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BUNYAN'S INDICTMENT AND EXAMINATION.

And heaps transgression, Lord, upon transgression.

How know'st thou this?

Jesus.
Justice.
Een by his own confession:
His sins are crying, and they cry aloud!
They cried to heaven-they cried to heaven for blood.
Jesus. What say'st thou, sinner?-hast thou aught
to plead

That sentence should not pass? Hold up thy head,
And show thy brazen, thy rebellious face.
Sinner. Ah, me! I dare not; I'm too vile and base
To tread upon the earth, much more to lift
Mine eyes to heaven; I need no other shrift
Than mine own conscience. Lord, I must confess
I am no more than dust, and no whit less
Than my indictment styles me. Ah! if thou
Search too severe-with too severe a brow,
What flesh can stand? I have transgressed thy laws;
My merits plead thy vengeance-not my cause.
Justice. Lord, shall I strike the blow!
Jesus.
Hold! Justice, stay!
Sinner, speak on; what hast thou more to say?
Sinner. Vile as I am, and of myself abhorred,
I am thy handiwork-thy creature, Lord;
Stamp'd with thy glorious image, and at first,
Most like to thee, though now a poor accurs'd
Convicted caitiff, and degen'rate creature,
Here trembling at thy bar.
Justice.

The fault's the greater.

Lord, shall I strike the blow?
Jesus.
Hold! Justice, stay!
Speak, sinner; hast thou nothing more to say?
Sinner. Nothing but mercy, mercy, Lord, My state
Is miserably poor and desperate;

I quite renounce myself, the world, and flee
From Lord to Jesus-from myself to thee.

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home to prison, and there have lain now complete twelve years, waiting to see what God would suffer these men to do with me.”

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It is a striking phraseology which Bunyan uses, he was had home to prison;" it was indeed a home to him, for God made it such-sweeter, by Divine grace, than any earthly home in his pilgrimage. He had been preaching for years when he was first taken, which was upon the 12th of November, 1660. He had engaged, if the Lord permitted, to come and teach some of the people who desired it on that day; but the justice of the peace hearing of it, issued his warrant to take Bunyan, and meantime to keep a strong watch about the house; "as if," says Bunyan, we that were to meet together in that place did intend to do some fearful business to the destruction of the country." Yea, they could scarcely have been more alarmed and vigilant if there had been rumour of a Popish gunpowder plot on foot. "When, alas! the constable came in, he found us only with our Bibles in our hands, ready to speak and hear the Word of God, for we were just about to begin our exercise; nay, we had begun in prayer for the blessing of God upon our opportunity, intending to have preached the Word of the Lord unto them there present; but the constable coming in prevented us."

Bunyan might have escaped had he chosen, for he had fair warning, but he reasoned nobly, that as he had showed himself hearty and courageous in his preaching, and made it his business to encourage others, if he should now run, his weak and newly converted brethren would certainly think he was not so strong in deed as in word. "Also I feared that if I should run, now that there was a warrant out for me, I might by so doing make them afraid to stand Besides, I thought that seeing God of his mercy when great words only should be spoken to them. should choose me to go upon the forlorn hope in this country that is, to be the first that should be opposed for the Gospel-if I should flee, it might be a

Justice. Cease thy vain hopes; my angry God has discouragement to the whole body that might follow

Vowed

Abused mercy must have blood for blood.
Shall I yet strike the blow?
Jesus.

Stay! Justice, hold!

My bowels yearn-my fainting blood grows cold,
To view the trembling wretch. Methinks I spy
My Father's image in the pris'ner's eye.
Justice. I cannot hold!
Jesus.
Then turn thy thirsty blade
Into my side; let there the wound be made.
Cheer dear soul, redeem thy life with mine-
up,

My soul shall smart-my heart shall bleed for thine! Sinner. Oh, groundless deep! oh, love beyond degree!

The offended dies to set th' offender free! FRANCIS QUARLES.

BUNYAN'S INDICTMENT AND
EXAMINATION.

