their revilings in our Saviour's last moments, If, say they, he be the Son of GOD, if he be the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe on him. Thus linking their promised ruler in community of power with the patron GoD of their fathers, and unconsciously raising at the foot of the cross the ladder of faith that was to reach from earth to heaven.

This was the avowed belief of the Jewish nation; not the offspring of superstitious confession, but publicly proclaimed with all the insolence of bitter invective. And if He who was born of a virgin, be the same who expired on the cross, to divest him of his divinity is more than a participation of Jewish guilt. They fixed their hopes on a divine Mediator, but rejected him who came, and still look for another. The objector to the Christian creed acknowledges that Christ was he that should come, and yet withholds from him the claim of divine mediation. But the time will come, when the Law and the Gospel shall be proved to have preached one and the same doctrine; when the Jew shall look unto him whom he had pierced, and the Christian rejoice

in Him who made atonement for transgressions. And if one Gospel, one Faith, one Saviour, be the unvaried tone of the scripture language-if the earthly be a figure of the heavenly Canaan→→ a rejection from the one must be a rejection from the other; let the sinner and unbeliever read it thus standing upon heavenly record -As I live, saith the LORD, none of the men that have seen my glory, and my miracles, and have not hearkened unto my voice, shall see the land which I sware unto their fathers.

But of these matters we shall find occasion to speak more at large in the progress of our enquiry. We will now return to that singular people, whose history was written for our example; and to those peculiar rites and observances, which, except as significative emblems of the properties and actions of Him who was to fill the real tabernacle, could never have been the shadow of good things to come, could never have been our school-master to bring us unto Christ; would have only burthened the Mosaic œconomy with a load of unmeaning forms, and filled the sanctuary of GOD with the ministration of useless ceremonies.

The Mosaic history is not, like that of any other nation, a mere detail of political occur rences, or a summary of civil regulations; it is rather a family narrative (if we may so express it) of the whole house of GOD, in which Moses was formerly a servant, and over which Christ our Redeemer is the head. Descriptive, therefore, of the glory and majesty of Him who governed, his language must be inspired and prophetic; and being but an image of good things to come, the whole economy of his household could be only figurative and typical. We may not be able to explain satisfactorily every part of the plan, and future consummation alone can interpret justly each separate prediction; definition may be too vague, or illustration too remote; what is exhibited as proof may fail in its connection, and ingenious research may end in barren speculation. But we know enough of the ceremonial law, to make it an emblem of Christianity; we have seen enough of accomplished prediction, to prove our Saviour to be the end of the Law and the Prophets.

Not to detain you with a citation of examples. which are within the reach of every one's appli

cation, we will simply refer you to the Apostle's address to the Hebrews; wherein he not only argues, from the prophetic writings, on the expectation of a great and universal blessing, and the fulfilment of it in Jesus Christ, but even proves the ceremonial rites and the respective offices of their church to be constituent and immediate parts in the scheme of redemption, and as so many regular steps to lead us to the throne of mercy and forgiveness; thus repelling every arrogant claim of the Jewish nation, by grounding the Gospel on the Law, and taking away from their sacrifice and peace-offering all merit of justification, till their purifying conditions were connected with the atonement of our great and eternal High-Priest.

Thus far then have we brought the scriptures to bear witness of that eternal Life, which was with the Father, and which was manifested to us; we have watched the dawning light, and followed its course, till the luminous track begins to announce the glory that will soon arise. We have from the shadows discovered the substance; we have traced the typical images to the person of Christ, and incorporated every

word of truth with the Gospel of the everlasting GOD. Without reposing on apostolic assertion, we have endeavoured to establish on scriptural evidence, that Christ is the Alpha and Omega of his own revelations, and that they are a book sealed without him. They begin with his wisdom and power, and they end with his faithfulness and truth. All the intermediate

From

pages are filled with the description of his person, divinity, and names, or with the recital of his providences in nature, and of his wonders in grace. this root has sprung every dispensation, and through this root, though now separated from it, must the seed of Abraham be nourished, till they grow into faith, and are again united to the parent tree.

But may it not be a matter of enquiry, and an answer to it will go to resolve many questions of adventurous sophistry, why the Law was promulgated, and particularly in this manner? Why at all? Why in so public, why in so terrible a way? It would impeach, indeed, no article of our faith, to reply to such enquiries with a confession of our ignorance; because,

H