renewed, and daily walk in the light that lighteth the Gentile world to heaven, -the light that is and will be " the glory of Thy people Israel." May we not only commemorate, on the return of the Festivals in Thy holy Church, the Death and the Resurrection of the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, but as, by Thy special grace preventing us, Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so, by Thy continual help, we may bring the same to good effect. Raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Make us dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. On the morning and in the evening of each returning Sabbath, when we commemorate the creation of the world, and the resurrection of the dead, may the new creation of the soul within us be proved by the flowers and the fruits of the holy gratitude, and accepted love we give Thee.-May the lifting up of our hearts and our hands ever be our daily and our weekly sacrifice. Not only in the Festivals of Thy holy Church may we commemorate the proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, when Thou didst "teach the hearts of Thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of Thy holy Spirit:" Grant us by the same Spirit, daily and hourly, to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore in our daily morning and evening prayers, through the whole of each day of our lives, and especially in the weekly services of Thy Church on earth, to rejoice in His holy comfort. May Christ be daily born within us. May the convictions and the warnings, the consolations and the comforts, of Thy Holy Spirit, daily give the peace of God within us. So may we be always Thine. So may Thy grace be always with us in the temptations and the dangers, the sins and the follies, the allurements and the anxieties, of this short and transient life; that we may never go out from the presence of God, nor forsake the camp of Israel, nor return in heart and spirit to the sins Thou hast pardoned, and to the Egypt we have solemnly forsaken.-And because, in our journeyings to that better world for which we hope, and to obtain which we daily pray, we are unable to go on through the wilderness of this present life, without the friendships, the relationships, the ties, and the bonds which unite mankind in their families and societies; so grant Thy special grace unto us, that neither friends nor kindred withdraw our souls from Thee. May the ties of our religion, be stronger than the ties of our friendships. May the bonds of Thy law be stronger than the bonds of our kindred. May we be willing to act in the spirit of the holy words, that he who will not forsake home, and friends, and kindred, yea, and his own life also, for the sake of Christ our Lord, is not worthy to be His disciple, nor worthy of the disciple's reward.-Oh, give us to learn from the history of the blasphemer in Thy Sacred Word, that he who goeth out from the camp of Israel is tempted to the blasphemy of infidelity, and to cursing the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier. Make us to understand that he who forsakes Thy religion, because religion is the restrainer of his actions, and the intruder upon the thoughts and designs of the heart, is in danger of the chair of the scorner, and the cursing of the blasphemer. May we remember the utter and total impossibility of escaping from Thy wrath, if we reject Thy mercy. Impress upon our hearts and souls the solemn lesson we learn from the history before us, that, if the blasphemer of the law of Moses died without mercy at the hands of two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trampled under foot the Son of God! We are Thy children: keep us stedfast in obedience to Thee our heavenly Father. We are members of Thy visible Church on earth: make us to live in peace and union with Thy Church. And, because all are not Israel who are of Israel, so be with us, that we may not only abide in the communion of Thy visible Church, but may also be among the number of the spiritual Israel; rejoicing in the privileges, and inheriting the promises, of the faithful people of God. We ask all, not in our own name, but in the name and words of Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Father, &c. The grace of our Lord, &c. NOTES. NOTE 1. On the shew-bread. Lev. xxiv. 5. It is likely that, the loaves being twelve, they had one from every tribe. This bread was called "the bread of faces," on, [LXX. ἄρτους ἐνωπίους, οι ἄρτους προσώTOV,] because they were placed before the face, and in the sight, of Jehovah, visibly present upon the Cherubim of the Ark, in the Holy of Holies. These twelve unleavened loaves were placed upon a table made of acacia wood, and covered with plates of gold, which stood in the holy place, or tabernacle, on the north side. The loaves were placed in two piles, one above another, and were changed every Sabbath-day by the priests, who alone might eat them after the time of consecration -seven days-had expired. The shew-bread was also sprinkled over with frankincense; and, it is stated in the Alexandrine version (Lev. xxiv. 7), with salt likewise 2. Deylingius (Op. Par. ii. pp. 160-165) thinks that the shew-bread typified Christ, "the bread of life," apros τns wns (John vi. 35). Christ is "the angel of His face," (Isa. lxiii. 9). And St. Paul says of Him, 1 Heidegger, in Corpore Theol. Christ. f. m. 652, and Flacius, in Clave Scripturæ, tit. Panis, f. m. 838. 