why they would not come to him. And so is it still. The reason why men, to whom the claims of Christ and Christianity are addressed, reject them, is to be found, not in the want of evidence on the side of these claims; but on the utter indisposition on their part to attend to these claims. They have not the love of God in them.

7175

But how did our Lord know this? Was there not something uncharitable in tracing the conduct of the Jewish rulers to such a motive? No. He who used these words, is "He who searcheth the hearts, and trieth the reins of the children of men; whe needs not that any should testify to him of man; for he knows what is in man.' But, besides, the conduct of the Jews completely warranted the conclusion. Our Lord "came from God,' gave the clearest evidence of coming from God. He was "Gos manifest in flesh." He and the Father were so one," that "he who had seen him had seen the Father." Yet he was contemptuously rejected by them. Can those love the prince who contemn his accredited ambassador? Can those love the Father who treat with contumely and cruelty his only begotten Son? If they had loved Him who begat, they would have loved him who was begotten of Him. Their want of love to God had been manifested in their rejection of Him who came to them in His name; and was still farther to be manifested in the ready reception they were to give to persons, who should come without anything like satisfactory evidence of being His authorized messengers.

1776

"I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." Jesus came in his Father's name; that is, invested with His authority, and bringing satisfactory evidence that he was invested with his authority. Yet, notwithstanding this, they did not receive him. Instead of receiving him, they rejected him as an impostor; they punished him as a blasphemer. Could they more clearly prove, that the love of God was not in them, than by thus treating him whom He had "sent and sealed"?

Their want of the love of God was to be equally manifested in the welcome reception they were to give to men, pretending to the honors of Messiahship, but exhibiting no satisfactory evidence of their divine mission. "If another shall come to you in his own name, him ye will receive."" There is here a prediction of the false Messiahs, by whom the Jewish people were to be de luded. These men in pretence, came in God's name; but in reality they came in their own. They ran, He did not send them. They could exhibit no satisfactory evidence of their divine mission. They could not point, like Jesus, to the blind seeing, and the deaf hearing, and the lame walking, and the dumb speaking, and the dead living, and say, "The works which I do, bear witness of me." None could say of them, "We know that ye are

75 Rev. ii. 23. John ii. 25.

77

76 John v. 43.

"Since the advent of Christ, there have appeared among the Jews sixty-four false Messiahs, by whom they have suffered themselves to be leceived."-THOLUCK.

teachers sent of God, for no man could do these works which ye do, except God were with him." They could not point to a series of fulfilled ancient oracles, and say, 'The spirit of prophecy is our testimony.' Nor could any one say of any of them, with even the slightest appearance of truth,-"This is he, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write." In the carnality of their views, and in the wickedness of their conduct, many of them gave evidence, that they could not possibly be divine messengers; and yet, such pretenders to Messiahship were readily received, just because their carnal views corresponded with the carnal views of their countrymen.

Our Lord goes on to state, that with their present views, it was not to be expected, it was indeed morally impossible, that such a teacher as he was, should be cordially received; or that such doc. trines as his were, could be readily believed by them. "How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only ?"""

"Honor" here, is approbation-good opinion; and our Lord's statement is, that while they made it their leading object to obtain the approbation and good opinion of each other, and remained careless of obtaining the approbation of God, it was not to be expected that they would admit his divine mission, or believe his doctrines. To acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth,-a poor despised man, who declared distinctly that his kingdom was not of this world, as the Messiah, was to incur the contemptuous scorn, and malignant persecution of the influential classes among the Jews; and was that to be expected from men who, entirely occupied with things seen and temporal, considered the approbation of the wise and powerful as an object of the highest value? If indeed they had had a due impression of the infinite value of Divine approbation, then they would have seen, that though the reception of Jesus as the Messiah, might bring down on them contempt, and scorn, and persecution, still, since his credentials were abundantly satisfactory, it was their duty, it was their interest, to receive him. But in the entire absence of the last of these principles, and while the first of them held undivided sway in their minds, how could they welcome a Messiah who had no worldly preferments to bestow; whose appearance was as mean as his doctrine was humiliating; for whom they must expect to have their names "cast out as evil," and probably be made to "suffer the loss of all things"?

