continues to make intercession for the transgressors. This feature of the dispensation is very remarkable, and real Christians, but with limited views of the Divine arrangements, have often been startled by it.

But there is another aspect of this day of toleration, which, in some respects, is still more remarkably illustrative of the Divine. forbearance. There are those who give Him the bended knee instead of prayer, and the words of sacred song upon the lips instead of praise; those who profess to seek a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, but who are all the time wedded to their worldly lusts, and bent upon the things of time and sense as the highest good of human existence. They profess to be the followers of Christ; but they lie unto the Lord with their tongues, and mock Him by a miserable formalism, without heart or life. Yet our God bears with them too. How gracious He is, how slow to anger!

And then His own children must bear testimony to His patience. They feel that they cannot do otherwise, for they often wonder that He has borne so long with their deficiencies, shortcomings, errors, spots, and manifold follies.

Another important feature of this age is, that it is an elective dispensation. This fact is singularly significant. It has meanings which touch both God and man. So far as God is concerned, it sheds fresh glory upon His name; but it tells a dismal tale of blindness and stupidity on the part of men. If God has adopted the principle of election in a dispensation of grace-grace within grace, so to speak-you may be sure that there are most weighty reasons for it. But that He has adopted that principle is beyond dispute. Various views are taken of New Testament election by the different theological schools; but that the doctrine is there no one dreams of denying. I have no wish, at this time, to disturb either the Arminian or the Calvinistic theory of election; although I accept neither as usually presented: my object being, first, to state a demonstrable fact, and then to look at the weighty lessons it suggests. I say demonstrable fact, for do we not see the visible evidence of it around us daily? We are witnesses that God is taking out of the nations a people for His name. We are personally, intimately acquainted with men who love God and delight in His service. We also know men who cannot bear to think of Him, and whose whole lives are spent in opposition to His will. But, remember, the dispensation of grace has preached salvation full and free to all. Whence then this marked distinction? answer, so far as the fact is concerned, is, some have believed the truth, and some have not; and the answer, so far as the doctrine which lies behind the fact is concerned, is, had not God chosen, and, in consequence of choice, drawn to Himself a certain number, none would have believed. To prevent the defeat of the great purpose of love, God chose His people in Christ from before the foundation

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of the world, and we now live under an elective dispensation, during the progress of which they are gathered. On the one side of this. great fact we see the darkness into which the human race had fallen, and the enmity of thei. hearts against God, which would have universally hindered their reception of the Gospel: and, on the other side, we see God, as usual, making sure of every part of His great plan of wisdom and grace.

An elective principle at the heart of a dispensation of grace, teaches two things of supreme importance. First, that such a dispensation cannot be final; and, secondly, that the elective principle, instead of proving that none but the elect will be saved, proves just the contrary. "Simeon hath declared," said James, at the conference of apostles and elders, on the question of compelling Christians to keep the law of Moses, "how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name." This is the election of the present dispensation; but what follows? A quotation from the prophet Amos, "that afterward the residue of men will seek after the Lord" (Acts xv. 13-17). But it is clearer still in the following words: "Of His own will begat He us, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures" (Jas. i. 18). Surely the first-fruits are not the entire produce of the harvest field, but the pledge and proof of the abundance that is to follow. We have also a vision of those who stand on Mount Sion with the Lamb, and concerning them we are told, "These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb." And it is after this, when the Church is completed in glory, that John saw "Another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue" (Rev. xiv. 6). And still further, it is after the vision of the Holy City that we are told that the nations shall walk in the light of it.

The sublime truth is that election is of the Church, to constitute that peculiarly honoured assembly, the body of Christ, the nature of which is clearly described in Scripture. The action of election ceases when the Church is completed, which it will be at the close of the present dispensation. The multitudes that will be saved afterwards, will not be included in the peculiar body called "the Church of the Firstborn." All the dark shadows which have been supposed to fall from election, have actually fallen from a misapprehension of its place in the councils of heaven and the dispensation of grace. It is a glory and a joy as the harbinger of the vast harvests of happy men that are to follow. It secures the Church, which is the body of Christ; but to say that none are to have peace and joy but the Church, is to say what Scripture contradicts. The entire mistake has sprung from the groundless assumption that this is the final dispensation. Besides, every careful student of the New Testament must see that the dispensa

tion of grace comes to an end while the majority of men are still strangers to God; it follows, therefore, that the introduction of the elective principle during this age is in pursuance of some great purpose to be developed in the next dispensation. All nations are to be blessed in the Messiah, and to call Him blessed (Ps. lxxii). This principle, therefore, is a bright light thrown forward to give us joy concerning future generations in our world, when we, if members of Christ's Church, shall be with the King in His celestial palace, not in the character of subjects-though that we shall gladly own -but as His fellow heirs, His body. To look upon this peculiarly honoured assembly of the redeemed, therefore, as including all that shall be made happy in the Lord in future ages, is as absurd as to say that the first sheaf is the entire harvest, or that no one shares in the privileges and honours of British citizenship, except the Privy Council and the members of Her Majesty's Household.

Finally, it is the dispensation of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, by the application of the truth concerning Jesus, convinces, regenerates, enlightens the mind, leads the believer onward, comforts amidst trouble, waters the graces He has himself implanted in the heart, nourishes the fruits of righteousness, which are to the glory of God, draws us into communion with the Lord and with one another, and in many other ways nurtures the new life, and makes us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. In the personal absence of our Lord, waiting the time appointed of the Father for entering on His kingly rights, the Holy Spirit is with the Church, according to His promise, "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you for ever" (John xiv. 16), that is, during the age, or dispensation; which exactly corresponds with the last words in Matthew's Gospel, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world; where the same Greek word is used, meaning, not the end of the material world but the end of the present dispensation. The Spirit of the Lord is with His people, and has been so ever since the day of Pentecost; and, therefore, when men tell us that the second coming of the Lord means a spiritual coming, they speak unwisely, for in this sense, blessed be His name! our Saviour has never left us.

