wa6 made with hands. The atonement was no perfect atonement, for it needed to be repeated. The sacrifice was no perfect sacrifice, for it was the blood of a brute beast, which can never take away sins. Above all, the priest was no perfect priest, for he had to make atonement for his own sins before he interceded for the people. All the ordinances respecting him and his sacrifice proved to the people that though he was di,inely ordained, and a true type, yet he was no more than a type. They must look elsewhere for the true Priest, and true Intercessor, and true Representa- tive, who would offer one perfect sacrifice for ever putting away sin. As the priest represented man to God, so the prophet represented God to man. He came to declare God's will: His commands, His promises, His judgmehts. He came to denounce the priest, who forgot his high calling and profaned the sanctuary or allowed others to do so; to warn the people who forgot that the Lord was their King, and that the Lord was their God; to rebuke the king who forgot that he had to obey as well as to rule, and that for him too there were punishments for wrong- doing. But the prophet, though he had a Divine commission, which was often attested by miraculous powers, was manifestly not perfect. He declared at best only a fragment of the truth ; and he often uttered that fragment so dimly and obscurely that it was hard to gather his meaning; sometimes he himself did not understand the meaning of his own message. Therefore he too, though a true prophet sent from God, was but a tY}Je and an earnest of the perfect Prophet, who should not only teach what was true, but Himself be the Truth ; who should not only declare God's word, but Himself be the Word of God. But, while the prophet declared God's will, he had no power to enforce it: he did not rule, he did not govern, There needed, therefore, to be yet another representa_• tin of God in the Theocracy; one who should represent not so much His will as His authority. Thie was the king, the vicegerent of Jehovah, "the Lord's anointed." He represented "the Lord of Hosts" as "Captain over His 'people" (1 Sam. ix.16; x. 1; xiii. 14; 2 Sam. v. 2; 2 Kings xx. 5); he represented "the Judge of all the earth," as appointed to execute judgment and justice between man and man. But in giving this lofty type of royalty to His people, God showed to them that it was a type and no more : for their captain could not promise them victory, and their judge was not infallible in judgment. The perfect King, the great Anointed One, was still to come. (See Perowne 'On the Psalms,' i. pp. 49-62.) And if it was clear from the very nature of the offices themselves that they were only types of something more perfect, still more clear did this become when the people had experience of the men who held the offices. Each of these offices bad in tum come to be supreme in Israel; and therefore it might perhaps have seemed as if the great representative of each had come. But it was impossible that Eli, whose weak fondness bad tolerated the enormities of his sons, and who had himself been rebuked for his shortcomings, could be the perfect priest. It was impossible that Samuel, who also was discredited in his sons, who feared to do God's bidding lest Saul should kill him, who mistook Eliab for the Lord's anointed, who was bidden to set another in his own place as supreme ruler, could be the perfect prophet. It was impossible that Saul the strong, or David the well-beloved, or Solomon the magnificent, could be the perfect king; for was it not also true to call them, Saul the suicide, David the adulterer and murderer, Solomon the idolater? From the men themselves, therefore, as well as from the nature of the offices which they held, it was manifest to all that the true Priest, Prophet, and King was not yet given to Israel. It was their duty still to watch, still to prepare for Him. 3'0SHUA TO NEHEMIAit. xli
The time of Wf1iting Wf1S long and clf1rk. The types, especially in the perma• nent offices of priest and king, grew less rather than more perfect, as the men who held them grew less worthy of them. The kingdom was rent in twain, and in the true sense of the title there was no king of Israel, no captain of the Lord's people. "The prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bare rule by their means." And, worst of all, the "people loved to have it so." Well might the prophet ask," What will ye do in the encl thereof?"