THE FULFILMENT OF THE OATH OF GOD OUR GROUND OF CONFIDENCE.

'LOOK unto ME, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am GOD, and there is none else. I HAVE SWORN BY MYSELF; the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return; that unto ME every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear,' Isa. xlv. 22, 23.

THE divine communication contained in the above text is beyond all comparison in interest to the children of men. It is like a bright light in this dark world. The amount of shining glory which beams from it no language can describe, no pencil can paint. It is all glorious. It comes from God, and its powerful influences are enjoyed equally in heaven and on earth. What a gladdening sound is that which issues from the divine speaker-LOOK UNTO ME. The salvation of God, the righteousness of God, and the mercy of God are in the cheering, the life-giving words; and the confirmatory evidence with which all are accompanied is most peculiarthe Oath of God. I have sworn by myself. How wonderful is this! I have sworn to bind myself in covenant to fulfil my promise to save men and to redeem them, is intimated in the Oath-the Oath of God. Most truly wonderful. It is past expression. The Most High God, the Creator of heaven and earth to condescend to confirm his word and promise by an Oath! Let us trace the history of it.

In

In Gen. xxii., a faithful and true type of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, is presented in the commanded sacrifice of Isaac on the memorable mount Moriah. testimony of Divine sanction to the whole detail, Jehovah appeared to Abraham and said, 'By myself have I sworn, because thou hast done this thing, that in blessing I will bless thee; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' Here was the promised salvation to Jew and Gentile most plainly announced. Here was the word and the oath of God given in guarantee to fulfil it. And herein is seen the work of God in the distant future providing the ransom to meet the wants of the captive sinner. This holy oath of the holy God is referred to in chap. xxvi. 3, 4; Deut. xxix. 12-15; Micah vii. 20; Luke i. 72-74, and Heb. vi. 13-20. The same oath is said to be performed, or fulfilled by the promised seed appearing. The Son of the virgin was

No. 9, Vol. I.-September 1857.

born, and the seed that was to bless all nations-the antitype -the subject and substance of the oath was now no more a matter of promise or of hope, it was a reality. The oath of the Lord was verified; it was fore-closed. No more oaths. The seed had come of whom the promise was made, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. The oath of the Lord in this Scripture referred more especially to the priesthood of the Lord Jesus, than that concerning the seed did. Thou art a priest for ever is the word of the oath. The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David, he will not turn from it: Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne, Psa. cxxxii. 11. The Lord Jesus as the priest, the seed of David the king set upon the throne performed the oath. The oath was made of him, for him, and was fulfilled by him. JEHOVAH thus saith of his anointed and covenanted one, I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations, Psa. lxxxix. 3-4. Let us trace the second step in the history.

1st. The Lord Jesus fulfilled the oath prophetically. In Psalm xxiv. the prophet enters with a fulness and clearness into the work and character of Jesus perfectly attractive. Among other parts of the minute description, he adds, 'He hath clean hands, and a pure heart; and hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.' 2nd. The Lord Jesus fulfilled the oath literally. Mark him in the midst of the Jewish sanhedrim charged on oath to answer to the truth of his Divine Mission. I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ—the Son of God. And mark his reply. He swore not deceitfully. He answered, Thou hast said and nevertheless, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven, Matt. xxvi. 63-64. Jesus confirmed the oath put to him by the only accredited official-the High Priest. He swerved not: he set his face like a flint; and be was not ashamed. He paid his vows unto the LORD in the presence of all his people: he took the cup of salvation: salvation was in the vow-the oath-the reply-I am the Son of God. The oath was ratified in heaven, and

witnessed by angels and by men; and Jesus now and for ever appears clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, on which is written KINGS OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Unto ME every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. The blessed and happy consequence of Jesus taking the pledge in the stead of men is their bowing the knee to him, and confessing his name. Confessing is the new testament word for swearing in the old. How interesting and how copious is the Divine anticipation of the infinite union and communion, consummated by the Surety in these words: As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God-confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus was constituted priest by an oath, Heb. vii. 20, 21. His priesthood is unchangeablehe is consecrated for evermoree-he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified—and he is worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Every knee shall bow to him in conscious humility and reverence, every tongue shall confess his name, and fame, and worthiness; and all nations shall call him blessed. If the Divine mercy so conspicuously brought out in this act-this strange and Godlike act-does not smite the heart of the sinner, and subdue it to Divine love, nothing can. How manifest is the goodness of God; how manifold is that goodness. How amazing is the Divine sympathy; how continuous is that sympathy. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful O earth; and break forth into singing O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.' The soul is drawn to God. Love is paramount. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown

it.

