circumcision is found there are only earthly and temporal blessings. Circumcision was to Abraham a SEAL of the faith which he had when uncircumcised, but it was not that to his descendants. To them it was but a SIGN of fleshly connection with him, entitling, irrespective of faith or piety, to the temporal blessings of that covenant, the sign of which God required to be put upon their flesh. Circumcision, then was a mark or token in the flesh, indicating that he who bore it was allied to the fleshly seed of Abraham, through Isaac, and entitled to the privileges of the covenant of which it was the sign. This was its only significance, and it is thus clear that this covenant did not embrace the promise of Christ, nor the spiritual seed, and that circumcision was not, save to Abraham himself, the seal or token of any spiritual blessing whatever. The whole family of Abraham, in the aggregate, was included, and the babe was as fit a subject for circumcision as its parent. Out of this family grew a great people whom God delivered from the bondage of Egypt. When they had crossed the Red Sea His purposes required the renewal of the covenant of circumcision and temporal blessing, upon a national basis, but He did not arbitrarily bind it upon the then to be organized nation. He addressed them in words of consultation, promise, and hope, saying, "Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." And all the people answered together, and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord. (Ex. xix. 5-8.) Then the Ten Commandments, and other Divine requirements, were laid upon the nation, thus voluntarily placed in covenant bonds. The covenant of blessing to all nations in Abraham and in his seed, Christ, was not abrogated by the covenant of circumcision, nor by the giving of the law.

What followed? The Lord said, "O that there were such a heart in them that they would fear Me, and keep all My Commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever." But such was not the case, and very soon multiplied violations stood against them, the promised blessings were forfeited, and God determined to abrogate the covenant and make a new one, not with the nation, but with individuals thereof. Some six hundred years before Christ the Word of the Lord came by Jeremiah, saying, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with

Observer, Jan. 15, '76

the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out. of the land of Egypt, which My covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant. that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sin no more." (Jer. xxxi.)

There can scarcely be a more important question than, Have these new covenant days come? Let us endeavour to find a clear answer. The "seventy weeks of Daniel ix. bring us to the cutting off the Messiah, not for His own sins, but for the sins of others. We are there told that He shall "confirm the covenant with many for one week;" not with the nation, but with many; that is with numerous individuals of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah. In the middle of the week He was also to cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, v. 27. This He did by His own death, not actually, but as legal and God owned ordinances. The Jews continued their services till the destruction of Jerusalem, but after the death of Christ the temple became their own house, and its service was no longer God's-"Your house is left unto you desolate."

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The Hebrew word rendered "to confirm" means to make strong." Covenants, in ancient time, were ratified by sacrifice, consequently we read, Whereupon neither the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you.". To this the Apostle adds, "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." (Heb. ix.) we have a NEW covenant, made strong by better blood than that which confirmed the old covenant, which had never been strengthened by such glorious manifestations of the grace of God as were in process when the Spirit was given on

Here

Observer, Jan. 15, '76.

Pentecost. Consequently, it could only be regarded as weak in comparison with that then. about to be established, and to embrace remission of sins and the anointing of the Holy of Holies. Accordingly, Jesus, at the last supper, said, "This is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Mat. xxvi. 28.) The reader, who has not mastered this interesting subject, will do well to examine carefully Heb. viii., ix., x., wherein is clearly taught that the old covenant is done away, that the new covenant is established; the very words of the promise of Jeremiah being there applied. If it be asked, why God promised to make a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah, seeing that the covenantees were not to be Jews only? the answer is, because Christ came to the people of the old covenant; the Apostles were commanded to proclaim the terms of the new covenant first in Jerusalem; the first converts, and those for some seven years afterwards, were Jews; so that the covenant was made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; that is with "the many' who would accept it; the rest were cut off, and Gentile believers were subsequently grafted in. Please note the following conclusions:

1. The covenant promised by the Lord (Jer. xxxi.) and established by the Christ, was not an old covenant patched, mended, and newly sealed and signed, but a NEW COVENANT. The Saviour reprobated putting a new piece upon an old garment.

2. "My covenant shall be in your flesh," said Jehovah. That is upon the flesh as an external sign. The covenant meditated by Moses was put upon tables of stone. But the new covenant is otherwise recorded-"This shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts."

