DISCOURSE II.

THE JEWISH DISPENSATION PREPARATORY

TO THE CHRISTIAN.

GALATIANS, CHAP. III.-VERSE 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ.

THE most careless inquirer into the history of the Jews will find abundant reason to conclude, that the religion of that singular people was certainly derived from God, and the course of their fortunes directed by his peculiar providence for it is impossible not to observe, that a new order of events, such as no earthly lawgiver ever dared to promise, was, in the case of Moses, not only promised, but in fact established; that the observance of his laws was constantly attended with national glory and success, and the breach of them invariably followed by public disgrace and calamity.

But, it may be asked, why should the Supreme Being adorn the religion of his appointment with a gaudy train of outward ceremonies; or produce so long a series of great and unexampled events, to display the reality of a dispensation, which yet was apparently not designed to extend beyond the limits of the single nation, in which it was originally established?

With regard to the admission of external rites, it is to be observed, that though they be separately and in their own nature neither useful to man nor acceptable to God, yet are they undoubtedly, and to a certain degree and in their more simple forms, absolutely necessary, not only to the solemnity, but the very existence of all public worship. Many also of the more splendid ceremonies might be indulged to the Jews, in order to

engage their attention, to soften the obstinacy of their national temper, or to counteract the attractions of the gay religions with which they were surrounded: and even those ritual observances, which to our eyes have no visible connexion with any known duty; which the moralist might overlook for their indifference, and the legislator almost despise for their minuteness; even those are seen in some instances, and with reason therefore supposed in all, to have been curiously adapted to the situation of the people to whom they were prescribed; and to have been highly favorable to the one main end of the Mosaic dispensation, which was to preserve the Jews a separate and distinct family in the midst of a corrupt world: for the intercourse of nations is by no means more effectually checked than by the opposition of different manners and customs; and provided this difference be rendered sufficiently clear and striking, the laws by which it is produced, however unimportant in their appearance, are attended with at least one proof of their wisdom, in the attainment of the object to which they were directed.

But, supposing the laws of Moses to be perfectly accommodated to the end they were appointed to answer, still it may be asked, is not the end itself improper or unworthy to be pursued? Is it reconcilable with the justice of God to confine his favor to one peculiar people; or was it consistent with his wisdom, to select a nation, whose subsequent conduct presents us with one continued scene of perverseness, ingratitude, and idolatry?

Even to the Jew these questions may not be unanswerable; but the Christian will be led to think most highly of the ends of the Mosaic institution, if he consider, not only its effects on the people to whom it was given, but also its general influence on human society, and its particular connexion with Christianity; that it preserved among mankind the knowlege and worship of the one true God; that the superintendence of his providence over the natural and moral world was not only affirmed in words, but proved and exemplified in the various and wonderful revolutions of the Jewish commonwealth; that the laws of Moses, if they be not the most complete, are undoubtedly the earliest system of morality and religion ever

offered to mankind; and, above all, that the writings of the Old Testament created an anxious expectation of the coming of Christ; that they prepared the world for his reception, and added light and strength to the proofs of his heavenly mission. It is this connected view, which presents each system of religion in its proper beauty, and teaches us to divest ourselves of our unreasonable prejudices, and to acknowlege and admire alike in both the power of God, and the wisdom of God."*

Now, that the author of the Jewish economy had a farther and better end in view than the temporal prosperity of a single nation, appears in some measure from the terms of the original promise made to Abraham; In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.'+ Plainly therefore the promise was, not merely of a partial benefit destined for this chosen people, but of a universal blessing, to be by their instrumentality imparted to the whole race of Adam. And farther, in the Mosaic dispensation, where little was left to the irregular agency of second causes, the design of the institution may be fairly and clearly inferred from the effects which it really produced; and certainly the great end, which it did in fact accomplish, and to which, in almost every religious rite, and in every public transaction, it had a visible and uniform reference, is the introduction of Christianity.

