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CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHURCH BEFORE CHRIST-THE THEOCRACY.

IN the history of God's chosen people we have not only the whole history of a nation from its foundation in one man to the close of its national existence, but we have that history recorded with divinely-guarded truth; especially we have it given from its moral and religious point of view; and, above all, God has been pleased to draw aside the veil, and show us the supernatural agencies by which He was controlling their history, and to reveal to us the principles on which He dealt with His people. God still interposes in the affairs of nations and churches, and on the same principles, so that this ancient Church and nation is a pattern to all mankind.

We must pass over the history as a whole. Our plan only requires that we shall select one or two points in the religious organisation of this ancient phase of the Church of Christ.

First we note that the Church was a theocracy, and had its King visibly dwelling in it. While Israel dwelt in tabernacles, God dwelt in a sumptuous tabernacle set apart for Him. When the people had rest in the promised land, and dwelt in their goodly houses, then a magnificent palace was built for their King in the capital city, and thence He ruled the people, and thither the people came up to worship Him.

Follow the high priest when, on the great day of Atonement, he goes to present himself in the presence of God. First he offers sacrifice for himself, that he may be pure to enter that holy presence. Then he offers sacrifice for the

whole people. Some of the blood of the sacrifice is caught in a golden basin, and the high priest goes to make atonement with it before the mercy-seat. The priests and Levites stand in their ranks, and the people throng the outer court, as the high priest proceeds from the great brazen altar, bearing the golden basin of blood, and crosses the open court to the entrance of the holy place. The people look with awe as he raises the veil, and enters in, and passes from their sight. The heavy curtain falls behind him, shutting out suddenly the glare of the eastern sun, and deadening the chant of the Levite choir. He stands within the holy place. It is a small chamber, 60 feet by 30 feet, lighted by the lamps on the seven-branched candlestick. There, on one side, is the table of shewbread, and on the other the small altar of incense, and before him the second veil, leading into the most holy place. With awe he raises this veil, and passes through, and prostrates himself on the floor. It is a very small chamber, 30 feet every way; its walls and ceiling are lined with gold, its only furniture is a chest overlaid with gold; over it two sculptured cherubims of gold stretch their wings, and between the overspreading wings glows a Light, kindled by no human hand, fed by no material substances; it came down from heaven; it dwells here always; it is the Shechinah-the visible symbol of the presence of God. Only the high priest ever sees it, and he only on one day in the year. But the knowledge that it is there is present to the Jew whenever he comes up to the temple to worship; wherever he is, in Palestine or in distant lands, he turns towards Jerusalem to worship "Him that sitteth between the cherubims."

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CHAPTER XXII.

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

GOD gave to His Church a written revelation of His will. He had previously given revelations to Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and many others; and these may have been preserved, either by tradition or in writing, and handed down from one to another of the patriarchs, till Moses embodied them in the early part of the book which God inspired him to write. But with the books of Moses, whencesoever he may have obtained some of his materials, we begin the continuous, written "Oracles of God," which it was one of the chief advantages of the Church to possess.

*

If we consider how full of occupation was the first year of the Exodus, and how full of leisure the thirty-nine years of the wandering, we shall see that it is very unlikely that the Books of Moses were written during the stirring events of the early months of the Exodus, and that in all probability the ten commandments given in the sixth month of the Exodus are the beginning of these "lively oracles." This gives additional significance to the circumstances under which God gave them.

The people were to purify themselves paration for their interview with God.

three days in preOn the morning of

the third day, they were all drawn up on the plain before

* See Acts vii. 38; Rom. iii. 2.

And

the mount. The top of the mountain was covered with clouds, and fire flamed up to heaven, and lightnings and thunders proceeded from the cloud. And while they gazed in awe at phenomena so unprecedented to a people who had grown up in the cloudless sky of Egypt, suddenly, out of the midst of the fire and of the cloud, and of the thick darkness on the mountain top, pealed the sound of a trumpet loud and long; and after the trumpet spake a voice, which said, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," and proceeded to recite the Ten Commandments. the voice of God so filled them with awe, that they entreated that they might hear it no more, "for if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die.” "Go thou near to hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it and do it." So God began this series of revelations of His will to His Church. He spake unto them with His own mouth, and so impressed upon their souls the truth that "God doth talk with man, and He liveth." It was their suggestion that henceforward He should speak unto them by the mouth of His prophet, and they would accept the prophet's word as the word of God, "and would hear it and do it." And God said, "They have well said all that they have spoken. O that there were such a heart in them that they would fear Me, and keep My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children for ever."

But the Ten Commandments, besides being rehearsed in the hearing of all the people, were written. This beginning of Holy Scripture was not written by Moses with a reed on papyrus; it was written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, and delivered unto Moses, and laid up in the ark, in the most holy place, for a memorial for ever.

Surely all this was done to impress upon the Church that the future revelations made not only by Moses, but by the prophets* whom God raised up like unto Moses, were indeed the very words of the living God.

* This text has its ultimate fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ, but its immediate fulfilment in the line of prophets whom God commissioned from time to time to speak His word to His Church.

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