"I WAS indicted," says Bunyan, " for an upholder and maintainer of unlawful assemblies and conventicles, and not for conforming to the national worship of the Church of England; and after some conference there with the justices, they taking my plain dealing with them for a confession, as they termed it, of the indictment, did sentence me to a perpetual banishment because I refused to conform. So being again delivered up to the jailer's hands, I was had

after. And further, I thought the world thereby would take occasion at my cowardliness to have blasphemed the Gospel, and to have had some grounds to suspect worse of me and my profession than I deserved." So Bunyan stayed with full resolution, and began the meeting. And when brought before the justice, and questioned as to what he did there, and why he did not content himself with following his calling, for it was against the law that) such as he should be admitted to do as he did; he answered, that the intent of his coming thither and to other places was to instruct and counsel people to forsake their sins and close in with Christ, lest they did miserably perish; and that he could do both these without confusion-to wit, follow his calling and preach the Word also.

"Now," says Bunyan, in a passage where you have the germ of many a character that afterwards figured in the pages of the " Pilgrim's Progress"—

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now, while my mittimus was a-making, the justice was withdrawn, and in comes an old enemy to the truth, Dr. Lindale, who, when he was come in, fell to taunting at me with many reviling terms; to whom I answered, that I did not come hither to talk with him, but with the justice. Whereas he, supposing that I had nothing to say for myself, triumphed as if he had got the victory, charging and condemning me for meddling with that for which I could show no warrant, and asked me if I had taken the oaths, and if I had not, it was a pity but that I should be sent to prison. I told him that if I was minded I could answer to any sober question put to

me.

He then urged me again how I could prove it

lawful for me to preach, with a great deal of confidence of the victory. But at last, because he should see that I could answer him if I listed, I cited to him that in Peter which saith, As every man hath received the gift, even so let him minister the

same."""

Lindale. Ay, saith he, to whom is that spoken? Bunyan. To whom? said I, why, to every man that hath received a gift from God. 'Mark, saith the apostle, As every man hath received a gift from God; and again, You may all prophesy by one. Whereat the man was a little stopt, and went a softlier pace: but not being willing to lose the day, he began again,

and said:

Lind. Indeed, I do remember that I have read of one Alexander, a coppersmith, who did much oppose and disturb the apostles (aiming, it is like, at me, because I was a tinker).

Bun. To which I answered that I also had read of very many priests and Pharisees that had their hands in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lind. Ay, saith he, and you are one of those Scribes and Pharisees; for you, with a pretence, make long prayers to devour widows' houses.

Bun. I answered, that if he got no more by preaching and praying than I had done, he would not be so rich as now he was. But that Scripture coming into my mind," Answer not a fool according to his folly," I was as sparing of my speech as I could without prejudice to truth.

After this, there was another examination with one Mr. Foster of Bedford, who tried hard to persuade Bunyan to promise that he would leave off preaching; in which case he should be acquitted. Bunyan's honest, straightforward truth, good sense, and mother-wit, answered as good a purpose with this Mr. Foster as it did with that "old enemy,' Dr. Lindale. Mr. Foster told Bunyan there were none that heard him but a company of foolish people.

Bun. I told him that there were the wise as well as the foolish that did hear me; and again, those that are most commonly counted foolish by the world are the wisest before God. Also, that God had rejected the wise, and mighty, and noble, and chosen the foolish and the base.

Foster. He told me that I made people neglect their calling; and that God hath commanded people to work six days, and serve him on the seventh.

Bun. I told him that it was the duty of people, rich and poor, to look out for their souls on those days as well as their bodies; and that God would have his people exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day.

Fost. He said, again, that there were none but a company of poor, simple, ignorant people that

came.

Bun. I told him that the foolish and the ignorant had most need of teaching and information; and therefore it would be profitable for me to go on in that work.

Fost. Well, said he, to conclude, but will you promise that you will not call the people together any more, and then you may be released and home?

go

Bun. I told him that I durst say no more than I had said; for I durst not leave off that work which God had called me to. If my preaching might be said to call the people together, I durst not say that I would not call them together.

Foster upon this told the justice that he must send Bunyan to prison; and so to prison he went, nothing daunted, but singing and making melody in his heart unto the Lord.-Cheever's Lectures on Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."

ON THE TIMES AND WRITINGS OF
MALACHI.

