luftre, magnificence and immensity astonish and overwhelm. The government of the world, it is equally evident, is the result of contrivance; it evinces a constant, fuperintending care. Event arises out of event, link runs into link. What to the first glance appeared an affemblage of scattered fragments, is found, on a more careful and attentive infpection, to be a regular, beautiful, well-proportioned fabric, a "body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint fupplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part." It must be pleafing to every serious mind to obferve in the work of redemption a fimilar uniformity of defign, progress and execution. We find patriarchs, prophets, apoftles, remote from, unknown to one another, at different ages, in different regions, declaring the fame purpose, promoting the fame plan, aiming at the fame end. This affords a prefumption, at leaft, that he who made, upholds and governs the univerfe, is likewife the Author of falvation; in all whose works and ways a noble and important end is obviously kept in view; and that end pursued and attained by means the wifeft and the beft. The Mofaic and Christian are not separate, unconnected, independent difpenfations, but correfponding and harmonious members of the fame great building of God. Nature and grace have one fource, one date; they proceed in a parallel direction, they are haftening to one common confummation. Or, to speak more properly, the system of external nature and the fcheme of redemption are the well-adjusted, the harmonized parts of the one great plan of eternal Providence, which contains the whole purpofe of the glorious CREATOR concerning man-his firft formation, his present state and character, and his final destination. Turn up the inspired volume at whatever page you will, and you have a perfon, or an event, or a service, or a prediction unfolding, in one form or another, the merciful" purpose of Him who worketh all things after after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory." Transport yourself in thought to whatever period of the world you will, and you ftill find the gospel preached; whether in the facrifice of righteous Abel, the tranflation of Enoch, the ark of Noah, the promise made to Abraham, the predictions of dying Jacob; from the feat of Mofes, the throne of David, the dungeon of Jeremiah. They all speak an uniform language, all give witnefs to the fame perfon, all difclofe their own peculiar portion of the gospel treasure, for the illumination of an ignorant, the reformation of a corrupted, the falvation of a perishing world. The writings of Mofes exhibit a fingular display of this grand combined plan. He traces nature up to her birth, and inftructs us "how the heavens and earth rofe out of chaos." He conducts us through the mazes of the moral government of the Great Supreme, and there too unfolds wild uproar reduced to order, and "the wrath of man working the righteoufnefs of God." He draws afide the curtains of the night, and "the day-fpring from on high" dawns on fallen humanity. He attends us through the morning of that bright day, and, constrained at length to retire, leaves behind him the affurance, that "the fulness of the time" would come, that "the morning light" would advance with growing fplendour unto "the perfect day." He prefents to our aftonifhed eyes the vaft, the complicated, the beautiful machine; wheel within wheel put in motion, preferving from age to age its steady majestic tenor, with native, unwearied, undiminished force; referring us ftill to its divine AUTHOR, who made and upholds all " by the word of his power," and for whofe "pleasure they are and were created." Mofes, not only in what he wrote, but in what he was and acted, illuftriously displayed the grace of God in the redemption of the world. Not only did he write and teftify concerning the great Deliverer, but his perfon, his character, his offices, were a prefiguration of "Him who was to come," and to whom "all the prophets give witness." The prediction which has been read, and the point. ed application made of it by the apoftles to their di vine Master, conftitute the proof of what we have juft advanced. Mofes, under the direction of the fpirit of prophecy, raifes the expectation of mankind to the appearance of a prophet, like, indeed, but far fuperior to himfelf; and the apoftles point with the finger to Jefus of Nazareth, faying, "We have found him of whom Mofes, in the law, and the prophets did write." A limited creature, of threefcore years and ten, is loft in the contemplation of a period of fifteen hundred and eleven years, for fuch was the distance of this prophecy from its accomplishment. The fhort-lived creature lofes fight of it, feels his intereft in it but fmall, is at little pains to tranfmit the knowledge of it to those who fhall come after him; the next