rations,—had one after another been gathered to their fathers;—and that the tradition of the great deliverance had come down to the people in Haggai's time through the hands of five and twenty generations,— we can easily understand how they needed to be reminded, by God's prophet, of the word that He covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt. Moreover, great revolutions had taken place in the long interval. They had lived under different governments. The one people had been divided into two kingdoms. They had warred with each other and with foreign enemies. They had revolted from God times out of number, and served Baalim and Ashtaroth. They had seen ten of their twelve tribes carried away and their national existence annihilated. The other two tribes had been carried into captivity to Babylon seventy years and there had all (nearly all) died, and their children were now returning, a miserable remnant, even their native tongue forgotten, to the spot whereon the city and temple had once stood, and were slowly and painfully labouring to rear again the altar and the house of God.

But in spite of all revolutions and all lapse of time, the continuity of their national life and of their Church life remained unbroken; the identity of the people remained; they were still God's people whom He brought out of Egypt, and His Spirit remained with

them, not (observe) by any new engagement, but,what saith He?-" according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you."

The inference from these words is clear: "I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt," for, when I covenanted with your fathers a thousand years ago, "I covenanted with you; " and when they came out of Egypt, ye also came out of Egypt,-ye their yet-unborn children whom God foreknew, for ye were yet in the loins of your forefathers when God delivered them. In delivering them He delivered you,-the covenant made with them was made with you.

And these words of God to His people by Haggai conveyed to them no new doctrine. We find, throughout the Old Testament, that God reminded every generation of the children of Israel, that they were His people whom He brought out of Egypt and that the covenant then made was made with them,not with their fathers only but with them. Whether it was one century or ten centuries after the Exodus, the language to the existing generation is still the same;

"ye were bondmen in Egypt," (this is said to men who themselves had never been in Egypt,) "ye are the people who came out of Egypt: "-" according to the word that I then covenanted with you, My Spirit remaineth among you."

Herein we must observe this great principle in the Divine dealings with mankind. To mortal eyes one generation only exists at a time: one generation passeth away and another cometh: a race of men exists only in successive periods. But to Him who seeth the end from the beginning, the whole race of Adam and each tribe or family thereof coexists. They are contemporaries to His sight. When He delivered one particular generation of men out of the Egyptian bondage, to human eyes they only were delivered; to the Divine Mind all their posterity, the children yet unborn,-"His people whom He foreknew,"-were then delivered with them. And so He insists upon it to them a thousand years afterwards,—saying,—" YE came out of Egypt." When He made a covenant with that one particular generation of men, their posterity were present to His eye and were included in its terms. There never could come a time when "the faith of God," (i.e. His faithfulness,) was to be "of none effect. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance: "-"I am the Lord" (saith He) "I change not." (Mal. iii, 6.) As far as He is concerned, He (to use the words of the Psalmist: Ps. cv, 8):

"He hath been alway mindful of His covenant and promise:

That He made to a thousand generations ;

Even the covenant that He made with Abraham :

And the oath that He sware unto Isaac

And appointed the same unto Jacob for a law :

And to Israel for an everlasting testament.”

It is agreeably to this principle that God saith to the Jewish people, a thousand years after the Exodus and the covenant,-" My Spirit remaineth among you, according to the word that I covenanted with you, when ye came out of Egypt."

They had gone through great tribulations, and were even then in very low estate, and they much needed the consolatory words: "Fear ye not; My Spirit remaineth among you." But God will make for them no new covenant and promise. "Nay! look back to the days of old," saith He, in effect, "I change not: My covenant once made is made for ever: My Spirit remaineth among you, but it is according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt."

Now let us endeavour to take this Divine lesson to ourselves, seeing that "Whatsoever things were written aforetime (i. e. the Books of the Old Testament) were written for our learning."

You will remember that, in the course of our study of the Epistle to the Romans, this question continually crossed our path: "Can I, must I, address to you, Christians now, the language which St. Paul addressed to Christians eighteen centuries ago?" To that question I promised an answer. The answer is,-Yes!

Even as Haggai, and the other prophets, addressed each generation of God's people, all together, as the people whom He had delivered out of Egypt, with whom He had made a covenant, and with whom His Spirit therefore remained, even SO must Christ's ambassador now address each generation of His people, in the mass, as the people whom He has delivered out of that bondage, of which Egypt was a type: with whom He has made a covenant, and with whom His Spirit therefore remaineth. In other words, the language which is addressed by the Apostles to the first generation of Christians, after their passage through the water of their baptism, is the language,-the only language, which the Scripture authorises us to address to you.

There is one broad distinction between us and them, from which a hasty inference might be drawn that words, true to them, are not true to us, or that, at the least, they must be applied to our case in a totally different sense. The distinction between us and the Christians to whom St. Paul wrote his Epistles is evident on a moment's reflection. They had been born, some of Jewish parents and some of heathens and idolators. And they had grown up to manhood, some in the religion of the Mosaic law, and many more in the mental and spiritual darkness of heathenism. And then, suddenly, the light of the Gospel was