Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

its power resides in this, how is it to be augmented unless by adding new facts and greater and nobler or more attractive views of God? But this is impossible. The gospel can receive no such addition-and consequently no such increase of power. It contains already all power. It is already "the power of GOD." They who imagine it to have received additional power in their own experience, cannot mention a single new fact or idea from which said additional power could be derived. It is obvious, indeed, that this is out of the question from what Paul says in 5th Romans, where, when he represents the love of God (continued or exhibited in the gospel) as shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, he does not, in stating wherein this love consisted in the subsequent verses, introduce any new evidence of it, but simply that contained in the gospel itself that "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," and that God commended or made conspicuous his love to us thereby.

They who favor the doctrine of special spiritual influence in conversion will here doubtless be ready to say: The passage you have just quoted is in proof of our side of the question. Here the Holy Spirit is represented as (ekkechutai) shedding abroad or pouring forth the love of God in or into the heart; and this, not from without, through any intermediate means, as the word, but within—" by the Holy Spirit given unto us." Admitting this view of the passage, it is only necessary to remark that it is applicable to the converted alone to those who have embraced the gospel, and have been in consequence put in possession of the pardon of sins and the Spirit of God, by whose presence the love of God is thus maintained constantly in the heart. It is not applied by the Apostle to the unconverted, but to himself with the "saints and beloved of God" at Rome. It has therefore nothing at

[blocks in formation]

But it will be said again: It is not meant that the additional power which the Spirit imparts to the gospel is derived from new facts or revelations, but that it consists in the power or energy which the Spirit gives to the facts already revealed. Let me ask, then, In what does the power of a fact consist? or, in other words, What is necessary in order that a fact shall have its full power over the person affected by it? Is it not simply that it shall be fully presented, clearly understood, and truly felt? And has not the Holy Spirit already presented the facts fully in the scriptures, so that they may be clearly understood? Granted, it is replied, but these must be truly felt; and it is the office of the Spirit to accomplish this, without which all else were vain. If, then, I ask in turn, we admit such a case, where the gospel has been fully presented and is clearly understood, but not truly fell, to what cause is this want of feeling to be attributed? Is it not to this, that the affections are pre-engaged? Is it not because the individual loves the world or the things of the world, that the love of the Father is not in him? Is it not that his heart is already full of corrupt affections, so that he has no relish for the things that are of God? If so, the accompanying power supposed acts by emptying the heart of worldly desires, in order to prepare it for the reception of the gospel, and is occupied simply in removing these obstacles or circumstances which prevented the

gospel from being received into the heart. It is not correct, then, to say that it gives any actual, absolute, or additional power to the gospel itself. It merely prepares the heart for it, and gives power indirectly by removing that which was an hindrance to its exercise. Thus the seed which falls upon the beaten track is unable to exert its inherent vegetative power, because it is exposed upon the surface of the ground. The plough which breaks up the stubborn soil and enables the seed to enter into its bosom, may be said to give it the power to grow; but it does so indirectly-adding nothing to the vegetative power of the seed, but placing this in circumstances favorable to its action.

But whither am I carried? To this point-that this doctrine of special spiritual influence, when fairly examined, agrees with my philosophy and with the opposing doctrine of providential agency in this, that no additional power is really given to the gospel by such influences, and that they render it effective only by removing obstacles to its action. This I conceive to be a rational conclusion, and an important one. It is a simple view of the subject, and a scriptural one, leaving the gospel in possession of all power necessary to salvation, and preserving the integrity of all the scripture declarations concerning it, while at the same time it admits of the use and necessity of co-operating agencies in their appropriate sphere.

If it be urged that men cannot clearly understand the gospel without special spiritual assistance; that not only has "the heart become gross" so that they cannot feel, but that their

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

ears are dull of hearing" and they have "closed their eyes" so that they cannot understand; I would give the that these are only hindrances to be removed-that it is not necessary the gospel should be made to shine so brightly as to pierce through the eyelids, but only that the

man should be induced to open his eyes; nor that it should be made to sound so loudly as to force a passage into his ears, but only that these should be unstopped. But I can, perhaps, explain myself better by an illustration. Suppose a man in an apartment, and the window shutters to be closed so that not a ray of light can enter, though the sun shines brightly in the heavens. He cries: "Oh! that the power of the sun were increased ten thousand fold, that its light might penetrate through the shutters and dispel my darkness!" But I would say rather, "My dear sir, let the shutters be opened; let that which hinders the light be removed, and you will then see clearly, without an answer to a prayer which, in enabling you to see, would put millions blind, and disturb the harmony of the whole solar system." Thus it is that men pray that the gospel may be increased in power, as though deficient, so as to force its way, as it were, into the heart, without considering that the same end is to be accomplished in a way much more simple, natural, and ready, and far more in accordance with the scriptures, with right reason, the principles of human action, and the circumstances of the case.

