I His sorrowing disciples. Was that meal the paschal supper or not? is a question which has helped to sever two-thirds of Christendom from each other, the Eastern church denying, the Western affirming its paschal character, and consequently the Easterns using leavened meal, the Papists unleavened in "the sacrifice of the mass" and we Protestants, who have no polemical interest to serve by either conclusion, are forced to admit that it is one of the most "thorny questions in the whole range of Biblical literature. shall certainly not attempt any discussion of it here, but will merely remark that, on the surface view of the matter, it appears as if the first three Evangelists treated the supper as itself the Passover; while the fourth considers it as a Feast held on the eve of the preparation for the Passover. For myself I entertain not a shadow of a doubt, that if we knew all that they knew, and all that they took for granted as known to their readers, concerning the rites and ceremonies of the Jews of that day, the apparent difference would utterly vanish; but, meanwhile, in our present state of being, we shall probably never be able to say with certainty, which of the various reconciling schemes is true, or whether they are not all alike false. * Of one thing St. John's account leaves me thoroughly convinced,--that it was on the eve of the ordinary Passover-night of the Jews that Christ was crucified; that is to say, that at the very hour when the Paschal Lamb was being slain by the priests for each one of the many thousands of Israel's worshippers, on that very day and hour, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Of all the many other types of the Mosaic law, which were fulfilled in that * Unless the suggestion be true, that the preternatural darkness of the Crucifixion may have prevented the offering-up of the Paschal Sacrifice this year. P one crowning mystery, I have no need now to speak; yet I may remind you, that at that awful moment of darkness, "the vail of the Temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; "the Holy Ghost this signifying that the way unto the Holiest of all was now made manifest; " that the day of Atonement, as well as the night of Passover, had now received their fulfilment, and that the One Eternal High Priest, with the only all-availing sacrifice, had, by His own blood appeared in the presence of God for us.' 66 For three days He lay in the grave: on the third day, the morrow of the Sabbath of the Passover-the very day when the High Priest was to wave the barley sheaf, the first-fruits of the glad New Year, before the Lord-He, the glorified head of our race, arose, "and became the first-fruits of them that slept." On the day of Pentecost was seen—at least in part -the reaping of the harvest, whereof He was the firstfruits, when the 3,000 Israelites, gathered from all parts of the habitable globe, pricked to the heart by the words of Peter, and by the manifest outpouring of the Holy Ghost, confessed that this crucified and risen Lord was indeed their Saviour. But But for the full Ingathering, the Feast of Tabernacles of the Christian Church, we have yet to wait; but we wait in hope, knowing that we have His promise (in which some have thought they discerned a reference to this very festival) "In my very Father's house are many mansions" (Monai, abiding-places). "If it were not so, I would have told you. putting conjecture and imagination entirely apart, we cannot but feel that the emblems furnished by the other four memorable days of the Jewish calendar are striking and unmistakable. And now, in conclusion, let me say a few words as to the evidence which all this affords, of the truth of the Glad Tidings. Festivals. On the one hand, we have the unArgument for the Truth of Christi- doubted fact-as certain as anything in hisanity, drawn from the typical charactory can be-that the Feasts, Fasts and ter of the Jewish Sacrifices before described were, for more than ten centuries, observed by the Jewish nation. Or, in other words, none can deny that for upwards of a thousand years, a race of men existed in the world, unlovely and unattractive, it is true, in many of their characteristics, and most remarkable for the isolation in which they lived from all the rest of the world— "a race," which" emphatically did" dwell alone, and was not reckoned "among the nations; but a race which did through the whole course of their existence, by their daily and yearly ceremonial, even more than by their sacred books, bear most marked testimony :(1) To the Holiness of God, and to His hatred of sin. (2) To the sinfulness of man; and (3) To the existence of some Divine scheme, "to them invisible or dimly seen," in these appointed ordinances of his, whereby man's sin might be covered, yet God's Holiness not impaired. And except for the bearing of that testimony, the greater part of that nation's life would seem to have been without an object or a meaning. On the other hand, we can point to one life occuring just at the close of that nation's witness-bearing, a life of which even they who believe it to have been simply human, do not attempt to deny the wondrous and unsurpassed holiness and benevolence. Yet that life, and still more the death which ended it, are full of words, deeds, and sufferings which bewilder our reason, and shock our sense of justice, unless we believe them to have been the final unfolding of the scheme, darkly hinted at to the Nation in the ages which went before. Apply to the admitted facts in the life of Jesus these other mysterious facts-not contrary to reason, although transcending it--of His Divinity and Humanity, His Eternal Sonship, and High Priesthood, His mission into the world to make one perfect and all-availing Sacrifice for sins for ever; apply these facts to the Life of Jesus, and all becomes plain there; read the history of the Jewish nation by the light of that life, and all is disentangled there. The two great historical facts are undoubted, but, in themselves bewildering: joined together by the mystery which faith reveals, they became harmonious and intelligible. The key is now found which fits every ward of the lock, and turns it with perfect ease. The Life of Christ interprets the History of Israel, and that History, the Life. And it is thus seen to be no marvel, but the thing most surely to have been looked for, that many passages of the prophets should have manifestly a double sense, one fulfilment for the chosen people, and one for the anointed Son; and that we may often believe the prophet himself to have been wholly incapable of disentangling the two. The interpreting and harmonising mystery is, we admit, wholly beyond the reach of the reason. Yet the facts which demand this solution are all within her grasp. Even leaving out of sight for a moment what we have each of us known and felt, in our own hearts, of the truth of the Gospel, forgetting "That other influence, that heat of inward evidence," by which the glad tidings commend themselves to the conscience, can we not find enough here-I think we can-to make the mere intellect preponderate towards belief; to incline the mere understandings of thoughtful men to echo the exclamation, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel?” THOMAS HODGKIN. THE TREASURY. PART I. I MARKED the rich, the great, in passing by, But out of my deep want I yield to Thee I cannot give Thee more, Lord; I have no more at all. THE EXCHANGE. PART II. Lord in Thy treasury I dropt my heart, A weak, a tearful thing, with which to part! But it remained a sinful, wilful thing, Yet being all I had—I thrilled to see If Thou wouldst come to take my gift from me. Now and for ever more !—who would not choose For such stupendous gain as this,—to lose A worthless thing, and find exceeding treasure? A. LLOYD. |