them ; but it was especially a type of the later initiating sea of the covenant of grace ;-yea, a type of the washing of regeneration and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, of which baptism is only the sign.

On the completion of this wonderful deliverance, Moses composed a song, which he and the children of Israel sung unto the Lord; to which responses were made by Miriam the prophetess accompanied by timbrels and dances. No doubt

among that vast multitude there were many sincerely pious people; who from the heart, extolled God for his wonderful works. There was the true Church. But all were not Israel, who were of Israel. Indeed the greater part of that generation which came out of Egypt were unsanctified men, and exceedingly perverse. God delivered them from bondage for "his name's sake, and that he might make his power known." And if they united in the song of Moses, it was in the triumphs of victory. They sang his praise, but his loving kindness was soon obliterated from their minds. Forty years they wandered in the wilderness, but they were years of constant murmurings and rebellions. Before they crossed the Red sea, they spake contemptuously to Moses. And within three days after they had sung the praises of the Lord, they murmured at the waters of Marah, because they were bitter. Then in a short period, they murmured for bread, looking back with bitter regret to the day when they "sat by the flesh pots and did eat bread to the full." God gave them bread from heaven but "their soul loathed that light bread." Next they murmured for flesh. They were jealous of the honour conferred on Moses and Aaron. They made them a molten calf in imitation of the Egyptian god Apis, and were afterwards joined to Baalpeor; did eat the sacrifices of the dead, and committed abomination with the daughters of Moab., Their whole life was a continued scene of rebellion. Forty years long," said God, "was I grieved with this generation." And though he did not destroy them utterly, he sometimes caused them to feel the power of his indignation. At one time three and twenty thousand were destroyed in a day. At another, the Lord sent among them fiery flying serpents which bit them, so that many of the people died. At another, three rebellious families were swallowed up in the earth for their sins, and 14,700 persons were suddenly cut off by a plague for murmuring against it. Such was their perverseness, that God sware in his wrath that

was first made known to Adam and Eve, when the Lord assured them that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. It was renewed with Noah and his sons, when they came out of the ark. And now, it was presented to Abraham with still greater fulness. Christ was promised from his loins; and in him, it was declared, that all the families of the earth should be blessed. This was a great ERA in the Church.

Confiding in the word of the Lord, this pious patriarch took Sarai his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance, passed to Sichem, in the land of Canaan, and there built an altar unto the Lord. There again, God appeared to him, and renewed covenant with him. Finding a grievous famine in the land, he went to Egypt, where he came near losing his wife, because she was very beautiful, and was known only as his sister. But God interposed for her rescue, and made his power and his wrath known to the Egyptians. When the famine had ceased, Abraham returned to Canaan, laden with much wealth, and divided the land with Lot. There he became a man of great substance and strength: having 318 servants in his household, and being able to wage effectual war with the plundering nations around him. God often appeared to him; assuring him that he was his shield and his exceeding great reward; accepting his sacrifices and confirming the promises. On a certain occasion, Melchisedec, king of Salem, a priest of the most high God, met him and blessed him in the name of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.

But though Abraham believed the word of the Lord, that in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed, yet so long was the promised heir delayed, that he foolishly took to himself Hagar, his Egyptian maid; and became the father of a son whom he called Ishmael. But this was not the promised seed. So far were all the nations from being blessed in him, that the angel of the Lord prophesied concerning him, "He will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." His posterity, the Arabs, have, to this day, been thieves and robbers, unsubdued by any people.

At length, however, when God had well tried the faith of the patriarch, he gave him in the hundredth year of his age, the promised son; again renewing with him his covenant for an everlasting covenant, promising that he would be a God to him and to his seed after him, and instituting the ordinance of circumcision; which was to seal to them the covenant of grace, and bind them to an observance of all its requisitions.

Hitherto the Church had existed in an unembodied state. By no token was she distinguished from the world. God was now pleased to give her a visible standing among the nations. By the ordinance of circumcision, all his people, with their infant seed, were set apart as the Lord's. Whoever beheld them in successive generations, might know by this sign and seal, that God was their God, and they were his people. From this event, which occurred in the 2108th year of the world, is dated the establishment of the

JEWISH CHURCH.

