regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year,
the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions,
and promises. Again: the year of jubilee
was ushered in, by the day of atonement. What
did these institutions show forth? The day of
atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the
year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did
they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews
only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of
salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone?
Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends
of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety?
Did that old partition wall survive the shock, that
made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and
rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel
only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from
its frowning battlements on all without? No!
The God of our salvation lives “Good tidings
of great joy shall be to ALL people.” One
shout shall swell from all the ransomed, “Thou
hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended
to the servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity
Judaism. It not only eclipses the glory
of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal
to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled
a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel
on the doctrine of Christ’s redemption.
Finally, even if forever did refer to individual
service, we have ample precedents for limiting the
term by the jubilee. The same word defines the
length of time which Jewish servants served
who did not go out in the seventh year.
And all admit that they went out at the jubilee.
Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of
the same chapter is quoted to prove that “forever”
in the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee.
“The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the
land is mine”—since it would hardly
be used in different senses in the same general connection.
As forever, in the 46th verse, respects the
general arrangement, and not individual service
the objection does not touch the argument. Besides
in the 46th verse, the word used, is Olam,
meaning throughout the period, whatever that
may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth,
meaning, a cutting off.
3. “INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION,” “Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a possession.” This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be held as a property-possession, and inheritance; that they became servants of their own accord, and were paid wages; that they were released by law from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, and thoroughly instructed; that