In predicting the same event the language of ancient prophecy was
magnificent, but seemingly contradictory: for it foretold a Messiah,
who was to be at once a sufferer and a conquerer. The Star was to come
out of Jacob, and the Branch to spring from the stem of Jesse. The
Angel of the Covenant, the desire of all nations, was to come suddenly
to His temple; and to Him was to be "the gathering of the people."
Yet, at the same time, He was to be "despised and rejected of men"; He
was to be "taken from prison and from judgment," and to be "led as a
lamb to the slaughter." Tho He was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief," yet "the Gentiles were to come to his light, and kings
to the brightness of his rising." In the hour when Christ died, those
prophetical riddles were solved: those seeming contradictions were
reconciled. The obscurity of oracles, and the ambiguity of typos
vanished. The "sun of righteousness" rose; and, together with the dawn
of religion those shadows passed away.
IV. This was the hour of the abolition of the law, and the
introduction of the gospel; the hour of terminating the old and of
beginning the new dispensation of religious knowledge and worship
throughout the earth.
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