nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."

(Ex. xx.)

"These words spake YAHVEH unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more: and he wrote them in two tables of stone." (Deut. v. 22.)

But the children of Israel made haste to disobey; for before the expiration of the forty days and forty nights in which Moses was in the mount, this stiff-necked people had broken the first two commandments which they had received from the very lips of YAHVEH, amid the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai. They "gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him." And Aaron took the golden ear-rings of the people and "made it a molten calf: and they said, These are thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." And YAHVEH would have "consumed them" in a moment, had not Moses prayed for them. And as Moses came down from the mount, and "came nigh unto the camp," and "saw the calf, and the dancing," he became angry, and threw the tables of the ten commandments, written with the finger of God, "out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." (Ex. xxxii.) In this act was indicated the NULLIFICATION of the Sinaitic covenant, "which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband urto them, saith YAHVEH." (Jer. xxxi. 32.)

Under that covenant, broken at the outset, broken in the forty years' provocation in the wilderness, broken in the land of Canaɛn, broken by the kings of Judah, broken by the kings of Isræl, broken, only broken, and broken continually (see Ezek. xx. 5-28), the children of Israel had a brief and partial possession of the covenant land.

A brief possession, because by the year 719 B.C. the ten tribes, constituting "the kingdom of Israel" and the bulk of Jacob's seed, "were carried away out of their own land into Assyria.' (2 Kings xvii.) From this captivity they never returned, "excepting only some few, who, joining themselves to the Jews in the land of their captivity, returned with them" from Babylon. (Prideaux.) And about one hundred and twenty years afterward, the remnant

of Israel, included in "the kingdom of Judah," called Jews, were carried away to Babylon. There they remained seventy years, when there was a partial restoration under the kings of Persia. After this restoration the Jews were held in subjection by the kings of Persia and under the Macedonian power until B.C. 167, when they revolted from the atrocious rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, established a precarious independence under the Asmonean family, and were finally subjected to the Romans. Then they rejected Jesus, which brought upon them their final judgment. Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews were scattered to the four winds, and the last pretence of nationality was overthrown.

A partial possession, because, while "YAHVEH made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" (Gen. xv. 18), Israel only dwelt "from Dan to Beersheba" north and south, and not more than half that distance from east to west. And what they did inhabit was largely shared by the various idolatrous tribes "which YAHVEH left to prove Israel by them." (Judg. iii. 1.) “David and Solomon (Century XI. B.C.) exacted tribute from various tribes as far as the Euphrates and the Red Sea (2 Sam. viii., 1 Kings iv.); but this was the exercise of a transient authority, and implies no extension of national inhabitancy." (Merivale's Hist. Romans, vol. 6, p. 416.)

Has the everlasting covenant, then, failed? It has, if YAHVEH is dead! But here we are safe; for he saith of old, "I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever." (Deut. xxxii. 40.) Man is mortal, but our God is immortal. "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever." (Isa. xl.) Man may fail, but God cannot. Man may break his covenant word, but YAHVEH's is as immortal as his own being. AS YAHVEH liveth, every thing that he swore to Abraham will be fulfilled to the letter.

Are Israel and Judah, or either of them, extinct? The everlasting covenant forbids. Under that covenant they have the same right and title to the land of Canaan that they ever had. The Sinaitic covenant failed through their sin; but the everlasting covenant stands through Abraham's righteousness. How clearly did Moses distinguish between the two! "YAHVEH our God

made a covenant with us in Horeb. YAHVEH made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." (Deut. v. 2, 3.) When that generation danced upon the broken fragments of that covenant, it lost its individual right, but it could not affect the right of future generations. They could sell their own birthright, but they could not disinherit their posterity. Whenever the everlasting covenant is fulfilled, it will be to their descendants. As sure as YAHVEH liveth, he will restore the twelve tribes to their ancient home. Their relation to the covenant made with their father Abraham is precisely what it would have been if they had never been expelled from the promised land; or if they had never possessed it; or received the law; or entered the wilderness of Sinai; or left the land of Egypt. In this regard, their whole history from the moment they left Egypt until the present is a nullity; and instead of the existence of any thing to prevent the institution of a new covenant between YAHVEH and the combined houses of Israel and Judah, there is the strongest reason why such a covenant should be made,—even the oath of YAHVEH to Abraham.

The restoration of Israel was conditionally promised before they entered the land, and while they were in the wilderness of Sinai; for YAHVEH said: "If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land." (Lev. xxvi. 40.)

To this conditional promise was added an especial covenant “with the children of Israel, in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb" (Deut. xxix., xxx.); which covenant provided for their restoration. (Deut. xxx. 1-10.)

Moreover, this conditional promise and covenant was confirmed by a solemn prediction, necessarily unconditional. "And YAHVEH said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

Then my anger shall be kindled against them, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? Now therefore write this song, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles have befallen them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouth of their seed." (Deut. xxxi. 16-21.) This song of witness concludes thus: "For YAHVEH shall plead the cause of his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left. And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people." (Deut. xxxii.)

The new covenant was foretold by Jeremiah: "Behold, the days come, saith YAHVEH, that I will sow the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, .to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith YAHVEH. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge: but every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days come, saith YAHVEH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: for I will for

give their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith YAHVEH, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night; who divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; YAHVEH of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith YAHVEH, the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith YAHVEH, If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith YAHVEH." (Jer. xxxi.)

THE MYSTERY.

"O YAHVEH, why hast thou made us go astray from thy ways, and hardened our hearts from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance!" (Isa. lxiii.) This question and prayer sprang spontaneously from the prophet's lips while he pondered the great mystery of Israel's transgression, considered in view of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham. The time has now come for at least a partial solution, which will obviate another question that naturally arises: If Israel broke the covenant made in Sinai, what guarantees their faithfulness to a new covenant?

This mystery is but the fruit of an older mystery, and the solution of the older leads to that of the younger: one key unlocks the two. This key was never given to men until after the resurrection of Jesus our Messiah and the descent of the Holy Ghost on the ever-memorable day of Pentecost. "The mystery," says the Apostle Paul, "was not made known in other ages unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." (Eph. iii.) And in another place he speaks of "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints." (Col. i. 26.) Although the time for this revelation then came, and "the Spirit" was ready to open "the deep things of God" to "the holy apostles and prophets," yet it does not appear that more than one man availed himself of the glorious privilege to the full extent. That man was Paul. Hence his several recorded declarations: "I cer