Wonderful are you, O Lord! and stupendous are your ways.
The harmony that prevails, and the glory that shines in all your government,
fills every pious soul with adoration and wonder. All your subjects approve
of whatever the King does, and are surprised and pleased at once. Let me
cast together the first and last ages of the world, and compare his conduct
with the church under the law, and under the gospel, and I shall find a
beautiful correspondence and agreement in all his ways.
When God would have a church to himself, he calls
Abraham, and blesses him; so our Savior, when he founded the New Testament
church, called whom he chose, and blessed them with spiritual gifts and
heavenly graces. When God made promise to Abraham, that Messiah should
spring from his posterity, circumcision was instituted; and when the
promised seed came into the world, baptism was brought into its place. At
one great occurrence, when Israel was delivered from tyrannical Egypt, the
passover was appointed; and at another greater event, when Jesus, to deliver
the true Israel from the bondage of sin, was to suffer, the supper was
instituted. The Old Testament church had Egypt to leave, a land of bitter
bondage; and we have the kingdom of darkness to come out of, a land of cruel
slavery. The church of old was composed of twelve tribes—the Christian
church is founded on the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The one, though few at
their beginning, grew into a great nation—the other, though small at their
commencement, spread through many nations. By miracles Old Testament church
was delivered, fed, and defended—by miracles the doctrines of New Testament
church were disseminated and confirmed.
The Old Testament church had a sea to pass through at its
first escape—this had a flood of afflictions at its first appearance. The
former was guided by the cloud and pillar of his presence—the latter by his
word and Spirit. The one had to go through a vast and howling desert—the
other to struggle through a world of sin, vanity, and vexation. The Old
Testament church tabernacled the wilderness forty years, and lacked
nothing—the New Testament church has a place given her in the wilderness,
where she is fed for many days. Manna was the bodily or natural food of the
first; the true manna is the spiritual food of the last. A refreshful river
out of the rock followed them all the way—and to us, "that rock is Christ."
To them the typical serpent was suspended on a pole, that whoever was bitten
by the fiery serpents might look and live—and we have the glorious antitype
lifted up on the loftier pole of the gospel, that we may behold and be
healed of all the wounds given by Satan, the old serpent.
The Old Testament church had their feasts and
solemnities—we have ours. The Jews, after all their toils and pilgrimages,
subdued the heathen nations—the first founders of Christianity, after all
their trials and persecutions, subdued Paganism itself, and idolatrous
nations submitted to the truths of the gospel. When the Jews were settled,
and in a flourishing condition, Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked, yes, became
worse than the heathen who were around them; so, after the Christian church
enjoyed rest and tranquility, they turned to do worse than the unconverted
nations around them. When Israel fell from the worship of the true God into
idolatry, Babylon was the scourge that brought the church into captivity and
bondage—so, when idolatry sprang up in the church of Christ, an apostatizing
Rome—bloody Babylon, that great city, which reigns over the kings of the
earth—became the cruel oppressor of the church of the faithful. And as the
destruction of ancient Babylon preceded the church's delivery—so the
destruction of spiritual or mystical Babylon, (for the time approaches when
she shall be cast as a mill-stone into the sea, to arise no more,) shall
precede and promote the church's enlargement.
As the Jewish deliverance was by a temporal Messiah, a
Cyrus—so the Christian liberation is by the heavenly Messiah, the Savior of
the world, who shall destroy the man of sin by the breath of his mouth, and
by the brightness of his coming. As our Savior's first coming was the
fulfillment of the prophecies, and finished the Old Testament
dispensation—so the second coming of our incarnate God shall be the
fulfillment of the promises, and finish the New Testament dispensation. His
first coming was as a Savior, to take away the sin of the world—but his
second appearance shall be as a judge, to condemn the sinners, acquit the
saints, and carry them to heaven! Hasten, then, this day of glory, when all
things shall be accomplished, to the entire satisfaction of every saint—and
to the bright display of every divine, every adorable perfection.