armies of Sennacherib are no more; and Babylon, beside whose waters Judah sat down and wept, when she remembered Zion, has herself come into remembrance before God..

But, since with Judah were that throne of David on which the Messiah sat, that sceptre of righteousness which was the sceptre of his kingdom, and those archives of religion dictated by inspiration, which illustrated the hopes of former ages, and authenticated the doctrines of the Gospel, SHE survived the downfall of empires and the ruin of her own state. Her preservation, amidst such a complication of reverses, corroborates the truth of that Volume which contains her history, and discloses the reasons of God's proceedings with her.

Thus, in Judah is God still known, and his name is great in Israel: and from Salem, where was his tabernacle, and Zion, which was his dwelling-place, Christianity went forth to enlighten the Gentiles, being destined also to become the glory of his people Israel. Built on the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ him

self being the chief corner-stone, it is the last and unalterable dispensation of religion. Warned, therefore, by the examples of those to whom the law was given, proving all things, and holding fast that which is good, let us maintain it in its purity, and banish those false doctrines and schisms, which deteriorate its evidences, and detract from its merciful tendency. And, since these things were written for our admonition, let us see that we refuse not HIM that speaketh: for, if they escaped not, who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from HIM who speaketh from heaven *."

66

SERMON II*.

ON THE PROOFS THAT THE LAW HAD A RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY, AND WAS PARTIALLY ELUCIDATED BY

THE PROPHETS.

MATT. v. 17.

Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets :-I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

We have seen, in the preceding Discourse, that since the early theology of the dif ferent nations of the world, and the extraordinary points of analogy which they bear to each other, attest the common source from whence they are derived, they inductively prove man to have been originally bound to the service of his Creator, as well by a revealed as by a natural law and that, as the outlines of this primitive system were fixed in remote lands, by the dispersion of the colonists on the plains of

* Preached December 4, 1825.

;

Shinar, whilst we can thus account for the comparative similarity, we are also enabled to refer the corruptions which obscure these revelations either to the first Tsabæanism after the flood, or to the later admixture of superstitions, which may have arisen from circumstances in their migrations or new settlements. For we have observed, that no lapse of ages, however enveloping this early creed in a mass of fables, no vicissitude, which the long course of time may have effected in these different regions, availed, notwithstanding the cumbersome appendages which they annexed to it, totally to deface the correspondence to the Scriptural institutions, which we have detected, and which, indeed, was the necessary result of their deduction from revelation. We have likewise argued from the nomadic lives of the patriarchs, and from the deep reverence which seems to have been ascribed to the name of the true God in those treaties and transactions into which the patriarchs entered with the rulers of other tribes, that the covenant ratified to Abraham, and the peculiar marks of the divine favor, with which he had been ho

nored, must have been widely known to the various occupants of Canaan, and, consequently, have created a veneration for his religion and a respect for himself, that most materially conduced to the rapid aggrandizement, which he attained. To these causes have we retraced the analogy of Gentile customs to those commemorated in the Scriptures, and to the retention of the patriarchal institutes in the Mosaic law, the correspondence, also, discoverable between these two sacred dispensations.

If we, however, advert to the internal structure of the law, which was accommodated to the temporary circumstances of the Israelites, restricted as it was from the nature of the times and the genius of the people, who were thus appointed the guardians of God's truth and oracles, it will appear most eminently adapted to the preservation of the more ancient promises and revelations, and in every way fitted to be the connecting medium between the patriarchal economy and the Gospel. Its very deficiencies contained indications that the end of its institution remained to be accomplished; its obscurities intimated that