BY THE REV. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, SALTON.
An interest of a peculiar kind attaches to the times
and writings of Malachi, as he was the last of the
prophets under the Old Testament dispensation, and
it is in them we find the form of that state of things
which reached its maturity in the age of Christ and
his apostles. The forms of corruption which dis
covered themselves in that age are strikingly diffe
captivity, and seem to have sprung from an almost
rent from those which appeared before the Babylonish
opposite set of influences. And this prophet is the
only one subsequent to the captivity, who was called
particularly to grapple with and expose the state of
mind and character which was then beginning to de-
nitions, continued to advance in its main features,
velop itself, and which, notwithstanding his admo-
till it became the unhappy and inveterate distinction
of the nation at large. In this respect, therefore,
his writings possess an interest peculiar to themselves,
and, as a connecting link between the old and the
new aspects of Jewish society, are the best fitted to
serve as an immediate introduction to the narratives
of Gospel history.

In regard to the prophet himself, his book gives us
no information either who he was, or at what precise
period he lived-a reserve of which we find only two
other examples, in the cases of Habakkuk and Oba-
diah. What is also remarkable, Jewish history,
Jewish tradition even, scarcely pretends to give any
account of him, although the latest of all the pro-
phets; and at a very early period we find traces
among the Jews of the opinion, that Malachi was the
name, not properly of his person, but of his office.*
The word literally means "my angel," or 66 my mes-
senger; and the heading of the prophecy, which
runs: "The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel
by the hand of Malachi," is in the latter part ren-
dered by the old Septuagint translation, "by the
has it, "by Malachi, whose proper name was Ezra
hand of his angel;" while the Chaldee Paraphrases
the Scribe." In regard to his being the same persor
with Ezra, it is enough to say, that this is a ground-
jected by some even of the Jewish authorities. Nor
less and utterly improbable supposition, which is re-
is there any reason to imagine that he was a mes-
senger of the Lord in any other or higher sense than
the prophets generally were; for example, Haggai.
who is expressly called "the Lord's messenger," and
the people." But the name seems to have been dis
is said to have spoken "in the Lord's message unto
tinctively assumed by him, because the great design.

thoroughly persuaded that the name Malachi was not the
*Vitringa Obs., sec. ii., p. 320: "The ancient Jews were
true and original name of this prophet, but a kind of sur
name formed from his office, since they understood Malach:
to be Ezra himself-the priest, reproving the vices of his
order."
stantially settled the question regarding the time and cir
This excellent dissertation of Vitringa has sub
cumstances of Malachi's appearing. In one point, he has
his name, which is simply "my messenger,” not “Jehovah's
been improved on by Hengstenberg, viz., the derivation o
messenger,"

ON THE TIMES AND WRITINGS OF MALACHI.

of his calling as a prophet was to announce the coming of the "My Messenger," and "the Messenger of the Covenant" mentioned in ch. iii. 1, and to intimate that he, too, was subordinately a messenger to prepare the way for the grand Messenger still to come. The time of Malachi's appearance on the stage of Israelitish history is now generally agreed to have been nearly, if not altogether coincident, with the period of Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem. This took place in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, which, according to the common reckoning, was in the 434th year before Christ, and about a hundred years after the commencement of the restoration at the decree of Cyrus, though little more than eighty after the second temple was actually built. It was during the latter part of the time this temple was in building that the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah exercised their divine calling; so that two generations must nearly have passed away before Malachi stepped forth to deliver the word put into his mouth. The chief reasons for fixing his agency to that precise time, are the marked correspondence between the evils complained of in his writings and those specified in the latter part of Nehemiah; especially in regard to ungodly alliances in marriage, even by the priests and Levites, with Heathen women (Mal. ii. 8; Neh. xiii. 29), and the general neglect in paying tithes (Neh. xiii. 10-12; Mal. iii. 10.) The agreement in regard to the former extends to the very form of expression which is used to designate the evil-such marriages being represented both in Nehemiah and Malachi as a breach of the covenant made especially with the house of Levi. The prophet calls it a "corrupting of the covenant of Levi;" and Nehemiah charges them with having "defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites "-a form of expression which does not occur in any of the earlier books.

The Book of Malachi, which is properly but one discourse, is called a burden-intimating that it is chiefly of an admonitory and threatening character.* Its direct and immediate object is to expose the corruption which had by this time risen to a great Theight in the land, and to show, that as it had already brought upon them to some extent the judgments of God, so if not repented of and forsaken, it would utterly unfit them for receiving the fulfilment of the great covenant promise, and, indeed, would convert their hopes of blessing into unsparing visitations of wrath. A hasty glance into the prophecy, or a rapid survey of its contents, as presented in the analysis, for example, of Diodati, might lead us to suppose that the evils complained and reproved were of a very varied and miscellaneous character; but a closer inpection will satisfy us, that the corruption had properly but one root, and that the external evils come into view only as so many signs and indications of it.

