and precluding all facility of intercourse or contact with surrounding idolaters. After their departure from Sinai the Israelites were preserved to the end of forty years in the wilderness by continual miracles. To similar interpositions of the uplifted arm of God they were wholly indebted for their establishment in the land of Canaan. Have we not here most eminent proofs of divine love? They were the more astonishing, because the conduct of the Heavenly Benefactor of the race of Abraham was one continued display of long-suffering kindness towards rebellious ingratitude and most audacious provocation. The same description may be extended throughout the eventful series of vicissitudes which marked their history until the appearance upon earth of their expected Messiah. In the mean time God had been graciously preparing the Israelites, by the unwearied voice of prophecy, for the manifestation of this great Deliverer in the midst of them. From age to age, in succession, chosen men inspired by the Holy Ghost arose not merely to rebuke transgressors, to enforce righteous practice, or to announce the purposes of God respecting some existing crisis in the concerns of the nation; but, mainly, to predict the leading circumstances which should characterise the Redeemer, and the immeasurable blessings which He would ultimately confer on the twelve tribes of Israel, and on all the kingdoms of the earth. Under every dispensation the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy': the universal object of prophecy is to make known and to glorify the Saviour. Prophecy announces him as the offspring of a virgin mother; declares the place and the period of his birth; his wonderful works; his sorrows; his sufferings; his death. Then changing its tone to sounds of stupendous import, it proclaims him as the Great Being who in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and of whose hands the heavens are the workmanship; by whom all things were created, visible and invisible, the Son of God; the Mighty God; God with us. 1 Rev. xix. 10. 124 CHAP. X. THE LOVE OF GOD IN REDEMPTION. THE plan of human redemption is set before us in the Scriptures not only as the consummation of the divine mercy towards men, but as an exemplification of love so wonderful as to exceed in its fulness the grasp of our conceptions. In this was manifested the love of God towards us; because that God sent his onlybegotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.1 God so loved the world, that he gave his onlybegotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.2 When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet 2 John, iii. 16. 1 1 John, iv. 9, 10. peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.2 God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.4 It may be desirable to adduce some additional passages among the scriptural declarations in which the procuring cause of pardon, of justification, of sanctification, of an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for fallen man, is exclusively pronounced to be the voluntary and atoning sufferings and death of our Redeemer, accepted through the unbounded love of God as an adequate ground for the granting of all those blessings. 2 Coloss. i. 21, 22. 4 1 John, iii. 1. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.1 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.2 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.3 Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.4 It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.5 Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. I lay down my life for the sheep." 1 John, i. 29. 2 Acts, iv. 12. 3 Rom. iii. 25. 5 Coloss. i. 19, 20. 6 1 Pet. ii. 24. See Isaiah, liii. 7 John, x. 15. |