Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

If a woman was fufpected to be an adulterefs by a husband who was jealous of her, and there was no proof, fhe was to present herself before the priest and stand the trial of a water-ordeal: a bitter water which caufed the curfe was to be offered to her; and when the curfes were pronounced conditionally upon her supposed guilt, fhe was to venture the confequences, and fay, Amen. The prieft was to write down the form of the curfes against her in a book, and to blot them out with the bitter water if she proved to be innocent; if not, they were then to remain there upon record againft her. If she was actually defiled, this water was to go into her bowels and take effect upon her body in a fearful manner, and she was to be a curfe among the people*.

This inftitution explains fome very difficult paffages in the 109th Pfalm, that prophecy of God's judgment against the apoftate Jewish church: on whom, as upon a guilty adulteress against a jealous God,

* See Numb. v. 12, &c.

denying

LECT.

V.

LECT. denying her fin, and defying the divine vengeance, the curfe was to

V.

take effect as against the woman in the law. The pfalm is worded as if it were meant of fome fingle wicked perfon, and it is accordingly applied to the reprobation of Judas; but other paffages, and the ufe made of them by the infpired writers, fhew that it must be extended to the Jewish church at large, of which Judas, in his name, and his fin, and his punishment, was no more than a leader and an example. Here then it is faid, when he shall be judged let him be condemned; when he is put to the trial, let him be found guilty; and let his prayer be turned into fin; let it be as that offering which bringeth iniquity to remembrance, without oil or incenfe to recommend it for acceptance: let not the fin of his mother be blotted out, but ftand upon record as the curfes against the fin of the adulteress, which the water was not to take away: As he loved curfing fo let it come unto himlet it come into his bowels like water, even like that bitter water which defcended with a curse into the bowels of the guilty wo

man.

[ocr errors]

V.

man. As the expofed herself in form to LECT. the curfe, and faid, Amen, to all the terms of it; fo did the Jews challenge the curfe of heaven, which accordingly took place on them and their pofterity.

The civil institution applied to the perfon of the Meffiah, is that concerning the Hebrew servant, who having ferved fix years, was to go free in the fabatical year, if he chose to depart; but if he was content with his fervice, and willing to continue in it, he was to be brought before the judges, and to be fastened to the door, or the poft of the door, by an awl driven through his ear, as a fign of his confent, and he was to ferve his master for ever*.

:

Under an allufion to this example, the obedience of Chrift in the flesh is foretold and illuftrated in the Pfalms; and a wonderful example it is for here we are to observe, that, upon this occafion, no facrifice nor offering is appointed; nothing paffes but the obedience of a willing fer

* Exod. xxi, 6.

LECT. vant: therefore in the applicatton of it to V. Chrift, the prophet fays, Sacrifice and offer

ing thou didst not defire, but mine ears haft thou opened-burnt-offering and fin-offering thou haft not required; then faid I, lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O God. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the paffage as cited by the apostle and applied to the obedience and death of Chrift, ftands thus; Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body haft thou prepared me. The fenfe is the fame in both, though the words are different. The apostle after the Greek verfion says,

body haft thou prepared me; that is, a body wherein to fuffer and be obedient unto death the plalm fays, mine ears haft thou pierced: for the word is the fame as in the 22d psalm, they pierced my hands and feet; and here the piercing of the ear, the symbol of obedience, was a fign of his suffering in that body which should be prepared for him. All this being a reference to the custom obferved under the law toward the obedient fervant, that custom was a ftanding teftimony in the volume of the book

of

V.

of Mofes, that the Meffiah, taking the LECT. form of a fervant, fhould offer himself freely to do the will of God for our falvation; and in confequence of this determination, should be pierced in the body, as the willing fervant was bored through to the poft of the door; the place where the blood of the paffover was fprinkled with the fame fignification once every

year.

In this and the preceding lecture I have endeavoured to fhew, as my plan requires, how the language of the other parts of scripture is borrowed from the language of the law, and is to be interpreted thereby. To what has been said, give me leave to add a few general obfervations on the nature and design of the law of Moses.

St. Paul asks the queftion; wherefore then ferveth the law? To which he gives this anfwer; it was added because of tranfgreffion, till the feed fhould come to whom the promise was made*. The expectation of

* Galatians iii. 19.

the

« FöregåendeFortsätt »