See figure 27. This period comprises 49 years— 1 year—namely, the Jubilee— 50 years Seventy weeks of years—the tenfold repetition of the above- 10 jubilees 500 years. The tenfold period of Seventy Weeks-omitting the space between 5000 years. And now in giving my reasons for making this last period 4900 years instead of 6860, I need only refer to what I have often stated before; namely that the Church of God-which, as shown in plate 1, figure 7, stands in the space between the first and second coming of Christ, with her eye looking beyond time on to the glory-is unconnected with the times and the seasons, which by ancient statute belong alone to the earth, to the Jews more especially: hence, when the church is considered, time is always lost sight of. Thus we see how our cycle of 490 years bears on these 4900 years; and who can say that these again may not point To SOME YET GREATER PERIOD BEYOND IT? But as to this we can only conjecture; in order to know it, we must wait for the kingdom, when the ways of the Lord will be more largely unfolded. THE SECOND PASSOVER, ALLOWED FOR THOSE WHO WERE UNCLEAN OR ABSENT. (Numbers ix. 1—14.) LET us now turn to consider the 9th chap. of Numb. from the 1st verse down to the 14th. This chapter, while it speaks, it is true, of one of the ancient laws of God's house, has, I believe, a yet larger, a dispensational meaning, typically showing forth his way with his people, from their rejection of Christ to their restoration hereafter. In the 2nd of Acts, we find the Lord, by the mouth of the Apostle Peter, making them a free offer of pardon. They had just slain their Messiah, and now, but a few weeks after this, they are called to repent-to believe in the name of him whose blood they had shed. But the mercy was slighted, they hardened their hearts against this last offer of grace, and hence the Lord from that time hid his face from his people. But this, as we know, will not always continue: in the end, after ages of rejection and blindness, his people shall be willing in the day of his power; they will believe in Jesus at last as their promised Messiah, they will look on him whom they have pierced, and will mourn. Now all this is shown forth, I believe, in the chapter before us:-in this way-the Passover, according to the command of the Lord, was to be kept on the 14th day of the first month; and in the second year after their departure from Egypt, he here renews this command, and the people were obedient accordingly. But there were certain men, at this time, as we read, who being unclean, were hindered from eating the Passover; having touched a dead body, they were defiled, and as such were unfit for communion with the congregation of God. Hence Moses had to enquire of the Lord touching the matter. And what was the answer? One full of grace, we may rest fully assured, as well as of mystical meaning with regard to the nation at large. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or your posterity, shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the Lord: the fourteenth day of the second month, (that is, observe, exactly four weeks after the regular passover kept in the first month,) they shall keep it." Now what does this signify? It points, as I said, to the nation at large, inasmuch as now, in the full sense of the word, the Jews are defiled-" defiled by the dead body of a man." While others are getting life and blessing through the blood which they shed, their own terrible denunciation, which they uttered on the day when they put Jesus to death, is in force. "His blood be on us, and on our children." Then again they are "on a journey afar off."-They are dispersed for their sin, and driven as exiles from the land of their fathers. But in the end they will repent-after a long age of exile and sorrow, they will know him as their hope; and, what they never have yet done (not even in the typical sense), they will in truth keep the passover, will feed on the true Paschal Lamb who was offered up for their sins. Thus we see in all this that a mystery is wrapped up in this Scripture, showing the unchangeable love, the grace of God to his people. Then as to the two points above-named, namely, that of the "dead body," and the "journey;" the former of these bears I believe on the sin of Judah especially; while the latter relates to that of Ephraim or the ten tribes. It was Judah, be it remembered, that put Jesus to death, and hence was in this way defiled; while Ephraim, at the time that he suffered, were outcasts— were, as it were, "on a journey afar off," because of their sin of idolatry in the days of king Jeroboam, as well as that of casting off their allegiance to the house of David, from whence Christ, the true David, was destined to spring. Thus the sin of the whole nation, both Israel and Judah together, with their consequent chastening, is viewed in this ordinance. Then as to the space of time between the regular passover in the first month, and this supplemental one in the second, this too has its meaning; and