way because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we fasted and besought our God for this: and he was intreated of us." (Ezra viii. 21.) IV. The prophets speak of the moral and religious purity that should prevail in restored Judah and Ephraim. Read in chap. ix. 1-5, how Ezra, on hearing of the intermarriages of the people of the land, Gentiles and strangers, "rent his garment and mantle, plucked off the hair of his head and beard, and sat down astonished." This occurred cir. B. c. 457, about eighty years after the decree of Cyrus. Read also what Nehemiah wrote, more than a hundred years after the decree of Cyrus, concerning the violation of the sabbath day at Jerusalem and the intermarriages of Jews with women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab, and when "one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite.' And if we accept the marginal dates of Malachi's prophecy (B. c. 397), we shall see the deep and gradually increasing corruption and avarice of the priests. And as Judah was still under a covenant with the Most High to this effect, that obedience would be certainly followed by temporal favour and protection, disobedience by temporal visitation and chastisement, the very fact of the sanguinary triumphs, and horrible cruelties and impious desecrations of Antiochus Epiphanes, prove that the moral career of the Jews, from the days of Malachi to cir. B. c. 167, had been more or less a downward career. And we know that about two centuries later, the Jews had become so ignorant of the spiritual meaning of their scriptures, and so destitute of the true spiritual knowledge and fear of the God of their fathers, that they rejected and crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. In less than forty years after the crucifixion, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans, and the captive Jews dispersed among the nations, and this is their condition at the present day. "I V. We have spoken of the book of Ezra, we now come to that of Nehemiah. The prophets predict the prosperity of Israel, and the splendour of Jerusalem in the days of the great restoration of Judah and Ephraim. What is the description given, cir. 446 B. C., ninety years after the decree of Cyrus, by Nehemiah?" I asked Hanani concerning the Jews which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven." VI. How did the Levites, in the name and on the behalf of their nation, describe before the Lord what had been the position of the Jews under the kings of Persia from the days of Cyrus to the days of Nehemiah, a period of ninety years? -"Behold, we are servants this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it and it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress." (Neh. ix. 36, 37.) : VII. It is true that the Jews afterwards enjoyed a degree of independence from B. c. 143 to B. c. 63. But their rulers during this period, such as Simon, and his son John Hyrcanus, were not of the tribe of Judah and the house of David. At the time of the birth of our Lord, Herod the Great reigned over Judea and Samaria; but he was by descent an Idumean or Edomite. I have already, perhaps, exceeded the limits permitted to such a communication as the present, and therefore bring it at once to a conclusion. CLERICUS G. SOME COMMENTS UPON MR. GOODWIN'S VIEW OF THE IN speaking about revention in general, we ask this question first of all: Have we any reason, à priori, for expecting that it should have been given in any particular manner, or that its truths should have been cast into any particular mould? The ground of all expectation is, we know, experience; and according to the amount of experience will be the degree of the expectation. This may vary from the barest probability to an almost absolute certainty. In the case of certain natural phenomena, the experience of certain results has been so absolutely uniform, as to lead to an almost absolute certainty that these will always recur in the same order and manner; we say, an almost absolute certainty, because unless it be assumed that matter is self-existent and therefore eternal, it must have been put into motion and sustained in it by a power extraneous and superior to itself, and that power may suspend its operations; but whether it will do so or not, evidently cannot be known but by a declaration emanating from the power itself. Hence our expectation, though almost, yet does not quite amount to an absolute certainty; or what is saying the same thing, we absolutely expect that these natural phenomena will recur to morrow as they did yesterday, and as we see them recurring today, provided the moving power does not suspend its operation. Hence the law, which we deduce from reiterated experiences and observations of natural phenomena, is nothing else than an expression of the absolute regularity of the movements and counsels of the Supreme Mind. But there are other things beside natural phenomena which are the subjects of experience, which experience leads to future expectation: not to mention other things, it may be enough to refer to the history of nations; by that history we perceive that certain combinations of events have generally produced certain results, and so when in any other nation we see a similar combination, we are led to expect similar results; and in this case the degree of expectation will vary from the lowest amount of probability, not to an almost absolute certainty, but to such a degree of certainty as would render any ruler highly culpable for neglecting the expectation and providing accordingly. Hence arise laws of policy and government, which though not possessing the degree of certainty which belongs to the laws of nature, are yet binding in their measure upon those charged with the oversight of political institutions. But in a complication of circumstances, which is utterly without precedent, experience fails as a guide of our expectations, and we are forced to pause and look at things as they come; and though we may believe, and ought perhaps to believe, that this new and unprecedented arrangement of circumstances is being worked out according to some law, yet we must feel that it is a law beyond our present ken, and one about which it is. not possible to reason in the same way as we do about known and established laws. Granting that the Supreme Being has made a revelation to man, what ground have we from experience to expect that that revelation should take any particular form or be delivered in any particular manner? Have we