the head of the Serpent; where the reader may observe how the devil tempts Christ, in the very same manner that he had tempted Eve, though not with the same success." *

Coming down in the sacred history, we might notice, in the words of Adam, perhaps in the very names of Eve, of Seth, of Cain, indications of the hope of the Messiah, and of the restitution of all things by him. We might speak too of Noah, and his sacrifice. But especially in the revelation to Abraham, of one in whom "the nations should be blessed," we have a clear unfolding of the Gospel as it was afterwards to be possessed by gentiles as well as Jews. And, in the language of the patriarch Jacob, in blessing Judah, we have no obscure notice of the future reign or sovereignty of Christ; the benignity of his rule and its large extent:-"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Here it is prophesied that the sceptre should come into the hands of Judah; and when it should come, it should not depart thence till the Messiah should appear; and when the sovereignty should cease, the gentiles should come and own the Saviour whom the Jews would reject. The Jews

* Lightfoot's Works: Erubhin, or Miscellanies--"All the sins of the world are brought to these three heads-Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.' By these three, Eve falls in the garden she sees the tree is good for meat; and the lust of the flesh enticeth her: she sees it fair to look on; and the lust of the eye provokes her: and she perceives it will make her wise; and the pride of life persuades her to take it. By these three the devil tempts Christ: when he is hungry, he would have him turn stones into bread, and so tries him by the lust of the flesh; he shows and promises him all the pomp of the world, and so tries him by the lust of the eyes; and he will have him to fly in the air, and so tempts him to pride of life. But as, by these three, the serpent had broken the head of the woman, Iso against these three, the Seed of the woman breaks the head of the serpent. David prophesied of this conquest: The dragon thou shalt tread under thy feet.' The very next verse before this, the devil useth to tempt Christ withal: but to this he dare not come; for it is to his sorrow." Vol. iv. p. 70.

+ Septuagint, gordonia Ovav, the expectation of the nations:-Vulgate, "expectatio gentium."

are necessarily much perplexed with this passage: the Messiah is so clearly foretold here as to come while the sceptre was yet in the hands of Judah; whereas, the power of Judah as a state has now been lost for eighteen hundred years together. It is agreed by the more ancient Jewish Talmudists, and Chaldee Paraphrasts, that Shiloh is the Messiah; however variously the word may be rendered by some, "the Sent," by others, "the Peacemaker," &c. The Jews are forced therefore to adopt very opposite expositions of the place, which scarcely deserve confutation. How absurd to apply the prophecy to Moses, in whose day Judah had not yet obtained the dominion -or to Saul, in whose days the sceptre was transferred to Judah and David-not taken from it! Nor was "the gathering of the nations" to Saul, nor "their expectation towards him." Equally unreasonable is it to apply the words to David, the possession of the sceptre by Judah having begun with him, or to Nebuchadnezzar, who obtained indeed, for a season, the mastery, and led the Jews captive; but besides that this was rather an interruption than a cessation of the sovereignty, and that even during the captivity a shadow of its power remained to Judah, the Jews being permitted to live under their own rulers, and to obey their own laws; and it still happening very remarkably, that the sceptre did not depart from Judah to any other tribe, the Jewish writers themselves allowing that the successive heads or governors of the Exiles were always of the House of David-besides all this, it is unfavourable to such an interpretation, that the power of Nebuchadnezzar over the Jewish people was given him in the righteous judgment of God, as an instrument of the Divine displeasure against the sins of that nation, whereas the words of the patriarch here, are all referable to the blessing of Judah-the description of its prosperity.

In short, it is so clear that the Jewish power was to remain till the coming of Christ, and was to cease about that time, and it is so indubitable that for ages that power has in every vestige of it disappeared; no

matter whether the precise time of its departure be reckoned the period of Pompey, or the age of Herod, or the era of Vespasian; that either the prophecy has been falsified, or the Messiah has come.

From the Patriarchs we pass on to Moses, and to his announcement of a "PROPHET who was to arise from among his brethren like unto himself," (Deut. xviii.) to whom they were to hearken-a passage applied by the ancient Jews as well as by Christians to the Messiah; an evidence of which appears on the face of the New Testament, in the fact that Peter and Stephen, reasoning with the Jews on their received principles, accommodate these words to Jesus. (Acts iii. 22-vii. 37.) To this passage Le Clerc also refers those words of our Saviour, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust; for, had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me." John v. 45.

