with Abraham,--the inauguration of Israel,-rite and prediction, discover the same invariable rudiments of truth. These are, the necessity and provision of Mediation for the morally estranged, of Sacrifice for the guilty, of Regeneration for the depraved. This is the Religion exclusively proposed "to seek and to save that which is lost." The sun which saw that "one man's disobedience by which many are made sinners," had not gone down before the wrath was turned away from us, directed against the tempter, and made the occasion of our rescue. The mysterious Offspring only to be born of woman, her Seed alone,— a Sufferer, but to survive,-an Avenger, utterly to destroy, these were the shaded outlines, the pregnant issues, of that virtual Promise but formal Menace. To the father and prototype of the faithful was "the gospel preached. Moses saw in "the reproach of Christ" the secret of his terrific legation. David "describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works." "Of this salvation the Prophets enquired and searched diligently," -to its Author "they all give witness." The moral difference between men was, "he that sacrificeth and he that sacrificeth not." "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Christianity is only new in its shape, not in its import. It completes the parts into their whole. It is the perfect evolution of what was intricate, the clearing up of the obscure. Not distinctly did “the ancient men" conceive it. But at each period of its

transmission, it was availing. Our "blessedness" consists in " seeing those things and in hearing those things" in their full light and proportion, which "prophets and kings" beheld in their dawn and dislocation. "It was for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after." If the priest knew not all the purport of his ministry, he could always "partake of the altar." If the seer might not always decypher the symbols of his vision, "the Spirit of Christ was in him." "Salvation was of the Jews." "They first trusted in Christ." The types and oracles of the former œconomy were "beggarly elements,"-yet in no sense of disparagement is the epithet employed, but to denote a mendicant importunity to be fulfilled. All is now accomplished, and we can require no softening medium to explain it. We gaze upon the convergent beams of this supernal light "with open face."

"We are no

longer under a schoolmaster." The Unity of Revealed Religion is a postulate on which every argumentation touching Missions must depend. They are gratuitous levities but for this "Common Salvation"!

The contrasts in which "the two Covenants" are set, by the inspired writers, in no way disagree with these statements. They are opposed to each other only in their measure and degree. Principles are recognised as antecedent to either, and as permeating both. These are not of so low a date: they are "of the fathers." They have nothing in them accidental or mutable. They survive the dispensation which is their organ, not being "as things that are made, but as things which, because they cannot be shaken, must

remain." The Divine purpose of Salvation was confirmed of God in Christ from everlasting. It was independent of any particular channels. When it took the aspect of "the blessing of Abraham," it looked forth benevolently upon "all the families of the earth." This promise "the Law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul." In Judaism there are political admixtures, laborious observances, severe exactions. It is instinct with a "spirit of bondage." To these Christianity is most advantageously opposed by its unearthly regimen, its spiritualism, its sweet enforcements, its liberty with which it makes us free. But here the antithesis concludes. There is no conflict in their views of the sinner's predicament, or in their tidings of deliverance for it.

Why, it is asked, was there so great delay in the final development of this Salvation? Why was not the grand result accelerated? Why was the eternally settled truth so reservedly promulgated, so guardedly revealed? Why could not the force of its ideas, the full understanding of it, be made to burst upon the human mind at once?

The Progressive method has been peremptorily rested, by some, on simple Divine Volition. We allow that it consists with its sovereignty when Mercy acts in the most confined sphere, and to the narrowest extent. We have no right to challenge any manner of its exercise, or any limit of its repression. "What God is obliged to give to none, he may, without injustice, withhold from whom he will."* But the Dispen

* Macknight. Rom. ix. 20.-Note.

sative Mercy has always formed itself into a system of rule. Man has been held accountable for its reception, whenever as "a kingdom" it has "come nigh" unto him. It bears a solemn stamp of authority and obligation. It is "the reign of grace." Sovereignty, therefore, would not be cognate to a question of obedience, and to "the law of faith." We must, then, displace the controversy from a ground like this, assured that the propagation of "His saving health among all nations" was always most agreeable to the mind of God, that "He will have all men to be saved by coming to the knowledge of the truth."

It will prove more satisfactory to the thinker on these problems, to reason out certain necessities of the case. We must recollect that all those conceptions, which answer to and reflect the Scheme of Redemption, are, in the most absolute sense, foreign to the human mind, and to those sources of impression by which it is governed. Their likeness could not be seized in the external world, nor could any powers of the most searching and most inventive rumination have detected them. Neither sensation nor reflection could generate them. As little could we prove the existence, or define the order, of a star whose light had never reached our earth. In the Infinite Understanding only could the archetype be found. How was it, then, to be rendered intelligible? Ideas are pictures, the images, of truths. We can receive, consequently, none but relative ideas. In this dilemma, new mediums of instruction were pre-eminently wanted. What was Mediation? What was Sacrifice? What was Reno

vation?

What was even Grace? These "thoughts were very deep." They were pure creations of the Eternal wisdom: they were in due time to be bodied forth in facts. But previously to their passing into this palpable subsistence, they only existed as ideas. There was, on this account, a strict necessity for an intermediate representation. The abstractions could have no moral influence until they were explained. To be explained, they must be shadowed by material correspondences. Signs were the earliest methods. Those signs impressed a spiritual meaning. They were its exponent and defence. It was not an arbitrary constitution. The death of the Crucified One was really sacrificial. It was this in itself. It was this exclusively. It borrowed not this character from preexisting figures; those figures were determined by it. They were fashioned to prepare the human mind to enter into the notion. The most ignorant people now comprehend what is meant, as the countrymen of the Apostles caught the elucidations which were drawn from the offerings and other ordinances of the Legal Institute. Corrupt as are the symbols of Paganism, they are the original instruments of universal instruction. Diverted from their proper use, they have not lost all their advantage. The Christian teacher would find them not a little help or slender facility in explaining to idolaters, who practise expiatory and ablutive ceremonies, the Redemption and Regeneration of his creed. And though the evils of these superstitions cannot be exaggerated, there is the opposite difficulty of reaching and informing the mind in the few excep

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