generation it is neglected, overlooked, forgotten; or, if ob ferved and recollected, is mifunderstood, mifapplied. But during every inftant of the extended period, the eternal eye has been watching over it; in folemn filence attending its progrefs, triumphing over both neg lect and oppofition; and a flumbering world is rouf. ed at length to fee and to acknowledge the truth and faithfulness, the power, wifdom and grace of the Moft High. The day of Mofes, then, in the eye of God, runs down to that of Chrift; as his, in return, afçends to the earliest of the promises and predictions, illuminating, quickening, confirming, fulfilling all that is written. Placed at whatever point of the fyftem of nature, whether on our own planet or on any other, to the north, or to the fouth, in fummer or winter, the eye is ftill attracted to the common centre of all, the great "Light of the world." In like manner, at whatever diftance we are placed, and in whatever direction we contemplate contemplate the fyftem which redeeming love has framed, from under the fhade of the tree of life in Eden, from the fummit of Ararat, Moriah, or Pifgah, in the plain of Mamre, or from a pinnacle of the temple; with Abraham, viewing the Saviour and his day afar off, or with Simeon embracing him, the fame "Sun of righteoufnefs" fheds his glory around us; we fee the light, we feel the influence of him who quickeneth and enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. As we find Mofes plainly and unequivocally refer ring men to Chrift, fo the Saviour as explicitly refers to Mofes for a teftimony concerning himself; thereby plainly infinuating, that if the Jewish prophet deferved any credit, poffeffed any refpectability, this credit, this refpectability were miniftring fervants to the dignity of his own perfon, the facredness of his character, the divinity of his miffion. And this is accompanied with a fevere denunciation of judgment against fuch as admitted the authority of Mofes, but rejected that. of Chrift; to introduce, recommend and confirm which was the end for which Mofes was raifed up. "Do not think I will accufe you to the Father: there is one that accufeth you, even Mofes, in whom ye truft. For had ye believed Mofes, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how fhall ye believe my words?" . This reciprocal teftimony, therefore, of the founders of the ancient and new economy, throws light on both and communicates mutual credibility and im portance. Mofes fatisfies himself with fimply delivering the prediction which he had in charge; he forms no plan, enters into no arrangement to bring it into effect, but leaves to Providence the care of leading forward to the accomplishment, in the proper time and method. Chrift fimply points to what was written, and was generally known, received and refpected as a revelation from heaven, and requires to be believed and obeyed no farther than he bore the charac ters ters under which Mofes had announced him; particularly that of "the great Prophet which should come into the world." -The proper character of a prophet is to communicate the special will of Heaven to men. God, indeed, writes his will on the mind of every man, as he comes into the world; interweaves it with the very conftitution and frame of his being, fo that, in truth, every man is a law, is a prophet to himself. But the characters are quickly erafed, effaced; education, example, fuperftition, vicious propenfities, obliterate the writing of God; habit and the commerce of the world harden the heart, and lull the confcience asleep, and the hearts of men are fet in them to do evil.' Hence the neceffity of a prophet, of a meffenger, of a minister from heaven, to republish the original law, to restore the obliterated characters, to call men back to God, from whom they have revolted. And fuch an one was Mofes; raised up of God at a period of fingular darkness and depravity, divinely commiffioned to promulgate the royal law. Not to fettle a different, a novel conftitution, not to newmodel human nature, but to revive and enforce the primitive constitution, to proclaim in the ear what nature whispered from the beginning, to hang up the confpicuous tablet before the eye, whofe contents are the exact counterpart of what the finger of God, in the very formation of man, engraved on "the living tables of the heart." And when Chrift came, the Prophet after his fimilitude, was it not in like manner to rebuild what was broken down, not to rear a totally different edifice? to magnify the law and make it honourable, to clear it from mifinterpretation and perverfion, to restore it to its native purity and fimplicity, and to extract the spirit out of the letter? "Think not," fays he, "that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I fay unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle fhall in no wise pafs |