this it is here my purpose to notice especially, because, I believe, it points most distinctly to the long age of Israel's sorrow; the space between the time when they defiled themselves with the blood of the Just One, and that when they will repent of their sin, the one being designed to set forth the other. This will be evident on comparing these periods, in the following manner-they are both of them FOURFOLD—and not only so, but each of them is A FOURFOLD SEPTENARY PERIOD-A MONTH OR FOUR WEEKS, THE ONE-FOUR CYCLES OF SEVENTY WEEKS, THE OTHER; the lesser period being designed to set forth the greater, in the same way exactly that the three whole weeks of Daniel's fasting and mourning, as we have before seen, relate to the threefold period of Israel's sin, from Moses to Christ; or as the week of creation expresses the great week of time, the whole age of this world's history. THE LORD'S BREACH OF PROMISE TO ISRAEL. (See Plate 2, Figures 5 and 7.) THE 13th and 14th of Numbers are the chapters which we shall next turn to consider. And these, I believe, like the foregoing passage, furnish a type of the outcast condition of Israel at present, as I shall now endeavour to show. In the history contained in these chapters, we read that twelve men, a ruler out of every tribe being chosen by Moses, went forth in order to spy out the country; and that they returned after a forty days' search, saying that though the land, it was true, was both pleasant and fruitful-as the grapes of Eshcol, which they brought with them, showed-still that it was in vain to attempt to possess themselves of it, seeing that the cities were walled, and that the people were giants, and altogether too strong for them. Thus, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, who only were faithful, they brought a false and evil report of the land. And the people believing them, murmured both against the Lord and against Moses: "Wherefore," said they, "hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt?" &c. Thus they despised the pleasant land, the inheritance promised of old to their fathers. Consequently, though the Lord, at the intercession of Moses, spared the lives of all except those of the ten spies who had sinned, he gave them to know that, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, not one of that generation above the age of twenty should enter the land. "Your little ones," says the Lord, "which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised; but as for you, your carcases they shall fall in this wilderness. And you and your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness; after the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years; and ye shall know my breach of promise." Thus we see how their sin and their punishment are made to correspond with each other-their forty years' wandering with their forty days' search. In all which, I believe, we may trace, as it were, the embryo of the sin of the people from Abraham to Christ, and also a sample of their loss of God's presence, which they are enduring at present-the Lord's "breach of promise," the "altering of his purpose," (see margin,) in a much larger sense than the above with regard to his people, as I shall endeavour to show. Here then let us look again at the YEAR OF JUBILEE, and in connexion with it at the four cycles above named, between Abraham and Christ. The year of Jubilee occurred, as we know, at the end of every forty-ninth, or seven times seventh year; so that within the compass of Seventy Weeks, or 490 years, it was repeated ten times over; which, reckoning from Abraham to Christ through the FOUR CYCLES above named, MAKES THE NUMBER AMOUNT TO FORTY IN ALL, which, as these ages rolled on and succeeded each other, all told out the secret of grace. They spoke of a rest that remaineth, showing that though sickness and death had for the present usurped it, yet the inheritance given to Abraham at first would one day be cleared that the pleasant land would, in the full sense, be pleasant at last-a fit abode for the redeemed of the Lord. But did this people give ear to the voice of the Jubilee? Did they receive instruction from thence? Alas! no. There was no oneness of mind between them and the Lord; they knew nothing of grace; their hearts, as it were, were in Egypt : and to them did they listen, rather than to the cheering report which the Jubilee bore of a new state of thingsof redemption and blessing, of an inheritance cleared of all that offends. Such by nature is man. Such, therefore, was Israel, who was used by the Lord to show what we all are by nature. And what is now the result? The Lord has hid his face from his people, and will continue to do so for the same space of time that he showed them favour of old. The ages roll on the four ages above named-but where is the trumpet that sounded at the return of every fiftieth year through the land, telling the children of Israel who had sold their possessions to take them again, and speaking at the same time of full redemp |