given in more explicit terms than to our first parents, and to him it was confirmed by certain pledges which served to establish his faith, and to give a security to his posterity for the accomplishment of the prophecies that had been foretold.

In all the miraculous display of supreme power which sanctioned the authority of Moses, we only behold the gradual advancement of that design which had been already intimated. It was as a means of ministering to its accomplishment that the law was established; and this alone gave efficacy, sense, and meaning to each of its ordinances. By Moses the coming of the Messiah was again declared, and further light than had hitherto been granted, was thrown upon the nature of his divine mission.

As a prophet superior in wisdom to

VOL. II.

F

him

him, who was the first of the prophets, he was described by Moses: as a king, far surpassing himself in power and greatness, he was described by David: as uniting both these characters, and yet in his station and appearance seeming to give a contradiction to all the expectations that had been formed concerning him, he was described by all the subsequent prophets, some of whom relate the circumstances of his birth and sufferings, and death, as if they had been eye-witnesses of the scenes which they so minutely pourtray.

To afford incontestable proof of their divine mission, they forewarned their contemporaries of events which would soon take place, not only in their own nation but in others. They spoke loudly, and plainly, and decidedly of the punishments which God intended to inflict upon them

for

for their sins, and gave clear and minute descriptions of the nature of these punishments.

Every thing that they declared took place every word spoken by the prophets was fulfilled. When the period arrived in which the Jews were to suffer the afflictions due to their impenitence, they did suffer; and, when humbled by adversity, perceived that the prophets whom they had despised, had, by Divine inspira tion, anticipated the records of his tory.

The afflictions which they endured in their long captivity, had, in some respects, their proper effect. They produced a more entire hearty dependence upon God, and a more uniform performance of their religious duties. In their prosperity they had forgotten the promise of hope, but they clung to it in their adversity;

and though their views of its nature were extremely erroneous, their faith was from henceforth steady and sin

cere.

The voice of prophecy now ceased. The Israelites, to whom the law had been given as a perpetual memorial of God's power and goodness, were now convinced of its Divine authority; they had a full experience concerning the exact fulfilment of the promises and threatenings by which it had been sanctioned; and built upon that experience a certain confidence concerning what yet remained to be accomplished, and waited in awful expectation of the desired

event.

In contemplating these Divine interpositions we cannot but be filled with awful ideas of the immutability of the Supreme Being. The scheme of Providence is far too extensive for

our

our grasp.

All beyond what he has

been pleased explicitly to declare, is involved in darkness; but

of what he

has explicitly declared we are bound to make the proper use. In all that we have seen displayed of it in the many revolving ages that have passed under our review, we perceive the most perfect harmony; we perceive the indications of never-failing truth. Where do we find that God promised and did not fulfil his promise? Where do we find that he threatened and did not punish? For a certain length of time, such a time as was sufficient to give an ample room for the operation of experience, these promises and threatenings were confined to objects of sense. They were seen, felt, and understood by the learned and unlearned; and as they were, in many instances, not individual, but national, the accomplishment of them