All this will, I think, be fully apparent when I come to consider the nature of the obstacles which impede the action of the gospel, and the special agencies necessary to their removal. My views of these matters I hope to present to you ere long. Ever yours,

L.

FAMILY CULTURE. CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE.-No. XXVIII.

THE GENEALOGY OF THE MESSIAH.

LUKE and Matthew's account of the genealogy being read, the conversation commenced on Matthew's account of the descent of the Messiah.

Matthew trace our Lord's connection with Olympas. Through whom, William, does David and Abraham ?

William. Through Joseph, his mother's husband.

Thomas. But as our Lord had lineal connection with Joseph, why should the relationship between Joseph and David be traced with so much accuracy?

Olympas There is both a legal and a natural relation and right where thrones and governments are in question. Matthew, therefore, chooses that which primarily affected the Messiah, as heir of the throne of David in virtue of his by law established father.

Thomas. I have found difficulties in making out the forty-two generations.

Olympas. Let us hear those difficulties. Thomas. I have none in the first fourteen; they are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Pharez, Hezrom, Ram, Aminadab, Naashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. These I can make out variously, but very satisfactorily from the first and second chapters of the first book of Chronicles. There is some difficulty in the second 14. They are as follow: Solomon, Rehoboam, Abia, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, (Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah,) Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Ammon, Josiah, Jehoiakim. But here are seventeen persons, beginning with Solomon and ending with Jehoiakim, or the King of the Captivity. This line I collect from 2 Chron. ix. 10-15.

William. It has two defects-first, there are seventeen generations and in the second place, you want one mentioned by Matthewviz. Uzziah.

Thomas. As to Uzziah I find no difficulty. In the 14th chapter of 2 Kings, and other scriptures, I find that Azarias and Uzziah are two names for the same king. But I cannot so easily dispose of the three supernumeraries. I confess myself unequal to the task of a satisfactory solution.

Olympas. Many commentators fail here. Some admit the fact of seventeen generations as to persons, but contend that the generations mean ages-i. e. in counting so many years for a generation. But that is forced and unnatural. The most satisfactory exposition is, that three of these kings, marked in the parenthesis, were by the mother's side of the house of Ahab, which house in all its branches was denounced by a curse, 1 Kings xxi. 21-22, and again repeated 2 Kings ix. 9-11. While, then, there were seventeen generations in fact, three being erased from the roll of Messiah'a ancestry, as Dan is from the twelve tribes in the Apocalypse, and five descents from Meraioth, (Ezra vii.; 1 Chron. vi.) there are fourteen in the register accredited by the Jews. Now as none of the opponents of the pretensions of Jesus ever raised an objection against the lineage given either in Matthew or Luke, evident it is that this arrangement had been accredited by the nation.

Charles Thompson, in his way, solves this difficulty by asserting that the elder branch

of Joram's family having become extinct at the death of Amaziah, the line of succession passed from Joram to Azarias, alias Oziasmaking the regular generations fourteen. The reason of this is not, however, quite so apparent. There is no difficulty in the third fourteen as given by Matthew.

Reuben. But why divide these generations from David into fourteen each?

Olympas. There is reason for this besides aiding the memory. The ancestors of our Lord in the first fourteen were not kings, but judges, prophets, and subordinate rulers; under the second fourteen they were all princes of a royal line; under the last fourteen they were degraded and served under the Asmonean priests and inferior officers of the Roman Empire.

Thomas. I find a difficulty in the last fourteen. Josiah was not the father of Jechonias, as stated Matth. i. 11, but the grand-father. Again, Jechonias had no brethren mentioned in the Bible. Josias, moreover, died twenty years before the Captivity, and consequently his brethren could not have been begotten about that time, as reported.

