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an insulted Creator destroyed the whole race of man from off the face of it.

The acceptance of Abel's sacrifice not having been signified by any temporal blessing, but on the contrary, followed by an immediate and violent death, must necessarily lead to an inference, that it promised a blessing to arise from the archetype of the victim, in a life of which the body and blood of Jesus Christ was to be the purchase. It was by faith he offered it; it was by faith that Enoch was translated, and that Noah became heir of the righteousness that is by faith. That the sacrifice, therefore, which he offered on his coming forth from the ark, had in contemplation the object of that faith, is an indisputable consequence. From Noah, then, a testimony to the hope which was communicated to him by GOD, and a sacramental mode of anticipating its object, were exhibited to the few who survived the flood.

The transmittal from the original communi、 cation to the reviving world is thus made perfect; but however the ceremonial form might have been retained, the spirit of it soon departed, and we find the faith of their fathers

abandoned in a very short time by the progeny of Noah. Exalting himself against GOD, who was still testified by his revelation, man again incurs his hot displeasure. Confusion of tongues, and consequently the dissolution and dispersion of all subsisting society, was the sentence pronounced against him at Babel, when the Almighty scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

As all came under this penalty, there was no preacher of righteousness to restore the faith, and accordingly we behold the prevalence of idolatry in all the recorded nations of the earth. In consequence, however, of adhering to the statutes and laws of his GOD, and of preserving the purity of primæval theology, and the spiritual meaning of sacrifice, amidst the corrupted rites and offerings that ignorance of the truth had now grafted on superstitious dread, we observe Abraham called out of his own country, and from among his own kindred-made the object of God's favour and adoption-and separated, for the work of righteousness, from the rest of mankind, who were given up to the vanity of their own imaginations.

Again, when the direct interposition of GoD was evinced by miracles to Egypt, and the people of God were preserved with Moses, the Egyptians were punished in the most exemplary manner; their unbelief drew down a penalty connected with their offence.

The generation which followed Moses, tho' they ate of the passover, yet lapsed from the faith that was thus again revealed to them; they were, therefore, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, doomed to perish in the wilderness for their apostacy and rebellion.

While the temple yet stood, a type of an expected redemption, the Jews departed from the creed of their fathers; they were also given up to their enemies, and carried into a penal captivity.

Our Lord himself came to his own, but his own received him not. The issue is sufficiently known. There is therefore, in all the degrees of evidence afforded to mankind, no intimation given to which we may not attach a faith that will justify, or a denial that will condemn. And if, with the full concentred light of his Holy Gospel now shining forth, we yet depart

from the ways which it renders thus clear before us, why should we expect an exemption from the indignation of GOD, or that he will not withdraw the profferred guidance of his hand?

Upon this foundation are all our proofs to

We

stand; and though to the candid enquirer we might fairly put the question, what becomes of the Patriarchal, if it be separated from the Mosaic? or of the Mosaic, if it be separated from the Christian dispensation? yet we are desirous rather of bringing confirmation to the truth of our position, from the progressive periods of their history, from the memorials of heathen nations, the dispersion of the Jews, and the apostacy of the present times. wish to shew, that by considering the religion and the ritual of the patriarchs and the Israelites only as separate forms of national theology, and not materially connected with the Christian creed, the peculiar advantage of sacred history which records and points to Christ, as the guide and saviour of man, is relinquished, and that in attempting to explain his own nature and destination, he has either wandered into conjecture, or reposed in infidelity,

With a present sense, and a melancholy foreboding of their fatal consequences, we appeal to many an highly-esteemed publication to substantiate these assertions. And from studies which might adorn, but should not be made the basis, of a christian education, what evils have originated in a christian land, for which the most extensive learning never can compensate! How many, from a classical or scientific direction of their talents, have brought to the prophetic writings only a critical acuteness to decide upon their respective merits, or a disposition to search after that sort of demonstration, which the oracles of GoD could not afford, without destroying at once the faith and free agency of man! Such enquirers after truth will find little there of Christ or his gospel. In the works of genius, in the fictions of imagination, in abstract speculation, or in experimental discovery, in short in every arrangement of the materials before them, because it appears as it were the work of man's own creation, such students will derive a gratification more congenial to the pride of intellect, to their literary attainments, and to their habits of reflection,

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