Our Lord concludes by intimating to them, that they must give an account of their rejection of him before the tribunal of God, and that they would meet there as their accuser, the legislator of whom they were accustomed to boast, and in whom they placed their confidence. "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one who accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust." 1779

These words, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the

Father," may be viewed as a declaration that the design of our Lord's mission was not vindictive, but merciful. He came not to condemn, but to pardon-not to punish, but to save. His office was not that of an accuser, but of an intercessor. When he spoke to the Jews, he plainly told them of their sins and of their dangers; but when he spoke of them to his Father, he lamented their infatuation, and prayed for their forgiveness. "He shall make intercession for the transgressors," said the ancient oracle; and, in the fulfilment of this, our Saviour's last breath was spent in prayer for his murderers. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Or the words may be interpreted on the same principle as the following and similar passages:-"I will have mercy and not sacrifice." "It was not you, but God, who sent me hither." In this case, they are equivalent to 'Do not think that I will be your only or your chief accuser. Though I should not accuse you, your condemnation is certain; accusation will come from a quarter you are little thinking of. Moses, in whom ye trust, will accuse you and condemn you.'

The Jews had a superstitious trust in Moses. They expected him to appear along with the Messiah, and to assist him in ac complishing their deliverance. They also, at least in later ages, trusted in the intercession of Moses for the acceptance of their prayers. For the doctrine of the intercession of saints as mediators seems to have been borrowed, by the apostate Christian Church, from the apostate Jewish Church. The trust our Lord refers to was likely, however, rather a trust in Moses' writings than in his person. They thought that in them they had eternal life. They made their boast in the law. Their language was— "We are Moses' disciples, we know that God spake by Moses." But our Lord assures them that this very Moses would be their

accuser.

Moses may be considered as the accuser of the Jews in a variety of ways. His law, of which they were proud, had often been violated by them, and they had exposed themselves to the punishment it denounces against its violators. In his writings, especially in the prophetic song in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, the contemporaries of our Lord are described and condemned. But the manner in which Moses was to accuse them, referred to by our Lord, was obviously this: Moses is a witness to the justness of our Lord's claims, and, of course, a witness against those who rejected them. That this was our Lord's meaning seems plain from what follows: "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of

me.

11 80

Moses wrote of our Lord. In Moses' writings are recorded some very remarkable prophecies of the Messiah, such as the first promise, the promise to Abraham, the dying blessing of Jacob on the tribe of Judah, and possibly also the prediction of Balaam, "Behold a star shall arise out of Jacob." Moses him

80 John v. 46.

self also uttered a remarkable prophecy respecting the Messiah. "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken."" He instructed them in the signs of true and false prophets. The whole of the sacrificial economy had a reference to the Messiah. Had the Jews believed Moses, they would have believed Jesus. In one sense the Jews did believe Moses -they had no doubt of his divine mission. In another sense they did not believe him-they did not understand his writings; and, therefore, they could not believe them. Had they properly understood Moses' writings, and firmly believed them, the reception of Jesus as the Messiah would have been a matter of

course.

"But," added our Lord, "if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"" We are not to understand these words as if they intimated that Moses is worthy of greater credit than our Lord, or that our Lord's divine mission is not established on evidence altogether independent of Moses' testimony. They merely intimate that nothing but a rejection of Jesus' claims was to be expected from persons who, through ignorance and unbelief, paid no attention to the declarations of a writer whom they acknowledged as inspired.

