David foresaw-the King, whose triumphs Daniel and Isaiah foretold. He was the Shiloh, for whose salvation Jacob waited; the Kinsman-Redeemer, whose coming Job anticipated; the illustrious Seed, whose day Abraham desired to see; and in whom our first parents rejoiced, as he who should bruise the Serpent's head. This was the promise “to which the twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hoped to come," whether they wandered amidst the awful solitudes of the wilderness, or exulted in the peaceful worship of the temple. Typical sacrifices indicated the one great sacrifice; typical saviours revealed him who was "mighty to save;" typical prophets foreshadowed his prophetical office; typical priests illustrated his eternal priesthood; typical kings prefigured his supreme dominion, whom God hath set upon his holy hill of Zion. The testimony of Jesus was the very spirit of prophecy. "The light was the life of men." It was his to produce both the dream and the interpretation; to reveal the want and to supply the remedy; to present himself alike as the Teacher and the Oracle, the Victim and the Priest, the Shepherd and the King, all our salvation and all our desire.

The successive manifestations of the divine will, from the earliest times, were a part of the same system. Our race has never been without some knowledge of a Saviour, the teacher, the guide, and the one hope of man; not only the object revealed, but the Being in connexion with whom the revelation. itself was made. Many are of the opinion that some of the more signal of the angelic appearances recorded in scripture were made in the person of Christ himself, who is emphatically styled "the Messenger of the Covenant," or, as the Septuagint renders it, "the Angel of the great Council." There is much to favour this idea, in the peculiar language employed by these celestial visitants, in the nature of the blessings they bestowed, and in the homage, and even worship, they accepted. But on either supposition, whether these communications were made by the promised Messiah before his incarnation, or by "ministering spirits, sent forth" then as now," to minis

ter unto the heirs of salvation," it is certain that they were parts of the great mediatorial system, having reference to the work and office of Christ, and tending to keep alive in the minds of the faithful, the expectation of his coming.

Dr. Owen strongly advocates the view, that these appearances were "revelations of the Promised Seed, the great and only Saviour and deliverer of his Church, in his eternal preexistence, and pledges of his future incarnation."* Dr. Samuel Clarke speaks of this, as the constant doctrine of the primitive writers of the Church,† and says, "It is the unanimous opinion of all antiquity, that the Angel who said I am the God of thy fathers, (Acts vii. 30, 32) was Christ the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel of God's presence, in whom the name of God was, speaking in the name of the Invisible Father." This opinion was not unknown to the early Jewish writers, who are often worthy of attention in the interpretation they furnish of their own scriptures. Various intimations occur, in their most approved paraphrases and Targums, that the Angel who appeared to their fathers was no created angel, but a being possessed of divine qualities and perfections. One of their Rabbis, commenting on Joshua v. 14, says, "This Angel, if we speak exactly, is the Angel Redeemer, of whom it is written, my name is in him, that very Angel who said to Jacob, I am the God of Bethel;' he of whom it is said, GOD called to Moses out of the Burning Bush."§

• Preliminary Exercitations on the Hebrews. + Scripture Doctrine, p. 93. R. Moses Gerundensis Nechmanni, quoted with approbation by Dr. Owen. § The following citations from Schotgenius, indicate the prevailing opinion. "This Angel denotes some mystery. He is the Angel of whom it is written, 'The Angel who hath redeemed me.' Genesis xlviii. 16. And behold, so taught the Rabbis. It is decreed that in the future period (the age of the Messiah) he shall become supreme and precious: so that by him the holy name shall be exalted, and the Holy and Blessed will by him redeem the idolatrous nations." The book Zohar on Deut. ap Schatgen. Hor. Hebr. et Talm. tom ii. 125.

