Reviews.

No. III.

teaching, to understand it as a whole, it is there our researches must commence. Should we reverse this order, and begin with the New Testament, we should

CONNEXIONS BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW continually meet with words, statements, and allusions,

TESTAMENTS. *

which the Old Testament alone could explain.

Let it be supposed that some one to whom both OUR attention was directed, in our last, to the dis- volumes are unknown, should open the New Testament tinctions which exist between the two departments and begin to read. "The book of the generation of of divine revelation. We found them to be, in some Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." respects, wider and more important than would be Who was David?" and "who was Abraham?" are gathered from Mr. W.'s opening lecture; besides dif- questions which must instantly arise. Where could fering in character from those on which he there so the answer be found, except in the Old Testament? much insists, and, indeed, from any recognized by him Nor is there a verse down to the seventeenth, by which in any part of his volume. We must not suppose, similar inquiries would not be aroused-inquiries which however, that the change from the old order of things must receive their answer, if answered at all, from the to the new, was immediate; or, that as soon as we open same source. Passing over some verses, on which, the New Testament, Christianity, in its distinctive and nevertheless, we might make similar remarks, what full-grown character, will burst upon our attention. could be known of the import of verse 21, had the Old Some of its grand elements are there from the very Testament no existence? "He shall save his people beginning; but they present themselves along with from their sins." What people? And, why "his" much that pertains to the former economy; much people? What is the nature of the relations subsisting that has since passed away. The fact is, that the four between him and them? What has been their conduct gospels (and, in a certain modified sense, even the Acts in these relations? Whence their need of being saved? of the Apostles), describe a transitional state of things, And what are we to understand by the salvation he is to as distinct in some of its features from the Christianity bestow? These are all questions naturally suggested by which it introduced, as, in others, from the Judaism the words; and if some of them must find their answer which it succeeded and gradually set aside. While, in the continued perusal of the book itself, how many of therefore, we doubt not for a moment, that it is in the them can only be solved by reference to more ancient New Testament God's present testimony is found-records, of equally divine authority? A direct quotation that by which he immediately addresses our souls, whether as sinners or as saints; and while it is therefore most important that the Old Testament should be read in the light cast back upon it by the New; it is equally indisputable, that many things in the New Testament can only be understood through previous acquaintance with the Old. To know ourselves as ruined and undone, and to know Christ crucified and risen as our only Saviour, is to have everlasting life: and this knowledge God can, by his Spirit, communicate by means of any portion either of the Old Testament But if, knowing that the great question of eternity has been settled for us, by the sovereign grace which has blotted out our sins, and accepted us in the Beloved, we are desirous of full acquaintance with our Father's mind and will, as revealed in his Word, we may not neglect either the Old Testament or the New. They are mutually illustrative of each other's contents, and neither can be neglected without serious loss. God may now usually begin his work in individual souls by means of truth revealed in the New Testament; but it is with Genesis that he begins the book of inspiration; and if we are, through his aid and Contributed by the Author of "Plain Papers on Prophetic and other

or the New.

Subjects," and being a review of the following works:

1. New Testament Millenarianism; or, The Kingdom and Coming of Christ, as taught by himself and his apostles: set forth in eight sermons, founded by the late Rev. John Bampton, by the Hon. and Rev. Samuel

preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1854, at the lecture Waldegrave, M.A., rector of Barford St. Martin, Wilts, and late fellow of All Souls College. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1855, Svo., pp. 686. 2. Notice of the above, in "The British and Foreign Evangelical Review," No. xiv., October, 1855.

January, 1856,

3. Notice of the above, in "The London Quarterly Review," No. x., 4. Millennial Studies: or, What saith the Scriptures concerning the Kingdom and Advent of Christ? By the Rev. W. R. Lyon, B.A. London: Ward and Co.

No. 3. Vol. I.-August 1, 1856.

from these records is what immediately follows. Isaiah's prediction of Emmanuel, the Virgin's son, was to find its accomplishment in the birth of Jesus. But, enough. We might take any other chapter of Matthew's narrative, and almost any chapter of the narratives by the other three evangelists, and we should find ourselves as continually thrown back upon the law, the prophets, and the psalms, for the import of quotations or allusions which would meet us at every step.