Olpmpas. Well, I am glad you have called this up. Son is frequently equivalent to descendant; and, therefore, includes grand-sons. But this fact is not necessary here. There is a reading of this verse in Griesbach of much authority, which removes all these difficulties at once- "Josias begat Jehoiakim, or Joakim, and Joakim begat Jechonias." Jehoiakim is sometimes called Eliakim and Joakim. His brethren were Johanan, Zedekiah, and Shallum, 1 Chron. iii. 15. These were the sons of Josiah. The fourteen of the last series were, Jechonias, Salathiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Sadoc, Achim, Eliud, Eliezer, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus.

On the whole narrative of Matthew it may be observed that the rolls of lineage being carefully kept in all the tribes, as is evident from the case of Zacharias and Elizabeth, Paul, Anna the saint, and various others whose families or tribes are mentioned; and also being public property, and much depending on the strict conformity of the genealogy of Jesus with the family register, and no one appearing against the details of the Evangelists as far back as all history reaches, we have every reason to be satisfied with its accuracy and strict agreement with the registers of that day. Which branch of the family of Jesus is traced in Luke's genealogy, Reuben?

Reuben. His mother Mary. She, his natural and blood ancestor, is traced to David through a more numerous ancestry, though not a longer line in point of time. Nay, Luke gives us seventy-three names from Adam to Jesus, making the Messiah the seventy-fifth of human kind.

Olympas. How does he make out this

list?

Reuben. In the first place he goes up to the son of Jesse by another family register. He traces Mary up to David, in the line of Nathan the full brother of Solomon by Bathsheba. His whole line is from Adam to Abraham, 20; from Abraham to David, 13; from David to Zerubbabel, 22; and from Zerubbabel, where the regal line of Solomon ends, to Mary the daughter of Eli, he gives 19 generations-in all 74 to Mary the mother of Jesus. Jesus is, then, the seventy-fifth in a direct line from God through Adam the first terrestrial son of God; provided only, that in transferring the issue of second marriages by those who took the wives of deceased brothers, according to the law of Moses, transcribers have not sometimes confounded the legal with the natural progenitors, and have made the chain some three or four links longer than the actual number of true and proper ancestors. To say that this has never happened, would be rather a marvellous affair; and yet there is no clear and authentic evidence that it has.

How curious and interesting the contemplation of the ancestry of our Lord! Of earth's ancestorial lines his is the only one faithfully preserved through the long series of four thousand years, and whose particular character in all its prominent elements may still be ascertained. Amongst his progenitors are found some of almost every cast, condition, and character of human kind. Before the flood there are Seth, Enoch, and Noah, the most renowned of all the antediluvians; Methuselah, the oldest of mankind; and Lamech, the Prophet. After the flood Shem takes the precedence of all mankind, the high priest of the New World, the oracle of twelve postdiluvian generations with whom he conversed face to face, as well as with Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, before the flood. Then we have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the most illustrious three princes of our race; their renowed descendants Boaz, Jesse, David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, Zerubbabel, are amongst earth's noblest princes. But amongst his ancestors were all the mixtures of our race, in all senses of the word. Phares, of incestuous birth; Ruth, of Moabitish blood; Solomon, from the adulterous Bathsheba; Rehoboam, from Naamah, of Ammonitish extraction; and by the wives of Israelitish kings, some of whose offspring intermarried with the kings of Judah, he partook of almost all the varieties of race and nation in the Asiatic world. We also find some of the worst of mankind as well as of the best in his family. There is Rehoboam, Abijah, Amaziah, Manasseh, and the monstrous Athaliah, who, but for a singular providence, would by one fell effort have annihilated the whole seed royal of David, but for the apparently accidental interference of a king's daughter and a priest's wife. Tell me who was this, William ? William. I suppose you allude to Joash, then an infant seized by the daughter of

Jehoram, called Jehoshabeth, and the solitary remnant of David's progeny in that line, and by her hid for six years in the house of the Lord.

Olympas. The moral of the whole matter of the genealogical tables and roll of Christ's lineage is, that he partook with the sons of men in every sense of the word. He was of noble and ignoble blood, as respected family, nation, and character; but he enobled humanity by assuming it into such intimate union with the Divinity, and that too under all the conditions of poverty, imbecility, and degradation, to which it had been most justly subjected because of its apostacy from God.

A few questions on the chronology of the world relative to the age of the Messiah: How do you make it out, Reuben, down to Abraham's time?

