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Another point on which the commentators differ is as to whether the election was personal or national. It will be noticed that some assume that it was both. The language of the passage in the Old Testament would indicate that it was the posterity of Jacob and Esau that was in the thought of the writer. In Gen. xxv, 23, we read: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manners of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." Sanday includes in this both the brothers and their descendants, saying, "Hence it is better to refer the words, either directly or indirectly, to the chosen of the nations as well as the chosen of the founders."

A further consideration is whether Jacob was elected to personal salvation or to the special privilege of being the head of the theocratic people, the line of the covenant of promise; and also whether Esau was rejected from personal salvation or from the privileges of the theocracy. It has been seen that Whedon regards the personal salvation or rejection as not in the mind of the writer, and maintains the alternative view, namely, the election to special privileges. That it is not the personal salvation of Jacob and Esau as individuals which is in the mind of the writer is shown by the general purpose of the apostle's argument. In the previous chapters Paul has been unfolding the great doctrine of salvation by faith, for Jew and Gentile alike. To the Jew especially the doctrine was very objectionable. They were, as appears from the argument, Predestinarians. They believed that as a people they had been elected to salvation; that to be a Jew was to be saved; and that the only door into the kingdom of God here or hereafter was through Judaism. They regarded the doctrine of salvation by faith as subversive of their theocratic position. This chapter is a defense of God's plan as set forth in the Gospel, substituting a salvation by faith for salvation by birth and lineage. It is a strong demonstration of the divine sovereignty. It was not a sovereignty by which God chooses one over another to salvation before they are born, but a sovereignty of plan, by which he determines the mode of salvation for mankind. Paul shows that God had never adhered exclusively to the theocracy of lineage. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac, and not Ishmael, was the child of promise, and became the bearer of the covenant promises. Isaac had two sons, born to the same mother, and yet Esau, the elder, was rejected, and Jacob, the younger, became the head of the chosen people. This proves, according to Paul, that God had always exercised his sovereignty in the selection of his instruments to carry forward his kingdom. The same high prerogative which led him to choose Isaac and Jacob justified his right to select salvation by faith as the mode of admission into his kingdom. This was not a new doctrine, but had been illustrated in the case of Abraham, their great ancestor and founder. This sovereignty of God had not determined the individual salvation of men, but had set forth the conditions under which man

kind should became members of his kingdom. As already stated, this doctrine which Paul preached, which placed all men on a common level and required only faith in Christ, was abhorrent to the whole training of the Jews, and, as they believed, involved injustice on the part of God.

We may conclude this discussion by a brief summary of conclusions:

1. This passage applies chiefly to nations, and not to Jacob and Esau as individuals.

2. It does not refer to personal salvation, but to national privileges and responsibilities as a theocratic people.

3. The election of these peoples was in the mind of God before the birth of either Jacob or Esau.

4. The word "hate" does not involve the idea of bitterness which men commonly attach to it, but the antagonism of God to sin.

5. The phrase, "the elder shall serve the younger," does not express a determination on the part of God so much as a prediction of what afterward took place. For this point we may see a full discussion in Whedon's remarks on this passage.

6. God's selection was suitable to their respective characters, as shown in their subsequent history.

7. We may well conclude that this passage asserts the sovereignty of God, but in no sense teaches the exclusion of anyone from salvation by virtue of a decree before his birth.

THE TRUE INTRODUCTION TO A SUCCESSFUL MINISTRY.

SOME time ago it was the privilege of the writer to attend the initial services of two pastors on the assumption of their formal labors among their people. Both churches were among the foremost in the land, in culture, wealth, and liberality; though the characterization is not correct from the Christian standpoint, in popular language they would be called "first-class churches." In each case the expectation was intense, and the houses of worship were full, and in both cases the keynote was Christ. But what Christ did they propose to preach? That was the question. Was it the human Christ only, or the divine Christ only, or was it Christ in all his offices as prophet, priest, and king? It is pleasant to note that it was Christ in his fullness who was proclaimed to the people. The more recent of these sermons will illustrate our meaning. The text was the whole passage, Phil. ii, 6-10, but the particular verses on which was based the substance of the discourse read: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. . . . Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." The preacher assumed that the text was an answer to the ques

tion, "Who was Christ?" To the question, What was his character? the answer was, "He was equal with God." To the question, What was his reputation? the answer was, "He made himself of no reputation." To the question, What was his influence? the answer was, "And given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow."

The other pastor to whose introductory sermon allusion has been made also spoke on the subject of Christ, emphasizing his divinity and his power to save, and showing the necessity on the part of the minister and the congregation of holding fast to the great saving truths of the Gospel. He impressed upon his people the supreme importance of faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, as the only method for the rescue of mankind from evil and the impartation of the true ethical life. Attention is here called to these introductory sermons because they were of recent date, and were addressed by two eminent ministers to two of the strongest of our Christian congregations. They show that in the places of Christian power those intrusted with the administration of the Church recognize the importance of holding fast to fundamental truth. The reformation of mankind is not to take place by mere ethical development, but through the Gospel which is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

In his introductory sermons the pastor is supposed to represent as fully as at any other time the fundamental conceptions which are to guide his ministry. Afterward he will probably discuss Christian truth in its special aspects, urging the virtues, exhorting to repentance, and building up believers; but on such occasions he unfolds to his people that which is to him vital, and thus gives the keynote of his ministry among them. In these two sermons, therefore, we enter, as it were, the sacred precincts of these pastors' living and thinking, and see what it is they regard as essential to their ministry and important to a true ministry everywhere.

ZEAL FOR SOULS.

