sion to Christ, Paul says, "That all are one in
Christ." Christ was the bond of union, all were joined to him. But the
same authority that separated them by legislation must legislate with
reference to this grand change that was to take place between these
decendants of Jacob and Esau. The law of commandments separating the Jews
limited them in moral duties to their neighbors. It was unlawful for them
to go in unto one of another nation. It limited them in trade and traffic
to their own countrymen; also limited them to their own people in
matrimonial relations. So God must be heard again, I say, _heard!_ for He
was heard at the giving of the law, which is now to be taken out of the
way. When Jesus took Peter, James and John up in a high mountain and was
transfigured before them, Moses and Elias, the great representatives of
the Patriarchial and Jewish dispensations, appeared unto them and "a
bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold a voice out of the cloud, which
said, This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, HEAR YE HIM."
Math. xvii, 5. Here is the authority that gave the institution peculiar to
the Jews legislating with reference to Him whose doings were to end that
system of things, and lead all into "a new and living way." Paul says:
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His
Son." So Christ took away the first will and established the second. See
Heb. x, 9. Paul says: "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in Him." This relation of duty to the reception of Christ has direct
reference to the character in which we receive him. He was given to
_rule_, to exercise _Lordship_. He is Lord of all. The term Lord signifies
"ruler by right of possession." If He is not Lord of all there is an
abundance of false testimony upon this one subject, and Christianity is
diseased in the head. And if he is Lord of all, then we should leave that
old mountain that shook and burned with fire, and all the political
paraphernalia of Sinai, and consider ourselves complete in Christ, who is
"_Emanuel_, God with us." If any man does this he is not troubled with the
old "bond woman." Jehovah said of Christ: "I have given Him for a covenant
of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." Isaiah xlii, 2. New duties
appear before us in the New Testament, with new obligations lying at their
foundation. Jesus said: "If I