CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER

(Continued from last issue)

THERE is no end of the blessedness which is annexed to a life of faith and love in Jesus Christ. Whatever can be experienced of it below, is nothing more than an earnest, a token, or a pledge of unmeasurable glory beyond the skies. Here it is appointed us, to follow the captain of our salvation through sufferings: there, enjoyment will be our privilege, and the richest bliss of God our portion. Now, we are to find, that without are fightings and within fears: then, every fear shall be done away, and nothing but joy, eternal joy, shall be upon our heads. In this life, we experience a continued variety of evils, which distress or distract our mortal frame. In the life to come we shall feel an unmolested peace; and participate, without mixture and dismay, the pleasures that are at God’s right hand for evermore. Then we shall look back upon all the evils (as we thought them) and various circumstances of our earthly pilgrimage, and find motives of praise to God for his mercy and wisdom in every one of them. Joseph is now blessing his redeemer for the prison—Job for his dunghill—Jeremiah for his lamentations —and Lazarus for his sores. They have obtained (what can never be truly obtained below) that “high philosophy, which doth not forget the past; but, in contemplation of the past, views the future;” and (what is more) rejoice in the one great mercy which orders both, and will consummate all for good throughout eternity. And if all this mercy be obtained by the merit, and secured by the power of Jesus, how ought they, for whom it is thus obtained and secured, in their souls to magnify the Lord, and in their spirits to rejoice in God their Saviour! This will be the burden of every anthem in heaven; and it will be their delight, their wish, and their work, to begin the never-ending celebrations of his praise, while they remain upon earth. They may sing, with equal truth and transport, that all the grace they have, and all the glory they expect, must proceed from their redeeming God.

Tis Jesus fills our hearts below
With holy faith and fervent love:
From Jesus all our joy shall flow,
In the blest realms of light above.

Jesus, his love, his grace, his name,
Pour Gladness round the heavenly throng:
These all their golden harps proclaim;
These swell the notes of ev’ry song.

“Prophet”

By the word prophet is to be understood, not only a person enabled to foretell events, but also a teacher or expounder of the law under the Old Testament, and a preacher or promulgator of the gospel under the New. In both, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy; for that spirit gave forth the testimony at first, and will continue to seal it to the end. In him, as their central point, the Testaments unite; and on him, as the chief corner-stone, have the foundation and building of Apostles and prophets rested hitherto, and must rest to eternity.

It appears that when divine revelation, or the gift of prophecy, in its strict sense of prediction, ceased, which was soon after the time of Israel’s return from the Babylonish capitivity, the exposition only of what had been revealed supplied the place, for the edification of the church. Nicodemus seems to have been one of those masters, or teachers in Israel, who professed to deliver this exposition; and who had, before his time, been distinguished into three classes of Wisemen, Scribes, and Disputers; to whom the apostle is thought to allude when he asks, “Where is the Wise; where is the Scribe ? where is the Disputer of this world? The title of Wisemen was arrogated by the conceited Pharisees, who were likewise termed masters of the traditions; for by them seems to have been broached the distinction of the law into written and oral, or expressed and traditional. Scribes were, generally, expounders of the written law to which alone they adhered; and it is remarked that, while both Scribes and Pharisees combined in seeking matter of accusation against Jesus Christ, each sought it in the way agreeable to their respective professions; for, as the Scribes were employed in endeavoring to catch him with the written word, so the Pharisees as zealously accused him of breaking the traditions of the fathers, in eating with publicans and sinners, and in neglecting some of their formal punctilios. The Disputers were full of their allegories and cabalistic interpretations, which, being interlarded with fancies and fables, could not but occasion debates and objections, both among themselves and the rest of the Jews.

But Jesus Christ had nothing to do with these. They were of the earth, earthy; and their professions, views, and altercations were likewise for the most part (because the true knowledge of God and of the end of the law was then declined), earthly, sensual, devilish. By these and other means, they were ripening apace for the judgments, which afterwards came upon them; but the sum or finishing stroke of their iniquity, was the crucifixion of the Prince of life, of whom they were the murderers and betrayers.