That this is the real import of the Hebrew word massa (burden), and that, in the words of Jerome on Nah, i. 1, "it ta never inserted in a title, unless when something heavy, full of weight and labour, is to be announced," has been so clearly proved by Hengstenberg, in his Christology, on Zech. ix. 1, that it may now be looked upon as a settled point in criticism.

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This grand root of corruption was a spirit of selfrighteousness, which grounded its claim to God's favour and blessing on obedience to his ordinances, and commandments-an obedience, however, which showed itself in them, and invariably does so in like cases, extremely partial and defective, even as regards the performance of outward duty, and not inconsistent with great inward depravity-with much worldlymindedness, with strong disaffection to God, and deep malice and guile one toward another. This selfrighteous spirit is, no doubt, to be found under some form in every age of the Church; and before the captivity we find it occasionally made the subject of severe reproof, as in Ps. 1.; Isa. i., lviii.; Jer. vii. 4, &c. But it was chiefly after the captivity that the spirit of corruption began to take this form, since the remembrance of that dreadful judgment operated continually afterwards as a check on the more open manifestations of ungodliness, and various circumstances in the condition of the people after their return tended to foster the growth of this. The Pharisaical spirit is as much the reigning characteristic of the times of Malachi, as it was that of the age in which our Lord appeared; only, it was then connected with outward circumstances considerably different, which naturally gave to its workings a corresponding modification.

In the times of Malachi, the affairs of the restored remnant were still in a comparatively feeble and depressed state. Though their return had been attended with peculiar marks of Divine favour, and was made under magnificent promises of future blessings and prosperity, yet they had to struggle from the outset with most formidable difficulties; and even now, when they had reached near the close of a century in the land, how far were they from realizing their bright| hopes of aggrandizement !-politically in a state of servitude to Heathen rulers, who exacted tribute from them (Neh. ix., 36, 37), and not only no special manifestations of the Divine presence and goodness in their behalf, but everywhere the signs of impoverishment and distress. See especially ch. ii. 17, where they impatiently ask for the God of judgment, as if he had forgotten his cause; and ch. iii. 9-11, where the prophet himself speaks of a great restraining of the Lord's goodness. Why this depressed and humiliating state of things? Had they possessed the genuine spirit of true humility and faith in God, they would have sought the cause, not in him, but in themselves; in reality, however, because actuated by the spirit of a proud and conceited Pharisaism, they referred it to him—to his neglect of the covenant, and want of due discrimination in the exercise of his government. They conceived themselves, in short, to be treated with grievous injustice, considering how well they had been discharging their own part, and how much they were warranted to expect at the hands of God. And it is specially with a view to beat down this towering, Pharisaical spirit, to silence its murmuring dissatisfaction with the Divine dealings, to show the injustice as well as folly of its hard thoughts of God, that the prophet enters into the expostulation with them, which makes up the substance of his book, and the leading drift of which is, to lead

them to turn their eyes inward upon themselves, to show them the real cause of all their outward evils in their own sins and corruptions; and to forewarn them of much greater evils than they had yet experienced, unless their spiritual condition became entirely different from what it then was.

We are furnished, in fact, with a key to the whole in the first words of the prophet's address to them, viewed in connection with their reply to it: "I have loved you, saith the Lord; yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?" He finds them full to the brim with hard thoughts of God, and rebellious murmurings against his procedure toward them--all springing from the conviction that their covenant-standing, and peculiar relation to his service, had not received from him the testimonies of his regard which they were entitled to expect. The prophet is, therefore, led to vindicate the ways of God to them, by pointing out the manifest and palpable difference which distinguished their outward history from that of the posterity of Esau; so that the former, with all its vicissitudes and troubles, still contained clear proofs of special love, which the other as clearly wanted. But presently turning round upon them, he proceeds to charge it upon their own behaviour toward God, that this love had not been able to give more full and unequivocal demonstrations of its goodness. In a strain of severe and cutting rebuke, he first of all exposes the corruptions of the priesthood, justly regardmg them as the ringleaders in the apostasy, that was in progress, and as being liable, from their greater guilt, to the heaviest inflictions of judgment. This is disclosed in two leading particulars-their real dislike to the Lord's service, betrayed by the sordid character of their performances and the contemptible nature of their offerings (ch. i. 6-14), and their intermarriages with the Heathen around them, coupled with the most harsh and injurious treatment toward their proper wives, the daughters of Israel. (Ch. ii.) It is not simply the misconduct, however, which, in these instances, is exposed and censured; but the still more melancholy fact is brought out by the incidental allusions and questions which are thrown in, that they were quite unconscious of any wrong, and thought themselves perfectly justified, by the Divine procedure toward them, to act as they had been doing. They received so little from God-such manifestly was their feeling-that he could not expect any more from them than the slovenly attendance and confessedly poor offerings they had been rendering. And since he put so little distinction between them and their Heathen neighbours-nay, seemed rather to exalt these by outward prosperity above his covenantpeople (ch. ii. 17, iii. 15), what were they doing but treading in the Divine footsteps, when they put no distinction between the daughters of Israel and Heathen women, or even gave a preference to the latter?

