nearer events foretold, brought as it were within their view, and successively accomplished, to strengthen gradually their faith in greater events, but more remote; and we, again, have the authentic record of all those events nearer or more removed which belonged to the first great subject of prophecy before Christ, in order to animate and sustain the hope and trust of the Christian in the glorious but distant promises of the Gospel.

3. But hence, thirdly, it became the appointed province of the whole history of the first chosen people to establish the faithfulness of Almighty God.

It became so in part from what has been already adverted to; the general structure of the Historical books, and the peculiar structure of Prophecy. Thus the shifting dynasties of the kings of Israel, contrasted with the continued preservation of the line of David on the throne of Judah, afford an illustrious example of the effect produced by the history and the prophecy in combination. And a series of similar proofs is supplied by the temporal promises combined with the spiritual in the revela

present, as with the class of prophecies above described, in which different and distinct predictions were revealed at the same time.

i See Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, Disc. v. Part ii.

tions to Abraham and the Patriarchs. So that, as was observed before, the whole book of Joshua became one continued record of the Divine faithful

ness.

But, in truth, all the succeeding histories of the elder church became, under another point of view, so many records of the faithfulness of God: and this in consequence of the temporal sanctions of the Mosaic law. For these sanctions, what are they in effect but promises? They are conditional promises of reward or punishment contingent upon good or evil conduct, the obedience or the disobedience of the Israelites to their Law. But the sanctions being almost exclusively outward, temporal, punishments and rewards; and the obedience and disobedience moreover, having respect in a very remarkable degree to external observances; (the neglect or the fulfilment of a ritual and ceremonial religion, the national observance of such conspicuous festivals as the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, and the national maintenance of the most singular form of polity;) it became possible and easy to do in this case what could not be done in any other, observe and record the obedience and the disobedience of the people, their reward and punishment ;

* See Sherlock on Prophecy, Discourse v.; and Davison, Discourses iii. and iv.

or, in other words, record the fulfilment of the divine sanctions. Hereafter indeed, when the volume of prophecy shall have been completely unrolled, and the writing deciphered, the history of the Christian Church will disclose a far more splendid prospect of the Divine faithfulness, than even the history of Israel. But the history of the elder Church, as it recorded the fulfilment of the external sanctions of the Law, became immediately and at once one entire record of the faithfulness of God.

Not

And another circumstance also should not pass unobserved. For, the Mosaic sanctions being in their nature conditional, and many or most of the actual promises and predictions being conditional also, the History of Israel became in an especial manner instructive as the record not only of the fact, but even of the mode of their fulfilment. only do we find a signal proof of the Divine faithfulness in the history of the victories and defeats, the prosperity and the chastisements, of Israel always attendant upon their good or evil conduct, and always attesting the reality of the Mosaic sanctions and the truth of the Divine promises; but we see, at the same time, the manner of the conduct of our heavenly Father towards his wayward creatures remarkably and no doubt designedly displayed. The conquest, for example, the possession, and the enjoyment of the promised land, were all conditional,

although no express condition appears annexed to the original promise. Of that first generation, all alike called to the inheritance of the promise, two only were permitted to enter Canaan'. And those who conquered it, although taught most palpably and experimentally that their success was not due to their own arm or their own might, yet could not succeed without their own exertions. And then, how slow, and even in the end how incomplete, was that conquest! evidently by default of their exertions and obedience, and in spite of repeated warnings and protestations on the part of their heavenly Sovereign. So admirably is the history adapted to all our wants, and calculated alike to admonish our waywardness and to confirm our faith, by the distinct attestations it affords in every page both to the method and to the fact of the Divine faithfulness.

II. Hitherto we have seen only the gracious conduct of God. We are next to observe a very important advantage to be derived from the Scripture history of man.

It has pleased our heavenly Father, in condescen

'See Abp. Whately on Election, “Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul." Essay iii.

sion to our infirmities, not only to declare His truth, nor merely to connect this attribute with our very idea of His essence, but to prove its reality by facts: and this, not only by the uniform tenour of his bountiful providence, but also by the course and method of revelation. For this purpose, among others, so large a portion of the word of God is historical. And the plan of the histories, the structure of prophecy, and the history of the elder Church under the temporal sanctions of the Law, have all been adapted, as we have seen, to supply the most direct demonstration of His faithfulness, by the records of Divine promises given and fulfilled. For, indeed, we required conviction more than proof; practical belief more than intellectual assent. And the history of facts was the species of proof the most convincing and the most useful.

But the self-same principle of human nature suggests the reason for another great commission of the Historical Scriptures; that of recording examples of faith in the truth of God's promises.

1. Who can doubt, for instance, that this is one of the great uses of the sacred history of the father of the faithful? His trust in the Divine faithfulness, we readily admit, is no proof of its reality; but his faith notwithstanding will strengthen ours. And more especially, combined as it is with the history