DXCVIII.

Some he

"Satan plagues and torments people all manner of ways. affrights in their sleep, with heavy dreams and visions, so that the whole body sweats in anguish of heart. Some he leads, sleeping, out of their beds and chambers up into high dangerous places, so that if, by the loving angels who are about them, they were not preserved, he would throw them down, and cause their death. The superstitious Papists say, that these sleep-walkers are persons who have never been baptized; or, if they have been, that the priest was drunk when he administered the sacrament."

Luther's Opinions of the Holy Scriptures.

XXVII.

"Saint John the Evangelist speaks majestically, yet with very plain and simple words; as where he says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the dark

ness comprehendeth it not.'

"See how he describes God the Creator, and also his creatures, in plain, clear language, as with a sunbeam. If one of our philosophers or high learned men had described them, what wonderful swelling and hightrotting words would he have paraded, de ente et essentia, so that no man could have understood what he meant. 'Tis a great lesson, how mighty divine truth is, which presses through, though she be hemmed in ever so closely; the more she is read, the more she moves and takes possession of the heart."

ON THE COMING OF "THE SHILOH."-Gen. xlix. 10.

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BISHOP NEWTON says: "However the word 'Shiloh plained, whether it signifies' He who is to be sent,' or 'the peacemaker,' or any other of the senses usually given by interpreters, 'the Messiah' is the person plainly intended; and the lawgiver from between the feet,' means there should not be wanting a judge of the race and posterity of Judah, according to the Hebrew phrase of 'children coming from between the feet,' until the times foretold. The promise meant that that tribe should continue, amongst the departures of all the others, with rulers and judges and governors of its own, till the coming of the Messiah. In their captivity, therefore, they had rulers and governors of their own, and these existed even in our Saviour's time, though their power in capital cases was abridged. The sceptre was then departing, and in about forty years it was totally gone their city was taken, and from that time they have never formed one body or society, but have lived without a ruler, without a lawgiver, and without supreme authority and government in any part of the earth.”

The prophecy is full of obscurity, and truly oracular, and can only be read with a double application, in its two particulars; first, of a departure of an old existing authority in Judah; and next of the departure of a lawgiver out of the earthly state of that family, in the sense of a new beginning to a future dominion; as the Scripture writes of the departure of Ashur out of the families of Shinar, "out of that land went forth Ashur." (Gen. x. 11.) For so Christ, the true "Lawgiver" of the world, went forth out of Judah at the time appointed :-yet, as he had ruled in Judah before his own departure from the earth; for the Scripture declares of that tribe, "Judah is MY lawgiver;" and that earthly domination in this favoured tribe ceased with our Lord's coming; in that sense, the departure from Judah of its human authority is also conveyed by the prophecy. There is great doubt about the meaning of the "word" Shiloh ; which the Septuagint does not apply to a person at all, but to a system of things accomplished," and we should be glad if some of the Hebraists of the J. S. L. would be good enough to say, whether any ambiguity exists in the original of the word which is rendered "depart" in the English Version. Cannot it be applied, as we apply the expression to "go out" in its two senses of a "local change;" as in the passage above quoted from

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Genesis; and in that of " a departure or failure," of an existing state or condition, as the "going out" of a candle? For while the English translation renders the word "depart," as a change of location; the Septuagint renders it by exλele, which the Latin answers by "deficiet," and the English "fail" in the sense of "the going out" of a candle, or an eclipse of the sun's light.

This Greek version is very deserving of attention. "'OUк ἐκλείψει ἄρχων ἐξ Ιέδα, καὶ ἠγέμενος ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν ἀυτό, ἕως ἐάν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ· καὶ αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν.” "Non deficiet princeps è Juda et Dux è femoribus ejus, donec veniant quæ ei sunt reposita; et ipse est expectatio Gentium." As we would interpret the verb of this sentence, the parallel expressions, ἄρχων ἐξ Ιέδα, and ἠγέμενος ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν ἀυτέ, must have different applications. For if we could say, "go out from," in the sense of a new origination out of this tribe, we should render it thus, "A prince shall not go forth out of Judah, and a ruler from between his feet, or that is born of his tribe, until the things ordained, to be fulfilled by that tribe, have been accomplished; and that prince and ruler, who shall go forth, is he whom the Gentiles expect." This sense is very clear; but if we adopt the other sense, or the English "fail," the words apxwv and nyéμevos must have, not an indefinite meaning, but an application to some specific person; and then the reading must be," The prince of the tribe of Judah, and ruler born of his tribe, who is that ruler the Gentiles expect, shall not fail to Judah until," etc. For the word "fail" can only apply to what has gone before, and that sceptre which Judah had held over the Jewish people. But of such a sceptre or dominion in its Jewish development, it could never be said that it formed the expectation of the Gentiles; and it is obvious the oracular finger points to a particular person, who should be he, in whom that power should fail or cease from its past development; and then the definite article must be supplied :-the double sense indicating in that person, both the termination in him of the sceptre and authority of Judah, and the origin of another power, which would be that the Gentiles looked for. The two applications are so suitable to the events, that it seems probable both were intended; and if the verb has at all a doubtful or double intention in it, it may be taken that such is the case.

