Systems of government and of education, so important to mankind, were far from being brought to high perfection at an early period, or at once. They were rude and imperfect in their beginnings, slow in their progress; in every period of time, in every region, in every stage of their growth, answering to the changes in the character and condition of mankind, and themselves making an important part of those changes.

Thus it is through the whole system of nature; greatness of plan, and a mutual connexion and dependence of parts remote from each other in time and place, are characteristics. But in the execution of the greatest designs, and the same also is true of all the subordinate events, which lead to their completion, - there is nothing of haste or impatience, - no indications of the feebleness and fear, which mark human schemes. The successive steps which lead to it are taken deliberately, and the whole advances by a steady and regular progress; sometimes, indeed, interrupted and suspended, but these interruptions and their corrections so provided for in the original constitution, that no permanent confusion or eventual defeat is ever allowed to take place.

Now, what I would observe, is the resemblance between these characteristics of the whole system of nature, and the scheme of the divine dispensations made known to us in the Scriptures. It furnishes a strong presumption of the same author and origin; since effects, at once so similar and so remarkable, are to be expected only from a Being

capable of comprehending the whole extent of things, the past, present, and future, at a single view.

This leads me to remark, in the third place, that not only have we the presumption arising from the resemblance itself, which is of no small weight, but from very remarkable and characteristic circumstances, under which this resemblance is discovered; - circumstances characteristic of a power, intelligence, and foresight far above human, such indeed as can belong only to the Author of nature, or be imparted by him. Such are the circumstances, which have already been mentioned; namely, unity of design, consistency of plan, adaptation of parts to each other and to the whole, and the same spirit running through a scheme of great extent, carried into execution by the agency of individuals living in ages remote from each other, each, therefore, performing his part without concert, yet so as exactly to fill a certain place, to supply the defect of the past, and prepare for something future.

The system of revelation contained in the Scriptures, like the system of nature, we find to be a whole, complete in all its parts; and which would not be complete were any of its parts omitted. The latter we refer to a single author, though thousands and millions of subordinate agents are employed in its execution. We rightly conclude that all these can be but instrumental agents, for we see that they cooperate in a design far above their comprehension,— many of them, certainly, without the smallest apprehension of the nature, the tendency, or the importance

of the part they are performing. The same, also, for similar reasons, a just view of the subject will induce us to do with respect to the former.

Were it possible that the whole scheme of the divine dispensations, of which the Bible gives an account, might be the invention, and all the writings, in which they are contained, the production of one human mind of great foresight and comprehension, we have full evidence that it was not so in fact; since the development was certainly gradual, successive, and in distant ages; and we have no reason to believe, that either the invention or the execution could have been divided among many, contriving without concert, and acting independently.

If we now consider the successive dispensations, the earlier incomplete in themselves, each looking forward to another, and each subsequent growing out of the preceding, the patriarchal state, the Mosaic economy, the ministry of the prophets, all evidently derived from one origin, and all merging at last in the Gospel; if we consider, too, the series of writers from whom we have our knowledge of the whole course of events, in which revelation is concerned, flourishing, not at once, but in succession, during an interval of more than fifteen centuries, such the texture of their several accounts, as to remove all suspicion of concert and imposition, and such their coincidence as to give the highest confirmation to each other, as to the leading facts, the great principles, and moral design in which they unite; -can we doubt whether there was a basis of truth, on which the

whole rested? Can we find a satisfactory account of all that we see in any hypothesis, which deprives it of that foundation of divine authority, to which it lays claim?

In vain shall we look for a parallel case. The history of the world furnishes nothing with which to compare it. No such connexion is to be discerned between any other writers of a different kind, appearing in different ages. No such concurrence in one great design of things distant, unlike, and between which there was no other bond of union. In no works, but those of the Author of nature, and to accomplish no purposes but his, shall we find a similar cooperation of numerous agents, through successive ages, each contributing his share, and performing unconsciously his several part to promote the same design. To the Author of nature, then, are we bound to refer, and not to human contrivance, or the will of man, that series of dispensations which revelation makes known.

And when we have made this reference, it will become us next to lend our attention to the contents of those sacred books, which purport to contain a revelation from God; that we may see what is the spirit, which runs through the whole, and gives a soul and character to distinguish it as from God; and what are those doctrines, which, making a prominent part of each successive dispensation, may be considered as fundamental, indispensable, and as making the distinguishing features of the Gospel.

CHAPTER V.

THE BOOKS OF THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION.

I HAVE stated that there is a connexion between the Christian and preceding dispensations, and of course between the writings of the New Testament, and those of the Old.

That those books, which we now know under the name of the Old Testament, existed in the time of our Saviour, and were held in high estimation by the Jewish nation, as the depositories of their religion, their law, and their history, we see by the manner in which they are constantly alluded to by Christ and his Apostles. We not only learn, that there were such books of peculiar authority; the titles by which they were known, and the divisions by which they were distinguished, are also recognised. "The Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms," are mentioned, as a complete enumeration of them.

The Books of the Law, or the "Pentateuch,"— five books ascribed to Moses,—were by his command deposited in the ark of the covenant, and placed in the Tabernacle, under the care of the Priests and Levites. There they were preserved, not only while the nation remained in the wilderness, but after they took possession of the land of Canaan. To the same sacred deposite, also, were consigned the other sacred books, as they successively appeared. When Solc

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