even the Messenger (Angel) of the Covenant, whom ye delight in behold He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' sope' (Mal. iii. 1, 2). So will He be manifested in the day when He purifies the sons of Levi, raising the ministrations of the temple to a heavenly dignity as told to Zechariah, and establishing the new dispensation of everlasting glory in fulfilment of the ancient promises, and remembering His holy covenant.

O Jesu, Thou great Angel of the Covenant, who dost make known to us the glory of the Father, bringing us into the heavenly sanctuary with the virtue of Thine own most precious blood shed for our sins and communicated to us as the principle of resurrection-life, grant that I may indeed always bear in mind the solemnity of the calling which Thou hast given me, even to minister in subordination to Thyself amongst the heavenly places. O Lord, I am unequal to so great a burden. O Lord, uphold me with Thy heavenly power.

My son, I will not fail thee. As I have provided the offering which thou must bring, surely I will purify thee that thou mayest offer it in righteousness.

O Jesu, I doubt not Thy love, but I must bewail my manifold transgressions. Alas, Thy prophet asked, Who can stand?' and I must fall down before Thee and acknowledge myself to be utterly unworthy. O Lord, there is nothing more that Thou canst do for

me.

This only do I ask; work Thou within me according to the fulness of Thy grace, that I may not perish by that which Thou doest for me, but may even now find in Thee my shelter, my strength, my life.

NOTE A to p. 212.

It is noticeable that the appearance of the Angel to Hagar brings forward the relation of Israel to God in a twofold manner, morally as being one of the nations of the world, typically as being the people of bondage in contrast with the filial covenant of the Christian Church.

God is the God of all the nations of the earth by nature. All, whether bond or free, look to Him. His covenanted relation to Israel is a subsequent relation into which He was pleased to enter, for the purpose of man's redemption. The Angel does not refuse to wait upon the slave. All are alike to Him.

But Hagar in type represents Israel after the flesh, as Isaac supernaturally born typifies the spiritual kingdom of the Christian Church. As then the Angel waited upon Hagar, so the Angel of the Covenant was the giver of the ancient law. He met Israel in the wilderness of the nations, and by typical institutions pointed perishing man to the true well Lahai-roi, the life-giving vision of the grace of Christ. Beerlahai-roi numerically 462 = 42 × 11=77 × 6. Forty-two and seventy-seven are the numbers of the covenanted and the natural expectation of Christ from Abraham to Christ and from Adam to Christ respectively. Eleven and six are the numbers of sin which the old covenant did not remove, and of natural power which is insufficient without grace.

NOTE B to p. 218.

Probably we may take the removal of the tent of revelation' or of meeting with God' in connection with the withdrawal of the Uncreated Angel of the Covenant who was to have gone up in the midst of the camp of Israel. In consequence of their sin God would no longer go up in the same

closeness of communion as before. The tabernacle which should have enshrined the Divine glory so as to be the life of Israel was reduced to the level of a worldly sanctuary' (Heb. ix. 11), and although there was a manifestation of God's Presence therein, nevertheless there was the interposition of a created Angel, bearing God's Name, between the national sanctuary and Himself, and still it was necessary for every one which sought the Lord' individually to go out into the tabernacle of the congregation [the tent of meeting or revelation] which was without the camp' (Ex. xxxiii. 7). There it was that God spake with Moses. There Joshua abode, the great type of the coming Saviour's humanity, as the Angelic Presence was the earnest of His Divine personal guidance. 'Joshua never departed out of the tent of meeting' (xxxiii. 11). It was, so to speak, the home of Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, who would in due time, but not until after many vicissitudes, come back to His temple. That temple would not be the tabernacle then erected, but the living tabernacle of Abraham's Seed.

Thus from the very beginning the law was guardian to bring men to Christ. It had not the very image (Heb. x. 1). Christ had for a season retired from the sanctuary of Israel. The brightness of Christ rested upon the face of Moses, but when he had spoken to the people he veiled his face, for his words had reference to that which still was hidden. Christ is the end of the law, and the Israelites after their sin could not look steadfastly upon Christ (2 Cor. iii. 13). The veil was a symbol of the sin which shrouded the hearts of the people. When Moses turned unto the Lord, the veil was taken away. The Lord to whom he turned was the Angel of the Covenant, the giver of the Holy Ghost. Such acces to God is the free access of children, as distinguished from the servile approach which alone was possible in the tabernacle : and we who draw near to Christ by the ministration of the Spirit must be transformed, not as Moses was by an evanescent intermittent glory, but by an ever-growing glory, the living imperishable Light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God' (2 Cor. iv. 4).

MEDITATION XXI.

The Redeemer.

Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. St. Luke xxiv. 27.

1. HIS HUMAN KINSHIP.

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WE read of redemption first of all in connection with the Angel of the Lord. Jacob calls Him, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil' (Gen. xlviii. 16). We must look to the subsequent history to gather the meaning of these words, as it is impossible for us to refer to any special feature of the patriarch's life by which such an expression was occasioned.

God speaks of Himself many times as the Redeemer of Israel, but if we would gain a clear idea of what that title means we shall find it by consideration of the laws having reference to redemption which are given us in the Pentateuch, and that beautiful Pastoral in which our redemption is historically prefigured, the Book of Ruth.1

According to the Mosaic law, the redeemer, the Goel, was to be the nearest kinsman of the man for whom relief was sought. He had the right to redeem the land or person of his poor brother, when by reason of debt he had fallen under the power of a creditor. In case of his death by violence it was 1 See note at end of Meditation.

his duty to avenge him upon the murderer, and if he died without children it was his duty to take the widow and raise up seed, so that the name of the deceased might not perish in Israel.

The title of Redeemer is one that God often appropriates, and in so doing He claims to be our Kinsman. That is to say, the name is used in prospect of the Incarnation. God is not merely a mighty Being capable of vindicating us by His sovereign power, but He acts as a man on behalf of men, and the law which He gave to Moses was an anticipation of those laws of conduct by which His actions on our behalf should be ruled.

The return of all lands, to be distributed after fifty years according to the original distribution in families, was a continual assertion of the rights of God as the Divine Landlord. To Him as God all belonged, and after the year of jubilee all returned into His hands, that He might distribute it among the claimants. The land redeemed is that which is for a while under the power of our great enemy Satan, but even over this God exercises rights as man's Kinsman. Satan cannot act towards man without acknowledging God's sovereignty, for man, created in God's image, has not lost the relationship to that Divine predestination in virtue whereof God is not ashamed to call us brethren.

When Jacob speaks of God the good Shepherd, the Angel which redeemed him, he alludes to the predestined Incarnation which made God akin to him, as David for the same reason speaks of the coming Saviour by that appropriative title,

My