This iniquity in the priesthood, from its very nature, must have been inseparably connected with similar defections in the people at large. The one as well as the other was involved in the guilt of presenting sickly and polluted offerings; and as the priests had manifested such flagrant indifference regarding the

public service of God, the people naturally fell into an equally flagrant neglect of that part which properly belonged to them-the presentation of the tithes. (Ch. iii. 8-12). This general defect in paying what the law required, fell, of course, directly upon the priests themselves, who in that should have seen what | God really intended-a divine retribution-a treacher ous dealing toward them for their treacherous dealing! towards God: "I have cursed you already." (Ch. ii. 2. "Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people." (V. 9.) That it came. however, as a just retribution to them, was no justifica tion to the people, who were also, in their poverty and distresses, visited by God for their profane robbery of his temple. (Ch. iii. 9.) So that, while the corrup tion of the priesthood is made most prominent, it plainly enough appears, at the same time, that the whole mass was leavened.

Nor was it only leavened with the same species of corruption, but also largely partook of the same spirit of Pharisaism. When accused of robbing God, the people seem astonished and startled at the charge: "Wherein have we robbed thee ?" And when again charged with speaking stout words against God, they indignantly reply: "What have we spoken against thee?"-never apparently dreaming that by the feelings they were cherishing, as well as the course they pursued, they were virtually regarding God as un mindful of his covenant, and doing better to the Heathen than to themselves. (Ch. iii., 13-15.)

In immediate connection with this Pharisaical spirit, and as a melancholy indication of its working there constantly appears a feeling of perfect security as to their interest in God's favour-a feeling that. however much they were dissatisfied with his present dealings, they were still the only persons who ha any title to his goodness, and could not but some time experience it to the full. Hence all the predic tions, with a single exception near the close, take the form of threatenings to those whom the prophet im mediately addresses; and the language of each of them substantially is, God will fulfil his gracious in tentions to his people, but ye shall have no share i the benefits. "Incense and a pure offering" is t be presented on his altar, well worthy of his accep tance; but it is to come from among the Gentiles with whom his name is to be great and dreadfulimplying that he could well dispense with suc Israelites and Levites as those now existing, and would do so. (Ch. i. 11, 14). The Lord himself whom they pretended to seek, was to come-the Mes senger of the Covenant; but the day of his comin would be one of terror to them, an awful sifting time in which much iniquity would have to be purgi away, and the few that should escape from destru tion would be saved only by fire. (Ch. iii. 1There would be a time of visitation, in which th Lord would manifestly appear to distinguish betwee the righteous and the wicked; but, alas! not as the imagined-only between Israel and the Heatherbut between Israel and Israel; between the rea elect portion of Jacob's family, who proved their in terest in the Divine favour by their possession of Ge fear and devotedness to his service (ch. ii. 16, 17

ON THE TIMES AND WRITINGS OF MALACHI.

and the other and much larger portion, who stood substantially on the same footing as the Heathen, and were vessels fitter for destruction. (Ch. iii. 18, iv. 1). So that, just as Israel at first was called God's "peculiar treasure," in reference to the Heathen (Exod. xix. 5), so now the expression is applied to the elect, as compared with the non-elect portion of Israel itself, who were therefore considered as Hea then. We do not enter at present into any examination of the general import of the predictions, or the times of their fulfilment, which would require an article for itself, but simply to the manner in which they are introduced, as illustrative of the characters whom the prophet chiefly addressed. Each one of them, in its direct and immediate bearing, is evidently a blow levelled at the deep-rooted spirit of Pharisaical delusion, which so strikingly manifested itself then, as in the days of our Lord, and which appears to have no further profited by the admonitions of Malachi, than to yield a more scrupulous compliance with the outward requirements of the law. There were, however, a few who listened to the voice of the Lord-a pious remnant, that never altogether perished till the great era of redemption; and to them is spoken, toward the close, a word of cheering encouragement and unmingled consolation. (Ch. iii. 17; iv. 2, 3.)