It is to be feared that there are too many nominal Christians, who will be found at last involved in a similar condemnation with the Jews. These are weighty words of the judicious Scott: "How many are there who trust in their attachment to some form of doctrine, or to some renowned head of a party, who no more enter into the meaning of these doctrines, or into the views of the persons whose names they bear, than the Jews believed the words of Moses, or entered into his views of the prefigured and predicted Messiah. The creeds and formularies of many sects and establishments suffice for the condemnation of vast multitudes who glory in belonging to them as members or ministers; and it is well if the sermons many preach, and the books which they publish, do not appear in judgment against them to accuse them of not believing and practising what they preached and printed."

NOTE A, p. 88.

Præteritum, ueraßißne, est præteritum propheticum et vim futuri obti. net hic, ut Jo. i. 15. KUINOEL. I demur to this "ut," &c. There can, however, be no doubt that the "enallage temporum" is very frequent with the Evangelist John. We need not go farther than the immediate context to prove this. Some Latin codices render the word "transibit," indicat. ing not how they read, but how they understood it. I am disposed to 82 John v. 47.

81 Deut. xviii. 15.

think the declaration refers to an event, future when the declaration was made, yet past, in reference to the future event indicated in the immediately preceding clause. He shall not enter into condemnation, or punishment, and the reason is, "he has already passed from death into life.” The passage in 1 John iii. 14, where the same phrase occurs, though it may be interpreted in the same way as in the case before us, will seem to many more naturally to refer to conversion; and it is not without some hesitation that we come to the conclusion that our exegesis is the more probable.

NOTE B, p. 99.

CAMPBELL translates this passage thus :-" Did ye never hear his voice, or see his form? Or have ye forgotten his declarations, that ye believe not him whom he hath commissioned ?" And he defends his translation in the following able note :

"The reader will observe, that the two clauses which are rendered in the English Testament as declarations, are, in this version, translated as questions. The difference in the original is only in the pointing. That they ought so to be read, we need not, in my opinion, stronger evidence than that they throw much light upon the whole passage, which, read in the common way, is both dark and ill-connected. See an excellent note on this passage, from Mr. Turner of Wakefield (Priestley's Harmony, Sect. xl.) Our Lord here refers them to the testimony given of him at his baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended on him in a visible form, and when God, with an audible voice, declared him to be his beloved Son, and our lawgiver, whom we ought to hear and obey. What has chiefly contributed to mislead interpreters in regard to the import of this sentence, is the resemblance which it bears to what is said, ch. i. 18, Qɛòv οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε, no one ever saw God; and ch. vi. 46, οὐχ ὅτι τὸν narega uç kógane, not that any one hath seen the Father. There is, however, a difference in the expressions; for it is not said here, o8 TÙY natiou, but ours eldos avioù éwgúxute. This, it may be thought, as it seems to ascribe a body to God, must be understood in the same way; for we are told, Deut. iv. 12, that, when the Lord spake to the people out of the fire, they saw no similitude. Of this they are again reminded, verse 15. But the word in the Septuagint is, in both places, not eidos, but duoivua, which, in scriptural use, appears to denote a figure so distinct and perma nent, as that it may be represented in stone, wood, or metal. Now, though this is not to be attributed to God, the sacred writers do not scruple to call the visible symbol which God, on any occasion, employs for im pressing men more strongly with a sense of his presence, dos aúroù, which (for want of a better term) I have rendered, his form. Thus the Evangelist Luke says, ch. iii. 22, in relating that singular transaction here alluded to, that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, σuan@ dei, in a bodily form. Thus, also, the word dog is applied to the appearances which God made to men under the Mosaic dispensation.

"His appearance in fire upon Mount Sinai, is called by the Seventy, Εx. xxiv. 17, τὸ εἶδος τῆς δόξης τοῦ κυρίου; in our Bible, the sight of the glory of the Lord. In like manner, the word dos is applied to the symbol of the Divine presence, which the Israelites enjoyed in the wilderness; the cloud which covered the tabernacle in the day-time, and appeared as fire in the night, Num. ix. 15, 16. And, to mention but one other in. stance, the display which he made to Moses, when he conversed with him