3. Under the old covenant babes were included and, therefore, as parties to the covenant, and while under it they were taught to "know the Lord." Under the NEW COVENANT, as flesh "profiteth nothing," is excluded, and ALL the covenantees "know the Lord," and cannot come into the covenant without knowing Him, such teaching is neither needful nor possible.

4. All the covenantees of the new covenant receive the plenary remission of sins. I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more." Under the old covenants there was no final remission, but a remembrance of sins every year. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins.

5. Under the old covenant, "when the fathers had eaten a sour grape the children's teeth were

set on edge." In other words the blessings of the covenant being temporal, evil conduct brought temporal calamity, which the children shared, though not partakers of the fault, as under other ciscumstances they shared the blessings without contributing to the national obedience. Under the new covenant this principle no longer prevails. Each shall be condemned for his own sin, if unrepented of, and none shall die for the sins of others.

6. The old covenant, based on flesh, embraced the whole nation. The new only includes those who accept its blessings by faith in its once dead but now ever living Mediator.

(To be continued.)

THE NEW JERUSALEM.-No. II. I.—Ancient Jerusalem, a type of the New Jerusalem.

In Name. This celebrated city, around which cluster so many and sublime and affecting reminisences, is supposed to have been founded by Melchisedec, king of Salem, that is Peace. According to Cruden, the full name Jerusalem, signifies the vision of peace: thus its very name is prophetic. (Jer. iii. 17. 18.)

It has its significance, that John in his Gospel, always writes Hierosoluma when speaking of Jerusalem, that being its Greek name; but in the Apocalypse he calls the heavenly city Hierousaleem, which is the Hebrew name, and the original and holy appellation of ancient Jerusalem. Paul likewise, in his epistle to the Galations, observes the same distinction.(Trench.)

The city is mentioned (Heb. xii. 22) under the name of heavenly Jerusalem; in Gal. iv. 26 it is called Jerusalem which is above; in Rev. iii. 12, New Jerusalem, and in chap. xxi. the holy city. These names the Apostles were directed by the Spirit to give to this city, to show that Jerusalem in Canaan was a type or emblem of it. (McKnight on Heb.)

In Situation. Palestine was appointed by the Lord to be the abode of His people, the nursery of His Kingdom. Its position between the Mediterranean Sea on the west, the mountains of Lebanon on the north, and the Syrian wilderness on the east, and the Desert of Arabia Petrea on the south, is peculiar; while it constituted the centre of the three divisions of the world, as it was then known, the country, like the nation which occupied it, was secluded by its insulated position from the rest of the world. The interior was protected by the peculiar features of the whole region from

approach to the most important channels along which the commerce of the world flowed, combined to establish it in the centre of the activity of the world. The country was, in this manner, specially adapted to become, at first, the silent, and retired nursery of the Kingdom of God; and afterwards, to spread abroad, in all directions, and among all nations, the great salvation, when the latter had reached the period of its maturity.-(Kurtz.)

The Lord declared of the capital-Jerusalem, "I have set it in the midst of the nations and

countries that are round about her." (Ezek. v. 5.) Here Jerusalem is regarded as the centre of the whole earth, designed to radiate the true light over the Nations in all directions. No centre in the ancient heathen world could have been selected more fitted than Canaan to be a vantage ground, whence the people of God, could act with success upon the heathenism of the world. It lay midway between the oldest and most civilized states, Egypt and Ethiopia, on the one side, and Babylon, Nineveh, and India on the other, and afterwards, between Greece, Rome, and Persia. The Phonecian mariners were close by, through whom they might have transmitted the true religion to the remotest lands: around them were the Ishmaelites, the great inland traders in south Asia and north Africa. Israel was thus placed, not for its own selfish good, but to be the spiritual benefactor of the whole world. Compare Psalm lxvii. throughout. (Fausset.)

"Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together, whither the tribes go up, the Tribes of the Lord, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord."

"It is the city which men call the perfection of Beauty the joy of the whole earth."

When

I stood, says Porter, that morning on the brow of Olivet, and looked down on the city, crowning those battlemented heights, encircled by those deep, and dark ravines, I involuntarily exclaimed, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King."

Lamb's book of life."*

Observer, Jan. 15, '76.

Is this a type of the water of life, which flowed from Jerusalem, towards the four quarters of the earth? (Luke xxiv. 45. 47.)

