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PREFACE.

THAT the author of the following Discourses should be found to have thrown new light on the correspondency between the positive and ritual parts of the Law of Moses, and the facts and doctrines of the Christian religion, a subject which has been so often discussed and elucidated by much abler pens than his own, was not the effect which he contemplated, as a probable result of this work. He had no view in the primary contemplation of his undertaking, beyond that of endeavouring to excite a new interest in an old and familiar subject, and to exhibit acknowledged and unquestionable truths in a popular and intelligible light, for the benefit of the simplest understanding. The religious world therefore must not expect to find much that is novel in the present volume. If it coincides with generally received opinions on the subject of which it treats, and offends no orthodox doctrine, the author will have attained his object.

All ingenuous and observant readers of the New Testament, who consider that sacred volume as intended to be understood in the sense which naturally presents itself to an unsophisticated mind, in remarking the references and allusions to the old Law, therein of perpetual recurrence, will not fail to be convinced of the intimate and indisputable relation which the two covenants bear to each other. That familiarity and fre

quency, moreover, with which St. Paul, in his Epistles, is found to transfer a variety of ideas, and a corresponding variety of phrases, from the Hebrew ritual to the existing relations of Christians, may justly be considered as an argument that the case of the Jew, in subjection to his proper law and his proper discipline,mutatis mutandis, was exactly the counterpart of the case of the Christian in subjection to the Gospel-that the whole body of the Law of Moses was animated by a spirit, which identified it with the Gospel of Jesus Christ-that every part of its multiform and complicated ritual, when distinctly examined and rightly understood, will be found to possess a figurative or typical sense and import, and to teach some Gospel truth. To explain this sense and import, divested of its figurative or typical covering, and to elicit these Gospel truths from the symbolical rites and institutions of the Law, if not in a more regular and systematic, yet in a more simple and familiar manner than he had before seen attempted, appeared to the author of the present publication very desirable, and is what he has endeavoured to effect.

Possibly, indeed, there may be some serious and well intentioned Christians, who have imbibed an opinion, that to study the nature, relations, and constitution of the Levitical ritual, with any special degree of attention, is not likely to edify or benefit them in a spiritual sense as Christians, or necessary to their improvement in saving knowledge, or saving practice, at present. The author of the following Discourses entertains a different opinion on this subject. He believes it is the present duty of all those sincere professors of Christianity, who desire to enable themselves to give a reason of the hope that is in them, "to search the"

ancient "Scriptures," agreeably to our blessed Lord's command; and under the assurance that "they are they, "which" in numberless particulars "testify of him." The author would not be understood to maintain that it is requisite for those to recur to the shadow, who are actually in possession of the substance: it is no longer necessary that we should endeavour to find out our way, and to guide our steps, by the dimness of twilight, who have the benefit of the noonday brightness to direct us. It is the inestimable privilege of such as live under the Christian dispensation, and blessed be God that this privilege is ours! that they need not go back to any earlier or more imperfect revelation, for that light and direction, which are indispensable to their salvation, and are so fully bestowed by the Gospel.

But though it may not be absolutely necessary, it may still be very desirable on many accounts, that the study of the Levitical books of the Old Testament should go along with the perusal of the scriptures of the New. Perhaps, in fact, a solid and substantial foundation for the study of the Gospel, cannot be laid except by the preliminary study of the Law of Moses. For the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; and he who would qualify himself to become an intelligent pupil of Christ, must begin with putting himself under the tuition of Moses. Let Judaism and Christianity be related to each other, even as the shadow and the substance, even as the glimmering of twilight and the noon of day; yet the shadow shall still give the form and outline, if not the filling up and bodily proportions of the substance; the glimmer of the twilight and the blaze of noonday will still be portions of the same light, only more sparingly or more liberally dispensed.

If a pious and serious Christian, as a member of the Church of God at the present day, would make himself duly sensible of the transcendent advantages of his own situation, in comparison with that of a member of the same communion in former times, and wishes to be duly grateful for it, let him begin with contrasting the nature and superiority of Gospel light, and Gospel privileges, with the kind and degree of religious knowledge, and spiritual advantages, possessed by the Hebrew worshipper. It is necessary also, to the full proof of the consistency of the Divine proceedings with themselves from first to last, that he should see and confess, that at every time and in every way, the Revelations of which God has been the Author to his moral creatures, have been virtually the same. If there be a disposition in any class of serious Christians, to think too meanly of the Mosaic dispensation in comparison with the Gospel, it must contribute to correct this disposition, to be told that the matter or substance of both dispensations is identical, the form or accidents only are distinct. With this just conception of the typical and mysterious, but still real and substantial import of the elder dispensation, instead of disparaging or undervaluing the study of the Jewish ritual, it will be with increased sentiments of reverence and admiration that they will approach to its examination; with an enlarged apprehension of its meaning and significancy that they will read it; and with a more correct appreciation of its intrinsic excellence, and its subserviency to the purposes of spiritual edification still, that they will apply it. Their views and apprehensions of Gospel truth itself may be materially simplified or brightened, by understanding and remembering the typical relation of the two dispensations to each other.

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