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omised land, with which the people were threatened, had not been completely fulfilled? It is true that, during the times of the Old Covenant, there existed a certain connection betwixt the lower and the higher kinds of possession. As soon as the people ceased to be the people of the Lord, they lost with the former, after being often previously warned by the decrease of it, the latter also. As soon as they obtained again the lower kind of possession, which could happen only in the case of a [Pg 228] return to the Lord, they recovered, to a certain degree, in proportion to the earnestness and sincerity of their conversion, the higher kind of possession also. A commencement of the fulfilment must, therefore, be at all events assumed in the return from the Babylonish captivity; but a very feeble commencement only. Just as the conversion was very superficial, so was the degree of the higher kind of possession but a very small one. The manifestations of mercy were very sparing; the condition of the new colony was, upon the whole, very poor; they did not possess the land as a free property, but only under the dominion of a foreigner. That which was, in one respect, the termination of the captivity, was, in another, much rather a continuation of it. It was certainly not the true Canaan which they possessed, any more than one still possesses the beloved object while he embraces only his corpse. Where the Lord is not present with His gifts and blessings, there Canaan cannot be. It was just as the land of the presence of the Lord, that it was so dear and valuable to all believers.--From what has now been said, it appears that, as regards the historical reference, we need not limit ourselves to the times of the Old Covenant, nor dream of a return of Israel to Canaan to take place at some future time. Luther's explanation, "They will go up from this place of pilgrimage to the heavenly father-land," is quite correct,--not indeed according to the letter, but according to the spirit. It is not the form, but the essence of the divine inheritance, which the prophet has in view. The form is a different one under the New Covenant, where the whole earth has become a Canaan; but the essence remains. To cling here to the form, would be just as absurd as if one, who, for Christ's sake, has forsaken all, were to upbraid Him because he had not received again, according to the letter of His promise, precisely an hundred-fold, lands, brothers, siste
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