any experience of a similar complication of circumstances to those we are called upon to regard, when we contemplate the Supreme Governor of the universe revealing himself to man? There may have been such a complication of circumstances many times before; there may have been other worlds similarly circumstanced to our own, to which revelations have been made; but where is the record of them? To what book of history shall we turn to find the account? Where are the archives of the planets—the written memorials of the inhabited worlds, if such there are, among the shining hosts of heaven? Had we even one such record, we should have some degree of experience to guide our expectation as to the nature of revelation. Our expectation would in this case be small indeed; but it would be something real and tangible. Had we the records of some six or seven worlds, we might reason on our expectation with greater assurance. Or, finally, if the records of all the inhabited worlds in the universe were before us, we might argue on the subject of revelation on assured premises, and arrive at incontrovertible conclusions. We might, perhaps, then be allowed to lay down laws about the nature of revelation; and if any book claiming the title of God's word came to us, contradicting in the manner of its development any one of these laws, we might perhaps be justified in rejecting its claim and repudiating its statements. But we are absolutely without any premises of experience to guide our expectation. The circumstances of revelation are to us unique, and within the range of our knowledge unprecedented. If we repeat the question, "Have we anything to guide our expectation of what a revelation must be ?" experience says, "It is not in me;" history answers, "I know it not." If experience fails to lead us to any expectation about the nature of revelation, it fails equally to lead us to any expectation about the manner of its development. Had we at hand any records of the mode in which it had pleased the Supreme Being to give His revelation to other worlds, we might with reason have argued that our revelation would have been made in a similar manner. Had we certain knowledge that other revelations had been given without the authentication of miracles, we should have had a reasonable ground for expecting that ours would have been so given; and we might have been, in consequence, to some degree justified in rejecting as absurd the position that a revelation needs the authentication of miracles. But here we see that experience altogether fails us. It is argued, however, that a miracle, as an infringement of law, is a violation of the uniformity of the Divine operation, and therefore involves in its very idea a contradiction of the necessary attributes of Divinity. In answer, we argue that a miraculous operation is no infringement of any law furnished by past experiences of the manner of God's revealing himself to His creatures, for experience furnishes us with no such law. But if natural laws be infringed by miraculous operations, and this infringement be objected against their very possibility, or at least probability, it may be answered that experience furnishes us with no reason for assuming it as utterly unlikely that natural laws should be infringed for the high purpose of instructing and elevating rational and immortal creatures: but, on the contrary, experience is very much in favour of the probability of such a thing taking place. It is evident that certain natural phenomena exercise a considerable influence upon men. It is clear from the history of the world, as well as from the observation of particular nations at the present time, that such things as the variations of climate, the nature of the soil, the face of the country, the frequent occurrence of storms or otherwise, do exercise a very considerable influence upon the human race. It is impossible to deny that a climate, where all that is necessary for life is easily and without much labour obtained, has an enervating effect upon those subjected to its influence; while a severe climate, and a soil demanding much labour from its cultivators, have their effect in bracing and nerving men to patience, industry, and fortitude. In one word, it is impossible to deny that physical phenomena have had their use in the education of the world. Hence the conclusion is irresistible, that these phenomena are subordinated to the use of man. Nature is for man, and not man for nature. Admit this, and it follows that there must be a suitability between the arrangement of the phenomena of nature and the disposition of the creature to be influenced by them. If this disposition were perfectly uniform, and evidently regulated by fixed laws, we might reject utterly the idea of any infringement of the uniformity of the phenomena. But is it so? Are the acts, the feelings, the habits of man regulated by fixed laws? In the reasoning of the fatalist they are. But fatalism destroys the responsibility of man, and practically denies the power of a Creator to form a creature endowed with a free-will. In the light of such reasoning miracles are an absurdity. But admit his free-agency. Admit his liability to receive impression from external objects (such as those referred to) and the absurdity ceases, and a strong probability in favour of miraculous operations necessarily follows. In fact, the denial of miraculous. agency as a means of instruction to man amounts to a denial of man's free-will and responsibility. The possibility of a Creator instructing his creature by extraordinary and abnormal means, is a correlative doctrine with that creature's free-agency. Deny the one and the other falls; admit the one and the other follows rationally. Any apparent infringement of a lower law of nature by means of which God may convey instruction to a creature, is but a fulfilment of a higher law of benevolence, whereby God regulates the things of nature so as best to meet the needs of the constitution which Himself has given to that creature. Before leaving this part of our subject, it may be well to notice how the discoveries which geology has opened out to us confirm the position that nature is for man. At periods long distant the barns of nature were being stored with treasures for man's use. The crust of the earth has been subjected to violent, and as far as we might say, abnormal convulsions, and by means of these, treasures, and blessings, and wealth, and beauty have been either created or brought within reach for the benefit of man. |