Reuben. The birth and age of the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, make the world 1656 years old at the flood; and the postdiluvian register places Abraham's birth in the year 2008. When he was called out of Ur of Chaldea he was 75 years old, at which time the covenant confirmed of God concerning the Messiah was given to him. That covenant, Paul says, was just 430 years before the giving of the law; which sums of 75 and 430, or 505 added to 2008, makes the world 2513 years old at the giving of the law. Forty years after the law they entered Canaan: that was in the year of the world 2553. They were under Judges 450 years. Saul and David reigned each 40 years; and that makes the world 3083 years old, when David died. Thence to the 7th of Artaxerxes it was 470 years; and thence to Messiah's birth, 457— in all, 4000 years.

Olympas. I cannot question you farther on this subject at present; but we shall hear you again on this chronology. Thomas, does the Septuagint age of the world coincide with the Jews' Bible and our common text?

Thomas. No, sir. According to the Greek version of the Seventy the world was 5872 years old when Jesus Christ was born, and is now 7719 years old.

William. And the Samaritan age of the world at Christ's birth was 4700, making ths world now 6546 years old.

Eliza. How comes it to pass that the Septuagint differs so much from the Hebrew ?

Olympas. From the creation to the flood the Septuagint gives 2962 years, and from the flood to Abraham's birth, 1072. These two discrepancies make a great difference. Indeed, the matter is not susceptible of a full and satisfactory development so far as we have yet seen. The Protestants take the Hebrew text, according to which we make the interval from the first to the second Adam 4000 years only, Repeat, William, the six ages of the world, of which I have sometimes spoken to you.

William. 1st. From Adam to the deluge,

1556.

2nd. From the deluge to Abraham's entrance into Canaan, 427 years, 2083.

3rd. From Abraham's induction to the Promised Land to the Exodus, 430 years, 2513. 4th. From the Exodus to the founding of the Temple, 480 years, 2993.

5th. From the foundation of the Temple to the Babylonish Captivity, 424 years, 3416. 5th. Thence to the birth of Christ, 584 years, 4000.

Olympas. We must reserve something on chronology for another lesson. Meanwhile, as time had a beginning it must have an end; and that is infinitely more interesting to us

than its commencement.

A. CAMPBELL.

LETTERS FROM EUROPE.
NO. XXXV.

Ireland is

Connaught.

The richest soil, and

the most delightful portion of Ireland, has always been in possession of the Romanists; yet the wretchedness of the people and the country stands in fearful and ominous contrast with that of the North. The rapacity of the priesthood, and the superstitious reverence and submission of the laity, have converted the fairest portion of the richest and most beautiful island in Europe into the most impoverished, wretched, and dreary country one can easily imagine. Its poverty, its abject beggary, its immorality, profanity, and social wretchedness, in most parts, can hardly be exaggerated. I passed through much of it forty years ago, and I learned, from many sources, that it is forty years worse now than then. During the famine and pestilence of 1847, the North suffered very little more than in some other years. It exported some six or seven millions sterling worth of produce to England during that year, while we were sending money and bread from America to relieve the south and the west of the island ! What a comment on the tendencies of these two systems! Roman Catholicism enervates, while Protestantism

MY DEAR CLARINDA, as prolific of men as of ideas. Its population at home, before the famine and the pestilence, it seems, was almost eight millions. Its population abroad was also very great. A captain that had almost circumnavigated the globe, once observed-" I have been in almost all the great cities and marts of commerce in the world, and much in the interior of nations and empires I have been in towns and cities where I could not find an Englishman, a Scotchman, or a French-energizes and invigorates the minds man, but I never was in any place where I could not find an Irishman." Colonel Cass, it is said, when exploring the head of the Missouri, somewhere between the summit of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, about forty years ago, found a solitary white man amongst the Indians, trading in some trinkets, and upon inquiry found that he was an Irishman who had lost himself in the forests of America!

In my notes on Ireland I have said that nothing so impressed my mind, as the testimony in favor of Protestantism given by the North, or the province of Ulster, in bold contrast with Romanism, as developed in its influences upon the other three provinces of Munster, Leinster, and

of the people. Free discussion, free thinking, free reading, and most of all, freedom of action, expand and corroborate the human mind. Popery dethrones reason, inhibits inquisitiveness, anathematizes thinking for oneself, denounces the Protestant Reformation, and condemns to eternal perdition all beyond the precincts of her communion. Listen to two of her most admired champions of the present century, the one damning Protestantism, the other giving all beyond the pale of her communion to Satan-the one, the great and liberal O'Connell ! the other, the greatly admired present incumbent of the chair of St. Peter :

-

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »