difficulty in curing a single bad habit. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do good, who are accustomed to do evil." "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

Least of all is there any prospect in the sinner's path of expiating his sins by suffering, which ought to weigh a feather in relaxing the bonds of morality, or weakening the motives for seeking immediate salvation.

I cannot better conclude this discussion, than in the words of Southwood Smith, in his admirable treatise on the Divine Government:-"But it has been already shown, that the present system is adopted because it is on the whole the wisest and best. Future punishment is a necessary part of that system. What the actual amount and duration of it will be, we do not know. With undoubting confidence we may leave it to the determination of that wisdom which is absolute, and that goodness which is perfect."

DISCOURSE XV.

INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, THESE ARE THE WORDS WHICH I SPAKE UNTO YOU, WHILE I WAS YET WITH YOU, THAT ALL THINGS MUST BE FULFILLED WHICH WERE WRITTEN IN THE LAW OF MOSES, AND IN THE PROPHETS, AND IN THE PSALMS, CONCERNING ME. THEN OPENED HE THEIR UNDERSTANDING, THAT THEY MIGHT UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES, AND SAID UNTO THEM, THUS IT IS WRITTEN, AND THUS IT BEHOOVED CHRIST TO SUFFER, AND TO RISE FROM THE DEAD THE THIRD DAY: AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME AMONG ALL NATIONS, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM. AND YE ARE WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS. Luke xxiv. 44-48.

I HAVE enumerated in the Discourses immediately preceding some of the principal doctrines taught by Christ. I have not, of course, exhausted this ele ment of the New Testament, but merely shown that such an element exists. Next to doctrines, in the analysis which I have attempted to make, comes the element of Opinions.

By opinions I mean the impressions and habits of thought which were current at the time of Christ, upon subjects collateral to religion, which he did not

deem it expedient to criticise. Concerning these matters he did not consider it the dictate of wisdom to make issue with his contemporaries.

This distinction between doctrines and opinions is all-important, and must be made by the candid defender of the divine origin and authority of Christianity. In speaking of these matters, as they often came in his way,three methods of procedure lay before the Saviour, to forbear all allusion to them, to attempt to correct the popular opinions, or to adopt the common modes of speech in relation to them without remark or comment. The first would have been impossible, as they came up every day and hour. The second would have involved him in perpetual disputes, and nullified the force of his other teaching. There was nothing left but to do as he did, -to use the common language of his countrymen, and leave to time and science the correction of those errors which were merely scientific.

This distinction becomes vital, when we apply it to the interpretation of the Old Testament. The Old Testament was almost the only literature which the Jews possessed. They were familiar with it, and could recite much of it from memory. The consequence was, that it came up to their recollection on all occasions, and was quoted on all occasions, with the remark that "the Scripture is fulfilled" by this and that event, meaning that there is a coincidence between them. There were likewise prophecies in the old dispensation of the new. But the Jews did not confine themselves to these. They interpreted many passages as prophetic which were not so. In reasoning with them, and endeavoring to give them truer

ideas, Jesus sometimes takes them on their own ground, and shows them what would follow on their own premises. He likewise quotes the Old Testament by way of coincidence. No fair-minded expositor of the New Testament will hesitate to make these concessions; and if he insists on classing such expositions under the category of Doctrine, he betrays his cause.

Much light, as it seems to me, is thrown upon Christianity, by considering it as one of a series of Divine revelations, progressive in their nature, and calculated to meet the wants of mankind in the successive stages of their advancement. First came the Patriarchal, then the Jewish, then the Christian; and each was so contrived as to be not only introductory, but preparatory, to the next. Each was an enlargement of the last, till Christianity, completing the series, was calculated to be universal and perpetual, to be coextensive with mankind, and to endure as long as time itself.

First came the Patriarchal. It was brief and simple, and adapted to a single family, or at most that family expanded to a tribe. The world was then in the pastoral state. It is very uncertain whether there were any cities of considerable size. The antiquity claimed for Egypt, when closely scrutinized, seems to me exceedingly apocryphal; and the king of Egypt with whom Abraham held intercourse seems much more like a petty chieftain than the lord of untold millions. The revelations made to Abraham were very short, but exceedingly sublime and comprehensive. "After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not,

Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." On another occasion: "I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect." It wants but a few moments' reflection to realize how impressive and comprehensive these oracles were. They embraced, in few words, all the essential elements of religious faith and duty, the existence, the personality, the providence, and the moral government of God, the moral nature, the freedom, and the accountability of man. This was accompanied by the institution of circumcision, as a national characteristic, the command to give his offspring a religious education, the promise that his posterity should possess the land of Canaan, and that "in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed." The only social religious rite then was sacrifice; but that was not new in the days of Abraham. It ran back to the very beginning of the world.

And this revelation, this religion, this ritual, was ample for its purpose. Human relations, duties, and rights were then few, simple, and intelligible. No complicated system of laws was necessary, no extensive organization of magistracy and priesthood. Such was the patriarchal religion, and it continued from Abraham to Moses, a period of more than four hundred years. Its practical working, its literature, its theology, are portrayed in the book of Job. Historically, Job, as it seems to me, ought to come in between the books of Genesis and Exodus. Few are aware of the wide gap which intervenes between the last chapter of Genesis and the first chapter of Exodus, a period nearly or quite as long as intervenes between the last chapter in Malachi and the