8 Canaan was strictly limited to his posterity, and that curse was, therefore, exclusively confined to a white or at least nonnegro race. It was moreover fulfilled in the dealings of the Hebrews with the surrounding nations in their conquest and occupation of the promised land. In the prophets we see already the foreshadowing of the new dispensation of mercy instead of justice, of the remission of all past offences, of the breaking down of that middle wall of partition which the Apostle speaks of between Jew and Gen- tile, by which all men were placed on an equality in the eyes of God without respect of persons; as we read in Malachi, who closes the books of -the Old Testament, “ Have we not all one Father ? hath not one God created us ?” In Jeremiah (xviii. 8), God says : “ If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them?’ In those days, too, were men who resisted the degenerate and fanatical spirit of philanthropists, and insisted upon the letter of the law as we learn from these words of Ezekiel (xviii. 19): “ Yet say ye, why ? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father ?” to which the answer is, (( When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father and again, in the same chapter, “ But if a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, .... and hath not oppressed any, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry . . . . hath executed true judgment between man and man, .... he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord.” Finally with the advent of our Saviour came full pardon to all mankind, “ for he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John ii. 2.) He expiated in his own person on the cross the curse upon Canaan, having in his own veins the blood of that very race, since he was descended in a direct line from Rahab of Jericho (to say nothing of Bathsheba and Ruth), if we are to believe the received account of Christ’s genealogy. Was this accidental, that the blood of one of this race should mingle with that of the princely line of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=