Surely, therefore, He who spake of old time by the Prophets, may be allowed, when, in the last days, He speaks by the Apostles of Christ,—to explain His earlier meaning, if He will. Surely, He may tell the Israel of God,—if He pleases,—what He meant by the language He held of old time to Israel after the flesh! Yea, and if it seemeth good to Him to call in the wealth of His ancient treasury, in order to recoin it that He may the more enrich us thereby:—if it pleases Him to take His ancient speeches back again into His mouth, in order that He may syllable them anew,—making them sweeter than honey to our lips, yea, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb;—what is Man that he should reply against God? What should be our posture, at witnessing such a spectacle, but one of Adoration? What, our becoming language, but praise?

It is easy to anticipate the answer that will be made to all this. We shall be told that we are, in some sort, begging the question. The Bible is an Inspired Book, indeed: but what is Inspiration?—Moses wrote the Book called "Deuteronomy:" St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. And St. Paul,—quoting a passage out of the older record,—has substituted a sentiment of his own for a sentiment contained in the writings of Moses. He does the same thing in other places; and elsewhere, as here, he proceeds to reason upon the data he has so obtained. This, it will be said, is the phenomenon which we have to deal with.

But, we reply, it is manifest that he who so argues,—with all his apparent good sense, and fairness,—is entirely committed to a theory concerning Inspiration; and that a very unworthy one. The Bible comes to us as an Inspired Book; claiming to be the very Word of God. The Holy Church throughout all the World, doth acknowledge it to be so. Surely, therefore, it is for us to study its contents by the light of this previous fact.—But quite contrary is the method of our opponents. They treat the Bible as if it were an ordinary Book. They submit its contents to the same irreverent handling as they would the productions of a merely human intellect. They not only reason about its claims from its contents,—but they would even pronounce upon its claims, from the same evidence. They dare to sit in judgment upon it. Hence their lax notions on the subject of Inspiration. They first run riot among statements which are too hard for them; and when they have perplexed themselves with these, till the field is strewed with doubts, and the limits of unbelief and mistrust have become extended on every side,—Inspiration, like an ill-defined boundary-line on a map, is suffered faintly to hem in, and enclose the utmost verge of the unhappy domain.—Whereas, we maintain that a belief in the Bible, as an Inspired Book, should, at the outset, prescribe a limit to human speculations.

Let this belief encircle us exactly, and entirely; and define, at once, the area within which all our reasonings must be taught to marshal themselves, and to find their full development. In brief, our opponents meet our remonstrance by another; but, as we contend, an unreasonable one;—at least, as proceeding from men who, no less than ourselves, allow freely the Inspiration of Scripture. We say,—The Bible is the word of God. Fill your heart with this conviction, and then humbly address yourself to the study of its pages.—It is argued on the other side,—The pages of the Bible are full of perplexing statements. They evolve strange phenomena, interminably. Convince yourself of this; and then make up your mind, if you can, about the Inspiration of the Bible[540].... I shall have occasion, by and by, to explain more in detail the spirit in which the Divine Logic,—Inspired reasoning as it may be called,—is to be approached. For the moment, I am content to waive the question; and to be St. Paul's apologist, almost as if I had met with his words in an uninspired book.

Solemnly protesting, then, that the ground we have just occupied is the only true ground on which to take our stand; but withdrawing from it because we do not fear the appeal to unassisted Reason, even in matters of Faith,—so that the proper limits and conditions of inquiry be but observed;—we proceed to inquire whether,—apart from Revelation,—there be not good ground for believing that the words of the ancient Hebrew Lawgiver and Prophet contain and mean the very thing which the Christian Apostle says they do.—We change our language at this stage of the inquiry. We no longer assert, (as before we did,) that the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Moses, must have meant, what the same Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of St. Paul, declares that He did mean. We are willing to study the sacred text solely by the light which grave criticism and patient learning have thrown upon it.—Our inquiry now, is this;—Although the words in Deuteronomy, read over attentively by ourselves, suggest no such Christian meaning as we find affixed to them in the Epistle to the Romans,—is there no reason, traditional or otherwise, for supposing that they do envelope that meaning; yea, so teem and swell with it, that the germ of the flower may be actually detected in the yet unopened bud?... I proceed to this inquiry.