In this sketch, it has been our object to give merely a general view of the times of Malachi from the book itself, as a help to the more intelligent perusal of its pages, and to a more distinct understanding of the connection between his times and those of Christ. There is one passage, however, in the admonitory part, which requires a special examination, and is almost uniformly misapprehended. It occurs in connection with the charge against the priests and Levites for intermarrying with the Heathen, and violently putting away their Israelitish wives. In reference to this, the prophet first asks, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously?" &c. Here he traces back the transgression to its source-to slight views of God, and a practical disregard of the peculiar relation in which they stood to him. As a distinct nation or family, they had all one father, the living God, who had created them in a sense in which he had not created others; not only having brought them into existence as individuals, but chosen them as a people for a peculiar treasure, put his own name upon them, and endowed them with the highest gifts and privileges of his children. Thus the whole nation of Israel was, by Divine calling, one family or brotherhood; all were, as children of God, brothers and sisters to each other. So that every violation of the love and duty from one member to another, as here in the behaviour of the men to their Israelitish wives, was, at the same time, a dishonour done to God, a virtual rejection of his claims as the common father, and a profanation of the covenant he had made with them. To put the daughters of Israel

The "my jewels" of our version, in ch. iii 17, "who shall be mine," should have been "my peculiar treasure," to make the reference manitest to the passage in Exodus.

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even on a footing with Heathen women was substantially to put Jehovah on a footing with idols-to part with the one for the other was practically to go over to idolatry; this much is obvious.

But when, in reference to this crying iniquity, the question is put (ch. ii. 15): “And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That he might have a godly seed"-a general misapprehension seems to prevail amongst commentators as to the proper aim of the prophet. Some, including a large proportion of the continental expositors down to Hengstenberg, consider the first question as an objection thrown in by the backsliding priesthood, and pointing to the example of Abraham as a justification of their conduct in this particular; they therefore translate a little differently: "And did not one do so?"-that one, namely, who stands out pre-eminently in the history of our nation, did not he take an outlandish woman to wife, while Sarah was yet living? Yes, the prophet virtually replies, but for different purposes from yours; it was his anxiety to have the promised seed that led him to do so, while you do it merely to gratify your fleshly lusts. Others, again, including the majority of commentators in this country, with Calvin at their head, understand the questions as both proceeding from the prophet, and pointing to the original creation of one man and one woman, to show what was God's intention regarding marriage, and how displeasing it must always have been to him capriciously to put away one wife for another, or to take more than one at a time. Of the two views, the first is certainly the most forced and unnatural; since, in every other case where the objectors are introduced, it is always with, "And ye say," or, "Yet ye say;" and the words are too general to warrant one regarding them as alluding to Abraham. But both views are quite unsatisfactory. In point of fact, Abraham did not do what the priests here spoken of were charged with doing-viz., putting away their covenant-wives, and of virtually making void the covenant with God. Neither does the fact of God's making one man at first properly touch the question here; for, to say nothing of other objections which might be advanced, the question here is not whether they might not have more wives than one, or give one a bill of divorcement and take another-a liberty which, unquestionably by the law itself was conceded to the Jews, but whether they should put away a strictly covenantwife for another who did not stand in such a relation. Neither Adam's case nor Abraham's have any proper bearing on the point. The oneness in question is clearly that very kind of oneness which is, we may say, the fundamental and pervading element of the whole section-their oneness as a family. God has chosen them them alone, of all the nations of the earth-to be his peculiar treasure. If he had pleased, he might have chosen more: the residue of the Spirit was with him, by no means exhausted by that single effort. He could have done for many nations what he did for Israel; but he did not choose to do so; it was their distinguished privilege to be God's peculiar people. In this they stood nobly pre-eminent, single, and alone; and wherefore? that God might

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