We have referred to the transition from Judaism to Christianity, as having gradually taken place. Of this fact, the New Testament itself affords abundant evidence. Were this evidence to be carefully examined, other facts would be educed-facts overlooked by Mr. W. and by those generally with whom he symbolizes, but which have a most direct and important bearing on the questions at issue. In the introduction to his Epistle to the Romans, Paul speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ under two distinct aspects: as "made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" and "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." (Rom. i. 3, 4.) As "made of the seed of David according to the flesh" he had special links of connexion with Israel. Where the apostle is enumerating Israel's distinctive privileges, such as the adoption, the glory, &c., that by which he crowns the catalogue is, "and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." (Rom. ix. 5.) It is from the same apostle's pen that we have the words, "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." (Rom. xv. 8.) "Made of a woman, made

"If I

under the law." (Gal. iv. 4.) Let any one read the been long impending, when the Lord Jesus Christ apgospels in the light of these apostolic statements, and peared. The trial was not complete till then. how evident it must be to him, that innumerable links had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had with Israel and Judaism, having no place in Christianity sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin." (John as existing in Paul's day, were maintained by our xv. 22.) A vineyard let out to husbandmen is the blessed Lord during his sojourn on earth. Circumcised figure employed by our Lord, to set forth their privithe eighth day, and duly presented by his mother ac-leges and responsibilities, and to describe their guilt. cording to the law, he afterwards accompanied her and (Matt. xxi. 33, &c.) It is not, as in Isaiah v., the ferJoseph to the annual feasts in the city of solemnities. tility of the vineyard that is in question, but the honesty It was in the synagogue that he commenced his ministry of the husbandmen, and the consequent productiveness at Nazareth, and often is it noticed afterwards that he to their lord, of the grounds entrusted to their care. taught in their synagogues. How frequently were "When the time of the fruit drew near, he sent those whom he healed or cleansed directed by him to his servants to the husbandmen, that they might go and shew themselves to the priests; and how did he receive the fruits." Thus had the prophets been sent charge the twelve not to go into the way of the Gentiles, to Israel. With what result? "The husbandmen took or enter any city of the Samaritans, but to go rather to his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "The Scribes and another." Thus had Israel dealt with the prophets the Pharisees," said he, "sit in Moses' seat: all there- who had been sent to them. But great is the divine fore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and longsuffering. The owner of the vineyard had patience do." (Matt. xxiii. 2, 3.) It was on the night of the with the husbandmen, and "sent other servants more passover, and after he had faithfully observed it with his than the first: and they did unto them likewise." Was disciples, that he was betrayed into the hands of men. there no hope remaining? Could no further means be How different is all this from the christianity of the tried? Yes: "last of all, he sent unto them his son, epistles, and, in many respects, from what we find in saying, They will reverence my son." Such, therefore, the Acts of the Apostles. No doubt there were other is one aspect in which the mission of Jesus is to be elements, new, heavenly, and divine, from the very be- viewed. No doubt he came to reveal the Father, and ginning of the gospels. Christ was there, the Son of to accomplish redemption by the sacrifice of himself; the Father, the image of the invisible God; and wher- but he also came seeking fruit on God's behalf from ever this full divine glory of his person peculiarly stands those who were responsible for rendering it. Before he forth, the limits of Judaism and of his dispensational became the sacrifice for human guilt upon the cross, he links with Israel were not sufficient to restrain the out- was presented as the final test of man's condition before flow to sinners, whether Gentile or Samaritan, of that God. Israel was the theatre in which the experiment grace, to introduce and exercise which, "God was mani- was made: but it was human nature itself-man, as fest in the flesh." Most true is this, and most blessed. such-that was put to the test. With God in the disBut it nullifies in no degree the fact, of which we have tance, or behind the veil, man had, with every lesser seen such ample proof, that throughout his continuance advantage of laws, messengers, prophecies, warnings, on earth, the Saviour deigned to maintain many a link promises, made no return to God for the pains bestowed; with the nation of the Jews, and with the economy would he, now that God was revealed in the person of his under which they had been placed. Son, be more submissive or obedient? Alas! "when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." The last astounding proof of God's forbearing love, of patience which nothing yet had sufficed to exhaust, drew forth from man—from Israel-the expression of intense and complete hatred. They cast him out of the vineyard and slew him!

