MR. FREEMANTLE. 361 economy, not only peace-offering' and 'meat-offering,' but 'burnt-offerings,' trespass-offerings,' and can only reply, such is the divine pleasure. It is not for us to 'sin-offerings.' We judge what would be best for Israel and for the world at large in this future age." "However averse to our preconceived notions may be the restitution of ceremonial sacrifices, that restitution exactly corresponds with the prediction in the close of the fifty-first Psalm, where a reference is clear to Israel of the last times: 'Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build the walls of Jerusalem. Then wilt thou desire the right sacrifices, an offering and a holocaust; then shall they offer steers upon thine altars.'"* "In Ezek. xliii. 26," says Mr. Freemantle, "it is commanded that the priests shall purge the altar seven days. . . . And upon the eighth day and so forward, the priest shall make the burntofferings upon the altar, and the peace-offerings, and God will accept them, Thus the legal ceremonics will be celebrated upon the day of the resurrection of Christ. thanksgiving in Ps. lxvi. shall resound through the temple aisle. Then the song of 'We will go into thy house with burnt-offerings; I will offer unto thee burnt-sacrifices of fallings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats.' last feature [of "Israel's glory newal of sacrificial worship. And this forms the fourth and after the advent"] viz. the reBut it may be asked, Is it commanded? Assuredly. Turn to a prophecy relating to times subsequent to the restoration of the twelve tribes, and you have the answer (Jer. xxxiii. 17, 18), Thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt-offerings, and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.' And in Ezek. xlv. xlvi., the most minute directions as to the manner in which the sacrifices are to be offered, and which in some respects will be found to differ from the details under the law of Moses."† *The Second Advent, &c., by the Rev. John Fry, 1822, vol. i. pp. 120, 583, 585, 586. ↑ Lent Lect. for 1843, ut supra, pp. 276, 278, 279. "At that [millennial] time," says Mr. Brock, "the [civil or political] ascendency of Israel will be paramount over the Gentiles. Clear to this effect are the predictions of the prophets. The kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. . . . Thou shalt beat in pieces many people. . . The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. .. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles,' &c. The same ascendency shall also be exercised by Israel over the Gentiles in spiritual things. Jerusalem will be the metropolitan city of the converted nations. 'The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains; and all nations shall flow unto it,' &c."* WORSHIP FOR THE WHOLE EARTH. OF Jerusalem," says Mr. Pym, "shall be the METROPOLIS THE WORLD, from which the law shall go forth, and be the CENTRE OF That this shall then distinguish Jerusalem above every other city, is apparent from the words of the prophet (Isa. ii. 2, 3), 'The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains,' &c. 'From one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me' (Isa. lxvi. 23). Every one that is left of all the nations ... shall go up from year to year to worship, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.' His people shall be exalted above all others. 'And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vine-dressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, riches of the Gentiles,' &c. When I read such passages as these, do I marvel that the heart of an Israelite according to the flesh should beat high in prospect of the future glories of his nation ? Why, the blood runs faster through my own veins when I consider the predictions of their national greatness upon earth in the ages to come; much more, then, must it kindle the affections of that people who are the subject of these promises. It would appear from this passage, that the ordinary avocations of life, such as the dressing of vines and the tending of flocks, will be performed for them by the Gentiles, whilst they are to ye shall eat the * Lent Lect. for 1846 ("Israel's Sins and Israel's Hopes"), pp. 271-273. MESSRS. BONAR-REMARKS. 363 be engaged in the higher offices of being the priests of the Lord.'"