But the inference that follows necessarily is, that "the failure" of the sceptre and ruler took place in the very person of our Lord; as well as the "going forth" of the new authority into the world. And in that view it is of some importance, that the events of our Lord's condemnation and of his death should

be assigned to their proper powers; in order to make it evident that the condemnation took place under the sceptre which was still existing in himself, though he was hidden from the eyes of his people in his true character. The history, we think, does shew that Christ was condemned by the high priests and council; and that the execution of the sentence only was that which took place under the Roman governor, after he had been delivered over to him by that assembly. The point in that account, when the "sceptre" departed from Judah, will therefore be found in that incident, which is stated in St. John's narrative, when Pilate finally put the question to the rulers, "Shall I crucify your King?—and the chief priests answered, We have no king but Cæsar :-and then delivered he him therefore to be crucified" (John xix. 15). St. Matthew plainly shews that this delivery was to the soldiers," then released he Barabbas unto them, and when he had scourged Jesus he delivered him to be crucified: then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus," etc. All the commentators consider that the Roman soldiery were engaged in the capture of our Lord in the garden of Gethsemane: it seems to us that such could not be the case; and that it militates against the above prophecy, that the full judicial power should be in the Jews up to the last act of that fatal drama; which, by that authority in its usurped phase, delivered the Lord of Life into the hands of the destroyer; and with their king surrendered the dominion of their own nation into the same captivity.

Under this view it becomes a question of considerable interest, whether the general view of commentators on this history, that the arrest of our Lord was made by the aid of the Roman power, may not be an erroneous one. The first delivery of Jesus to the soldiers of the governor appears to us, as we have said, to be clearly intimated to be after the final rejection of those appeals which Pilate made for the release of our Lord and the sacrifice of Barabbas; and the first access' of our Lord's case to his tribunal, appears equally plainly intimated, as proceeding from the Jews' own delivery of him to Pilate, who says to them in the first instance, "Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people" (Luke xxiii. 14).

That our Lord was condemned by the judgment of the Jewish Council can hardly be disputed. They sought false witness against him to put him to death; and when they could not succeed in that course, the high priest's adjuration of our Lord himself obtained the witness he required. "What need have we of witnesses," he said; "behold now ye have heard his blasphemy, what think ye?" And the Council answered and

said, "He is guilty of death" (Matt. xxvi. 66). This was the sentence of a legal condemnation; and under the old law, such a sentence was followed by the condemned person being led out of the city, and stoned by the people: and though the Romans had reserved the power of the law to themselves in its execution, its decrees were not disregarded, but executed under examination of their propriety by the military power: in the same way as the decrees of the Roman Church were executed by the civil powers of the middle ages, upon delivering one of their condemned criminals with a proper libel or record of the condemnation. Complete evidence is given of this act of condemnation by the Council' in what follows; that "then did they spit upon him and buffeted him;" for this was the licence exercised to a criminal under condemnation. The act of Judas bespeaks the same completeness of the fiat of condemnation; for the account of his end is; "that when he saw our Lord was condemned," he took steps to have the decree changed, by declaring that his own testimony was false; which he would not have fallen into despair about, if any appeal had been open to another tribunal; or that Pilate could have reversed the sentence. For he would have gone to Pilate, and made confession of his falsehood there. Having condemned our Lord, upon his own confession, the history continues; "when the morning was come, the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death." Having already condemned him, they proceeded to take the necessary steps to have their judgment executed. So "they bound Jesus, and led him at once to Pontius Pilate the governor." There, he is indeed interrogated by the Roman ruler as to the charge made against him, and the cause of his condemnation enquired into; but there is nothing like a trial of the charge before Pilate, nor anything more shewn than a ministerial function, acting with supreme authority indeed, but under that sort of conventional trust, which obliged the provincial governors to observe the local laws of their provinces as far as might be. It is plain Pilate saw from the first that the charge was a malicious one, and endeavoured to avoid executing it; and while he felt bound to execute a decree, legally made by the local authorities, he did everything in his power to turn the obligation aside, and escape from the necessity imposed upon him his endeavour to avail himself of the paschal amnesty to one criminal, shews this in the most absolute manner; for it was a plain confession that our Lord was under a legal sentence of death, from which that customary amnesty alone could save him.

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The whole character of the proceeding is shewn by St. John's