By so much does the reality of salvation exceed LECT. VIII. the shadows by which an idea of it was conveyed

to the minds of the ancient Israel.

survey of

types.

The survey which we have thus taken of the Result of this instruction by means of types, enjoyed by the Messianic people of God under the former dispensation, may suffice to show how full and impressive was the representation thus set before them of the grand truths of the Gospel of Christ. Of all that is essential to salvation, nothing appears to have been omitted. The guilt of the sinner, the evil of sin, and the importance of holiness ;the necessity of a mediator between God and man, and of a sacrificial atonement for man's transgressions; the freeness and sufficiency of that remission of sins which such an atonement procured, and the full realization of all these truths in the person and work of the Messiah; were continually held before the view of the Jews by the ceremonies of their symbolical ritual. That ritual thus secured the preservation of the true religion among them, fed the faith, and kindled the hopes of the truly pious, and paved the way for that fuller and more permanent development of the plan of mercy which has conferred its peculiar glory on the dispensation of the latter days.

H H

PART III.

LECT VIII.

Summary of the preceding investigations,

I HAVE now traversed, though with hasty steps, the wide field which I proposed to myself in undertaking this course of Lectures. Allow me, before bringing it to a conclusion, to recapitulate, in one or two sentences, what it has been my aim principally to establish in regard to the connexion and harmony of the Old and New Testaments. Assuming the Divine authority of both, I have endeavoured to show

First:-That both belong to the same national literature; and, that on the composition of the latter, a great influence has been exerted by the familiarity of its human authors with the former.

Second:-That both teach the unity of the Divine existence; but, at the same time, intimate the mysterious fact, of a plurality in that unity: the New Testament more fully and dogmatically; the Old, generally by hints and intimations, and, in one or two instances, by more express and explicit statement.

Third:-That both present the same view of the moral character of God, as holy, just, and good; and of the relation in which man stands to Him as one who has broken his law, insulted his government, and merited his displeasure.

Fourth-That the penalty denounced against

sin in both, and which both assure us man has LECT.VIII incurred and deserves to receive, is, eternal death -exclusion during the whole course of his being from the love and favour of God.

Fifth-That both, representing God as full of love, announce the glorious fact, that he has found a way for the display of that love in the salvation of sinners, whereby so great an act of mercy has been rendered consistent with the claims of his government and law.

Sixth-That both announce the great truth, that by the incarnation of the Son of God, and his substitution on our behalf, this way of salvation has been opened up :-the Old Testament, by promises, predictions, and types; the New Testament, by the history of our Lord and the statement of his doctrines, in which all these promises have been fulfilled, and all these types substantiated.

Upon the whole, the aim of the Lecturer has been, to show that the religion of Jesus Christ, the only religion which, as our own experience amply testifies, can meet the case, and relieve the miseries of man, has been from first to last the sole religion of Divine revelation, and unfolds the only plan which God has ever announced to man, as that by which he saves the guilty.

the Christian

From the data thus furnished, it is easy to Superiority of deduce a conclusion as to what it is which to the preconstitutes the superior glory and advantage of the Christian dispensation over those which

ceding dis

LECT.VIII. preceded it. It is not because under it truths are revealed which were unknown before; nor, because the religious system which it unfolds is radically different from that displayed to the patriarchs and the Jews; nor, because under it any relaxation of moral discipline, or mitigation of the Divine claims upon the obedience and devotion of man has been conceded, that its glory is greater than that of its predecessors. On the contrary, its excellence lies in its being the fulfilment and substance of that of which the former dispensations contained only the germ and the shadow. It has no truth of which the sons of God in the earlier ages were altogether ignorant; but it presents the truths which these saw through a glass darkly, in substance and reality before the mind. Where they had predictions, we have narratives; where they had types, we have realities. They were under the discipline of a schoolmaster; we are under the guidance of the Master of the house. Whilst they had clear views of the principles of Divine truth, but could have only vague and imperfect conceptions of the great facts on which these principles rested; to us, the facts are as certain and intelligible as the principles which they involve. Theirs, in short, was the season of the Church's nonage, when it was under tutors and governors; ours is that of its full maturity, when, having received the anointing of the Spirit of truth, it needs not that any man should be its

teacher;* and when its unimpeded faculties are LECT.VIII. to be fully exercised in the service of its exalted

Head.

the Old

well as the

New.

This view of the relation of the Christian dis- Intimated in pensation to those which preceded it is unfolded, Testament as not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old. In the writings of the prophets, nothing is more clearly foretold than the cessation of the old covenant, and the substitution in its room of a spiritual dispensation, under which neither priest nor prophet from among men should be required for the religious prosperity of the Church. The law of God was then to be written on the hearts of his people. All were to be taught of God, so that none should teach his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord, for all should know him, from the least unto the greatest. The people of God should then be called the priests and ministers of Jehovah. They should be all righteous and holy. And so entirely should the outward distinction between sacred and profane, which had subsisted under the Jewish economy, be superseded by the universal diffusion of true piety consecrating all things unto God, that even on the bells of the horses should be inscribed "Holiness to the Lord;"-that inscription which once belonged peculiarly to the High Priest, as the representative of the holy people.+ A carnal

* 1 John ii. 27.

Jer. xxxi. 31 ff.; Isa. liv. 13; lxi. 6; lxvi. 22; Zech. xiv. 20.