of our Saviour, he described him under Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, the Just One, and hav ing Salvation." Zech. ix. 9.

this interesting title; "

In correspondence with which characteristic description of our Saviour, was the accusation brought by St. Stephen against the stiff-necked Jews. "Which (said he) of the Prophets, have not your Fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One." Acts vii. 52.

To the same characteristic title, Ananias a devout man according to the Law," referred, in the delivery of his commission, to Saul. "And he said, the God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One." Acts xxii. 14.

To this prominent part of our Saviour's character, Isaiah appears to allude in that Evangelical description of Him, to be found in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy; in the eleventh verse of which it is said of him, that by his knowledge shall my righteous servant make justifica

tion

to the Great Ones.

Therefore

with the

will I divide him a portion Great Ones. Because he shall empty out his body to death, and be numbered with the transgressors, and bear the forfeiture due to the Great Ones; and he shall intercede for transgressors." Isaiah liii. 11, 12. (According to this plan of commutative righteousness, which bears equal testimony to the infinite justice, and infinite mercy of its Divine Author; fallen man, in consequence of his obedience having been made, through the righteousness of the Just One, full weight in the scale of Heayen, becomes entitled to an heavenly reward; and is thereby placed, through the stupendous mystery of the Covenant of Grace, on safer ground, than that on which he stood before the Fall; that Salvation, which, when originally entrusted to himself, was lost, being now, as it were

The same word which, without apparent reason, has been rendered differently in our translation, is thereby calculated to keep out of sight, that part of our Saviour's character, which, I conceive, it was the object of the prophecy, in this passage, to point out to

notice.

put

put in trust for him, in the hands of anosave."

ther, who is "mighty to save.

As the Apostle, in observing that Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom, alludes to the false wisdom of the heathen world; so in adding, that he is made unto us Righteousness, he appears to have had immediately in view, that erroneous conclusion, which the pride and prejudice of the Jewish nation had drawn on this important subject; I say, the Apostle appears to have had the Jewish nation immediately in view on this occasion; but without meaning to countenance the idea, that the erroneous conclusion in question, was exclusively appropriated to them; for it is confessedly the offspring of human pride in every condition. "I bear them record (says St. Paul, speaking of his brethren, the Jews) that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Rom. x. 2, 3.

At the time of our Saviour's appearance in the world, the Jews, as a nation, were

uninformed, both with respect to the end and design of their Law. They had lost the key of knowledge, which could alone. enable them to unlock the meaning of their own Scriptures. Unacquainted, through the blindness that was in them, with that covenanted plan of Salvation, by which man was, in the Evangelical sense, to become righteous before God; their ignorance, on this head, led them to have recourse to a plan of Salvation of their own, totally incompatible with it. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness." Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.

In conformity with this striking prophecy, allusive to the restoration of Israel, the Apostle tells the Jews plainly, that "Christ was the end of the Law for righteousness." Rom. x. 4. Hence, the Law is called a Schoolmaster, whose object it

was

vation.

66

was to instruct those who lived under it, in the character and office of that Divine Person, by whom Judah shall be saved. But a judicial blindness had, at this time, fastened itself on the eyes of the Jewish people. In consequence of which, instead of looking through the Law for righteousness, to that Divine Person pre-figured by it, they looked to the Law itself for SalThey sought righteousness (says the Apostle) not by faith in a Redeemer, but, as it were, by the works of the Law." Hence, proceeded that unfortunate zeal for the Law, which indisposed the Jews for the reception of the Gospel. With this false prejudice on their minds, the Saviour of the world became a stumbling block and rock of offence to them. Temple and their Law they thought were to be perpetual. They understood not, that the former was a type of the body of Christ, and the latter a shadow of the good things of the Gospel. When our Saviour, therefore, said to the Jews, in allusion to his own body, as the Temple in which the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily; an allusion, which was designed to lead the

Their

Jews