only the proclamation, of the kingdom. Now the answer to such a use of the passage is simply, that the LXX., full of the reign of Messiah over the nations, thrust it in there where it is not; just as our allegorizers, who cannot bear to hear of it, would thrust it out of the Scriptures altogether, and thrust in, in the stead thereof, what they call a spiritual reign, but what is only "the first fruits of the Spirit." What we argue for is a spiritual reign; Christ in his spiritual body, with the saints in their spiritual bodies, dwelling in the spiritual Jerusalem, which cometh down from heaven, and reigning over a world still in flesh and blood: not, however, invisible because spiritual; yea, therefore most visible, most gloriously visible.-But to return this quotation of the Apostle doth certainly give Divine warrant for believing that the mystery of Providence foretold in this passage, is the vocation of the Gentiles by the preaching of the Gospel, begun by Peter (Acts x.), and completed by Paul, who takes great delight to acknowledge the distinction thereby conferred upon him as a man and an Apostle (Eph. iii. 1—8). Having obtained Divine warrant for thus interpreting the text, of the calling of the Gentiles into the church, we go to examine it by the light of that truth.

"that

And, first, it gives reason to understand the expression "in that day," of the time from his first coming, or rather, from his coming, which the Prophets saw not as twofold, but as one event, whose arrival they designate by the expressions day," "great day," ," "the day of the Lord." The events of his humility they see, and the events of his power and glory, as occurrent against the same day of his coming. This nothing offendeth against the interpretation with which we set out, of the expression "that day," and which standeth upon a broad examination of more than a hundred passages; but serveth to shew how small a bulk the humiliation of Christ. hath in the purpose and revelation of God, when drawn into comparison with his exaltation and kingdom. For my own part, I incline to think that these expressions, "that day," and "day of the Lord," refer strictly to the time of Messiah, which began with his incarnation. I cannot see how the Prophets, contemplating as they did the oneness of his advent, could speak otherwise; but when I came to the great and only Prophet of the second advent, which is Jesus himself illustrated by his Apostles, I certainly refer the events of the Prophets written for the day of Christ but not yet fulfilled, to that time when he shall come again, and the heavens shall hold him no longer (Acts iii. 21).

He is the root of Jesse, and he is standing for the ensign of the Jews, before the Gentiles seek to him. Of this the Apostle Paul, in the passage where our text is quoted, hath a distinct discernment, when he declareth, "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). Which declareth, first, that he was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God; or, in other words, that he was a sign to the people; and, secondly, how he was a sign, "by confirming the promises made unto the fathers," of the Seed of David, born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem Ephratah, anointed with the Spirit, and preaching the Gospel unto the poor, and healing all diseases, and casting out the devils, dying for our sins, and rising again superior to the power of death, and dispensing the Holy Spirit from on high. These, and such like confirmations of the promises, constituted him a sign; even as the aged Simeon pronounced over him while a babe, saying, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against' (Luke ii. 34). When the Jews continually asked him for a sign, he declared to them that his lying three days and three nights in the earth was the only sign which they should receive (Matt. xii. 39, 40); and the Apostle taketh hold of this very act of the resurrection as the true sign of his being the Son of God (Rom. i. 4). During the Apostle Paul's ministry, the Jews were still seeking for this sign: "the Jews desire a sign:' and the cross, with the resurrection, which was the true sign, they regarded as foolishness. Now, that it was the great end of Christ's ministry to gather the Jews, his restricting of the twelve and the seventy to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel," is a proof; but his own words are the express declaration of it: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matt. xxiii. 37.) This also teacheth us that the true meaning of the word sign" is for gathering and preserving them. But perhaps the great act whereby he asserted to himself the honour of being a sign unto the Jewish people, was his pouring out upon that church, on the day of Pentecost, of those gifts of tongues which might qualify them to go and preach the Gospel unto the dispersion in all regions of the earth: which also they did that very day, and added to the church three thousand, it is most likely of those very scattered Jews who were gathered at the feast in Jerusalem. And not many years thereafter, Paul, writing to the Romans, declareth that the sound of the Gospel of Christ had gone through all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world (Rom. x. 18). And though he was by express vocation of God an Apostle unto the uncircumcision, yet, true to the commission of his Master, wherever he went he first addressed himself to the Jews; and not till they rejected him

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did he address himself to the Gentiles. And how much the Apostles had received the impression from Christ that their commission was to gather the Jews only, is strongly shewn in the reluctance with which Peter went, and the severity with which all the Apostolic college treated him for going to the Gentiles.