Why were these national and dispensational links maintained by our blessed Lord? A profoundly interesting question, to which, happily, his own words afford an explicit reply. They place it beyond doubt, that as one part of an extensive tract of land might be selected and enclosed, as a specimen of the whole, for the purpose of testing its fruitfulness by actual experiment, so the nation of Israel was chosen of God for the purpose of testing whether man, favoured with every advantage of even divine care and culture, would bring forth fruit towards God. Isaiah had long before sung of Jehovah's vineyard in a very fruitful hill, fenced, and planted with the choicest vine; the stones gathered out, a tower built in its midst, and a wine press made therein. Touching this vineyard, (which the prophet declared to be the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant), it had been asked, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" But it was not only as the representative of God's (Isaiah v. 4.) Because of such strange results of so claims-as seeking fruit-that the Jews rejected their much diligent, unwearied culture, judgment had been Messiah:-it was also as the revealer and expression of pronounced in Isaiah's day, and the execution of it had | God's perfect grace. A certain king makes a marriage

The application of this parable was left by the Saviour to the Jews themselves. He asks them what might be expected to be done by the lord of the vineyard to these husbandmen, and they are obliged to reply, "He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto others." reminds them of the Stone rejected by the builders, and of its high destiny to be the Head of the corner, and adds, "Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."

He then

come

for his son, and sends his servants to call the invited guests such as were bidden: "but they would not (Matt. xxii. 1-14). Nothing is claimed of the guests at a marriage feast; everything is provided, and the guests partake freely of the bounty of their host. But the grace which thus provides all for man, and makes him welcome to the whole, is as unwelcome to his heart as those righteous claims of God's holy law, with which he refuses to comply. "They would not come." But what cannot grace do? The death of Christ is itself made the ground of new invitations! "Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are now ready come unto the marriage." What can be represented here, but the ministry of the apostles to Israel after the death and resurrection of their Lord? Alas! it was with the same result; save where sovereign grace imparted a new life, and thus subdued the opposition of man's will, these further invitations met with no better reception than the former. "They made light of it . . . . and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully and slew them." It was for this rejection of the gospel of an ascended Christ, proclaimed by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, that judgment was executed on Jerusalem and the Jews. "But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city." Nor was it till they had thus rejected mercy, offered to them in every form, and pressed on their acceptance in every way, that the proclamation of heavenly mercy went forth universally:all being now indiscriminately bidden to the feast. "Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.'

of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Forgiveness of sins, and the times of refreshing, or restitution, of which all the prophets had witnessed, as well as the return of the Lord they had rejected, are here proposed to the Jews on condition of their repentance. This was the only condition on which Old Testament prophecy had suspended the arrival of these bright and happy days for Israel; and on this condition they are still held out by the apostle. "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." He well knew that they who had rejected and crucified a humbled Messiah on earth, would still reject this Holy Ghost-testimony to an ascended and returning Christ; and everything which ensued was arranged of God accordingly. But if Jesus himself, looking down upon Jerusalem, and weeping over it, could say, "If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" we need not, in the unchangeableness of God's purposes, find any difficulty as to vast and wondrous results depending on Israel's repentance, as taught in Acts iii., even though it was surely foreknown of God that they would persist in their sin, and that wrath would come upon them to the uttermost. We may well understand, that what was long afterwards said by Paul to the Jews of a certain locality, was true of the whole nation: "It was necessary, that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." (Acts xiii. 46). The martyrdom of Stephen terminated for the present all If we turn now to the early chapters of the Acts, hopes of Jerusalem's repentance, or of Israel's refrom which Mr. W. extracts the passage on which his ception of the Lord whom they had crucified; and opening discourse is founded, we shall find that what seeing that every Old Testament prediction of the they present is, this lingering of divine mercy over kingdom, or the millennium, treated of its establishIsrael, before the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. ment as dependent on Israel's conversion, that also was They had indeed committed an unparalleled crime in the indefinitely postponed; and thus was the way prepared crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, and in a certain sense for the revelation of the mystery, till then necessarily filled up the measure of their iniquity. But the vine-concealed, that the period of Christ's rejection by dresser had interceded for the barren fig tree (Luke xiii. 8); Jesus, on the cross, had cried, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do:" this, their ignorance, thus pleaded by the Redeemer on the cross, is precisely what the Holy Ghost admits by Peter in Acts iii. 17.; "And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." So far were they, in answer to the intercession of Jesus, conditionally forgiven, that instead of judgment being instantly executed, full, free, absolute forgiveness, was proclaimed to them, on condition of their repentance. Observe too, that it is national forgiveness of which the apostle treats, and the restoration of their forfeited national blessings, even including the return of Jesus himself. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that (see the Greek*) the times