"That Angel is the Redeemer, who is found in every redemption that is in the world: the Shechina who always walks with man, and never departs from

There is much of interest and attractiveness in the thought that our world has been, so early and so long, the object of divine solicitude. It is affecting to think that He, who afterwards "was made flesh, and dwelt among us," had come before upon many an embassy of mercy, and descended to announce to our first parents the promise of Redemption :—that He, who conversed with the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, was found of Hagar when she sought him not, "by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by a fountain in the way to Shur:"—that He, "the Captain of our Salvation," who has since been made perfect through sufferings, appeared to Joshua and Gideon, as "Captain of the Lord's host:"— that He who has saved his people from many a fiery trial since, conversed with the three children in the furnace on the plain of Dura, when "the form of the fourth was like unto the Son of God." Nor can we forget that when Ezekiel beheld the symbolic vision at Chebar, and the rainbow-brightness encircled the divine pavilion, he is careful to state that upon the likeness of the throne, was the likeness of the appearance of a man above upon it," and adds, "this was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake." It is remarkable that these images and symbols meet us again in the book of Revelation, in direct reference. to Christ. "And immediately I was in the Spirit; and, behold a throne was set in heaven, and one sat upon the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. *

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him. Ibid. p. 145. The Redeemer of the world, the guardian of men. He it is who hath prepared blessings for the whole world. Ibid. p. 149. "This Son is the faithful shepherd. Of thee it is said, Kiss the Son; Thou art my Son. He is the Prince of the Israelites, the Lord over all things below, the Lord of ministering angels, the Son of the Supreme, the Son of the Holy and Blessed God, and the gracious Shechina." Id. ap. eund. p. 6.

• Rev. iv. 2, 3. Ezek. i. 26. 28.

The relations and offices which the Saviour sustains to his Church, are not temporary, but abiding. What he was in times past, he remains still, and shall for ever remain, our teaching Prophet, our atoning Priest, and our exalted King. On earth he fulfilled the office of a prophet, in the toils of his public ministry, and in the instructions he afforded to his apostles. In his death he fulfilled his priestly office, when he "made his soul an offering for sin." In his rising and ascension, he entered upon the exercise of his kingly office; dominions, principalities, and powers being made subject to him. Nor do these offices terminate with his earthly existence, but must continue till the final consummation of the mediatorial system. That he does not cease from the office of a prophet, is evident from the disclosures of the book of Revelation, "which he sent and signified by his Angel to his servant John ;" and from the enduring gift of his Spirit, to lead us into all truth. That his priestly office continues, the Apostle has placed beyond dispute. "For this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God: even Jesus, made an High Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedec." "Wherefore he is able to save unto the uttermost, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." That his kingly office remains, is equally unquestionable. "For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." "To the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, on the throne of David, to order it and establish it for ever."

The unchangeableness of Christ is seen,

III. IN THE ENDURING NATURE OF THE TRUTHS OF HIS WORD, AND THE FIXED PRINCIPLES OF HIS MORAL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION.

We have amply stated our reasons for applying this text to the person and offices of Christ, in opposition to those who would restrict it to the doctrine which he taught; but we equally.believe, and contend for, its concurrent application to the entire system of truth of which he is the author. The

Apostle cites the immutability of Christ, the founder of the system, as a reason for strenuous adherence to the Christian faith. "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace."

Immutability is an attribute of the truth itself, as well as the attribute of the God of truth. The Religion of Jesus partakes of the unchanging character of its eternal author. Unlike the schemes and systems of human invention, or the arts and sciences which own an earthly origin, and are perfected in the lapse of ages, by the successive observations. and experiments of different minds, the essential principles of the divine word were perfect from the first, and shall so remain unimproved, because unimprovable, to the very end. They are like constant quantities in science, susceptible of no fluctuation, and from which we are entitled to reason, as from admitted truths. The dispensations of religion vary, but the religion itself is one. From the very first there has been one way of salvation only, by faith in a promised Messiah, and by the experience of enlightening and transforming grace. From the very first, also, there has been but one code of laws, the transcript of the divine perfections, serving equally for all time, looking back to Eden's bloom and brightness, and forward to the close of the world's history. Even to eternity the first and great command will be as binding and as immutable as it is now, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." The duties which we owe to each other, not varying with degrees of latitude and longitude, must be equally fixed and determinate, whatever be the economy under which we live. Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil; not to relax any existing obligations but to confirm them; upholding and vindicating the principles of the divine government, whilst he brings back the subjects of his mercy to the lost favour and image of God.

The stability of the system of grace, is analogous to that