which, as more perfect and universal, it was destined to give place; while on the other hand, the inspired preachers of the Gospel refer to the Mosaic institutions, as intended to prefigure and prepare for the Gospel of Christ, who came "not to "destroy, but to fulfil the Law and the Prophets.” I shall close the series of proofs on this head, by the clear and explicit declaration of the Prophet Jeremiah, * which is also pealed to by the great Apostle of the Gentiles. 66 ар This Prophet foretels the propagation of a pure and spiritual religion, the abolition of legal ordinances, the call of the Gentiles, and the final restoration of Israel. Calling upon "back"sliding Israel" to return from her transgressions and idolatries, the Prophet encourages their repentance by declaring, "I will "give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you "with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those "days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the "covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind; neither "shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither "shall that be done any more. At that time they shall call "Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall "be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: "neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of "their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk "with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out "of the land of the north, to the land that I have given for an "inheritance to their fathers." + And still more expressly in a subsequent chapter, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, "that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and "with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that "I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the "hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which my "covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, "saith the Lord :) But this shall be the covenant that I will "make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the “ Lord, I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in "their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my * Compare Jerem. iii. 15 to 18. and xxxi. particularly ver. 31 to 34. with Heb. x. 15. * Jerm. iii. 15-18. 66 people. And they shall teach no more every man his neigh"bour, and every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord; "for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their ini"quity, and will remember their sin no more." * According to this prediction, the ancient Levitical covenant was to be dissolved, and the ordinances of Moses to be succeeded by a Law not in any degree typical, but entirely promotive of real virtue; not requiring ceremonies to preserve it, but in its very essence practical and influential, regulating the temper, and written in the heart. * Jerem. xxxi. 31-34. SECT. II.-The Law and the Prophets not only professedly designed to in troduce the Gospel, but did in FACT prepare the way for it-Necessity of the Law as a preparation for the Gospel, shewn by considering the probable state of the world, if Judaism had never existed—Extreme difficulty of introducing true religion in such a state of mankind—Such universal degeneracy prevented by the Jewish dispensation—Proved by a brief view of the facts adduced in this Work-Adherence of the Jews to their Law, proves the reality of a providential interposition—The prophecies delivered by Moses on this subject prove the same— The Law was typical and figurative of the Gospel-Instances—The moral character of the Law prepared for the Gospel-The connexion of the two schemes shewn by various instances- The Jews employed as the immediate instruments for introducing the Gospel-Rejection of the Gospel by the mass of the Jewish nation does not disprove the connexion of the Law and the Gospel-Confirms the proof from prophecy-and from miracles. GALATIANS iii. 24. "The Law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ." In the last Section, I endeavoured to prove the consistency and the connexion of the Jewish and Christian schemes, by adducing passages from the Law and the Prophets, shewing that Judaism was from the first intended to introduce that Messiah "in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed;" that the Jewish Lawgiver himself intimated that God would raise up another Prophet like unto himself, and consequently a Lawgiver, with authority to promulgate a new Law; and that the Prophets expressly foretold that the Mosaic ritual was to give place to a new religion of a perfectly spiritual kind, and calculated to embrace all the nations of the earth; declaring all this with increasing clearness, as the era of this great change approached. While on the other hand, our Lord and his Apostles expressly refer to those predictions, as plainly pointing out the approach, describing the character, and establishing the divine original, of the Gospel. I now proceed to evince, that as the Law and the Prophets were thus avowedly designed to predict and introduce the Gospel of Christ; so they did in fact accomplish this design, their pre-existence being indispensably necessary to prepare for the reception of that Gospel, and in a variety of ways illustrating its importance and facilitating its promulgation. To place this conclusion in a clear light, let us reflect what would probably have been the situation of mankind, as to religion and morality, if no such nation or system as the Jewish had existed, before the appearance of our Lord. It seems certain that the whole world would have been sunk in the most gross idolatry, and an almost total ignorance of the principles of natural religion.