O day of mightiest sorrow Day of unfathomed grief— When Thou shouldst taste the horror O day of man's dishonour, O day of our confusion— On ruined nature's way. Thou soughtest for compassion, Some heart Thy grief to know, No eye was found to pity- The pride of careless greatness Could wash its hands of Thee:Priests-that should plead for weaknessMust Thine accusers be. Man's boasting love disowns Thee; O man, how hast thou proved, Yet with all grief acquainted In death, obedience yielding On him who had disowned Thee, What words of love and mercy The robber learns beside Thee, Then finished all, in meekness O Lord, Thy wondrous story, But O, Divine Sojourner, We worship when we see Thee, Come then, expected Saviour- And take us to Thee, home! 209 No. XIV. LUKE XXIV. 26. THE work of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the life which He lived when on earth, though carefully distinguished in the scriptures from the death which He died on the cross, should never be separated from it, or we shall miss that grand whole, which embraced His incarnation, and found its accomplishment in His crucifixion. Nevertheless, this mighty whole has its parts, and it is encouraging for us to know that the Holy Ghost has employed apostles and prophets to give out the particular aspect or relation of the Christ of God with which each was entrusted. The history of the world and the ways of God with mankind are plainly enough recorded, and perhaps sufficiently understood, to lead any careful reader of the Old Testament to discover that the Creator was, as a consequence of Adam's sin, restricted to a general but providential care of His creatures, and that all men being sinners, and the world itself filled with violence as the result of sin, the waters of the deluge closed up that state of things, by the righteous judgment of God, and the destruction of all flesh. What else could follow, when man was corrupting his way upon the earth by the activity of a fallen nature, and when God, supreme in His own goodness, was lavishing every outward gift providentially upon His creatures. Man had the more to corrupt, by the very liberality of his Creator, who put all into his hands-till it repented God that He had made man upon the earth! Sovereign grace preserves Noah; and the ark, floating upon the waters of death, shows how in judgment God remembers mercy. It is at this very point, that a great difference is established in the further relations of God and mankind; for if Adam's blessing was based on his personal responVOL. I.-New Series. 10 sibility in obedience, and lost,-God will pass Noah through death and judgment to bring him forth upon a new earth, with covenanted blessings secured by the bow in the cloud. In Adam's world, man was a driven out creature,-in Noah's new world, man is reprieved, and an heir of covenanted blessings, on the ground of the altar and its sweet savour. 66 The confederacy of the nations in combined will and action at Babel, led to the confusion of tongues by the righteous judgment of God, and to the consequent scattering of the people over the face of the earth. This state of things in punishment leads to the calling out of Abram from his country and his father's house into a land that God would show him; and makes him righteous by faith, and the head of this new family,the father of us all. These new principles of action, thus introduced and established, get their width in the people called out of Egypt by Moses, and finally brought in, and planted in the mountain of Thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in; the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established" under Joshua as captain-and under Solomon as the typical king. How cheering, as one takes a place in Jerusalem, and reads, in those chronicles of Jehovah's faithfulness to His promises, the people's prosperity and peace, under their king, or takes a place in the temple, to witness the nation's worship and allegiance to the God of Israel and God of the whole earth, under the anointed priesthood of Aaron and his sons! What a point of glory is reached by the king who sits on the throne, under this theocracy of Israel, and what a point of holiness is maintained in the temple, so that the covenanted relations of Jehovah and the people promise fair! Alas, who that has learnt the fall in Eden does not tremble to see the advancing steps of Noah, Abram and the patriarchs, then of Israel under Moses and Aaron, or under David and Solomon. What splendid and weighty endowments, but depending upon the fulfilment of added responsibilities. For though all these blessings are finally covenanted and sure, yet were they necessarily conditional upon obedience from a people under the government of Jehovah. It cannot be too plainly seen that Christ, the true seed, has secured, by His own death and resurrection, all these forfeited blessings for the "heirs of promise," as well as by redemption secured the people being brought under the new covenant; and thus fitted for their enjoyment in perpetuity, to be made true in application, at His second coming! Most of the Lord's people see and acknowledge this, though many have not as yet discovered the immense charm which the righteous and personal title of Christ sheds upon all the future ways of God with His earthly people. For instance, must God, in absolute, sovereign power, accomplish His own promises, as due to His own faithfulness, and must He in this way too, make good all His covenanted blessings,—or is there a Christ, who has come in, as a man, and a true Israelite, and on account of whose intrinsic excellence, and perfect obedience from first to last, this new consideration springs up, as to what is due to this Son of man, in righteous reward from God? What a new question is this for settlement! and with what joy is every eye turned upon such an answer as His ascension to the right hand of God supplies. But, before we follow this risen Son of man into places where man never was before,-what shall be said or done as respects the many places and relations in which typical men had been once set-and failed? Will this same Jesus charge Himself with the defects and disgraces of the people, as well as finally with their sins, and so personally stand in these positions towards God as not merely to regain them, but, because of what He is, bring a higher character and lustre into them all than they could have had in any other way? In this way God is vindicated by this Son of man, in every relation in which God had been outraged: by these means, the ways of Jehovah with Israel are re-established, for He goes over the whole path in perfectness with the remnant at John's baptism. The devil is also defeated by the temptations in the wilderness;-and man, in the person of Christ, is master of the whole position, in righteous |