2 Jahn, Archæologia Biblica, chap. ii. sect. 330. The Jews, as P. Fagius tells us (in Paraph. Chald.), have a tradition that this blasphemer was the son of the person whom Moses slew in Egypt, who, in revenge for the death of his father, poured out invectives against the Divine Majesty, and execration against Moses. Jonath. Ben. Uz. says that his father had murdered an Israelite in Egypt, and afterwards had by the widow of the murdered man this son, who was born in the midst of Israel; that this son, when grown up, wanted to pitch his tent in the tribe of Dan (ver. 11); but that the Danites would not suffer him to do so, the divisions and distribution of that tribe, and of all the others, being adjusted according to their genealogies and ensigns. And this was the occasion of their "striving." And, when the Egyptian was cast in the judicatory, he not only presumed to utter the tremendous Name, but to mention it opprobriously too. See Parker's Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. iii. p. 349. SECTION CXLII. LEVITICUS XXV. TITLE. As the gradual illumination of the clouds in the dawning of the morning proves that the sun is rising, so the types and prophecies proved to the ancient Church the coming, and the ultimate glory, of the Sun of Righteousness. The ordinance of the Sabbatical Year, and the Jubilee the discontinuance of labour; the remission of debts; the grant of liberty to slaves; the restoration and redemption of inheritances, are all typical of the true Sabbath of Sabbaths, "the rest, which remaineth for the people of God." INTRODUCTION.-He who has, either upon a high mountain or upon the deck of a vessel, in the dark hour which immediately precedes the rising of the sun, observed the sky or the clouds in the eastern horizon become gradually more and more brightened with the rays of the approaching luminary, perceives that every accession to the dawning light is an increasing evidence of the near approach of its rising, and a proof, therefore, of the mid-day glory that shall follow it; just so it was with the pious Israelite at the time when the laws were given of which we read in this Section. Surrounded by the deep darkness of the idolatry which commanded the veneration of the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the power of nature to give food and plenty to the sower and the reaper of the harvest, he heard the promulgation of a law which actually directed the landowner and his labourers to cease for a whole year from sowing, ploughing, and reaping. Through the first six years after the people had taken possession of the Holy Land, they were to sow, and plough, and reap, as others did; but in the seventh year the land was to be left uncultivated, the fields were to remain fallow, and the vineyards unpruned (ver. 4). Whatever the land produced of its own accord was not to be gathered. The fruits of the earth which grew spontaneously were to be eaten on the ground; and the promise was given (ver. 5) that this spontaneous produce should be sufficient for themselves and their servants, for their cattle, and for the strangers whom they might have sheltered and protected. They were commanded to do all this as an act of faith and dependence on the Providence of God. They were solemnly assured (ver. 18-22) that if they would thus implicitly and fearlessly confide in the miraculous guardianship which should so supply them with food, without the usual cultivation of their fields, they should dwell in safety; they should be sufficiently, and even abundantly, satisfied; and all their doubts as to the possibility of the fulfilment of the promise should be removed by the visible and continued pouring forth of the fruits of the earth for their subsistence. The reason of this seemingly strange law is declared to be, that the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest.—But this was not all; an additional law was given. As the seventh day was devoted to God as a weekly Sabbath, and every seventh year was devoted to God as a septennial Sabbath, so it was decreed that there should still be another and a yet more solemn Sabbath kept to the Lord. On the day of the Atonement at the end of the last seventh year, that is, after fortynine years had elapsed, they were commanded to sound a trumpet through the country, and proclaim a Jubilee. Every fiftieth year was declared to be hallowed as another Sabbath. Some things were directed to be done on this Jubilee-year which were common to the Sabbatical year; other ordinances were to be observed peculiar to the year of Jubilee. The whole of the directions for the observance of the Jubilee may be thus summed up: it was instituted for the commemoration of the giving of the law at Sinai on the fiftieth day, after the seven weeks (Exod. xix. xx.); it was a memorial of the departure from Egypt (xii. 41); a memento that our days and years should be devoted to God (Psal. xc. 12); and that God is the Lord of all the earth (Lev. xxv. 24). The patrimonial inheritances which had been for a time lost, either by improvidence or misfortune, were restored to their owners, so that the succession of families might be preserved (Lev. xxv. 13-17). All Hebrew slaves were to be restored to their liberty; the land was to remain untilled, as in the Sabbatical year (Lev. xxv. 4, 5. 