loaves which Christ multiplied, were proper images of the spiritual food

which the Saviour of the world bestowed upon his disciples.

Moses expressly declares, 'That it shall come to pass, that whosoever

will not hearken unto my words which the Prophet shall speak in my name, I

will require it of him'.  The Jews rejected Christ, and God rejected them.

In the whole course of the history of the Jews there is no instance recorded,

where, in the case of disobedience to the warnings or advice of any prophet,

such terrible calamities ensued, as those which followed the rejection of the

Messiah.  The overthrow of the Jewish empire, the destruction of so many Jews

at the siege of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the surviving people, and the

history of the Jews down to the present day -- calamities beyond measure and

beyond example -- fulfilled the prophecy of Moses.

As to the circumstances of his death.  Moses died in one sense

for the iniquities of his people; it was their rebellion which was the

occasion of it, which drew down the displeasure of God upon them and upon

him: 'The Lord', said Moses to them, 'was angry with me for your sakes,

saying, Thou shalt not go in thither, but thou shalt die' (Deut. 1:37).

Moses therefore went up in the sight of the people to the top of Mount Nebo,

and there he died when he was in perfect vigour, 'when his eye was not dim,

nor his natural force abated'.-- Christ suffered for the sins of men, and was

led up in the presence of the people to Calvary, where he died in the flower

of his age, and when he was in his full natural strength.  Neither Moses nor

Christ, as far as we may collect from sacred history, were ever sick or felt

bodily decay or infirmity, which would have rendered them unfit for the toils

they underwent.  Their sufferings were of another kind.

As Moses a little before his death promised the people that God would

raise them up a Prophet like unto himself -- so Christ, taking leave of his

afflicted disciples, told them, 'I will not leave you comfortless: I will

pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter' (John 14:18,16).

'Is this similitude and correspondence, in so many particulars, the

effect of mere chance?' says Dr. Jortin, to whom we are principally indebted

for the preceding circumstances of resemblance between Jesus Christ and the

Great Prophet and Legislator of the Jews:-- 'Let us search all the records of

universal history, and see if we can find a man who was so like to Moses as

Christ was.  If we cannot find such a one, then we have found him of whom

Moses in the law and the prophets did write, to be Jesus of Nazareth, The Son

Of God'.*

*

Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. pp. 135-150, second

edition.  See also Bp. Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies, vol. i. pp.

90-101.  London 1793, ninth edition.

§ 2.

Prophecy.-- Isaiah 61:1, 'The Lord hath anointed me to preach good

tidings unto the meek'.-- Isaiah 54:13, 'All thy people shall be taught of

the Lord'.-- Psalm 78:2, 'I will open my mouth in a parable'.

Fulfilment.-- Mark 1:14, 'Jesus came ... preaching the kingdom of

God'.-- Luke 8:1, 'He went throughout every city and village, preaching and