:

The Greek word one occurs upwards of fifty times in the New Testament, and is never, save in this instance, rendered "when." Its

ordinary rendering, and simple obvious import, are as given above.

Israel and the earth, should be occupied in the calling and formation by the Holy Ghost of "the church". the elect body or bride of Christ-to be the vessel of his sympathies and sharer of his rejection while he sits on the Father's throne on high; and also to be the sharer of his glory when he shall "take to him his great power, and reign" upon the earth.

But is Israel cast off hopelessly and for ever? Is there to be no fulfilment of those bright visions of rest, and blessedness, and supremacy on earth, under Messiah's sway and Jehovah's smile, with which the Old Testament abounds? Is it anywhere declared by our Lord himself, or by his apostles after him, that these predictions are never, in their plain and obvious sense, to be fulfilled? that they are to receive no accomplishment but that which is alleged to consist in the amalgamation of any converted Israelites with the church of the present dispensation? Such is the doctrine of the Bampton Lecturer: and such, with more or less of consistency,

Could

is the doctrine of Dr. Brown, Mr. Lyon, and all the though he would not leave them utterly hopeless, "Ye modern rejecters of millenarianism. They all deny shall not see me henceforth, TILL YE SHALL SAY, that Israel is to have any national distinction or pre- Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”? eminent place in days to come. Some admit that the Can we suppose the Saviour to have used these as his Jews may be restored to their own land; others deny parting words, if he knew that they would never nationthis, as savouring of the worst features of millenarian ally welcome him, and never see him again, till, as literality; while some, of whom Mr. Waldegrave is individuals, in common with the whole human race, one, treat it as a doubtful, uncertain matter: but all they behold him on the great white throne? agree in denouncing the expectation of any real ful-words more clearly intimate, that however they might filment of those national hopes for Israel, of which be in the act of rejecting him, the days would come Old Testament language, if at all literally understood, when they would welcome him with all their hearts? constitutes so plain a warrant. Christ," say they, that however certain-sadly, sorrowfully certain-that "discountenances such hopes, and the apostles forbid till then they should not behold him, yet that then, made them." But is this the case? Does the New Testament" willing in the day of his power," they should see him bear out these bold, confident, and oft-repeated assertions? again, and see him to their joy?" Blessed is he that We believe not. We believe that the New Testament cometh in the name of the Lord" were words well needs only to be candidly, prayerfully, and diligently studied, in its evident and inseparable connexion with the Old, to satisfy any Christian inquirer, that these assertions are not only baseless, but contrary to what the New Testament distinctly declares.