What an illustrative interpretation of these retrospective and expansive words, by an apostle. Men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. The oath hath been taken and received, a confirmation is effected by it, and an end of all strife concerning the truth evolved-God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath. Hence the unalterable decree-He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Glasgow.

J. B.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

THE faith once delivered to the saints is the present, and as yet incomparably the highest, manifestation of the Kingdom of God which our earth has ever beheld. Although the four vocables at the head of these papers were nowhere found in Scripture as referable to the Christian Institution, it would nevertheless remain abundantly demonstrable that it stands forth in brilliant, unparalleled, and invincible fact, the brightest, the purest, and the best, the truest, the dearest, and the chief regality over which the imperial sceptre of Heaven ever waved on earth. If, as has been shewn, the Divine empire includes three distinct classes of subjects, namely, the unconscious, the unwilling, and the willing, and if it be in the last grand division that the high monarchy of Jehovah shews the zenith of its glory, surely then, in the fact that out of the midst of a world of rebels sunk in the horrible pit of the maddest, foulest, wickedest rebellion, God has constituted a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people so devoted to his government, that the question of their inmost soul is, Sovereign, let us know thy will?-a people who for that will have suffered the loss of all things earthly, most dear to man, and reckoned them but refuse to win their Lord's approval-a people who, rather than forswear the name of him who had loved them unto death, have braved the direst tyrannies and the cruellest mockings-have endured the loathsome prison, and sang their sovereign's praises in the felon's cell-a people who, for right and leave to serve their chosen King, have surrendered home and country for the coverture of the mountain cave, and the freedom of dreary exile-a people who, after the example of their Master, have sealed their testimony with their blood, amid the tortures of the rack, and the agonies of the stake,-surely, most surely, in such a people the King of heaven has a kingdom on earth.

All Christians, it is true, have not so manifested their allegiance to their prince, nor have all been called in the providence of God to suffer persecution unto death; but every true disciple has as certainly felt within his breast the enkindling flame of loyal devotion, as he has the genuine spirit of sonship. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of sonship and of loyalty. His high mission it was to reveal the Father; but this he did, as all do know, by bringing him out to view as the royal parent. He revealed God, not merely as the

Father, nor merely as the Sovereign, but emphatically as the Sovereign parent-the paternal sovereign. The attributes of fatherhood and sovereignty, in all their variety, are blended together throughout the words and actions of the great revealer of God to man. And that his object was to implant the same combination of thought irrevocably in the breast of his disciples, is evident from the mode of address to God which he taught them. When an elder brother is appointed to teach the younger their relation to their parent, it is not enough that he teach them the family ideas alone, if the sire be monarch as well as father: in that case, and only in that case, the etiquette of royalty becomes a necessary part of the instruction to be communicated. So the Messiah, with this tutorial task committed to him, taught his disciples the true etiquette of the royal family of heaven, when he gave the words Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.'

These sacred words are profaned and falsified when uttered by those who are not the children of God, or who do not recognise his sovereignty. It is preposterous to use parental language to one who is not a parent, and as much an incongruity to ascribe titles of royalty to one who is not a sovereign. When the great Founder of the faith, in making God known, as he alone could, taught his own to say, 'Our Father in the heavens,' he meant them to recognise their new and glorious standing as the children of God; and when, in the next breath, he taught them that their father possessed a kingdom, for the advance of which they were to pray as for the hallowing of his name, he undeniably meant that they, as his disciples, and by virtue of his teaching, and of the sacred standing they had obtained towards God through him, should apprehend, and feel, and exemplify the mighty influence of the combined thought, that God was to them a father, and that his was the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever. Thus did Christ diffuse in the hearts of his disciples his own spirit. He was constituted the Son, and for the time being had become the subject, expressly that he might bring his followers into the same relationship, and into the distinct recognition of it. They were constituted sons in him, not without him. They had received him as the Son, and to as many as received him, he gave the privilege of becoming the