The most obnoxious example of a man "after God's own heart is King David.* Many of the deeds written in his history were by no means according to our reading of the Ten Commandments, or to the direct appointments of Jehovah. For his private ends he slew two hundred of the Philistines, and brought their spoil to Saul, to earn Michal, Saul's daughter, to wife; when Saul, not God, had desired him to slay one hundred. He was inventively ruthless in war, and pounded his captives in iron mortars. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and compassed Uriah's death by treachery, that he might have Bathsheba to wife. She bore him a son who died for David's sin, stricken by the Lord. Afterwards Bathsheba bore a second son, Solomon, and "the Lord loved him." In the same chapter, with David's repentance to Nathan the Prophet, who comforted him by the assurance, Thou shalt not die, he took Rabbah the City of Waters. "And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick kiln : and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem." (2 Sam. xii. 31.) David's death-bed also was alive with his revenge and perfidy: he had Joab murdered, and in ordering his death said, "Let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. To Gera he had sworn by the Lord saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. But now with his last breath he said to Solomon, Hold him not guiltless; for thou, a wise man, knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him. But his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David" (1 Kings ii. 5-10).

* The reader is especially advised to see on this subject, Paul and David, or the Relation between Personal Character and the Apostolic and Prophetic Offices. By Rev. A. Clissold. London: Speirs. 1873.

XV.-SIGNS PRECEDING JUDAISM.

We read in the internal sense of the Word that Jehovah in the call of Abraham, and up to the time of Moses, designed to institute a representative Church in the Jewish nation, but that the character of that nation made it impossible to carry out this end; and that therefore a representation of a Church was established. The difference between these two institutions has been abundantly shown above. This apparent change of purpose is correspondent to the dealing of God with individuals. He knows all men from the beginning, and creates every man for heaven and its happiness. But as the man is an independent freewill, he himself settles his own future, whether it is to be providential, or fatal. The divine knowledge in no way influences the result. In the case of an evil end, it does provide a true and safe administration of it. So Jehovah dealt with the Jews. He gave them all opportunity; so that neither they, nor the succeeding Eon of Christianity, nor the higher rationality of the New Jerusalem, can accuse the Creator of injustice to the creature. He showed His Love and Mercy in approaching them as if they could be the medium of a Representative Church; but His divine Wisdom in obedience to the truth that they were not fit for this holy office. The opportunity of it demonstrated that by their own act and deed they rejected the proffered dispensation.

This mode of thought, however, is of "the internal historical sense," and it is difficult not to fall into it when we think of the omniscience of God from time as foreknowledge. It is not of the spiritual sense. That sense saves us from attributing change of purpose to God, by the reverse process of attributing to man what belongs to him. His lust which pressed him into a dispensation under Jehovah is the account of it. At first from the call of Abraham he had remains which might be raised into a representative Church; and

C

these were not extinct until Zipporah's day, when the Jewish nation had become fixed in that external state which has been described throughout. This Church of the Patriarchs being consummated, the sternness of Judaism commenced in the circumcision of Zipporah's son; circumcision being a sign of purity. So there is no change in the Sun of Righteousness, but in the Jewish Earth, turning its face away from the day into the night. This thought, being spiritual, is easier than that on which Belial and his debating society were engaged, concerning "fixed fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute, and found no end in wandering mazes lost," as told by Milton. Yet both lines meet practically in this, that man changes, and God makes the best for the good, and for the evil too their best in the to them painful process of preventing them from growing worse.

The record of this is a history of marvels in the Letter, and traverses the Jewish character. It began by signs and degrees in the time of the patriarchs. From the beginning they were alien to constituting a Church. Abram had to be changed into Abraham, and Sarai into Sarah to represent outwardly a portended support to his call. Jacob met a man and wrestled with him all night, a man who would not tell his name; but Jacob, not overthrown by him, would not let him go, but demanded his blessing, and the Man gave him the name of Israel, and Jacob acknowledged him for "God whom he had seen face to face." There is pressure here into a divine office, and a claim on Jacob's part to have wrestled with God. The change of name is to be noted as an alias, again involving some necessity of the supersession and hiding of the Jew, Jacob, as a representative member; and the underpropping of the man by a spiritual foundation which made him into the persona of a Church, that is, into the actor of it, and not into a religious agent in it. Mere correspondences were evidently put in operation to stand as external denominators when internal goodness and truth were absent.

The name of Jacob was at first the symbol of

the natural man, the name, Israel, signified the spiritual man and the spiritual Church. These were not instituted but were represented.

Further on in the Divine Letter, Moses is commanded by Jehovah to leave his father-in-law, Jethro, and to go down. into Egypt, to his oppressed people, with a message of deliverance from their bondage. On the instituted way, "Jehovah sought to slay him." This loudly contains a divine mystery. God, the maker of all worlds and all men, sought to slay him! There is divine humour here; the Psalms speak of laughter and derision on the part of the Creator; and how except in such figures should the Omnipotent seek to slay Moses without effecting it! But it is in the same class of Word as when "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart," and as when He conversed with Abraham who interceded for Sodom. These things are to be held up to spiritual light, and then the shell becomes translucent, and divine wisdom is revealed under the strangeness of the previously opaque external. They are parturient with truth and good which could not otherwise be brought forth, and uncovering the internal fruit is a felicity to the spiritual mind.

Moses here, on account of the context, represents the Jewish nature and nation. He had just shown unwillingness to receive the command of Jehovah to expostulate with Pharaoh, because he was not a man of speech, but Jehovah told him that He who gave the command had also created the mouth to obey it. Nevertheless the command was set aside, and Aaron was appointed to be spokesman, and Moses to be his God. Was this a stage in what was to follow? Moses was in the way in an inn, and Jehovah met him, and sought to kill him. In the way signifies Institution. In an inn,—mark the series of meaning from Moses as its dominant, the external sensual mind separate from the internal mind. And Jehovah met him, signifies opposition; namely, his opposition to Jehovah. And sought

to kill him, signifies that amongst that posterity a representative church could not be established: in other words, that that nation could not be received or chosen. Zipporah, the daughter of the Priest of Midian, was Moses' wife. Zipporah now denotes the representative church. Moses opposing Jehovah was menaced in himself with a defect of all representation which was equivalent to his extinction. Zipporah took a flint stone, signifies quality manifested by that church by truth [operating upon it]: The flint stone signifies the truth of faith. And cut off the foreskin of her son, signifies the removal of unclean loves, and thereby the laying bare of the internal. And made it touch his feet, signifies, shewing the quality of that nation interiorly, which appears when the external is removed. To touch his feet = to exhibit his nature. And she said, thou [Moses] art a bridegroom of bloods to me, signifies that it was full of all violence and hostility against truth and good. And He [Jehovah] ceased from him, signifies that it was permitted that the Jewish nation should represent; for by Jehovah seeking to slay him was signified that a representative church could not be established among that nation; so when it is now said that He ceased from him, it signifies that it was permitted that they should represent; that is, that the representative of a Church should be established, but not a Church. The evil can represent a Church, but none except the good can be a Church, for to represent a Church is a mere external thing. "Those things which are of the Church, and are holy, can be represented even by the evil, for a representative does not respect the person, but the thing."

Then she said, "A bridegroom of bloods for circumcisions." This signifies that although the internal was full of violence and hostility against truth and good, still circumcision should be received for a sign representative of purification from unclean loves. This is said by Zipporah because now it was permitted to that nation to represent the Church, which is denoted by ceasing from killing him. When