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guishing particulars of the Mosaic dispensation, and from thence to the brighter era of Christianity, let us look back upon the visitations of GOD's Providence, and try, whether we can discover among them any that may furnish additional proofs to our general argument, or any that may strengthen it by distinct illustration.

Admitting the Bible to be the written word of GOD, and an authentic narrative of events, under his immediate guidance and direction; it is a history in which every human being is concerned, and it must be a revelation of duties of permanent and perpetual obligation. The object of it is the instruction of man created after the image of his Maker; and whatever may have been the mode or degree of divine communications, the tendency of them has been the same; the revelation, the prophecy, and the miracle, all conspire to promote one heavenly purpose: they are only the different parts of a building unto God, Christ being the chief corner-stone; and the work of redemption, which neither the passions of men have frustrated, nor any convulsions of nature altered, will remain firm and immove

able upon the rock of our salvation, till the whole be completed in the final deliverance of the faithful.

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If we lose sight of this grand and gracious design, every thing that has passed, or is now passing, in the world, becomes a confused revolution of events; which, like the waves of the sea, beat the shore of time with a momentary noise, and soon sink into the calm of oblivion: the promises and rewards, the threatenings and the punishments, the destruction and deliverances, which appear as invariable consequences of man's observance or neglect of his duties, cease to be admonitions and examples recorded for our instruction, no longer vindicate the ways of GOD to man, but present a series of marvellous occurrences, of which a lapse of ages may be allowed to erase the remembrance, or which temporal ease and immediate security forbid us from connecting with any personal or national application.

To what this forgetfulness of GOD's judgments has led mankind, let the heathen world pronounce; of the miseries to which it is now leading them, let the christian world beware.

The wheels of Providence are not turned round by blind chance, nor directed by human agency. They are full of eyes round about, and they are guided by the spirit of God; where the spirit goes, they go; and whether rolling over kingdoms, or crushing a whole people in their motion, they set out from the throne, and to the throne of Him, who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, will they again return, with the accomplished work of redemption.

The scriptures, and the scriptures only, unfold one entire system of divine administration from the creation to the end of all things; and man, with all his passions, is made subservient to it.

Distinct from every other history, the narrative and the application go together; it addresses itself to every government, to every people, and to every individual. Without detailing their errors, or commenting upon their good or evil management, it manifests the interfering Providence of GoD in every part of his moral administration, it cries aloud to us, them that honour me I will honour, and them that despise me shall be lightly esteemed; and whilst it is hard to select a maxim in the moral or pa

litical theories of man, which, during a course of ages, has not found some more enlightened teacher to correct its errors, or supply its defects, the wisdom that is from above, consecrated in the school of example, has proved its unchangeable origin, and directs us to the wretched victims, who have either depreciated its value, or despised its admonitions. Thus mixing the records of antiquity with the operations of our own hearts, the holy writings afford a resemblance to every picture, and give to every document a peculiar worth and influence. The men and the events are blended with the things, which belong to our everlasting happiness; and the judgments which have overtaken iniquity, have only engraven the precept upon so many awful monuments, that there is no peace to the wicked, and that they have great peace, who love the laws of the Lord.

Of the various actions and characters therein enumerated, we may safely leave to the Christian reader the typical application; he may err in some prophetic allusion, he may force a comparison into some remote junctures and dependencies; but he cannot fail to comprehend

the lesson of righteousness, and to know his only teacher, GOD. He cannot fail to observe, how few have learnt it in the school of mercy; and that the stubbornness of the heart had only been softened under the discipline of affliction.

In commenting upon the dreadful event, which in our last discourse we purposed making the subject of particular discussion, there can be little danger of any misapplication. It is a history marked with such terrific warning; it is an embassy of mercy and judgment so fully declarative of a Redeemer's office, and of the terms of our Christian covenant; it proclaims to us, with such formidable authority, wherein human safety alone consists, that every part and every incident of it seems an appointed representation of the church of Christ, of its promised security, and of the final overthrow of all its enemies; and the afflictive example comes to confirm the Apostolic assertion, that though the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, He will reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment, to be punished.

Ascending, therefore, the hill of divine contemplation, and looking down from the watch

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