By two other remarkable events, was the life of this eminently holy man, this head of the Church and father of believers, distinguished.

One was an awful destruction of the ungodly.

The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, with whom Lot dwelt, were among the most wicked of the posterity of Ham. Their abominations cried aloud to heaven for vengeance; and the Lord God determined to make "an example of them to those that should after live ungodly." His tremendous purpose he made known to his favoured servant, Abraham; whose humble, fervent intercession for the righteous that might dwell among them, has since greatly endeared him to the people of God. Lot was a righteous man, a member of the true Church, the only one that dwelt in the cities of the plain. His righteous soul was vexed, from day to day, with the conversation of the wicked, and with their unlawful deeds; yet he remained among them, from an inordinate attachment to the world, and saw all that were dear to him corrupted and destroyed. But for him

Abraham had effectually interceded; and the angels said unto him, "Escape for thy life." No sooner had he fled, than the Lord rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and the inhabitants were totally destroyed, and the whole plain was converted into a vast lake, called the Dead Sea; which still remains a memorial of the vengeance of God. How awful the wrath of an holy Jehovah ! This judgment was inflicted in the 2108th year of the world, and 1896 years before Christ.

The other event was a trial of Abraham's faith.

Thirty years had elapsed since the birth of Isaac; the long expected seed, the child of promise, the declared progenitor of Him, in whom "all the families of the earth were to be blessed;" when God said to Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Never was there a com

gave much heed to omens and prodigies-such as monsters, comets, eclipses, the flight of birds, and entrails of beasts.

The light of philosophy had, in some measure, opened the eyes of men in civilized Europe to the fooleries of idolatry, when Christ appeared; but it was three centuries before Christianity obtained a triumph over the gods of Rome. But little variation has probably been made in those countries which still remain pagan, from their former state. They have, from the days of Nahor, "served other gods,"*. -are old wastes, the desolations of many generations." India has her three hundred million deities. Her images are brass, wood and stone. horrid idol Juggernaut is drawn in a splendid car. Most of the islands of the Pacific have been, until of late, in the same awful bondage. When, O when shall they all cast their gods to the moles and the bats?

Her

"Be

Some would charitably suppose that every idolater is a sincere worshipper of his Creator and benefactor. But Paul assures us that idolatry originated in the depravity of the heart. cause that when they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things." And the correctness of his declaration is evinced by the moral character of the whole heathen world. Through every generation, in every clime, it has been vile and abominable beyond what language can express. The picture of it in his day, drawn by Paul in the close of the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, is the best ever presented to the world, and is a correct representation of Heathen immorality in every period of time. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, despiteful, haters of God, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful;-who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

* From idol worship the aborigines of America have been remarkably free.

PERIOD II.

FROM THE CALL OF ABRAHAM TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST ; EMBRACING 1921 YEARS.

CHAPTER I.

Call of Abraham. Institution of Circumcision, and establishment of the Jewish Church. Destruction of the cities of the plain. State of religion in the world.

ABRAHAM was born in the 2008th year of the world; 352 years after the flood, and 1996 years before Christ. He was the son of Terah; and the tenth, in a direct line, from Noah. His ancestors lived in Ur of the Chaldees: whence his father came into Mesopotamia, expelled, if we may credit a traditionary account recorded in the book of Judith, by the idolaters, for his worship of the true God. Even they, however, were seduced into the heaven-provoking abomination, and bowed down, to some extent, to idols. "Your father," said God, by Joshua, "dwelt on the other side of the flood (the Euphrates) in old time; even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods." Besides Abraham, Terah had two sons, Nahor and Haran, and one daughter, Sarai, who became Abraham's wife. Though she was his sister she was of a different mother. Haran was the father of Lot and died in Ur.

As the nations were becoming corrupt with amazing rapidity, and true religion was in danger of being extinct in the world, God selected this family to be the depository of truth. He appeared to Abraham in the 75th year of his age, directed him to leave his country and his kindred, and go to a land he would show him, and promised that he would bless him and give him a numerous posterity, and that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. This was the third time that the covenant of grace had been revealed by God to his Church. It