to a greater deliverer, asserting that Christ was the prophet spoken of by Moses, who should arise like unto him.

Philip interpreted the 53d Chapter of Isaiah as relating neither to that prophet nor to the Jews, but to Jesus. Acts viii. 35.

Peter in another place declares the universal nature and extension of the Christian religion to be a subject of Jewish prophecy. x. 43.

Paul in the same manner taught out of the Law of Moses and the prophets, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. xiii. 16-41. xxvi. 22, 23. and xxviii. 23.

So also 66 Apollos mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." xviii. 28.

It has been shewn that the Law of Moses is the only law which St. Paul affirmed to be a pædagogue leading to Christ; that it was in its constitution as a law or state of discipline, and in the severity of its spirit, a pædagogy; that it proclaimed the need of a new and better law, and thus disposed men for the religion of Christ; and that Christ and his Apostles frequently insisted on the Law of Moses as a testimony in favor of the claims of that Messiah, whom the Christians honored as the Son of God, and the author of their faith.

VII.

The law initiated men into the doctrines of

the Gospel. It is still in some measure the rule of interpretation of the Christian law to us,

as more particularly a prophetical delineation of it to the Church of God before the coming of Christ.

This, however, can only appear by distinguishing that which is peculiar to Christianity, from that which it has in common with the Mosaic dispensation.

Judaism and Christianity both taught the unity of God, or one supreme government over all things; the acceptableness of sincere faith in order to salvation; the existence of a being in whom the name of God was, and who was worshipped as God; the agency of a power called the Spirit of God, distinct from that Being who is by way of eminence, as the fountain of divinity to the Son and Spirit, called the Supreme God; the spiritual deliverance of all men from the effects of sin, by the mediation and exaltation of the Son of God; and a life after the present, and depending for its happiness upon it.

The acknowledgement that Jesus of Nararv was this Son of God. Redeemer, and giver of eternal li and that his spiritual kingdom embraced all nations was the peculiarity of Christianity

Aerater Max this we derive en be called perary Christian The deition of some, and the revival of other truths which had been obscured by tradition, or neglected by the infdelity and superstition of the Jews, was the great design of our Seiour's preaching

Although the Mossie Law is in some new sure a rule of interpretation of the Christian

law, it is not the only rule, and on that account cannot be expected to be equally explicit upon some subjects with the Scriptures of the New Testament.

.

With respect to the Pentateuch and the other Scriptures of the Old Testament, it should be remembered that they were not the only communications of religious truth afforded to the families and nations they describe. For centuries we are uncertain of the existence of any written revelation. When therefore a written revelation appeared, and that too, a time of extraordinary and oral revelations, it was not to be expected that this written revelation should furnish any details of the period preceding its appearance, that were not peculiarly connected with the period of its appearance. The origin of sacrifices, the institution of public worship, the state of the departed, the rewards of Abel and such of the righteous patriarchs as were not received into rest, or a continuing city in this world, must probably have interested the Israelites. Our blessed Redeemer assures us that they were not left in ignorance of the future life and rewards of good men; but very little is recorded on these subjects in the history of the first two thousand. With their other aids, these Scriptures years. sufficed for their times, and the Israelite had the law in his heart and always within his reach according to Moses himself. But another state of things was to succeed, and a revelation which was to accomplish more than the former, and

was therefore upon certain subjects more decisive and explicit than it'.

If we enquire how these means under the law succeeded in bringing the Jews to Christ, in preparing them for his religion, and raising in them fit conceptions of the benefits which were derived to them and all men through his mediation, we must not expect more or clearer information with respect to this subject, than with respect to their belief in a resurrection or any equally important doctrine. As Christians, we acknowledge that the resurrection is equally indispensable with the mediation of Christ. "If Christ be not risen, then is our faith vain ;" then are all the fruits of Christ's mediation cut off.

9 Repentance and faith have formed the substance of the true religion under all the changes and varieties of form and accident, by which it has been suited to the infancy, growth, and maturity of the world. But nothing can be more certain than that different motives to religious obedience have been accommodated to these different ages, and that the religious knowledge of one period has been but a shadow and outline of the same divine principles at another. "When the fulness of time was come-The Apostle in this chapter is comparing the ages of the world to the life of man and its several stages, as infancy, childhood, youth, and maturity. If we reflect on this comparison, we shall find it very just in general; and that the world itself, or the collective body of mankind, as well as each particular member, has from very low beginnings proceeded by a regular gradation in all kinds of knowledge; has been making slow advances towards perfection in its several periods; and received continual improvements from its infancy to this very day." Bp. Law's Theory of Religion, pp. 46, 47. 1820.

What testimony did the law and the prophets bear to this article of our creed? certainly no clearer or more copious references to this than to the mediation of Christ, can be alleged from the law and the prophets.

But the silence of the Old Testament upon these subjects being only partial, and interrupted by occasional and frequent declarations as perspicuous as they are consistent, we believe on the authority of Moses and the prophets, that Christ bore away our sins upon the cross, that through his stripes we are healed, that he was cut off but not for himself, and that he made intercession for the transgressors, and is an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec.

With respect to the effect which these prophecies produced upon the period preceding Christ, we cannot determine how far they were understood by the majority, and were embodied into the popular theology of the Jews.

That an effect was produced by them is certain upon the authority of our Lord himself, "Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them: and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them 10.

Several of the prophecies which relate to the Messiah could only have been applied to him, in the time of their appearance. As the God of Judah, the Lord of the temple, the Messenger

10 Matt. xiii. 17.