to renew the kingdom, but commanded the burnt-offering and the peace-offerings to be brought to him. And he offered the burnt-offering. And it came to pass as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-offering, behold, Samuel came. And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines assembled themselves together at Micmash, therefore said I, Now will the Philistines come down upon me to Gilgal, and I have not entreated the favour of the Lord. I forced myself therefore, and offered the burnt-offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly. Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee, for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath appointed him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee."—Ibid. xiii. 8–14.

Saul set the State above the Church, or rather became high priest by usurpation as well as king by divine right. But the matter for our perception here is still the revelation of the nature of the Jewish Dispensation. The king's anxiety and impatience, and in his fear of delay his wish to entreat the favour of the Lord, are obvious motives for his conduct, and if we put out of sight that he was under Jehovah, his offence might have been condoned If the reader is not careful to hold the conditions in mind, he may fall into the thought that it was hard that the first king of Israel should lose his kingdom on such grounds. But if you accept the letter of the Word, and the purpose of Jehovah in founding a representation of a Church on mere obedience to the spoken words of God Almighty, to the bond of the Letter, then Saul's misapprehension of his kingship becomes almost as marvellous

from below as Jehovah's action before seemed from above. May we without irreverence liken the Jewish Church to a game at chess, only to declare that in such a combat, as between good and evil, the moves are fixed, and no exigence allows them to be departed from. The perception of this, we again repeat, depends upon our belief in the letter, and also in our acceptance of the new Revelation about the previous Churches, and the Christian Church which was to come. Natural mechanics came after celestial and spiritual dynamics.

We cannot but see that Saul had no knowledge of, or belief in, the conditions under which he was living, and that an impenetrable stupidity was manifested by the Jews generally in the same regard. Living under miracle and on miracle, they forgot this fact in the near presence of the greatest signs and wonders. The manifestation of Jehovah on Sinai, the casting of the golden calf, and the exultant cry, These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, are almost synchronous events. Everything here signifies that a last remainder of man was being dealt with. This must be carefully taken into account in the theory of a case which has no parallel in other history. May we use a mythological trope in illustration. It shall be of Atlas, who was condemned to support heaven on his shoulders. His strength to do this depends upon an exact care of his mind and body: a wrong meal, a debauch in wine, a waste in his life, any disobedience to the needs of his singular service, a grain of unwillingness, make his state register a tottering foundation, and the weight of the sky sways to destruction.

In the Divine Word another event is declared. When Samuel tells Saul that his kingdom shall not continue, he says, The Lord hath sought him a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath appointed him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. David is here declared to be a man

after God's own heart. The Lord knew what David was, and foresaw every deed that David would freely do in his lifetime. This characterization of David by the Lord as a man after His own heart requires neither more nor less than a firm knowledge of the essence of the Jewish Dispensation. Obedience to command in that dramatic Church militant was the essence. It seems to involve two elements. (1) The Jewish capacity for assuming an external religion under fear of punishment and hope of reward; and (2) the previous Jewish nature which was altogether intractable, and must be allowed to have its way where it did not infringe the borders of the strait commandments, laws, regulations, and directions of Jehovah. The man after God's own heart was one whose obediences to this regime so far exceeded his punishable disobediences, that the representation of an external Theocracy, however imperfectly acted, did not perish. All the war and the slaughter was in David's nature and in human nature, and Jehovah in commanding it made it representative of holy war between good and evil and between truth and falsity. How the case would have been with the Land of Canaan if the Jews had not been led against its nations by Moses and Joshua is a question which suggests itself, but it cannot be entertained in any case of theocratic history. Jehovah was the alone Agent, and apart from his Leadership the armies of the Jews were shadows.

It might be said that David in his long reign committed more infractions of orders than Saul, and yet he preserved the realm. But Saul clinging to his kingdom after he knew that the Lord had forsaken him, his demoniac possession and madness, his resort to necromancy, and above all his abominable hatred of young and wonderful David, and his attempts to murder him and to have him murdered, are strong notes of character. Yet none of these things is so much of the essence of his deposition and destruction as his two acts of disobedience, in himself offering the burnt

offering and not awaiting Samuel, and in preserving Agag and the spoil of the Amalekites which Samuel by the Lord commanded him utterly to destroy. After this his prayers were of no offect; although he worshipped the Lord, the Lord was averted from him, and answered him neither by dreams, by urim, nor by prophets.

XXII.-IMPOSSIBILITIES WERE NOT ASKED OF THE JEWS.

With regard to the intractable Jewish nature which could not be reached by temporary fears or hopes, no impossible conditions were demanded of it. In the Psalms and Prophets it was tenderly addressed, and mercy and justice and brotherly love were enjoined as they were afterwards commanded by Christ. But they were interpreted as towards friends and brethren, and love your enemies was not expressed. These things were recommendations, not commands, and disobedience to mental injunctions did not infringe the Old Testament Code. Adultery was severely forbidden and punished, but taking to wife was interpreted according to the Jewish nature: it included polygamy according to regulation. The Patriarchs were polygamists, and the kings: David had as many wives as he listed; and it was not imputed to him for wrong. Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh. . . . women of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go among them. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives. turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart unto other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. He went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the

Ammonites. And Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord as did David his father. He built an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem; and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives. For these deeds the Lord who had appeared to him twice, now said to him: I will surely rend thy kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding, in thy day I will not do it for David thy Father's sake, but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.-1 Kings xi. 1-13. It is clear from this that the representation of a Church was perishing among the Jews, and that their adulterous lust was insatiable. Moses for the hardness of their hearts allowed them to put away their wives, but from the beginning it hath not been so.-Matthew xix. 8. Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and the twain shall be one flesh.—Mark x. 5. The Lord did not answer the Pharisees respecting the polygamy recorded in the Old Testament. But the narrative of the letter shows that it was not adultery in that dispensation, and that the practice of it by David did not violate the scheme of Judaism; neither did the handmaids of the Patriarchs given by Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel to their husbands to bear children to them. This was because the Jew then could not be kept to one wife; his nature made it impossible, and therefore monogamy was not a life and death condition of the Dispensation, and polygamy did not preclude the miraculous communication of that religiosity with heaven. Conjugial love, which reigns in heaven, where Marriage is universal and perpetual, was not in those Jews, and the polygamy of that nation, with the other lusts of the internal man, was set on one side, or disregarded, when the