Salvation, like a river, rolls

Abundant, free, and clear.

Its Temple Service. Jerusalem was the seat of God's worship, and is thus regarded as an emblem of the New, where eternal worship will be celebrated. (John iv. 20. 21; Rev. xxi. 22; xxii. 3.) "The Lord hath chosen Zion, He hath desired it for His habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it."

"Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." (See also Ps. lxxvi. 1. 2.)

The heathen Plutarch wrote: If you travel through the world, well you may find cities. without walls, without literature, without kings, not peopled or inhabited, moneyless and such as desire no coin, which know not what theatres, or public halls mean; but never was there, any one city seen, without a temple, without some god or other, which useth no prayers, nor oaths, no prophecies, and divinations, no sacrifices either to obtain blessings, or to avert curses and calamities; nay, methinks a man should sooner find a city built in the air, than that any commonwealth altogether void of religion, should be, first established, or afterwards preserved and maintained in that estate.-(Trench. Hulsean Lectures, p. 268.)

And yet we are told that the perfect city will have no temple; "I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it."

After all a temple speaks of sin, as well as of God; no temple service will be needed, where there is no sin, no conscience stains to be wiped out. All ritual is like so many steps in the ladder, which conducts to God, but having arrived at His abode, ceremonies, ritual, temple, all vanish.-(Greenwell.)

But there is that which is far better, "the throne of God, aud the Lamb," and besides it is immediately added, "they shall see His face."

Oh, the delights, the heavenly joys,
The glories of the place

Where Jesus sheds the brightest beams
Of His unveiled face!

(To be continued.)

Observer, Jan. 15, '76.

“JESUS did it—did it all." So Mr. M'Intosh So Mr. M'Intosh tells us. But did He? The answer must be according to what "it" stands for. Pardon is Pardon is a result not of one cause, but of several, including

1. THE LOVE OF GOD-Originating cause. 2. THE DEATH OF JESUS-Meritorious and Procuring cause.

3. FAITH AND REPENTANCE-Qualifying cause. 4. BAPTISM-Receiving cause.

If the words "Jesus did it all" mean that He did everything requisite to pardon, the assertion is incorrect. He did not do the Heavenly Father's part. He did not Believe and Repent for sinners, nor was He Baptized for them. If our friend merely means that Jesus, completely and for ever, did that which none of us could do; that all of merit and procurement was finished by Him, so that pardon is wholly of grace, without purchase, and irrespective of deserving act or work on our part, he only says what we firmly hold. Let it, then, be understood at the onset that we agree in giving to the Lord Jesus Christ ALL the honour and merit of our salvation. The ALL, then, that Jesus did does not include faith, repentance and baptism, and that He did all that He did leaves entirely untouched the question, whether God has ordained that pardon shall be received on believing or subsequently in the act of baptism.

To disbelieve God is a great wrong, and this wrong led to man's expulsion from the tree of life, and brought death upon all men. As man fell by unbelief he is restored by faith. But as he did not fall by unbelief alone, he is not restored by faith alone. Faith" alone" is named in the N. T. but once, and then is said to be dead, because alone. A dead faith will save no one. Note the steps in man's fall.

1. Falsehood Preached "Ye shall not surely die."

2. God Disbelieved-Falsehood accepted. 3. Change of Mind-As to God.

4. The Unbelief perfected by Violation of a positive command.

By retracing these steps the sinner comes back to God, to pardon, and to the hope of life eternal.