1. And first, it is obvious, to any one reading the xxixth and xxxth chapters of the last Book of Moses, that they contain another Covenant, beside that of Horeb. This is expressly stated in the first verse of the xxixth chapter:—"These are the words of the Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the Covenant which He made with them in Horeb[541]." Not to stand too stiffly thereupon, however[542], let it be at least freely allowed that even if we choose to regard this chapter and the next as a renewal only of the Covenant made in Horeb, it is a distinct renewal;—both in respect of time and of place. Of time,—for whereas the Covenant of Sinai belongs to the first of the forty years of wandering, the Covenant of Moab belongs to the last. Of place,—for whereas the other was made at the furthest limit of the people's wanderings, this belongs to their nearest approach to Canaan.—And I confidently ask, After such an announcement, and at a moment like that,—the forty years of typical wandering ended, and the earthly type of the heavenly inheritance full in view, Jordan alone intercepting the vision of their Rest;—shall we wonder, if here and there a ray of coming glory shall be found to flash through the language of the dying patriarch? if some traces shall be discernible, even in the language of Moses, of the dayspring of the Gospel of Christ?

2. We find that it contains not a few sayings in support of such a presumption. The 10th verse opens the covenant, and in the following solemn language:—"Ye stand, this day, all of you, before the Lord your God: the Captains of your tribes, your Elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel;—your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in thy camp,—from the hewer of thy wood, to the drawer of thy water." And what was the intention of this solemn standing before the Lord? Even—"that thou shouldest enter into Covenant with the Lord thy God, and enter into His oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day."—The purport of the Covenant thus to be made, was, that God might establish Israel that day for a people unto Himself, and that He might be unto them a God,—(an expression elsewhere appropriated by the Great Apostle to the Christian Church[543],)—as He had ... sworn unto their fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. So that we have here the renewal of the Evangelical Covenant made with Abraham, and renewed to Isaac and Jacob,—which is clearly distinguished in Scripture from the Legal Covenant, made with their children 430 years after; and which is declared ineffectual to disannul the earlier one, confirmed before by God, and pointing entirely to Christ[544]. That earlier Evangelical Covenant then, it was, which was renewed in the land of Moab;—in the course of renewing which, the words of the text occur.

3. And that it was indeed the Evangelical, (not the Legal Covenant,) which is here spoken of, is abundantly confirmed by the subsequent language of the passage: for Moses proceeds,—"Neither with you only do I make this Covenant and this oath; but with him that standeth here this day with us before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day[545]:" meaning, (as the ancient Targum expounds the place,) "with every generation that shall rise up unto the world's end." It was the same Covenant, therefore, which is made with ourselves; "for the promise is unto" us, and to our "children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call[546]:" "not according to the Covenant which God made with the Fathers of Israel in the day that He took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt[547]."

Yet more remarkably perhaps is this established by the language of the ensuing chapter: for God therein promises that Circumcision of the heart whereby men should be enabled to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul. Now this seems clearly to intimate not legal but Evangelical obedience,—the result of the free outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God; of which, in the Law, (properly so called,) we find no promise whatever. Here then we discover another anticipation of something which belongs to the times of the Gospel.

And this Evangelical complexion is to be recognized in the entire contents of the xxixth and xxxth chapters. They contain no single mention of ceremonial rites or observances,—of which the Law is, for the most part, full. But free obedience and perfect love are inculcated as the condition of blessedness: while hearty repentance is made the sole condition of forgiveness of sin.

In connexion with this, I may call your attention to a curious coincidence,—if indeed it be not something more. On the sincere repentance of the people, it is promised "that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity;" which the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases,—"His Word will receive with delight thy repentance:" while the Septuagint even more remarkably renders the words—"will heal thy sins;" that is,—"will be thy Jesus." Moses proceeds,—"and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath called thee." And what is this but one of the very places, if it be not the very place, to which St. John alludes when he declares that Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only; but that He should gather together in one, the children of God that were scattered abroad[548]?