THERE was a time in the ministry of Chrysostom, says the author of Ecce Clerus, when in a vision he seemed to be preaching in the cathedral at Antioch, and to have the Lord for an auditor, who waited "in vain for some word which he might apply to dying souls." From that time "the preaching of Chrysostom was changed, and anxious souls were gathered into the kingdom of God." Other great leaders in the Christian ministry, the same writer reminds us, have been conspicuous for their zeal in evangelistic work. Whitefield exclaimed, "If God did not give me souls I think I should die." And Matthew Henry wrote, "I would think it greater happiness for myself to gain even one soul to Christ than mountains of gold and silver." Revivals are a feature of every successful ministry. The hour strikes for evangelistic work in all the churches.

ARCHEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL RESEARCH.

JERUSALEM AND THE MONUMENTS.

JERUSALEM, in many ways the most noted city on the face of the earth, was virtually known under its present name many centuries before the Hebrew occupation or before it had become the capital of Israel under King David. The earliest reference to it so far discovered is in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, written some fifteen hundred years before our era. Of the two hundred and sixty-seven letters recovered from the ruins of the ancient capital of Amenophis IV-called also "Khu-enAten"-the ninth king of the eighteenth dynasty, no less than seven, possibly eight of them, were communications from the governor of Jerusalem to his royal master, the king of Egypt. Several of these Jerusalem letters are in fairly good condition, while the rest are so mutilated as to render decipherment impossible.

We may remark here that though the find at Amarna is one of the most important ever made, yet only a small portion of the clay letters deposited in the royal archives of that city has been preserved; for, having fallen into the hands of peasants ignorant of the value of the great treasure they had dug up, they were carelessly thrown into sacks, where by constant rubbing and rough handling, while in search of a purchaser, many of them were literally ground to pieces and others so marred as to make them unintelligible.

More than one hundred of these tablets are concerned with the North Syrian war, while forty-one of them are letters from generals and subrulers in the southern part of Palestine. The perusal of these ancient official documents reveals the fact that very many of the towns and places therein mentioned had practically the same names as they have to-day. We find, for instance, Acco, Ajalon, Ascalon, Beyroot, Damascus, Gezer, Joppa, Keilah, Lachish, Seir, Sidon, Tyre, and Zelah. None of these documents are of as great importance to the biblical student as those sent by Abdi-khiba, king or governor of Jerusalem. The letters were written at a time when Syria and Palestine were under the control of Egypt, but when this great world-power was gradually losing hold of the vast territory acquired by the Pharaohs from the time of Thothmes I to that of Amenophis III, when the whole of Syria, Mesopotamia, and perhaps Chaldea and Assyria were under Egyptian rule.

The first letters from Jerusalem reveal a time of general rebellion, a time when its king is in great danger on every side from hostile troops, not only from the enemies of Egypt, but also from at least two Egyptian officers who, for some reason, had become jealous of Abdi-khiba and who are reported by the latter to the Egyptian monarch as disloyal. We can do no better than to subjoin at least a portion of one of these letters

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sent from Jerusalem to the capital of Egypt. The translation is by C. J. Ball, M.A.: "Behold this land of Jerusalem (Uru-salim)—it was not my father, nor was it my mother that gave it unto me; it was the strong hand [or] 'arm' [of the king] that gave it unto me. Behold this deed, the deed of Malchiel and the sons of Labaia, who have given up the king's territory unto the Chabiri. . . . When Pa-uru, the king's high commissioner, came up to the land of Jerusalem, Adaia had revolted with the men of the guard. The king's caravans were intercepted in the field [that is, territory] of Ajalon; let the king my lord know I am unable to send a caravan to the king my lord, that thou mightest learn [how things are]. Behold, the king hath set his name upon the land of Jerusalem forever; and he cannot forsake aught of the territories of Jerusalem."

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This is the oldest record so far discovered in which the name “Jerusalem" occurs, though there can be no doubt that this venerable city was hoary with age long before the unsettled condition of affairs described in these ancient documents. Most exegetes are agreed that "Salem" of Gen. xiv, 18, is an abbreviated form for "Jerusalem;" if this be so, then the name is carried back several centuries prior to the writing of the Amarna tablets. The phrase, "It was not my father, nor was it my mother that gave it unto me," at the beginning of this letter, reminds us of "King of Salem, which is, King of peace; without father, without mother," etc., mentioned in Heb. vii, 2, f. Indeed, Sayce goes so far as to identify this governor of Jerusalem, spoken of in the tablets, with the Melchizedek of Genesis. Few scholars will agree with him in this. At the same time the similarity of language is certainly striking, and it is no wild conjecture to say that, even before the time of Abraham, Jerusalem may have been governed by kings who were elective rather than hereditary.

Though a diligent research has been made in the monumental records of various countries in Bible lands for everything and anything which may throw light upon Hebrew history, it is more than five hundred years before we find even an indirect reference to the holy city. We read in 1 Kings xiv, 25, ff., that Shishak I, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem in the fifth year of Rehoboam, king of Judah (or about 920 B. C.), and that he took much treasure from the temple of Jehovah and from the royal residence, including the gold shields made by Solomon. This king, called also "Sheshonk," was the founder of the twenty-second dynasty. His origin is not known; this explains why he has been called in turn Egyptian, Libyan, Assyrian, and Elamite. Whatever the nationality of this usurper might have been, it is certain that he was a mighty man and fond of conquest. The monuments of Egypt in a remarkable degree confirm the biblical account of his campaign against Jerusalem. As is well known, the rulers of both Egypt and Assyria vied with each other for many centuries in extending their dominion northward or southward, according to the fortunes of war. Little Israel

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