There are many particulars, in which the people of the Jews, either by their own conduct, or from the nature of the institutions under which they lived, undeniably contributed to the success of Christianity. As the depositaries of the promises of God and the predictions of his inspired servants, to them was entrusted the mysterious testimony, which would one day point out the Messiah; and the sure foundation, on which was to be built the future religion of the world. That these writings were punctually fulfilled in Christ is an argument for the truth of his mission; that they were fulfilled in a sense exactly opposite to what had been, in every age, the constant opinion and favorite expectation of the Jews, is a clear proof of their authenticity. The same fact, therefore, shows, that the prophecies † Gen. xxii. 17, 18.

* 1 Cor. i. 24.

had been preserved among the Jews without any mixture of their invention, and were in the end accomplished among them without any assistance from their power.

The same mistake of the Jews, in determining the sense of their prophetic Scriptures, seems to have been attended also with another effect, which could not possibly be prejudicial to the Christian cause. The Roman historians, in describing the reign of Vespasian, inform us, that an ancient and constant opinion had prevailed throughout the east, that a prince, to whom the empire of the world was destined, was at that time to come from Judea. Now, as to the opinion itself, whatever were its meaning or its origin; whether with the Romans we refer it to Vespasian, or with the Jews to their promised Messiah; whether we suppose it to have arisen from mere chance, to have been thrown out by a heathen oracle, or to have been founded, as is most probable, on the writings of the Hebrew prophets; we shall at least allow, that it must have strongly affected the minds of men, that it must have filled them with an anxious expectation of the event, and turned their attention irresistibly to the very smallest occurrence, which should take place among the distant and neglected mountains of Judea.

In truth, the conduct of the Jews has, in every age, however undesignedly, been of essential service to the real interests of Christianity. Previously to the coming of Christ, they prepared the world, unknowingly indeed, for his reception; and the very methods, which they afterwards employed to suppress his pretensions, were eventually attended with a quite contrary effect for when they delivered him into the power of the Roman governor, what did they, but enable him to execute the great purpose, for which he came into the world, and that too in the very way which the prophets had foretold? Thus also, while they were anxiously guarding against the pretended danger of a fictitious resurrection, were they not in fact providing the strongest confirmation of the true? And, not to mention any other instances, the continued and excessive enmity, with which they harassed the new religion, in its rise and in its progress, has undoubtedly not only added new force to many parts of its positive evidence, but effectually secured the whole from one considerable objection; as it prevented every suspicion of

a national confederacy, and precluded almost the very possibility of a private fraud; for if any such had been, we see their willingness, and we know the power and opportunities, which they must have had, to detect and defeat it. Thus, in the last years of their political existence, their opposition was a firmer support to Christianity, than their testimony could possibly have been; and in their subsequent ruin and dispersion, their obstinate rejection of its claims has in effect proved fully equivalent to the most incontrovertible testimony in its behalf; for that rejection and that ruin had been expressly foretold by Christ the destruction of the city and temple particularly is the subject of predictions, which are attended with every mark that distinguishes the true from the pretended prophet; and which were delivered at a time, when scarcely any event could be conceived more unlikely for what could be more remote from all reasonable expectation, than that the daughter of Sion, humbled by many ages of servitude and suffering, would ever dare to provoke and resist the acknowleged mistress of the world; that this unequal contest would yet be continued to the last fatal extremity; and that the name of Jerusalem would soon be ranked with those of Carthage and of Corinth; with the few illustrious cities, which had ever been deliberately destroyed by the jealousy, the revenge, or the caprice of Rome?

The subsequent dispersion of this devoted people, which had been mentioned by Christ, and more largely described by their own prophets, is not the least singular or instructive period of their eventful history.

The nations, which once shook the world with their arms, have in their turns disappeared, and mingled again with the common mass of mankind: but the Jews, though exiles in every country under heaven, and in every country oppressed, hated, and despised, have yet, by a peculiar fate, of which the history of the world affords no second instance, survived for seventeen centuries the loss of their country, and the dissolution of their government; have preserved their name and language, their customs and religion, in every climate of the globe; and, though themselves not a people, have yet subsisted a separate and distinct race in the midst of every other nation; thus exhibiting a wonderful example of the truth of their own Scriptures, and, in

FAW.

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