SERMON XIV. The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish. "The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward."-ISA. xxxvii. 31. WHEN the power and splendour of the family of David were failing, and darkness was falling on the Church, and religious men were fighting against dismay and distrust, then the Prophets foretold that the kingdom of the saints should one time be restored; and that, though its glories were then setting, a morrow would come in due course, and that a morrow without an evening. Has this promise yet been fulfilled or no? and if fulfilled, in what sense fulfilled? Many persons think it has not yet been fulfilled at all, and is to be fulfilled in some future dispensation or millennium; and many think that it has indeed been fulfilled, yet not literally, but spiritually and figuratively; or, in other words, that the promised reign of Christ upon earth has been nothing more than the influence of the Gospel over the souls of men, the triumphs of Divine Grace, the privileges enjoyed by faith, and the conversion of the elect. On the contrary, I would say that the prophecies in question have in their substance been fulfilled literally, and in the present Dispensation; and, if so, we need no figurative and no future fulfilment. Not that there may not be both a figurative and a future accomplishment besides; but these will be over and above, if they take place, and do not interfere with the direct meaning of the sacred text and its literal fulfilment. In the text, the prophet Isaiah, upon Sennacherib's invasion, makes to Hezekiah the encouraging promise, that, in spite of present misfortunes, "the house of Judah should again take root downward and bear fruit upward." Other prophecies, parallel to the text, are such as the following:-" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. . . . I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people'." Again: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. . . For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel, neither shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually "." Ezekiel speaks the same lan Jer. xxxi. 31-33. Jer. xxxiii. 14—18. guage as Jeremiah: "I will set up one shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David; He shall feed them, and He shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God: and My servant David a prince among them: I, the Lord, have spoken it'." And Zechariah: "Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the holy mountain"." And the prophet Isaiah again: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel : I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth; thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff"." And again: "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory; and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall Now, first, that these and a number of other prophecies which speak still more distinctly of a conquest, a kingdom, a body politic, a ritual, and a law, are fulfilled in the Dispensation under which we live, which immediately succeeded upon the Jewish, not in one future and disconnected, is plain from the express asser 1 Ezek. xxxiv. 23. Zech. viii. 3. tions of inspired persons. Such as the Apostle St. James in the Acts, who, after declaring with St. Peter, "how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name," adds, "to this agree the words of the Prophets, as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom My Name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." You see that, according to the Apostle, at that very time the fulfilment of the prophecy was commencing; the reconstruction of the kingdom of David was no future and detached event, it was then in progress; it was coming to pass in the conversion of the heathen. What confirms this view of the subject is, that it serves as an explanation of the strong language of Moses, in which the perpetual obligation of the Law is asserted, in spite of inducements of whatever kind to abandon it. "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it;" for the Gospel was but a development of the Law. "Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." "If ye shall diligently keep all these commandments, then shall no man be able to stand before you." And after punishment, return of prosperity was promised them, on condition of their returning to the Law. "When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto His voice, . . . He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which He sware unto them." The latter days are mentioned, yet without a hint that obedience to the Law was to be relaxed, which holds only on the principle that the Gospel is its continuation. وو And, on the other hand, it is no mere figurative sense in which such words as "power," "kingdom," "rule," "conquest," "princes," "judges," "officers,' and the like are used (as if the promised dominion were to be but moral, the promised Church invisible, the promised reign of Christ but spiritual), for this simple reason, that there has been, in matter of fact, in Christian times a visible Church, a temporal kingdom, a succession of rulers, such as the prophecies do describe ; which have been most variously and minutely fulfilled in their literal sense; and we know, in such cases, what has been laid down by a great authority in our Church, -"I hold it," he says, "for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst"." Indeed, these figurative interpretations have given special occasion to the infidel to scoff against the Bible, as if the prophecies had failed even by the confession of their friends, who, to hide their failure, are forced to pretend that they never were intended to have a literal fulfilment, only a spiritual one. 1 Deut. iv. 2. 30; vi. 7; xi. 22 - 25. |