the God of Israel." This determination of the point of time to which the prophets are declared to have referred, carries a great deal with it. Our brethren, on the other side, rarely refer to this self-interpreting part of Scripture. Indeed, Nehemiah and Esra might be expunged from God's word, for all the notice that is taken of them in many prophetical books. And it is in consequence of overlooking this, that these same brethren continually charge us with not taking God's Word literally. "You give the Jews the curses," they say, "and spiritualize the blessings, or appropriate them to yourselves." This is constantly reiterated at our Jewish meetings. Nothing can be more incorrect. We fully accept the literality of Scripture, and we alone, so it seems to me, can and do point to its fulfilment. What the prophets foretold, we say has been accomplished to the letter; while the heathen nations around -proud Babylon, Moab, Egypt, Tyre-were turned upside down, and left to their fate, the little nation of the Jews was again brought forward even out of Babylon, their walls and temple rebuilt, their services resumed, and their vines and figtrees cultivated. Here is certainly a literal fulfilment.

But it will be said, is this all you make of the testimony of the prophets? Certainly not. Shining through and extending far beyond all these literal references, were far more important, because spiritual references to the doctrines of Christ, and the glories of the Gospel. The Jews were a typical nation, and their dispensation a foreshadow and preparation for the gospel. We are not left to conjecture here; the quotations made in the New Testament from the Old, seem to settle the question. A few will suffice :-"The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One." "This said Esaias, when he saw His glory and spake of Him." "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

And if we want to know what these things were, let us turn to the Epistles, and there we shall find the prophets quoted abundantly, and always spiritualized. For example: "Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" As he saith also in Hosea, "I will call them my people which were not my people and her beloved which was not beloved. For ye are the temple of the living God." As God hath said, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Therefore, that is, on the strength of this, you Corinthians, now at once

come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

So also in the Acts, (on the day of Pentecost), "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." And again, in the 15th chapter, at the first council in Jerusalem, when St. James, after St. Peter, is insisting upon the admission of the Gentiles into the churches, " And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written: After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles." All this is clearly a present and spiritual meaning. And so in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, therefore we, receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear."

Thus, I imagine, it may be urged with considerable force that in this way the Jewish element in the prophets is exhausted; first, in the literal and typical fulfilment in past days, and now in their enjoyment of gospel blessings, only save and except the fulness of the latter yet waiting accomplishment, and perhaps at this moment travailing in the birth. At any rate, it becomes those who so freely quote the prophets as to a still future Jewish temporal dispensation and earthly prosperity, to show very good and positive grounds remaining, after taking the principles of the self-interpretation of Scripture, thus illustrated, into consideration.

(4.) And now, lastly, we come to the references found in the New Testament itself. Here two further difficulties present themselves to my mind. First, the ominous silence of the New Testament on the subject of the Jews' return to their own land. I need not enter into a discussion of the passages which may be said to have a bearing on the subject; suffice it to say, they are but few and far between; and are, in no one case that I am aware of, in the least direct. "How is it," one asks oneself, "that the clearer and professedly final revelations of God's will to individuals and to the church at large, while entering into the utmost minutiæ as to present duties, and future events even out to the very boundaries of time, should omit altogether, in a way of direct teaching, any reference to this remarkable event in the world's temporal and spiritual history?"

Again, is not such a return, with its accompaniments and consequences as affirmed, contrary to the whole spirit of the New Testament? There is no more sacrifice for sin, no more altars, nor priests, nor temples made with hands, since Jesus has gathered up all types unto himself; and yet here there is to be

-and that, we are told, not only de facto but de jure-a temple and sacrifice offered unto God! The apostles were ever preaching against semi-Judaism, and telling us that the wall of partition is taken away, and there is now neither Jew nor Greek, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. Yet here is to be thorough-going Judaism, or, at least, a semi-Judaism, revived; tribes recognized, an earthly inheritance, and an earthly glory, and that for ever! This seems to me going backwards, the noble river, just issuing into the ocean, contracting again to its diminutive proportions at first, and altogether contradicting the spirit of the grand universal purposes of Christianity. Of course, I should believe and accept it if it was pointed out and proved in Scripture, especially in the last testament and revelation of Jehovah. But is it written there? This seems to be the question.

Such are some of the chief difficulties I seem to encounter whenever the Jewish subject rises before me. I have put them in a strong form, in order to exhibit clearly, to any Christian brother who may feel disposed to assist me, the real points of departure between us on which I seek help and direction. I know that it is very easy to start objections, and that some objections must necessarily lie against everything, even against truth itself. But I cannot help thinking, that upon a calm review of the matter, it will be seen that there is much solid weight to be attached to the difficulties I have suggested as a whole; and that they require at least a thorough investigation, if not a certain amount of answer and removal, before the system at the very threshold of which they lie can be admitted as probable or true.

B.