known to Jewish ears. They form a part of that magnificent Psalm (cxviii.) which was well understood to be an inspired, prophetic utterance, prepared beforehand as Messiah's welcome to the throne. These very words had been but a short time before uttered by the disciples First, be it remembered, that the Old Testament itself and the multitudes on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. predicts, in several passages, that for a long season Israel Had they been sincerely used-used, moreover, not only would remain in unbelief; while judicial blindness, by those who did chant them forth, but by the heads of rejection by Jehovah, scattering among the nations, and the nation, and by the nation itself as a whole-then, abject misery under the Gentile yoke, should be the what might not have occurred? In that case they would result of their sins, and of their having rejected their have known the day of their visitation, and everything Messiah. See, among other passages, Is. vi. 9—12; 1. must have been changed. Alas! they knew it not! 1, 2,; liii. 1—3; lxiii. 17; Íxiv. 7; Hos. i. 6-9; iii. The fervour of the multitudes was rebuked by the 4; v. 14, 15; Mic. iii. 9-12; v. 1. But, secondly, Pharisees; and on the part of the nation as a whole, all these prophecies, and numbers more, shew decisively the cry was ready to be uttered, "Away with him! that Israel's rejection and unbelief are but for a time, Crucify him!" It behoved Christ to suffer, "and enter however prolonged; and that this dreary period is to be into his glory." "The stone" was to be first "rejected succeeded by the days of promised blessedness and rest. of the builders; " but where was the prediction of this Thirdly, our Lord and his apostles distinctly recognize fact recorded? In the very psalm quoted by our Lord both these truths. Without doubt they declare, and when he said, "Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye that most unequivocally, that the Israel of that day were shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the sealing on themselves the calamities by which they had Lord." Thus does he at once interpret and endorse Old been already overtaken, and bringing upon themselves Testament prophecy: linking together in his farewell and their children still heavier judgments than any words to Israel, their future national reception of him which had yet been inflicted. Nor do they fail to as their Messiah; his return to them at that time from pourtray the blessings to the Gentiles which result from heaven, where, as the rejected Stone, he is at present the way in which divine mercy has overruled the sin of exalted; and their own celebration, in that day, of his the Jews and their consequent rejection for a time. But triumphs and their deliverance in language prepared for do they anywhere intimate that this rejection is final them by the sweet singer of Israel. Read Ps. exviii. in and irreversible? Do they anywhere teach that the the light thus shed upon it by our Lord's words; read present Gentile dispensation has permanently and un-it, as the joyful, adoring utterance of the penitent, changeably replaced God's natural relations with the pardoned, delivered Israel of the latter day, when they earthly people of his choice? Far from it-as far as see their long-rejected, but now welcome Messiah, and possible. In Matt. xxiii.-the sequel, in fact, to the say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; series of parables which have been already considered, read it thus, we say, and every line, every word is and in which our Lord had told the Jews that the king-pregnant with meaning, and redolent with joy. Set dom of God was taken from them and given to othersafter pronouncing upon them the dire and oft-repeated woes which their evil and hypocrisy drew forth from those blessed lips; after declaring that on them should come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, lamenting over them in such pathetic language, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together, and ye would not!" after declaring, as he crossed the temple's threshold, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate; " does he not add, as

aside Israel's hopes, and the attestation of them by our Lord in the moment of Israel's deepest guilt and degradation, and how unmeaning the Psalm becomes !

If we turn, moreover, to the testimony of the apostles, we shall find it confirmatory, not condemnatory, of Israel's hopes. Take, for instance, Rom. xi. The chapter opens with the enquiry, "Hath God cast away his people?" to which the emphatic and almost indignant reply is at once subjoined, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew." "Ah," says our author, and

sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes"? Our brethren sometimes indulge themselves in speaking of a certain passage as "a millstone round the neck of pre-millennialism;" but certainly the eleventh of Romans may not inappropriately be regarded as a like fatal incumbrance to those "highminded," prophetic theories, which deny the validity of Israel's national hopes, and seek to resolve all its bright prophetic future into the present heritage of "Gentile branches," even now through unheedfulness to this warning, grown "wise in their own conceits," and ready, alas! to be "cut off!"

