take place that would effect it? What great Teacher would there be to instruct these long-lost nations? Isaiah tells us of the Light-bearer when he says, (Isaiah lix, 6,) "I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." When the same prophet predicted the appearance of the offspring of David he added, "to it shall the Gentiles seek." Ezekiel represented the Church of the future as a lofty mountain; and Isaiah more emphatically says, (ii, 2,) "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." What a picture rose before his mind on another occasion when he exclaimed, "The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust." Christ is the prophesied one through whom all these distant parts of the earth are to be made one. He is the Word which is to be for the healing of the nations. The Expiatory Deed. The consciousness of the distance of man from Deity has led all people to the idea of an offering and a priest. Prayer is the gift of the heart to God, and an offering is the outward expression of prayer. But this approach to God is through the medium of a priest. Now the prophets, proceeding upon these things so evident in their time, showed that there would appear a priest "once for all." "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." Isaiah xliv, 22. "In that day there shall be a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness." Zechariah xiii, 1. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you." Ezekiel xxxvi, 25. But more clearly still does Jeremiah (xxiii, 6) reveal the expiatory character of Christ: "In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall die safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." But Christ was not to bring an offering, nor to offer a sacrifice; the prophets declare he was to become himself the offering for the sins of the world. In Zechariah xii, 10 and xiii, 7, we find Christ predicted as the offering for sin; and the whole of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah may be taken as the description, above all others in the Old Testament, of his sacrificial and substitutional atonement. But these proofs need not be multiplied. Any one who confesses that a Messiah is prophesied must also acknowledge that his character is clearly defined. The Final Conquest. Christ, being declared a future king, he is finally to be the great conqueror. David saw his victories when he said, (2 Samuel xxiii, 4,) " And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." But he is to appear first as king to his own people. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Zechariah ix, 9. Thus much as king; but Zechariah, in the very next verse, shows that the king is conqueror also: "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." These three characters of Christ-Prophet, Priest, and King —were brought out by the prophets in the clearest light. The Jewish mind understood them in a great measure, and so decided were their conceptions of the Messianic utterances that they have formed a definite idea of how Christ should appear. But in this they were mistaken, having taken many predictions far too literally. The Jews were disappointed because Christ did not seem to fulfill their previous views of his incarnation. But with our knowledge of his life, death, and ascension, we cannot but confess that in every respect, save the universal diffusion of his Gospel, which is yet in the future, the Messianic prophecies have been verified. The accounts given of Christ by the evangelists bear internal evidence of indubitable truth; but they are only the noonday lessons concerning Him of whom the prophets spoke about in the midnight of centuries agone. Isaiah was the first evangelist, and he was true to his mission; but he was only one of the galaxy of prophets "who desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Yes, it was to Christ that prophecy tended. He was the burning center on which was fixed the gaze of those inspired seers of God. The poet Hayes is right: "The gift Of prophecy was lost; O proof beyond A doubt, that every oracle of old To the same center tended, and that all The promises to God's selected race Through every age, received the stamp of truth ART. VI.-THE EFFECTS OF THE FALL UPON THE CREATION. In years past the prevailing opinion of theologians was that all the disasters, disorders, abortions, and imperfections of nature were consequences of man's sin and fall. The discoveries of modern science have raised a doubt about this opinion, and led to an inquiry into the proofs upon which it is founded. The devotees of science-all who ground their belief more upon the revelations of nature than the word of God-have taken positive ground against this belief; and, thinking that they have found the means to prove that one of the dogmas of theology is false, one of the teachings of the Bible untrue, they would gladly conclude that the whole of it is founded in error. Others, who admit the evidence of both nature and revelation, and who believe in the harmony and truth of both, have looked for means to reconcile the apparent disagreement, and have asked themselves and the world if the opinion which has been entertained upon this subject is really taught in the Bible, and if it is a necessary understanding of the language of Scripture. Dr. Bushnell, jealous of orthodox theology and of the opinions of the fathers upon this subject, has come forward, in his "Nature and the Supernatural," with a new theory, in which he proposes to maintain the ancient belief and yet admit all the proofs and inferences of modern science. He admits that disorders and imperfections in nature existed before man was created, and that animals lived and devoured each other, and that thorns and thistles grew upon the earth before Adam sinned; but he still holds that they were consequences of sin. He says they were anticipatory consequences of man's sin, or else results consequent upon the sin of other beings who lived and fell before man was created. In endeavoring to maintain this position I think he has greatly weakened his general argument. By this, and by assuming the position that Adam was under a condition privative which rendered it almost necessary for him to sin, he has made two vulnerable points in his otherwise impregnable fortress. We will first consider the scriptural proofs upon which the opinion of the fathers rests. In the curse pronounced upon Adam for his disobedience we find these words: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Now this teaches us nothing definite. How this curse affected the ground, what should be the consequences of this curse upon the ground, how its effects should be manifested, we are not told. Whatever opinions we may entertain in regard to this must be only conjecture. Again: "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee." From this it has generally been inferred that thorns and thistles did not grow before the fall. But is this a necessary conclusion? When God made a covenant with Noah he said: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." Now are we to understand from this that no rainbow was ever seen until after the flood? I know of no commentator who thus explains this passage. The laws of refraction were instituted when light was created. Through all the previous ages of earth whenever a transparent prism was formed of a liquid or solid, the direct rays of light which passed through it were decomposed, and the rainbow colors appeared. We are to understand from this passage, then, not that the rainbow appeared then for the first time, but that henceforth it should be the sign of God's covenant with the world that the human race should never again be destroyed by water. So thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth unto thee. Not that no thorns or thistles had before grown-none may have grown in that particular part of the earth where God had fitted up a garden dwelling-place for man; they had never yet disturbed the peace or happiness of man-but henceforth they shall spring up in the soil that thou shalt cultivate, and perplex and annoy thee, a constant memorial of thy disobedi ence and fall. The record of the rocks shows that plants with sharp thorny protuberances grew and perished before man was created. The only other passage of Scripture which is quoted as proof upon this subject is Romans viii, 22: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Dr. Adam Clarke, who wrote his Commentary before this question was brought prominently before the public mind, when he had no theory to favor, says that the words "whole creation" in this passage mean the Gentile world-all people outside of the Jewish nation. And this appears very reasonable from the language that follows it. And not only they, but we, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we, the Jewish nation, groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption. If we understand this groaning to apply to the physical world, we must believe that the redemption also extends to the physical world, and that Christ's death is to correct all the disorders and imperfections of nature. Thus we see that the opinion that the disorders and imperfections of nature are the effect of sin has little scriptural foundation. Indeed, it is not the positive and direct teachings of Scripture which have made this opinion so prevalent in the Christian Church. It has grown out of the endless search after the origin of evil. Divines could trace the origin of moral evil to superhuman diabolical agency; and then, in order to vindicate the character of God against the charge of imperfection in his works, they thought they must in some way connect the existence of physical evil with this break in his moral government. But we are not called upon to vindicate the character of God from the charge of imperfection in his works. He has created things relatively imperfect. Every physical thing which has fallen under the observation of man infinite wisdom might make better. The highest model of a thing that the loftiest human mind could conceive would still be relatively imperfect. God in his first creation of a thing places it low down in the scale of perfection, and then advances it by slow and gradual |