[NOTE.-We are not convinced by the arguments of B. He has not shaken us in our belief of a literal restoration. It still seems to us that the Scriptures which foretold a literal dispersion are not a whit more precise than those which still foretell a literal restoration; nor before their accomplishment were the difficulties which surrounded them by any means greater than those which which now surround the yet unfulfilled predictions of a literal return. To most of these difficulties we think bishop Butler's canon applies; namely, that where one part of a prophecy is clear, and the rest obscure, that which is clear is not affected by that which is obscure; inasmuch as the obscure portion is to us as though it had no existence.

We think

Still we do not undervalue such communications. that, just at present, they may serve some useful ends. They may remind us of the great importance of maintaining nothing as scriptural truth, especially in public, without being well able to support it. Traditional statements, often repeated because often made before, conventional phrases to conceal the want of accurate knowledge, and so forth, will not serve our purpose,

either from the pulpit, the platform, or the press, in the face of objections such as now rise up everywhere to confront us. And we may learn, again, not to assume too readily that all who agree with us in the great doctrines of protestant and evangelical truth, agree with us in all our details of exposition, especially on the subject of prophecy. We might cite the author of the foregoing papers in illustration,-an evangelical clergyman, occupying a most important post, yet differing, probably, from the majority of his evangelical brethren on a point of no less interest than the literal restoration of the Jews. In this, however, perhaps, we may be wrong for when Scott wrote his Commentary, the views which "B." still advocates were all but universal.-EDITOR.]

ON THE OBLATION OF THE BREAD AND WINE IN THE

EUCHARIST.

THE question of the oblation of the elements in the Lord's Supper has acquired fresh interest from the bishop of Exeter's* recent communication to one of his archdeacons on the subject of church rates. We take the liberty of transcribing in italics the more important clauses of the following extract from his lordship's letter:

"In examining the list of strictly necessary charges (on account of which church rates require to be collected), the first particular is at once the largest and most important, the supplying the elements at the Holy Communion. But this, I hesitate not to say, is most unfit to be made a charge on any man. None but those who actually communicate, ought to be, I will not say compelled, but permitted, to contribute. In the primitive church, to make offerings of bread and wine, out of which the elements were taken, was a privilege from which all but the faithful were strictly excluded. . . . To carry out this principle in consistence with our present object, the simplest and easiest method would probably be, to take the cost of the bread and wine out of the money collected at the offertory; and we need not doubt that devout communicants would offer somewhat more largely in consideration of this charge."

Now, the plan here proposed for providing the bread and wine for the communion is brought forward in such direct and open terms, that churchmen may well feel jealous of the ultimate object. The animus of this proposal-and we doubt not that his lordship, were the question courteously put to him, would at

* See Christian Observer, April 1861, p. 314.

once frankly avow the purpose which he has in view-may be not obscurely gathered from what bishop Philpott says, in his letter to Dr. Lushington, of the rubric which immediately precedes the prayer for the church militant. We first cite the rubric

itself:

"And when there is a communion, the priest shall then place upon the table so much bread and wine as he shall think sufficient."

This rubric, as is well known, was introduced into our Prayer-book, for the first time, at the "Last Revision, in 1661-2. The bishop of Exeter says* of it:

"The real intention of the rubric was to ENFORCE the church's doctrine of the eucharist in one of its not least important particulars; to enforce an OBLATION of bread and wine, in the thankful acknowledgment of the Great Author and Giver of all good things (especially of those good things with which he is pleased to appoint that our bodies be strengthened and refreshed), in order that, with the elements thus made sacred by being offered to God and placed on his holy table, which (we know from our Lord's own words) sanctifieth the gifts placed upon it, we may make commemoration of the sacrifice of his death."

In Matt. xxiii. 19, we read these words :-" Whether is greater, the gift, or the altar which sanctifieth the gift?" According, then, to the bishop of Exeter, the communion table in the holy eucharist would seem to be an altar. The first Prayer-book of Edward VI., to which his lordship, in his letter to the archdeacon, appears to wish to bring us back, would perhaps justify this view; for there the rubric directs "the bread and wine to be set upon the altar." Why, then, did our reformers, when they had become better instructed in the letter and the spirit of the New Testament, carefully and deliberately exclude the word altar from the communion rubrics? Surely it was in order to teach Anglican communicants that the piece of church furniture on which the paten with the bread, and the chalice or cup with the wine, are placed at the communion, is a table and not an altar. But this weighty (though inferential) rubrical protest against the notion that the communion table is an altar is, to say the least, by no means favourable to their view who assert that, in the reformed Anglican church, the bread and wine are to be looked upon as oblations in the strict and literal ecclesiastical meaning of that term.

The following fact, brought forward in a layman's letter to the bishop of Exeter, may perhaps make candid high-churchmen, even of the Laudian school, pause before they accept his lordship's assertion, that an oblation of the elements in the eucharist is the peremptory law and doctrine of the church of

We have here also marked in italics the clauses which bear more especially upon the question before us.