It was,

many others of his school, "it is the elect-the Israel he declares the certainty of their conversion and salvaof God-of whom the apostle speaks." This is Mr. tion, quoting in proof of it a passage from Isaiah lix. W.'s grand solution of almost every difficulty which 20, which inseparably associates it both with the coming arises to his theory of interpretation. But what ques- of the Lord, and the introduction of millennial blessedness tion was there among those to whom the apostle wrote, on earth. No doubt there has been, is, and shall yet be, as to whether God had cast off the souls of his elect? an election from among Israel; but Israel itself, as a Had God utterly and for ever cast off his people Israel-nation, is elected of God, and it is with reference to the literal, natural Israel? was a question naturally this election that the apostle says, "the gifts and calling arising out of all that the apostle had been teaching; of God are without repentance." Of what other elecand it was one of deepest interest to his brethren ac- tion than that of the nation itself, can the apostle say, cording to the flesh. No doubt he mentions an election" as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your from among them-" a remnant according to the election of grace." But this remnant is not his subject in the chapter before us; he only refers to its existence as one argument among many, by which he proves that Israel -the nation Israel-is not utterly and for ever rejected of God. It is thus that he distributes his theme. Not utterly, seeing (1) that he himself is an Israelite; (2) that in the worst days of the nation's previous history, such as those of Elias, God had a remnant; and (3) that "even so at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." He thus proves the first part of his proposition, that it is only to part of Israel that blindness hath happened, not to the One remark we must by no means omit,-that it whole. But is the blindness to be permanent, even to was not by Israel alone that Christ was rejected when the extent in which it does exist? No. "Blindness he came before. He was presented to the Gentiles, in in part is happened to Israel," not for ever, but "until the person of Pontius Pilate, the representative of Genthe fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel tile power; and his rejection is treated by himself and by shall be saved." Mr. W. has the boldness to suggest the Holy Ghost, as his rejection by the world. whether the word "Israel" in one part of this quotation as we have seen, in Israel that the test was applied; may not be understood literally, and in the other figura- but the question to be decided was, whether Christ tively! whether "all Israel" and "the fulness of the would be received in his own world. It was decided Gentiles" be not one and the same body of men! Could in the negative. In John's gospel, where Christ is temerity itself go further than this in dislocating and presented in the full divine glory of his person, as the confounding the statements of God's holy Word? What Son of the Father, rather than in his dispensational must be the system of interpretation which requires of characters and relations, as in the other gospels, this its exponents to go to such lengths as these? fact is largely and solemnly insisted on. "He was in But it is not at once that the apostle states the con- the world, and the world was made by him, and the clusion, that "All Israel shall be saved." He reaches world knew him not (John i. 10). "This is the it by successive and ascending steps. He argues (1) condemnation, that light is come into the world, and that through the fall of Israel salvation has come to the men (not Jews merely) loved darkness rather than Gentiles," to provoke them (Israel) to jealousy." light, because their deeds were evil" (ch. iii. 19). Can they be for ever cast off, if even God's present "Now is the judgment of this world" (ch. xii. 31). mercy to the Gentiles be designed to provoke Israel to "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, jealousy, and so beget in them gracious and holy desires because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him" (ch. after him under whose chastisements they at present xiv. 17). "Yet a little while, and the world seeth remain? (2) If the Gentiles have reaped such profit me no more: but ye see me" (verse 19). "If the from Israel's fall, what shall the receiving of Israel be world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it "but life from the dead"? Here is anything but an ob-hated you (ch. xv. 18). "And when he (the Holy scure intimation, that Israel is yet to be received; and not Ghost) is come, he will reprove the world of sin... only so, but that the reception of that people is to because they believe not on me" (ch. xvi. 8, 9). “O inaugurate a period of blessedness for the world-the righteous Father, the world hath not known thee" Gentiles-with which the present is not worthy to be (ch. xvii. 25). Who can read these passages and encompared. (3) The reception of Israel having been tertain a doubt, that the Christ of the Acts and of the thus referred to, the apostle reasons from the very Epistles, is a world-rejected Christ? This is another graffing in of the wild Gentile olive to the good olive great truth which our brethren who reject pre-millentree from which the natural Jewish branches have been nialism overlook, or, at least, by their system, set aside. broken off, that it is possible for these latter to be graffed This really constitutes the most essential, fundamental in again. (4) He advances another step, and proves it difference between their theories and the Christianity of to be not merely possible, but probable: "how much the New Testament, which consists in knowing, conmore shall these, which be the natural branches, be fessing, and serving Christ, and in waiting for him, as graffed into their own olive tree?" Then (5) finally, the rejected One of this world. "To whom coming, as