seemed to have shaken off all obedience to their Creator, and to have submitted to the cruel and abominable despotism of demonocracy. In this state of things, divine providence shone in splendour from heaven, and claimed and resumed its rejected government. This it did in a manner worthy of Deity. God took under his peculiar direction, by the ministry of his prophet Moses, a people despised, having no country, no peculiar government, no supreme leader, captive and enslaved under a powerful monarch, and, by his appropriate name of Jehovah, claimed this people as his own. He wrested them from the iron hand of Pharaoh, contending with divine power, even to the last extremity. All the subtle arts of magic were in vain employed by this impious and cruel prince and his ministers. A series of astonishing miracles evinced the futility of these devices, and demonstrated the resistless power of God. He delivered this people from the direful yoke under which they groaned; and having accomplished their emancipation, gave them a civil and religious code, not, indeed, absolutely perfect, as has been already acknowledged, but purged from the abominations that prevailed everywhere else, and admirably adapted to the character and circumstances of the people to whom it was promulgated. It sowed, at the same time, the prolific seed of a perfect economy,. which was to be announced in due time, and to

extend to all nations. Thus, the omnipotent God inflicted the first deep wound on idolatry, proclaimed himself superior to every fictitious deity, and evinced his supremacy over the uni

verse.

Besides, the Jewish revelation was of high import in exciting and preserving the expectation of the Messiah. Before the times of Moses, some faint dawnings of the hope of that glorious personage had appeared. But, in the Jewish economy, while the promises concerning him were multiplied, a considerable part of its worship had a reference to him, and prefigured his advent. The prophets also, under that dispensation, were his harbingers and heralds, and foretold the superior excellence and glory of the future dispensation of grace to all mankind; so that the minds of men being prepared for its annunciation, the evangelical doctrine might meet with a more easy reception. It was absolutely necessary to afford some preceding information of such an astonishing display of Deity as the gospel unfolds, lest coming on mankind by surprise, it might overwhelm and confound them. If we duly consider the Christian dispensation in all its parts, we shall find that it could not be the first in the order of the administration of Providence, although it was the first in the plan and design, because the preceding parts were only preparatory to this grand consummation. Vast

and beneficent schemes are not accomplished at once, but by degrees, and in consequence of previous arrangement. Before God sent into the world his only begotten Son, he prepared men's minds for his reception. It pleased him also to particularize and describe beforehand, the family, the character, offices, and doctrine of the promised Messiah, and to mark the precise time of his appearance, in order that he might be more easily recognised when he assumed his terrestrial ministry. If we consider that the whole scheme of divine Providence, in regard to human affairs, hinges chiefly on what relates to the Redeemer's kingdom, we shall immediately perceive the vast importance of the Jewish scriptures, and of the whole Mosaical dispensation. This and the Christian economy form only parts of one great whole. Judaism is incipient Christianity, and Christianity is Judaism brought to perfection. It is as absurd to consider them as detached from each other, as it would be to separate the building from its foundation, or the foundation from the building which it supports.

Divine Providence has been prosecuting this grand and astonishing scheme for the moral regeneration of the human race, from the fall of their first parents down to the present day, and will continue to pursue it to its final consummation. If there is truth in religion, therefore, we may rest assured that the plan will proceed and

advance, whatever be the efforts of human folly and corruption to obstruct its progress; and that even these will be rendered ultimately subservient to its advancement. To this the diffusion of real, substantial, and salutary knowledge must always be conducive; and whenever bigotry and despotism attempt to arrest the course of this, they will be found to contend with God, who has created man an intelligent and moral being, and destined him for the higher enjoyments of intellect and virtue in an eternal world. wicked attempts will, therefore, ultimately fail, and cover with infamy, and overwhelm with ruin, their despicable and malevolent authors and promoters.

Such

There may have been other reasons for the Jewish economy, in all its branches, which escape our observation. That the Jewish scriptures have chiefly preserved to us the only authentic acounts of the origin of the different nations of the world, and the correct order of time from the creation, or, at least, the present arrangement of our globe, is universally acknowledged. The early periods of pagan story are fabulous, confused, and unsupported by any credible documents. The Jewish revelation, therefore, furnishes the only light to which we can trust in the study, whether of profane or of sacred history. It supplies a mirror, as it were, of an universal providence, whose administration has been

constant and uniform, which directed the first steps of the progress, conducted the subsequent ones with the same regularity, and still continues to overrule the course of human affairs; which superintended the Antemosaiacal, the Mosaical, and the Christian dispensations, all mutually connected and harmoniously arranged, and subservient to a great and blessed result, the glory of God, and the highest happiness of the human race. Thus, the Jewish economy is the preliminary and first opening of the Christian religion. It is evident that the decalogue contains, in a very short compass, the vital and spiritual part of the Jewish law; comprehending those duties which men owe to God, and to each other. Reverence for the Deity, and benevolence towards mankind, Christ declares to be the cardinal points on which the law and the prophets hinge. He also calls judgment, mercy, and faith, the weightier matters of the law, in comparison of which all external observances are of no account. As the Pharisees, under pretext of religion, violated its most sacred precepts, while they were extremely scrupulous in regard to all its ritual institutions, and even superadded to these, many of their own invention, or such as had no divine authority, he charges them with the grossest hy

a

a Matth. xxii. 37-40; xxiii. 23; xii. 7. Luke xi. 39-41. Matth. xxiii. 14. Mark vii. 11–13.