256 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



spiritual dispensation, and the merely local and temporary 

 setting in which that truth presented itself to the men 

 of the Old Covenant. 



Now, the general truth of this position is, and always 

 has been, in some sense admitted by the great body of 

 Christian theologians. The theory of extreme literalism, 

 which forbids the application of any dialectic whatever to 

 the prophetic books, which allows no distinction between 

 essence and form, no development in the Old Testament 

 theology except by simple addition which insists that 

 every word of every prediction either has been, or will be, 

 fulfilled exactly as it is written which expects that the 

 earth shall still see Ezekiel s temple with its sacrifices, and 

 which regards a literal Feast of Tabernacles as an element 

 in the Millennium, has never succeeded in gaining a place 

 in the theology of the Church. Its natural home is in the 

 bosom of sectarianism, for it can only subsist in connection 

 with a thoroughly perverse view of the administration 

 and ends of the economy of grace. The man, for example, 

 who expects a literal Ezekiel s temple is in this dilemma. 

 Either he supposes that the existence of such a temple 

 in the latter days, and the offering of sacrifices therein, 

 is an essential element in the glorification of God s people, 

 and so, in direct opposition to the New Testament writings, 

 places himself on the standpoint of the Pharisaic Christians 

 who withstood Paul or, conscious that such a view 

 would be unchristian, he must suppose that the temple 

 shall belong to the restored but unconverted Jews in 

 which case the interpretation is untrue to the whole 

 purpose of prophecy and to the manifest design of Ezekiel 

 himself, which is to describe the times of the restored 

 theocracy. But it is unnecessary to dwell on this school 

 of thought, or rather on these unthinking fancies which 

 have their origin partly in an unhistorical, unbiblical 

 theory of inspiration, partly in a perverse and superstitious 

 curiosity, and partly in impatience at the real difficulties 

 that beset the attempt to do justice at once to the limita- 