* The very idea of the Supreme Creator and Ruler of the universe would have been obliterated from the minds of men; or at most, thought of only by a few speculative philosophers, who had never ventured to inculcate the necessity of confining adoration to the one true God, or openly to condemn the absurdities and profanations of idolatry, which would have prevailed over the world uncensured, we may almost say unsuspected of error or depravity; since no purer system would have existed, to which an appeal might have been made, as clearly true, or supported by any acknowledged authority. In such a state of religious blindness all expectations of a future retribution would have appeared ridiculous or incredible, from the falsehoods and extravagancies with which that opinion had been universally encumbered and disgraced. The evidence * Vide Part II. the entire Lect. I. and Lect. II.; Part III. Lect. I. sect. i. and Lect. II. sect. i. from prophecy could not have existed; and any appeal to miracles would have been disregarded or discredited, from the mul titude of lying wonders which had usurped that name, without a single instance of any plainly supernatural interposition. Had the world been permitted to sink thus universally into ignorance, idolatry and depravity; almost deprived of all ideas of true religion, and totally estranged from every feeling of pure morality; without any fixed principles to recur to on these subjects, nay almost without a language in which to speak of them; it seems nearly impossible to conceive any means by which mankind could have been instructed or reformed, without utterly subverting the course of nature, and forcibly controlling the moral character of man. Darkness would have overspread the earth, and thick darkness the nations; and amidst this universal moral chaos, no spot could have been found, on which the foundation of the Church of God could have been laid; no nation or tribe or family, who, if the standard of true religion were reared, could be expected to rally round it and support the sacred cause. A degeneracy so fatal and irremediable was effectually prevented by the operation of the Jewish scheme. It has appeared in the progress of this Work, that when the world was rapidly sinking into idolatry with all its profanations and crimes, the pure principles of that patriarchal religion which had originally enlightened mankind, were preserved in the family of Abraham by the transmission of parental instruction until that family became a nation: that then this nation, which would otherwise have been hurried away by the resistless torrent of universal corruption, was placed under the immediate government of Jehovah, as their national Lord and King; rescued from Egypt and settled in Canaan, by a series of miraculous interpositions, which exhibited an irrefragable proof of the power, the providence, and the majesty of the true God, as well as the impotence and nullity of those base idols who usurped his honour in a deluded world. To : preserve this nation as a lasting monument of the divine supremacy, and a permanent asylum, where the truths of religion and the principles of morals might take refuge, and be preserved for a more favourable period, when their salutary influence might be again extended to all mankind with effect, by the promised Messiah," in whom all nations were to be blessed," the Mosaic Law was given; which, in this infancy of human reason and human virtue, was to act as the "schoolmaster to bring men to Christ;" a task which it effected by a variety of means which can here be only briefly hinted at. * First it maintained the radical principles of true theology; while it clothed them in such a form, and promulgated them in such circumstances, as, without detracting in the slightest particular from their purity and truth, rendered them interesting and attractive to a nation, which could scarcely have been induced to attend to any mere abstract doctrines concerning the being and attributes of the Deity, if he had not authorized them to look up to Him as their peculiar, national and guardian God. The same Law inculcated the principles of pure morality, with a similar attention to the feelings and the character of the Jewish nation;+ enforcing the entire system by temporal sanctions, which alone were capable of influencing a people, short-sighted, incredulous, attached to present objects, and habituated from the example of the rest of mankind, to consider temporal prosperity and success as the criterion of the power and fidelity of that God, who allowed them to consider him as their national and peculiar Lord and King. Such a system could be carried into effect only by a particular Providence § proportioning the visible prosperity both of the state and of individuals, to their obedience to the divine Law. The continued display of this wonderful providential interference supplied a perpetually increasing proof of the power, the justice, and the mercy, of Jehovah; and exhibited the most awful and instructive examples to mankind, of the general conduct of God's moral government.|| The Mosaic Law not only promulgated a system of true reli gion and pure morality, and supported that system by the most powerful sanctions; but it guarded it from the contagion of that idolatry and vice which universally prevailed, by a corresponding system of peculiar laws and manners, rites and ceremonies, * Vide Part II. Lect. I. † Ib. Lect. II. III. & IV. ‡ Vide supra, Part III. Lect. III. sect. i. ii. Ib. Part III. Lect. II. the entire. Vide the last Lecture; also, Part III. Lect. III. sect. i. |