To the heavenly attestation of our text, Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws; we may add a similar, though subsequent, testimony and explanation, of what that charge, and what those commandments, were. With the view of enforcing conviction on the unbelieving Jews, or of reprobating their departure from the faith of their ancestors, our Saviour says to them, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad; thus pronouncing Himself to have been the object of hope and dependence to their venerable progenitor, and claiming from his posterity (as being heirs of the promise) an acquiescence in the same belief; appealing to a prior testimony, and to the faithfulness of God's word, in favour of their expected Messiah, and then assuming into such expectation all the properties of inherent divinity; and finally, that nothing might be left to doubt, or subject to misconstruction, with an assertion they could not, and which they did not, mistake, as Lord of the universe, as guardian GoD of the Jews, He marks Himself with the signature of

uncreated and continued existence, and tells them, before Abraham was, I am.

Independent, however, of every extraneous illustration, we might fairly argue the point, on its own internal evidence. Abraham's justification unto holiness is expressly referred to his obedience (through faith) to the commandments, to the statutes, and to the laws of his GOD. Had these particulars been recorded of any one, under either of the succeeding dispensations, would they not have been received, as comprehending the whole of religion? If by the commandments of GOD we are taught to understand his moral precepts, by his statutes, the institutions and ordinances of his worship, and by the laws, his judiciary directions and appointments; the received and usual mode of interpretation must be abandoned, or the substance of the Patriarch's faith will exemplify a religion, complete in all its parts.

Again:-If GOD lay claim to the several parts of it, by stiling them, as we have heard, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws, both the injunctions, the promises, and the doctrines of revelation, must have ceased with Abraham;

or the nations of the earth, which were to be blessed through him, must have acknowledged their divine origin, and regarded them as marks of direction to a Redeemer's advent, and to a brighter and more perfect dispensation.

But from arguments, which some might think defective, and from applications, which, thus generally taken, others might deem irreconcileable with the nature of the evidence, let us turn to those scriptures, to which our Saviour himself appeals, as testifying of Him; let us follow the voice, that appalled and consoled our first parents in the garden of Eden, to its more dreadful and terrific sound on Mount Sinai, when each preceding covenant was attested and renewed, under more strict observances, and with severer discipline.

Upon this hallowed ground, the first on which our Redeemer stood, it is painful to see so many of those, who call themselves christians, refuse to tread. That the infidel, who disdains to contemplate the completed work of redemption, should be tempted to examine any part of its divine materials; or that the natural man, who confides in his own strength, should be made

sensible of his lost and helpless state, from the fall of his first parents, is not to be expected. To the one, who braves the destruction, or who feels not the enormity of sin, we should but ill address the merit and the necessity of an atone. ment for it; to the other, who trusts in his own righteousness, we should urge, with as little avail, the insufficiency of his pretensions, without the efficacy of redeeming love. But it is not against the objections or the doubts of infidelity, that the believer is called upon for any vindication. From these he may retire with pity or abhorrence; or if he must answer, it may be in the sure and certain word of GOD, already delivered to the faithful, and to the faithful only now again to be delivered, as a warn ing against the subtlety of worldly wisdomLook unto the rock whence ye are hewn, says the Prophet, and the hole of the pit, whence ye are digged; look unto Abraham your Father, and unto Sarah that bore you. For I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him; and fear ye not, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings. For

the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them up like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. But when he sees this strong post of Christianity neglected, or given up, by those who are pledged to maintain her cause; when he sees those, to whose protection the fortress of truth is entrusted, abandoning its outworks and weakening its defence, is it not his duty to sound the alarm? or shall he scruple to call it desertion in the soldier of Christ, to leave the citadel thus exposed to the nearer approach of the enemy.

If Christianity be true, it is truein every part, and in every period of time; the creation, the redemption, the sanctification of man, all began together in the Almighty councils, and all move on in divine procession, the distinct, but co-ordinate, the peculiar, though confederate, offices of the same great and glorious Being. And if its heavenly Author be the end of all the law and the prophets; if the testimony of Jesus be the spirit of prophecy, such testimony, must have been the leading object of every preceding revelation. Amidst a contempt of his