LECTURE III.

Hebrews x. 28-31.

"He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

In these verses, the Apostle pursues his argument. He has warned the members of the Hebrew Church in the verses immediately preceding, that if they should then apostatize from Christ, they should be overtaken and devoured by that vengeance which was just about to alight on their unbelieving countrymen. And now, to impress this warning the he refers in proof of its truth, to God's dealings with their nation in ages past and to his threatenings against the breakers of his covenant recorded by their own Moses, in their own venerated Scriptures. The passage is replete with instruction. It will elucidate its meaning to consider it first, in its application to the Hebrews, and second, in its application to ourselves.

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I. Let me begin by attempting a paraphrase of the argument. Our unbelieving countrymen, says St. Paul, have trodden under foot the Son of God, by nailing him as a malefactor to the accursed tree; nay they still tread him

under foot, by rejecting his mercy, and counting that precious blood which was shed by their wicked hands a vile and worthless thing. They have also done and are still doing despite to the Spirit of grace, by impiously ascribing to the power of Satan His miraculous witness to the Messiahship of the Saviour. And if we who have known Jesus of Nazareth to be indeed the Messiah promised to the fathers, shall fall back now into the ranks of these his bitter and unrelenting enemies, we shall consent to this enormous wickedness and justify them in all which they have done. We shall declare by this act our conviction that the Son of God was a deceiver, and that the cross was his deserved doom. We shall declare also that the precious blood in which we professed to find peace of conscience and which was the seal of our consecration to the service of God, was the vile and worthless blood of one who thus deserved to die. We shall declare finally, that the miraculous witness of the Holy Ghost which wrought in our minds the conviction of his Messiahship, has been discovered by us to be deceit and delusion, the fruit of Satanic agency. Now you know, dear brethren, continues the Apostle, that the despiser of the law of Moses died without mercy if two or three witnesses testified to his guilt. And I leave yourselves to judge, whether he who thus avenged the least breach of the legal covenant, can be expected to pass by such an offence as this against his blessed gospel. He will not pass it by, it shall be visited with " 'much sorer punishment;" Moses himself has told us in God's name, that vengeance is his and that he will recompense. He has told us also that the Lord shall judge his people. Do not think then to escape; though you are his people both by circumcision and by baptism, you shall assuredly find if you thus provoke him, that it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands.

I have already remarked that the primary reference of these words was to the then impending destruction of Jerusalem. If further proof of this were wanting, we have it in the quotation from the Old Testament which is here adduced by St. Paul. The words quoted occur in the

famous song of Moses. That song contains a prophecy of all the evils which should befal the Jewish nation till the time of their final destruction; for it speaks of the bringing in of the Gentiles to supply their place as the covenantpeople of God. Moreover the threatenings here referred to, are uttered in God's name, just before the Gentiles are called to glorify him for this amazing mercy. And these threatenings accordingly found their accomplishment in the awful events which preceded and attended Israel's final off-casting. God did indeed shew then that vengeance and recompense were his; he did indeed then judge his people; he did indeed then give signal demonstration that it was a fearful thing to fall into his hands. In accomplishment of the prophetic words of Moses, uttered just before and in connection with this song, he beckoned for the Roman eagles "from the end of the earth;" and coming at his command, they clustered round his once holy but then apostate and devoted city. And the miserable people of Israel, besieged in all their gates, were constrained, in fulfilment of the same prophetic words, to eat the fruit of their own bodies, the flesh of their sons and of their daughters; and even "the tender and delicate woman among them ceased at last to shudder at this dreadful nourishment. Nor were their miseries even then terminated. When Jerusalem had fallen and salt had been sown upon her site, those who survived of her inhabitants were sent to the slave-markets of Egypt, in still further fulfilment of the words of their inspired seer, and sent too in such multitudes that no one would buy them.' Now you know, my brethren, says St. Paul, in language which is a singular proof of the veneration of the Hebrews for Moses,—you know who has warned us of these things, and you see already their begun accomplishment, even the day approaching." Make not this then, I

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1 Deuteronomy xxviii. 49-68. xxxii. 1-43. Romans xv. 9-12.

I believe that the words "him that hath said" refer to Moses and not to God. It would be mere tautology to say, "God hath said, I will recompense, saith the Lord." But it was no tautology to remind a Hebrew that this Divine threatening was recorded against him by his own venerated Prophet and MediaJohn v. 45-47.

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conjure you, the time when you fall back from Christ, lest being numbered among his enemies you experience with them, what a fearful thing it is to do with him when he is angry.

These things shew us what the sin was which filled up the measure of Israel's provocation, and brought down God's vengeance on the Jewish people. It is commonly said that it was their crucifixion of the Saviour which did so. This is a mistake. The wickedness of that act was indeed enormous, but God was able to forgive it and did forgive it to thousands: many are now in heaven who assisted with impious hands, in nailing the blessed Jesus to the tree. Yea all his murderers might now have been there as far as the will of God was concerned, for there was no exclusion on his part; forgiveness of that and of every other sin was, by the Saviour's express command, preached first of all in Jerusalem.' And though as they led him to the Cross, he had warned them of the coming vengeance, that vengeance, to give them space for repentance, was delayed for forty years. But their doom was sealed by their misuse of this Divine forbearance. As if it was not enough to have crucified the blessed One, they reviled him as a deceiver when after his ascension he was declared to them as the Son of God. As if it was not enough to have shed his precious blood, they blasphemed it as the blood of a malefactor when the mercy which it had purchased was pressed on their acceptance by his apostles. And as if it was not enough to have laid violent and wicked hands on him in defiance of the miraculous witness of the Holy Ghost to his true character and his claims on their regard, they continued, after he rose from the dead and had ascended, to treat that witness with contempt and to reject him as their Saviour. This was their crowning sin; these were the offences which God could not and would not pardon. He could have passed by their murder of his beloved One; but he could not pass by their rejection of the mercy which had been purchased for them at the price of his precious blood. It was by this that they

1 Luke xxiv. 47.

brought down on themselves the terrible weight of his wrath; for no wrath is so terrible as wrath for rejected mercy.

II. Let us now consider the text for our own instruction and warning. St. Paul sets out by reminding us that the breach of the old covenant was a capital offence, and by proving from this very circumstance, that the breach of the new covenant is also capital. This all-important and most solemn statement demands our attention in the first place. We are naturally led to inquire in the second place, what the breach of the new covenant is. And these two things duly considered will prepare us to understand in the third place, the principle on which the judgment of the baptized shall proceed, and the reason of the awful language of threatening with which the text concludes.

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1st. If any of the circumcised people violated knowingly and wilfully the least of the enactments of Moses, he was adjudged to death without mercy. It could not be otherwise under that dispensation; for there was no mercy “without shedding of blood," and it provided sacrifices for sins of ignorance and inadvertence only. With respect to intentional offences the commandment was express,— the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he hath despised the word of the Lord." This scripture may teach us the meaning of the text. To despise the law of Moses, was to violate intentionally even the least of its provisions. And the sanction of death which was annexed to such violation, was no idle word. In the context immediately subsequent to the scripture just quoted, we are told of an Israelite who was found gathering sticks on the sabbath. 66 ‘And all the congregation stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.” 2 We have already seen the reason of the severity of this sanction, the covenant between God and the circumcised was struck over the slain sacrifice. Now this may explain to us the reasoning of St. Paul. If the breach of the old covenant was capital, the breach of the new, he argues, must be also

1 Hebrews ix. 22.

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2 Numbers xv. 30-36.