:

Now, while Christ was thus standing as a sign to the Jewish people, it is declared that the Gentiles should seek to him, or, as the Apostle quotes it, "should trust in him." And accordingly it hath so come to pass, that, though the Jews were not gathered to the ensign which was lifted up of God, the Gentiles did seek thereto the Jewish nation have rejected the testimony of God, but the Gentiles have received it; the Jewish nation have sought to bear down the uplifted standard of Israel, but the Gentiles have rallied round it and borne it up until this day. It is a marvellous thing, and well worthy to be the subject of prophecy, that from the people of his own language God should turn to a people of a strange lip: that the people whom God had nursed upon his knees and fed with the milk of his word, should reject him at length; and that he should find a shelter for his truth among the nations which had so long devoured his inheritance: wherein is fulfilled the riddle of the Nazarite, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." Therefore it is that the aged Simeon, in his oracle over the virgin's babe, doth wittingly and warily order his words; placing first that he should be " a light to lighten the Gentiles," and thereafter "that he should be the glory of their people Israel." But the place in which both the cause and the goodness of this wonderful dispensation are set forth, is in the xlix th chapter of Isaiah, where the risen Redeemer is made to complain unto his Father, and lament before him, over the bad success of his undertaking: "Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God" (ver. 4); clearly proving, that the object and end of his first coming was to be a sign for the gathering of the people as also it was prophesied over Shiloh, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (Gen. xlix. 10). But this is put beyond all question by the answer which the Father returneth to his Son's disappointment, and the acknowledgment which he makes to him of the great sufficiency and satisfactoriness of his work: 66 And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isai. xlix. 5). Here it is expressly declared by the Eternal Father, that " to bring Jacob again to

him" was the cause for which he had sent him; and that this end of his mission for the present had failed: "they were not gathered." Behold now what follows, concerning the Gentiles being given to him: "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" (ver. 6). From this passage it is that the aged Simeon gat his knowledge of the destination of Christ, when he prophesied that he should be first a stumbling-block unto Israel,and be cut off, then become a light to the Gentiles, and afterwards the glory of his people Israel. This third part of his destination doth not at present concern us, and therefore we are content merely to refer to the remainder of the xlix th of Isaiah for the description of it, beginning from the middle of the 8th verse; whereof the first, concerning the day of salvation, is quoted by Paul (2 Cor. vi. 2) of this dispensation, or day, under which we live, as distinct from the day of glory, the day of the covenant of the people [D]; that is, of the new covenant which the Lord hath promised to make with the Jewish nation, when the time of their gathering unto Shiloh actually comes (Jer. xxxi. 28–38; Ezek. xxxiv.)

"And his rest shall be glory."-To see the force of this, we must recal to our minds the things which have been spoken concerning Emanuel, under the figure of the Root of Jesse. The ixth chapter brought to an end with signal overthrow all the glory of Lebanon, the forest of the mighty and the great ones of the earth; and instead thereof presents us with a sucker from the Root of Jesse, a contemptible Branch of his stem, who shall take the room of all the potentates, thrones, and dominions of the world. This person is presented to us as the man of God's Spirit, full of the gifts of goodness and truth, who judgeth in righteousness, and smiteth the wicked with the rod of his mouth, and at length setteth peace and blessedness in the earth. This same Root of Jesse, saith the prophet, shall stand for a sign to gather Israel; and while he is thus standing, the Gentiles shall seek unto him; and his rest shall be glory. There is, in this aspect of him as the Root of Jesse, the shewing forth of a contention and controversy with the wicked of the earth, which endeth in glorious triumph over them all: he standeth for a sign to his people, is rejected by them; is preached to the Gentiles; is the object of strife and contention on the earth but his rest is glorious. The mention here of rest, necessary implieth labour and travail: and the gloriousness of his rest implieth reward and joy from the hand of God. Now concerning this rest, what it is and where it is, we have abundant matter of Divine teaching in the iiid and iv th chapters of the

Epistle to the Hebrews; which do set forth this rest as the one promise of the church, from the time of its constitution by Moses under the symbols of glory of which rest Canaan was but the type; seeing it is held out to the church in the xcv th Psalm; which is as yet realized by Christ, and him only; but is abiding to every one who believeth, against the day of his glorious appearing. This is the doctrine of Christ's rest taught us in these chapters of the Hebrews; and from this authority we take the ground of our interpretation. The rest here spoken of, then, is, as it refers to Christ, that glory into which he entered when he had finished his work: "For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." (Heb.iv.10.) It is the being seated at the right hand of God, to rest there, in honour and glory, until the time when all his enemies shall be made his footstool. In this glorious rest he is represented to us in the iv th and vth chapters of the Apocalypse, seated on the throne of the Father, and invested with the completeness of the Father's glory. His rest is the interval between his standing the first time for a sign unto the people, and his standing the second time, with which we are presented in the next verse: for it is to be observed, that the action of verses 11, 12, &c., is a second action of God to gather his people, which succeeds, the action of verse 10 having failed. Now Christ is the actor in both cases: he is the sign set up for them to gather to and the period between these two actions is his rest; concerning which it is said, that it shall be glorious, or very glory. There is a beautiful confirmation of this same truth in the xliid chapter of this Prophet, who might be characterized as the Prophet of Emanuel's Person and personal actions.' Where, in the first seven verses we have God's first action in his chosen servant; in the 8th verse we have him giving glory to him; and in the remainder of the chapter we have his second action of victory and triumph, in which mention is made of the long interval of his rest and silence: "I have long time holden my peace, I have been still and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman, I will destroy and devour at once." (Isai. xlii. 14.) And in the remainder of the chapter we have his controversy with the oppressors of Jacob, his redemption of them with a high hand, and his restoration of them with an outstretched arm. From all which passages I conclude that Christ's rest is the period between his former and his latter advent. Now that which was once transacted in Christ personally, is transacting in every one of his members personally, and in his whole church collectively. With respect to each person, I believe that we are heirs of that rest which remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9); that to enter into this rest is the one great promise held out to us, generation after generation; and that the