SECTION XXIV.

Continuation of the same subject.

As in the last period of Israel's connection with Egypt, St. Paul recognizes, in God's message to Pharaoh, a prophetic reference to the demonstration of his power, by the future declaration of his name throughout all the earth ;-(that is, to the calling of the Gentiles,)- -so, also, in the earliest period of that connection, Joseph's address to his brethren points, though undesignedly perhaps, to the same grand consummation.

"God sent me before you," he says, "to preserve you a posterity in the earth; and to save your lives by a great deliverance," "So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God." (Genesis xlv. 7, 8.)

If God's message by Moses to Pharaoh had, as St. Paul expressly affirms that it had, a secondary and prophetic reference to the conversion of the heathen world; so it will hardly be a fanciful application of

Joseph's address to his brethren above quoted, but rather an application in harmony with the general scheme of scriptural revelation, to consider that address as also comprising a similar secondary and prophetic design. The envy and jealousy of Joseph's brethren were made subservient to the gracious purposes of God's providence. First, in a temporal sense, that the influence of their injured brother in Egypt might save these patriarchal founders of the tribes of Israel from destruction by famine: but secondarily, and prophetically, in a spiritual sense, "to preserve a posterity in the earth, and to save their lives by a great deliverance." For " upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness" saith the prophet Obadiah, and upon that altar"the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame." And to Jacob," and "to Joseph" (by virtue of his birthright) the house of Esau (the heathen) shall be "as stubble." "For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen ;". "and they shall be as though they had not been: "For Saviours shall come upon mount Sion, to judge the mount of Esau (the heathen) and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." (Obadiah 15-21.) So also Isaiah prophecies of the wicked-of those "that call evil good, and good evil; " that "put darkness for light, and light for darkness;" "As the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness." But he

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adds-God" will lift up an Ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth; and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.” (Isaiah v. 20-26.) Thus, in the prophetic language of divine inspiration, denouncing, in its primary sense, the temporal judgments of God on the heathen, and also on his own apostate people ;we, in the latter times, can clearly perceive the secondary purport of these prophecies, indicating the final calling of all the world to the knowledge and worship of Almighty God.

It seems, therefore, that the salvation of this comprehensive "posterity in the earth;" and the saving of their lives by a great deliverance, was shadowed forth in Joseph's speech to his brethren: and therefore it is that under Divine Inspiration, he addressed them in these remarkable words-" Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life; and God sent me before you, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance."

That the conversion of the Gentile world through Christ, to the knowledge and worship of the only and eternal God, as Trinity in Unity; and the ultimate incorporation of Jew and Gentile, in the true faith, as one fold under one Shepherd, were the great objects, for which the seed of Abraham were chosenno Christian will question.

That the "Messiah," (the anointed of God ;) the "Shiloh," (the sent by God ;) the "Immanuel, (God with us;") the Redeemer, and Saviour, of the lost souls of fallen man; was, by decree of prophecy, appointed to come, and did actually come, in the line of the tribe of Judah, is equally beyond dispute. That this genealogy was not the birth-right, which was inherited by Jacob from Isaac, we are distinctly told in the book of Chronicles. On the same authority, we know that it was transferred from Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob by Leah, to Joseph, the first-born of his two youngest sons by the barren Rachel. Although the sin of Reuben was the efficient temporal cause of his disinheritance, yet, it seems evident, that this result was preordained in the counsels of the Almighty, in accordance with the spiritual rule laid down by prophecy ;" the elder shall serve the younger." This remarkable reversal of the ordinary privileges of primogeniture was primarily applicable to the selection of Jacob, as founder of the Israelitish nation, in preference to Esau, who was to be the founder of a distinct and separate people, having no direct connection with the promise made to Abraham. But St. Paul shews that, in its secondary and prophetic sense, it was intended to shew that the Israelites, though first called, were not, as they imagined, exclusively the chosen people of God ;-that their mere descent from Abraham, after the flesh, was not the true title to the real birthright ;-that it was not because they

were the children of Abraham by earthly descent, that they are children of God. “They, which are the children of Abraham, as children of the flesh,” he says," they are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” (Rom. ix. 8.) He traces this promise as conferred first on the barren Sara, and her son Isaac. Thence on the barren Rebecca, and on the last-born of her twin sons, Jacob. The birthright, which was destined to proceed from Rebecca's womb, was evidently foretold by divine inspiration, when "her mother and brother blessed Rebecca, and said unto her-Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them."―(Genesis xxiv. 60.) Those "thousands of millions" were not the seed of Abraham, as children of the flesh, (as St. Paul declares ;) but the children of the promise. And the children of the promise were those, who were ordained, in future times, "to possess the gate of those, which hate them "-as says the Prophet Micah, (i. 9.) " He is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.”

Then was this accomplished, when the king, that came in the name of the Lord, proclaiming peace in heaven and glory in the highest, "wept over the City-saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now are they hid from thine eyes." "For the days shall come upon thee, that thine