11); and the law was to be publicly read, and therefore attentively and carefully studied, both by priests and people (Deut. xxxi. 11—13). Such were the objects of the Jubilee, and such were the enactments respecting it. A celebrated sceptical writer (Michaelis) declares the law which commanded the cessation from labour to be both useless and absurd. Many writers have believed that the command that the land should remain fallow was designed to uphold the fertility of the soil, by preventing the exhaustion of its productive powers. The latter reason is insufficient to account for the enactment in question; and the law must undoubtedly appear both absurd and useless, unless we believe that there was a higher and a spiritual reason for the institution. And this brings us to the question, What did the pious and wellinstructed Israelite believe to be the design and meaning of these seemingly strange and singular laws? And we answer the question by affirming, that we have sufficient evidence to induce us to believe that the people of Israel regarded these, as well as their other institutions, as having reference, beyond the letter, to something of a more exalted nature, which was to be more fully revealed at a subsequent period. Schoettgen, Lightfoot, Wilson', and many others, have demonstrated that the pious Israelite looked beyond the letter and the temporal meaning of the enactments of the law to that better interpretation which is only developed at length in that key to the Old Testament, the Epistle to the Hebrews. To this Epistle I refer for the proof and illustration, that, as the gilding of the early orient clouds indicates the approach of the sun, so do the types of the law predict the year of the Messiah. In the fourth chapter of that Epistle, St. Paul exhorts the converts to beware lest they obtain not the rest which was prepared for the people of God. As the persons to whom he wrote were already in Canaan, the land of the rest which had been promised to the wandering Israelites, the Apostle gives them to understand, that the rest which had been originally promised was not the only rest, but that there remained a rest for the people of God of a higher and better nature, which was typified or pointed out by the rest in Canaan. The rest which was granted and enjoyed in Canaan was repose from the wandering in the wilderness; but the rest which remains for the people of God is expressed by another and peculiar word (oaßßárioμos), which signifies the perpetual rest, or a perpetual state of Sabbath; and it corresponds with the Hebrew in this Section, where we read that the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of Sabbaths, or a Sabbath of rest. As the Holy Land was a type of Heaven, the Sabbatical and Jubilitical years were types of the rest, or Sabbatism, or continued rest, in Heaven.-In Heaven we shall have the liberty or freedom from the bondage of evil, and the possession of the original inheritance which our first parents lost. All the objects of the earthly Jubilee shall be accomplished in a spiritual manner. We shall have rest from all sorrow, anxiety, calamity, and death. We shall rejoice in the perpetual contemplation of the works, the ways, the laws, the plans, the government, 1 Schoettgen, Hor. Hebr., vol. i. Præfat. § vii. viii. Lightfoot, A Handful of Gleanings out of the Book of Exodus, vol. i. pp. 712-714. Wilson's Illustration of the Method of Explaining the New Testament by the early opinions of the Jews and Christians respecting Christ, chap. i. ii. and the Providence of God. But this happiness of the Jubilee is not to be inherited in Heaven only. The trumpet of the Gospel has sounded to the Church upon earth; and now, even now, we may begin upon earth the happiness of the future state, by our obtaining those three chief blessings which characterized the Sabbatical and Jubilitical years.-We may obtain, by Divine mercy, greater dependence on God's Providence; freedom from the slavery of wilful evil; and the commencement of that inward peace of mind, which is the beginning of the resumption of the inheritance of the soul in Heaven. That inheritance, it is true, cannot be obtained by our own power to redeem it. The inheritance of peace, and joy, and love, and sinlessness, which blessed our father at the beginning, would have been irrecoverably lost; but, thanks to God for the Redeemer, who has purchased and redeemed it again with the inestimable price of His own blood; thanks be to God for the redemption which has restored to man the power to possess, to value, and to retain for ever and for ever, the inheritance which has been thus redeemed. This is the Jubilee of the Christian. He accepts the mercy of the Redeemer, who purchases back for him the two invaluable blessings,-the inheritance of peace and rest in Heaven, and the power to pray for, to strive for, and finally to obtain, that inheritance. Thanks be to God for the blood of the kinsman Redeemer, which was given as the price of this inheritance; and thanks be to God for the earnest of that future inheritance, in the possession of those gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, which are no less purchased by the same blood, to prepare us for the eternal possession of the lost but recovered inheritance. LEVITICUS XXV. Memorandum.-Read from ver. 1-14. Omit ver. 14-17. The remainder of the chapter relates the details of the law of the Jubilee, and is applicable principally to the circumstances of the Jewish people at the period of its enactment. BEFORE CHRIST 1 And the LORD spake of rest unto the land, a 1491. unto Moses in mount Si- sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy a Exod. 23. 10. See ch. 26. 34, 35. nai, saying, BEFORE CHRIST 1491. b 29. separation. unto them, When ye come 5 That which groweth 2 Kings 19. into the land which I give of its own accord of thy you, then shall the land harvest thou shalt not reap, Heb. rest. keep a sabbath unto neither gather the grapes the LORD. of thy vine undressed: + Heb. of thy 3 Six years thou shalt for it is a year of rest sow thy field, and six years unto the land. thou shalt prune thy vine- 6 And the sabbath of yard, and gather in the the land shall be meat for fruit thereof; you; for thee, and for thy 4 But in the seventh servant, and for thy maid, year shall be a sabbath and for thy hired servant, 2 Chron. 36. 21. |