* I regret that the Messrs. Bonar must be added to the list of those who have adopted these views. After endeavouring to show that the literal sense of these prophecies, and particularly of the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, is the only practicable one Mr. H. Bonar exclaims, "Why should not the temple, the worship, the rites, the sacrifices, be allowed to point to the Lamb that was slain in the millennial age, if such be the purpose of the Father? .. How needful will [such] retrospection be then, especially to Israel? How needful, when dwelling in the blaze of a triumphant Messiah's glory, to have ever before them some memorial of the cross, some palpable record of the humbled Jesus, some visible exposition of his sin-bearing work [i. e., by the sacrificing of beasts, as of old!] in virtue of which they have been forgiven, and saved, and loved. . . . And if God should have yet a wider circle of truth to open up to us out of his word concerning his Son, why should he not construct a new apparatus for the illustration of that truth?" On reading these statements, a number of thoughts crowd into the mind, of which the following are a few. 1. Such startling literalism goes a great deal farther than its advocates are willing, or indeed able to carry it. They are compelled to stop short; and, so doing, it becomes evident that their principles of interpretation are radically To show this, we have but to go through with the literal interpretation of their own passages. Thus, wrong. Isa. ii. 2, 3: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in Lent Lect. for 1847 ("Good Things to Come"), pp. 165-167. + Coming and Kingdom, &c., p. 222. As I shall have occasion to quote a few words from Mr. A. Bonar's "Leviticus" on this subject by and by, I merely refer here to his "Redemption," ch. vi. the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the Here, as in so many other cases, the unbelieving Jews and the pre-millennialists are substantially at one, and alike opposed to the overwhelming majority of Christians. Both maintain that the "Zion" of this prediction is the literal" mountain" on which stood "the Lord's house" of old; both hold that "the house of the God of Jacob," to which all nations are to flow, is a literal and material temple to be thereon erected; both understand the "flowing" and "going up," to refer to a literal pilgrimage to this central and metropolitan seat of future worship; and, finally, both interpret "the law" which is to "go forth out of Zion," and the "word of the Lord" to issue "from Jerusalem," of no revelation yet vouchsafed-no "law" and "word" already in the Church's hands-but of new revelations of the Divine will, to be made at Messiah's coming -his second coming, say the one-his first and only coming, say the other. Now, how is the thing here predicted to be literally done? To talk of the Gentile nations going up to Jerusalem "from year to year" (Zech. xiv. 16), and "from one new moon to another," yea, "from one sabbath to another" (Isa. lxvi. 23), by deputies, or in some such way, and to tell us of the increased facilities of communication with the most distant localities which in our day have been opened up, and will, at the time here referred to, be vastly greater, will not do here. It does not meet the requirements of the prediction. The whole religious worship and obedience of HANDLE GIVEN TO THE JEW. 365 the nations is made to radiate from, and to hold of, this metropolitan temple-service at Mount Zion. They go up hither, "because out of Zion goes forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Then, on the literal principle, where is Christianity, as it now exists? Where its "law," its "word of the Lord," its New Testament? It is not here at all. Literalism refuses to acknowledge its presence, and in place of it holds forth a revelation issuing from the sacred centre of the world, at a period which the Jew and the pre-millennialist agree in believing to be still future. The prophecy does not say merely that there will be more revelation then than now, some additions to the stock already in our possession, as Mr. Bickersteth, Dr. M Neile, Mr. Wood, the Duke of Manchester, &c., speak-but that the kingdom is to be constituted, and all the religious service and obedience of the world to take law from what is there and thence to be proclaimed. And, in this view of it, which is clearly what the prediction intimates, is there a Christian who does not see that the Jew has completely the better of us on premillennial principles? Gentlemen, he will tell us, you may speak of Messiah's second advent supplying what his first failed to bring; you may tell me that the present state of things is rather the preparation for the kingdom than the kingdom itself, which was not to be manifested in its primary sense under this dispensation: But put me through this prediction of Isaiah upon your principles. The ordinary interpretation of Christians one can understand, that it means your Christianity universally embraced, or the world baptized into, and cordial observers of, your New Testament law and worship. The Jewish view of it also is intelligible—that the one revelation, after the times of the prophets, and in the days of Messiah, is yet to come. But two "laws going forth from Zion-two words of the Lord |