I have said that the present age is the dispensation of the Spirit; but I do not mean by that that His agency will cease to be employed on earth when He has completed the Church and seen it safe in the glory, "without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." The work of the Holy Spirit, like that of the Father and the Son, continues through periods long after the completion of the number of saved ones that constitute that heavenly assembly, the Church. The time comes when God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh; a type and pledge of which was given on the Day of Pentecost, when a few unlettered Galileans were miraculously qualified to speak of the wonderful works of God in a number of languages, of which

they knew absolutely nothing. To quote any of the numerous prophecies which refer to this outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the dispensation which follows the completion of the Church is not necessary. The fact is repeatedly declared, and it substantiates and confirms the correctness of the views maintained in this paper regarding the dispensation of grace under which we live, and from which it will be solely our own fault if we do not obtain the highest and most glorious position to which we can look forward -the privilege, the honour, and the glory of being among the nearest to Christ of all created intelligences throughout the ages of ages which have yet to revolve before the purpose of God in creation is fully realised. EDITOR.

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THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

HE seventy weeks of Dan. ix. 25: "From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks," &c.

Accurate attention to the words used, will save us from being led into error as to the starting point of the seventy weeks: "From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem."

There were four commandments or decrees that went forth, viz. :

1. Cyrus to Ezra (i. 1), B.C. 536.

2. Darius to Ezra (vi. 1-12), B.C. 519.

3. Artaxerxes to Ezra (vii. 7-11), B.C. 468.

4. Artaxerxes to Nehemiah (ii. 1-5), B.C. 455.

Unless we note the defining words we shall be at a loss to discover to which of these decrees reference is made.

(1.) Cyrus's decree to Ezra (i. 1) is confined exclusively to the building of the temple: and mention of this, and "the house," "the altar," the "house of the Lord," &c., is made in chaps. i.-v. no less than 22 times. True, their enemies "wrote a letter against "them (iv.) (accusing them falsely, we may well believe) of rebuilding "the rebellious and bad city," and so their work was stopped "until another commandment shall be given."

*

This, then, cannot be the decree referred to in Dan. ix. 25, quite apart from any difficulty of fitting in the date.

(2.) Darius's decree to Ezra (vi. 1-12). In this chapter, twelve times do we find this decree confined to "the house," "the temple," "the house of God."

*If the accusation were true, it proves still more clearly that they were violating the terms of the decree which had been made.

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THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

This, then, cannot be the decree.

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the

(3.) Artaxerxes's decree to Ezra (vii. 7-11). This decree is confined particularly to the permission that was given to people of Israel and of his priests and Levites in my realm which are minded of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem." It declares what they were to carry with them "for the house of their God which is at Jerusalem;" but there is not one word about building, either the temple or the city.

I

This, then, cannot be the decree referred to.

(4.) Artaxerxes's decree to Nehemiah (ii. 1-5). This is declared specially to relate to Nehemiah's request, "That thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that may build it" (ii. 5). So it pleased the king to send me" (v. 6). Consequently we read now nothing of the temple, for that was already built. Many also of the people were there, but there was no city. We read nothing now but of building "the city," its "walls," its "gates," and its "houses." gates," and its "houses." We read of nothing

else.

This, then, must be the decree referred to in Dan. ix. 25,* whatever may be the difficulties created or removed. Those who have theories must be prepared to correct them, those who have them not, will be prepared to learn.†

It is difficult to imagine how any should have missed the plain, and apparently unmistakable, language of verses 26 and 27.

*It should be noted that Daniel's prayer had been about "the city,"see Dan. ix. 16, 18, 19, 24, 25.

There can be little or no doubt that the 20th year of Artaxerxes was B.C. 455. It was so originally put in our English version. But Bishop Lloyd, at a subsequent revision, altered it to B.C. 445, to make it agree with a theory of his own, and it so stands at the present moment in our Bibles. But Petavius, Vitringa, Kruger, Hengstenberg, Tregelles, and others, all agree with Ussher's date, and make it 455 B.C.

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This (Dan. = 434

It may be well to add here, to make this part of the subject complete, that there are 3 periods in Dan. ix., viz. :-7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week, making in all 70 sevens or hebdomads (as the word means). weeks and threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off" ix. 26). Therefore, at the end of (7+7=) 49 years + (62 + 7 After seven years, which together make 483 years, Messiah was to be cut off. brings us to A.D. 29 inasmuch as 455 + 29 makes 484 or rather 483 years, allowing one year for the adjustment of the two eras (it being only one year from Jan. 1 B.C. 1 to Jan. 1 A.D. 1). All the best authorities agree in making the Crucifixion A.D. 29; but we need go no further here than our own Bibles, for the date of our Lord's birth is given, at the beginning of the Gospels, as "Before the account called Anno Domini the fourth year," or 66 The fourth year before the common account called Anno Domini."

In Luke iii. 23, it is stated that Jesus at His baptism was "about thirty years of age." His ministry is on all hands allowed to have been about three years, and yet at the close of the Gospels the date of the crucifixion (or "cutting off of Messiah") is given as A.D. 33. But if He were born four years before A.D. this would of necessity be A.D. 29.