In a limited sense, all the prophets were like unto Moses; but it is a single person who is here spoken of, not a class. Christ alone was truly "like him,' in being both a Prophet, and a King, and a Priest, and a Mediator, as Moses was. He resembled him in the excellency of his ministry and work-in the glory of his miracles-in his familiar and intimate converse with God. No prophet but the Messiah had such a near intercourse with God as Moses had. And not one of the Jewish prophets was a legislator. Not even their kings could alter the law and constitution divinely given. Jesus alone, as has been justly observed, was the founder of a new law, or authoritatively appointed religious ordinances. It was predicted of the Messiah, as we shall afterwards see, that in his days the Levitical observances should cease, and of course "the whole authority of that law should be abolished."* All the other characters given of the Prophet whom God was to raise up agree to Jesus of Nazareth. He was "raised up," in a sin

* Smith's Scriptural Testimony to the Messiah, i. 258.

gularly providential and mysterious manner, "from among his brethren," being the son of Abraham, the son of David, of the tribe of Judah. He was faithful, like Moses, to him that appointed him. He is compared with him, but preferred to him, in the New Testament. (Heb. iii.) And that he "was to be hearkened to" may remind us not only of the claims he himself authoritatively made to faith and obedience; "He that heareth my words," &c., and of the signs and wonders he performed; but also of the command given from heaven even to the apostles, “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him:" referring, it would seein, to this very prophecy in Deuteronomy. “He was the word of the Father that came out of his bosom to reveal him; he was the great teacher promised and expected, and sealed and proclaimed; and therefore, it would not only be their piety (the Jews,) to hearken to him who had revealed the Father; nor would it be only suitable to their expectation, who looked for the great teacher, and were resolved to be taught by him; but it would be eternal life and everlasting healing to the soul, against those wounds, that hearkening to the words of the tempter had made in it."*

In connection with Moses, we cannot but glance at the typical system, which, indeed, was so far a system of prophecy, making visible to the eye what was otherwise announced to the ear, as to the person and work of Christ,-his sufferings, and the glory that should follow. Not to enter minutely, at present, into that system, we might well invite attention to the great number, the explicit and circumstantial details of the ceremonial institutions, as necessarily implying some important signification beyond what was visible and intelligible to a superficial observer. The thought might well suggest itself to a reflecting mind, that it could not be for any value of the pomp and show of an external ritual, that so many directions were given with regard to the construction of the tabernacle and the temple-the ark and the other *Lightfoot on John v. 34.

appurtenances of the Israelitish sanctuary; the appearance, dress, and insignia of the priesthood; and the mode of worship, and especially the various kinds of sacrifice. If we take the account given in the New Testament, we find an explanation that is satisfactory: "All these served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." The leading persons of the ancient dispensation, and the events of the Israelitish history, prefigured the Messiah and his church; not Moses only, but Aaron and Joshua and David and Solomon; nor alone the redemption from Egypt, among the events, but the journeyings of the Jews, their wants and provision, and varied experience of the goodness and the severity and the faithfulness of God. So also the sanctuary with its appurtenances, the ark and its covering, the candlestick and the show bread, become all significant. And we cease to wonder that, in the description of the tabernacle, there should be so much minuteness of statement, that whereas one chapter has been accounted enough to be occupied with the history of the creation of the world, so many chapters should be spent on the building of the sanctuary, and its preparations. Its importance lay in its reference to Christ.

We come forward to the Psalms: and there, from the clear discovery of the eternal decree and Christ's Sonship in the second Psalm, onward through the twenty-second and others, so affectingly describing the sufferings of the Messiah, we arrive, in the 45th and 72d, at those sublime prophecies of his glorious reign; its benignity, its perpetuity, and ultimate universality. And throughout these inspired songs, we may remark the union of prophecy and type-direct references to Christ in some portions of them, which can admit not even of a partial application to David or Solomon; others again where, under these as personal types of Him, Messiah and his glories are evidently the chief object in the view of the inspired singer and seer.

We would allude also, to the 89th and 110th Psalms; the one expounding, in no ambiguous terms,