1. Truth Preached-Christ died for our sins. 2. Faith The Truth believed.

3. Repentance-Change of mind Godward and Christward.

4. Baptism into Him, into His death, and into remission of sins.

As, then, in the one case Unbelief did not

result in exclusion from the tree of life till perfected by an act of disobedience, so in man's recovery God appoints the perfecting of faith by obedience; which is not a work of merit, but simply an act of faith, leaving the pardon then received purely unmerited and solely of grace. The faith, which is perfected by the baptism, is itself the cause of that baptism; and without it valid baptism could not be. When thus perfected, and not alone, the faith only, and not the act that perfected it, is counted for righteousness. Therefore, as friend M'Intosh puts it, "It is all salvation by grace through faith." Were it not that space forbids, it would be well to requote all his texts on faith (as "Thy faith has saved thee," "He that hath the Son of God hath life") for the purpose of showing them. preciously true in view of the foregoing, and more applicable to the plan of salvation unfolded by the Apostles and reaffirmed by the Disciples (whom our friend is lovingly endeavouring to correct) than to the theory adopted and propounded by him. This being the case, his first proposition, "The pardon of sins is received by the repentant sinner whenever he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ," is without proof. Our friend must linger somewhat longer. We can stay a little here with profit, before he advances to "the place and purpose of baptism." It is not a little remarkable that so many of his proof texts were uttered under the old dispensation, and before the baptism embraced by this discussion was instituted. Consequently, were it certain that he rightly interprets such words as "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life," and that then, when the baptism now under consideration was not instituted, they were applicable in his sense, it would not follow that subsequently under a new dispensation, when a new baptism had been ordained, that faith was not to be perfected by baptism, nor that remission was not associated with the act that perfected the faith.

Our friend is struck, in reading the gospels, by the constant occurrence of the word faith. But why so? Do we not live by faith every day of our life? As an illustration-two men are stricken with disease for which no remedy has been discovered, and from which none have recovered. They expect to die. But a physician appears with a newly-found remedy and guarantees perfect cure. One patient has no faith in the doctor, refuses the remedy, and dies; the other has full conviction that the medicine will save if taken strictly according to the prescription, takes it and is saved. The one man is lost by unbelief, the other is saved by faith. But is he saved so soon as he believes in the doctor and in his cure? Certainly not! He

is saved by faith, when that faith impels him to apply the remedy, and not before, and not otherwise. No wonder, then, that so much is attributed to faith.

That our friend may come fairly up to the mark when next we hear from him, this question is submitted: Can he find in the Bible an instance in which God, having given testimony associated with a command, has counted faith as perfected so long as the act of obedience commanded and possible is unperformed? If he cannot produce such he should abandon that idea of saving faith which makes it to consist solely of assent, conviction or confidence, irrespective of obedience in any overt act associated with it by the word of God.

Mr. M'Intosh asks us to study Heb. xii. Presuming that he means the previous chapter it may be well to turn to it.

1. "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain; by which he obtained witness that he was righteous." Not by faith alone, but by an act of faithby faith he offered the right kind of sacrifice.

2. "By faith Noah

prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." He became "heir of the righteousness," not by "faith alone," but by building an ark by faith.

3. "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went." He "went out" by faith. Faith doing; perfecting itself by the act commanded. Had he not gone, however much he might have believed, he would have been condemned, not justified. He might have had faith enough to make him tremble; so had the devils, but such faith brought no righteousness. "By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac." "Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works, when he offered Isaac, his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was his faith made perfect. And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteous

ness.

Coming down to the days of the Saviour, as His words on believing have been cited, it is seen that salvation by believing on Him, even then, implied more than an act of the mind. "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees

Observer, Jan. 15, '76.

they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the Synagogue." (John xii. 42.) But the Saviour had said-" Fear not them that kill the body"-"Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." (Mat. x.) Add to this "If thou shalt confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Rom. x. 9, 10.) Thus the rulers, who believed on Him, belong to the class whom He will deny, seeing that through fear of man they denied Him by witholding confession. They were then not saved the moment they believed, and our friend's first proposition is disproved.

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In conclusion. "He came unto his own and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them who believed on His name, which were born, not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 12.) This was written years after the power, or privilege, had been accepted by the many who had believed on Him, by completing the process, by a birth out of the water. His own people did not generally receive Him, but a remnant did. Receiving Him" is defined as believing on His name; and those who thus believed received "power to become sons of God." But what one already is he cannot receive power to become. Therefore, they were not children of God by faith alone, but believing on Jesus they had the privilege of becoming sons according to the commission given by the Saviour to His Apostles, and indicated in His instruction to Nicodemus. Embracing this privilege, they were born of God, from above, of water and the Spirit; thus entering into a new relationship to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; being also thereby translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

D. K.

THE THRONE OF POWER.-No. II.

THERE was a sapphire throne in ancient time,
Where one in human form, from face sublime
Shed forth revealing glory; and that face
Was sometimes seen by sons of Adam's race.
But only in the Spirit-in the trance-
The God-like pomp of solemn circumstance
Was seen in stately realistic power;
But ecstacy was ruler of the hour.