The Pulpit Commentary — Haggai — Section 30

in the room of sinful man (Rom, v. 6), and as making peace by the shedding of hie blood (Eph. ii. 14), by presenting him to view as One whose blood is able both to wipe away the guilt of sin and to break its enslaving power. And this, again, is a high certificate in favour of Christianity as the only true religion. For what is a religion worth if it cannot or dare not meet the demands of the human heart and conscience? III. ALL NATION'S HAVE DESIRED A DIVINE REVELATION, OR AN AUTBEl,TI0 OOM- VUNI0ATION OF THE DIVINE WILL; AND THIS CHRISTIANITY MEETS IN A WAY TJIAT NO OTHER RELIGION BAS DONE OR CAN DO. Not only have men in every age and country believed that God is, and that by means of sacrifices it might be possible to appease bis anger and secure his favour; they have also supposed it within their reach to receive trustworthy information from God as to his will and their duty. In the rudest forms of religion, the media through which such Divine communications have been conjectured to come have been signs in the sky above or on the earth beneath. In unusual phenomena of nature, in unaccustomed sights and sounds, in dreams and visions, men have been wont to see indications of a higher will than their own made known to them for the guidance of their earthly lives. As religion has advanced in intelligence and refinement, special persons have come to be regarded as oracles through whom responses from the heavenly world might be obtained, and messages from the unseen received. Priests and priestesses, seers and sages, have been viewed as standing in immediate connection with the Deity, and as serving to transmit to men the utterances he might wish to make known. 'l'hen, too, in many of the world's religions, as in those of Egypt and Persia, India and Arabia, that is to say, in the most developed religions of which we have any knowledge, but especially in Parseeism, Brahminism, Mohammedanism, there have been sacred books in which the revelations vouchsafed to mankind through the founders of these religions have been preserved. Now, in all this, irrespective of the truth or falsehood of these religions, a signal testimony arises to the strength and depth of the desire on the part of man to possess some authorized expounder of the Divine will in the shape of man, or book, or perhaps both; and there is no need to say that God has never gratified this desire outside of the Hebrew or the Christian Church ; but of this one may be certain, that the longing for a Heaven-sent teacher was not confined to the Hebrews, with their Moses who sp&ke with God face to face as a. man talketh with his friend, but existed as well among the Greeks, Plato, in one of his dialogues, putting into the mouth of one of his disputants the ever-memorable words, "It is therefore necessary to wait until one teach UB how to behave towards the gods and men," and into that of another, "And when shall that time arrive? and who shall that teacher be? for most glad would I be to see such a man." Just such a. man was felt to be one of the world's greatest wants before Christ came; aad when he came just such a man appeared. The verdict pronounced by the officers on Jesus, "Never man spake like this Man," has never been reversed; nor is there the least likelihood that it ever will. IV. ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED AN ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY; AND THAT ASSURANCE BAS BEEN GIVEN BY CHRIST IN A WAY THAT IlAB BEEN DONE BY NO OTHEB. Whether apart from Divine revelation the reality of a future life beyond the grave can or could be demonstrated, ma.y be doubtful; but this much is undoubted, that in all ages men have believed in the existence of such a life, and have expressed tbat Lelief in their religions. The lowest races by their worship of ancestors, the Egyptians by their elaborate ritual of the Book of the Dead, and the ancient Chaldeans by their mythological narrative of the descent of Ishtar into Hades, each iu turn showed Lbat they clung to the idea of the persistence of the h~man soul afte~ death. But, indeed, the notion that death ends all, though the assert10n of some philosophers, and though supposed to be the teaching of 6Cience, has never at any period been the faith of the generality of mankind, and has never won the assent of the human heart in ita iomost end truest convictions. Nor mUBt it be overlooked that this universal belief in a futw-e state is a clear testimony to the heart•~ longing for a continued existence beyond the grave, and to the heart's wish for some authentic tidings about that unknown land; end nothing ew-ely can be lees in need of demonstration, than that Jesus Christ answers man'ti inquiries about the future life wilh a clearness and fulness of i11forwation in comparison with which the teaching of all other religions,_the Hebrew Seri _pture, not excepted, iij aH darkness. OH, II, 1-23.] THE BOOK OF HAGGAI. 2!)