to Abraham, 1921 years before his advent. The nature of the prophecy was both temporal and spiritual. It was predicted, that Abraham should be the Father of a great nation, and the prediction was most eminently verified; his children literally were as the stars of heaven for multitude. From him the Messiah was to spring; doubtless he was certified of this consolatory fact, when it was promised to him, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. By the advent of Christ alone this promise could have been fulfilled; to no other descendant from him can it, in the slightest manner, be applied. And that Christ, according to the flesh, lineally descended from him, through the race of David, has been proved both by St. Matthew and St. Luke. Abraham, on account of his obedience, and of his inflexible adherence to the true and primitively revealed worship, was thus blessed. He spared not his own Son when God required him: God spared not his, and with Him freely gave us all things. When God's Son came manifest in the flesh, He brought from Heaven peace and good-will towards men, teaching them in return to ascribe glory to God in the highest; He threw down the partition-wall between the Jew and the Gentile, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. The promise was three times made to Abraham; first before he left his own country for Canaan, God

said, "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed'." Again Again was this promise repeated in Gen. xviii. 18. excepting that people or nations were substituted for families and a third time in Gen. xxii. 18. on account of his readiness to offer Isaac, wherein thee is emphatically explained in thy seed. In Gen. xxvi. 4. the promise was made to Isaac. In Gen. xxviii. 24. it was transferred to Jacob, thereby demonstrating the fixed purpose of the Divine Providence. Allusion is made to this promise in several parts of the Scriptures, which declare it to point to the Messiah. The prophecy could not have been fulfilled by the enjoyment of only temporal blessings; because it was revealed in Gen. xv. 16. that the fourth generation of Abraham should be in bondage, and his posterity were continually suffering punishments for their disobedience to Jehovah. It is thus very evident that Abraham derived a prophetic foresight of the Messiah from this promise, since the Saviour Himself alludes to his rejoicing 2, when, by faith, Abraham saw Christ.

GEN. xlix. 10.

MATT. ii. 12.

But the sceptre was not to depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh

Gen. xii. 3.

2 John viii. 56.

should come, and unto Him was the gathering of the people to be. This was prophesied, and verily was it fulfilled. The sceptre remained to the kingdom of Judah until Christ appeared; Christ was born "in the days of Herod the king," during the time, that Augustus was emperor of Rome, and, after his birth, Cæsar Augustus almost immediately issued a decree, that all the world should be taxed, thus including the Jews, as tributaries of the Roman power.

From the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, in the reign of Jehoiachim, it may be supposed that the sceptre departed from Judah at that time, which was 606 years before Christ appeared upon earth.

But it did not. During the captivity the Jews lived as a distinct people; they had their own rulers; and Sheshbazzar was their prince or governor, to whom Cyrus ordered the vessels of the Temple to be restored'. And after the captivity, at the termination of seventy years, they were subjected to the Persians, afterwards to the Greeks, and finally to the Romans. During all this time the sceptre was gradually departing, but did not actually depart

1 Vid. Ezra i. 7, 8. and v. 14.

from Judah, until the state was completely overthrown by the Jewish war. The city and temple were then destroyed, and they existed no longer as a nation.

Nor did the lawgiver depart till then; for, notwithstanding the superstitions and idle legends, which the Jews had appended to the law of Moses, it was most scrupulously observed in the time of our Saviour, according to the interpretation of the dominant sects. Our Saviour, whilst He charged them with making it of no effect through their traditions, and passing by its moral and weightier matters, bore testimony to their washing the outside of the cup and platter, and the scrupulous payment of mint, cummin, and anise-seed; in other ́words, he referred to their outward observance of it, and neglect of its practical precepts. Until the destruction of Jerusalem, the Law of Moses was the law of the nation; but when the nation became dispersed over the habitable earth, though they in their private society might adhere to it, they were bound by the laws of the countries, in which they resided. Thus, the lawgiver did not depart from Judah till Shiloh came. Then the new Lawgiver arose, whom they would not receive.

To Christ, this new Lawgiver, the gathering of

the people was to Him flocked multitudes of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To the teaching of his Apostles innumerable Gentiles became obedient, and a goodly company of martyrs prepared the way for the dissemination of the truth through most distant lands. The Sun of righteousness had arisen, and his healing rays beamed over the earth. The temples of superstition gradually crumbled to the dust; the false philosophy of infidelity was exposed and overthrown by the evidences of Christianity; and the knowledge of the Lord, with the living waters that gushed from the sanctuary, began to cover the regions of the globe'.

EXODUS AND LEVITICUS.

MOSES has not recorded equally distinctive prophecies of the Messiah in these books; in them he is pourtrayed in types. Exodus takes its name from "Ecodos its Greek title, because it treats of the deli

1 Jewish tradition itself, and many of the more modern commentators, referred this prophecy to the Messiah: though some endeavoured by dogmatism to prevent its application to Christ. But the interpretation of the ancient Jews shows, how old the tradition is. The Samaritans also refer the passage to the Messiah, and Justin Martyr states, that from the most early period of the Christian Church, it was so understood.