Christ was revealed to be a prophet, in the highest and most emphatical sense. He came into the world to publish and declare the will of Jehovah to his redeemed, and to show them the way and the means of his salvation. He taught this will by his words, and confirmed the truth of his words by a thousand wonderful and miraculous deeds. Both his deeds and his words were declarative of infinite mercy, and demonstrated his person to be completely full of divinity, of grace, and of truth. ‘Twas he that spake by his prophets of old; and whatever good tidings of comfort and salvation they bore to the church, they received and derived the whole from him. They knew nothing by themselves. All their graces were his gifts; and he inspired them with holy boldness, with admonition, with predictions of peace; as either they, in their own persons, or the ancient church had need. They spake in the name of Jehovah; and that blessed name graciously accompanied whatever he led them to speak. Nor they alone; but the Apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, and teachers, since his advent in the flesh have declared his will by the same inward operation of his holy spirit. He hath never left himself without witness in his church; and he hath promised that he never will. In the present day, we see multitudes embracing the truth of his gospel, and of many in those multitudes it may be reasonably hoped, that they feel what they profess, and that they know, by the best of evidence, in whom they have believed.

Moses was directed to declare the advent of the great prophet to the children of Israel; and gave them a remarkable reason why the Saviour should bear the name. When the law in all its terrors, perhaps internal as well as external, was promulgated from Mount Sinai, the people removed and stood afar off: for they could not endure that which was commanded; and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Afraid of the repetition of these awful horrors, they said to Moses, speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not the Alehim speak with us, lest we die. Moses reminding them of this request, promised from the Almighty, that they should not hear this voice of Jehovah, nor see the fire, (the emblem of his wrath against sin) any more: but that Jehovah would raise them a prophet from the midst of them, of their brethren, like unto himself, whom they should hear. From all which he intimated to them very plainly that, as they in themselves were too unholy either to see God or to hear his law, which condemned their unholiness, a Mediator, like unto Moses, i.e. arrayed in flesh and blood, should one day be made manifest. Him they might gladly hear, and to him they might, with humble boldness, approach, as to that prophet, who should both teach and inspire them with the knowledge of salvation, and be himself the means of their reconciliation to God.

Isaiah prophesied of Jesus, in the same view, as a rod out of the stem of Jesse, or as one that was to take his human nature from the line of Jesse, upon whom the spirit of Jehovah was to rest, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and of the fear of Jehovah. These were not the qualifications of a prophet in a subordinate degree, but of Christ our prophet in the highest.

Again, the same prophet holds the like language of the Redeemer, in another part of his most evangelical writings, and speaks of him, as the anointed of Jehovah to preach good tidings to his people.

Christ applies the peculiar dignity of the office to himself; for which, knowing that it pertained to the Messiah alone, the unbelieving Jews would have cast him down from the precipice, on which the city of Nazareth was built. It is applied to him by the Apostle Peter, in his second sermon in the temple; and very remarkably by Stephen, before the Jewish Sanhedrim. Moses, says he, declared to 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, (the prophet) that was in the church in the wilderness; with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us; whom our fathers would not obey.

In the fulness of time, when he became God manifest in the flesh, both to teach and secure the way of salvation; he received also a testimony from the Father, that he was doubtless that prophet who should come into the world, under the audible declaration of, This is my beloved son— hear ye him. He was to be heard as God in our nature, declaring to our nature the counsels from God in his own. “The Father (says the excellent Witsius) spake once, that the Son might be heard always;” and be heard, too, as the unerring prophet and conductor of his people from earth to heaven.

The Jews had a strong expectation of his appearance under this very title and character. Accordingly, some inquired of John the baptist whether he was that prophet, of whom Moses spake; while others, convinced by the irresistible demonstrations of his mission, positively pronounced Jesus himself to be of a truth that prophet who should come into the world.

Christ was eminently a Prophet, both in predicting many events which have been already accomplished, and in expounding the scriptures concerning himself: but he was not merely a prophet, though the Prophet of the Highest. He was like unto Moses as a man; but he was infinitely above Moses; or there seems no great room for encouragement to the Israelites, when he testified of the Prophet that should be raised up. Moses doubtless pointed them to one greater than himself, who should go between God and his people, and intercede for them: and he must mean likewise a durable, an everlasting prophet, that should subsist throughout all generations; or the promise of a prophet, or one prophet, would hardly seem worth so particular and so anxious a record, which he left to the Israelites concerning him. But, to put it beyond doubt, that this prophet was divine, Moses adds: Him shall ye hear; as if he had said, “his words will be clothed with power to his people, and they shall be made willing to receive him, though Israel hath often disputed and murmured about receiving me.” No prophet, but the Prophet of prophets could ensure success to his preaching; so as that the word should not return to him void, nor fail of accomplishing the end for which he gave it.

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