Law, the very thing for which that was a preparation; secondly, that the promised blessings had always been intended to spread far beyond the Jewish nation; and thirdly, that the rejection of a Prophet by the nation was no sign that he was not a true Prophet, but rather the contrary. The accusation had been that Stephen wanted to destroy the Law, his defence was that the ceremonial Law was fulfilled, and therefore at an end. The work of the flower is over, and it falls off when the seed begins to grow.

So he begins at the beginning, telling the history like a Grecian Jew, versed in the Septuagint, as we see by the form of the names Mesopotamia, the land of the rivers, instead of Ur of the Chaldees, and Chanaan for Haran, where Abram's brother died before his removal into the Holy Land. Abraham's life, and that of the patriarchs, was thus a life of faith in the future, as indeed was afterwards shown out far more fully in Heb. xi. by that hearer of St. Stephen, who now listened in unconvinced indignation. The covenant of circumcision was, as all the audience knew, the pledge that the Holy Land should belong to Abraham's children, on condition of faith in Him Who had promised that in Abraham's seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed.

Next, Stephen marks that the holy and faithful One was sure to be mistaken and persecuted, showing that Joseph, the chosen heir was sold by his brethren, and yet came to great honour and power, saved them, and was made known to them at last. It is easy to see the analogy here in Stephen's mind, and how he made sure that the true Joseph would yet be made known to his brethren, shedding blessings not on them alone, but on many a strange land.

Some have seen difficulties in the ensuing verses, since Stephen speaks of seventy-five souls going into Egypt, and Genesis xlvi. 27 counts up seventy: but this is accounted for by his reckoning in Ephraim's two sons and Manasseh's three, perhaps because they were not born on Canaanite soil.

Another difficulty is in the mention of the burial place, which at first sight seems as if he said all the patriarchs were buried in the cave that Abraham bought at Sychem, whereas Abraham's purchase, the cave of Macpelah, from Hamor or Emmor, was at Hebron, and though Isaac and Jacob were buried there, Joseph was buried at Sychem, and very possibly the rest of his brethren

(Josh. xxiv. 32). The truth seems to be that Step en had no time to go into details familiar to every Jew, and only wanted to mark the faith by which Joseph in a strange land gave commandment concerning his bones (Heb. xi. 22). Perhaps he mentioned Sychem to remind the Jews that even the “foolish people that dwell at Sychem" had Joseph's tomb and Jacob's well among them, pledges that all holy things were not confined to the Jews.

LESSON XIV.

ST. STEPHEN'S DISCOURSE.

A.D. 35.-ACTS vii. 17—50.

But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.

The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months:

And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.

And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.

And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian :

For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.

And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?

But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?

Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?

Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.

And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a

bush.

When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him,

Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God

of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.

Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.

I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.

He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.

This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us :

To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?

Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

But Solomon built him an house.

Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,

Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?

COMMENT.-Stephen carries on his discourse, marking that it was in a time of bondage that the fulfilment of the promise drew nigh and the Deliverer came. He notes also that he was preserved

in his infancy from the destruction of the other children, leaving his audience to remember the accordance of both these facts with the life of the Deliverer he proclaimed.

The next great point he makes is the rejection of Moses when he came to his brethren to redress their wrongs. They understood not; they said, “Who made thee a ruler and a judge, and thrust him away?"—just as this generation had said, “We have no king but Cæsar." Nevertheless the fuller revelation of the Eternal Name was made to him, and he was sent to make It known to his brethren, and become their leader and mediator.

He it was who had left the prophecy, “ A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren" (Deut. xviii. 15); so that there was again a fulfilment, acknowledged by those who had been fed with the loaves and fishes. The word here translated Church-Ecclesia-is that which the Greek version uses for the Congregation of Israel. The Angel is the Messenger of the Covenant-the Angel Who went before them, even our Lord Himself. The lively Oracles is a term that may well be applied to the Scripture which then began to be given to Moses. An Oracle is a Divine Answer. The Holy of Holies is sometimes called the Oracle (2 Chron. iv. 20), because of the replies given through the Urim and Thummim. The Word then is a lively or living Oracle, because It has replies ever suited to our needs. The sentences of Inspiration have been laid up by the foreknowledge of God to answer the needs of man in all times as surely as the manifestation of the Urim.

All this Mediatorship was, as Stephen remarks, likeness to our blessed Lord. So was again his being set aside by the apostacy led by Aaron, the father of the priesthood, a sin that led to farther guilt, since the Lord gave them up to follow their own devices, even to gross idolatry; in proof of which he quotes from Amos v. 25 :—

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

The names, Chiun in the Hebrew, Remphan in the Greek, are both believed to mean a pedestal, on which a star in honour of

the planet Saturn, Moloch as the king-god, they carried under a tabernacle such as that of their own true God. Such had been their treatment of their first mediator. The prophet had said they should be carried beyond Damascus, the furthest city known to the Israelites he addressed. Stephen mentions the real place of captivity.

He now is going to show the expansion and changes of the dwelling of God among men. It was the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness which Joshua installed at Shiloh. David longed to build the Temple which Solomon actually built, thus altering the sanctuary from a tent to a solid building; though all the time he was fully aware that “the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain God, how much less the house that he had builded.” Stephen, however, quotes Isaiah lxvi. 1-2, to show how far beyond the Temple the Jews were bidden to look :

Thus saith the LORD,

The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house that ye build unto me?

And where is the place of my rest?

For all those things hath mine hand made,

And all those things have been, saith the LORD:

But to this man will I look,

Even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

No doubt his argument was to have gone on to show how, in all parts of the world, not only at Jerusalem, as Malachi had foretold, "incense and a pure offering should be offered "-how the Law was the bud, and the Gospel the flower; in fact, all that St. Paul afterwards showed forth. For this speech of Stephen is the germ of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But this was all he was allowed to say.