of the means is best seen in their adaptation to accomplish the end proposed. So far as man is concerned, nothing could be more essential to his welfare than that he should have just ideas of his relations, duties, and destiny, as a spiritual being. And the wisdom of the methods of which Almighty God saw fit to make use appears in the fact, that, without any interference with man's moral freedom, they have accomplished their purpose. Except for that series of Divine communications and interpositions, the account of which we have in the Old and New Testaments, what right have we to suppose that we should have had any just ideas of God? or even to suppose that we should not, at this moment, be worshipping the grim monsters of some heathen Pantheon? Asia, Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, never led men to a knowledge of God. The Bible has done it. To all the cavils of scepticism, to all the objections against parts and fragments, there is one insurmountable answer. It is to this volume that the world owes its best knowledge of God. We find the vindication of the means, in the result accomplished. Admit all the difficulties which any one may affirm to exist, still we come back to the great fact; the end proposed was the most essential conceivable for man, the essential condition of his progressive welfare here and hereafter, and somehow or other the means have accomplished the end.

3. Again, a just understanding of the Old Testament requires that we should view its several parts in their relations to each other, and especially in their bearing on the great end of Providence. Many things which, standing alone, might seem meaningless, or be embarrassed with difficulty, when viewed as a part of a providential history, are full of significance. As an illustration of this, we may take an example burdened by as many perplexities as any one that could well be selected, the sacrifice of Isaac.

According to the history, Abraham is called upon to make the sacrifice of his child. It should be remarked that this command had in it nothing to jar the moral sense of one in that

age, as it would now in a Christian land. The impression probably made was similar to that now made when dutywhich is God's voice requires a parent to expose a child to some great hazard. And what is more to the point, Abraham was not allowed to consummate the act; a substitute was provided; and apparently the lesson taught was such as ever after to exclude the idea of human sacrifices from the mind of the Jews, so long as they remained faithful to their religion. But even with this qualification, if we look at the command by itself alone it seems an extraordinary one.

But how stands the case? This event was by no means an isolated one. What we learn from history, Providence fore

saw. Abraham stood at the fountain-head of a series of causes and effects more momentous than any other in the history of mankind. He was to be the father of the religions of civilization. The Jew, the Christian, and, in a certain sense, the Mohammedan, date back to him. His character would influence men through coming ages. Thousands of years after, Paul referred to his unbounded trust in God, as an inspiring and authoritative example. At a period of the world when books were not written, when reverence for the Fathers was great, when tradition handed down from generation to generation their virtues, Providence saw fit to teach, not through the written word, but through a living man. The highest sentiment of religion was exhibited in a man, and through an act such as would never be forgotten, - the sentiment of faith, — that sentiment which connects man with God, and without which religion is impossible, that faith which we so much need, faith in God, faith that whatever he commands, whether it accord with our wishes or not, is wise and good, faith that would bring mankind into harmony with God. This great sentiment in its breadth and its height was inculcated through a living example, and in the most effective way. It was as if God had said to his servant, Have you, indeed, faith in me? Is it a faith that will bear the test? The child which I have given you, - your only child, -- can you, if I require it, sur

render it again to me? And Abraham says, I can! He was not called to make that surrender, but circumstances were so arranged as to make it evident that, if God willed, he could, in obedience to his clear command, give back, with his own hand, what was dearer than his life, the only child of the Hebrew's hope and love, give back even him to the Being who had trusted him for a time to his care.

It was felt, and has ever The light of that faith has

been felt, to be the extremest test. remained shining like a star down the long pathway of Jewish history, rebuking the wavering, strengthening the weak but trusting, told by the Fathers to the children, an example whose power has not yet died out.

Think of Abraham as a mere Chaldee shepherd or chief, and the narrative might seem utterly incredible. But remember what he was, and was to be, to coming times, - look on the event as constituting a turning-point in the great order of Providence, see its place in a series of lessons on which the welfare of man was to depend, — and we no longer wonder that the nature and importance of a sentiment, which gives life both to morality and religion, was taught in a manner that could never be forgotten. In our misgivings we still look back to faithful Abraham, and our hearts recognize and acknowl edge his sublime example of undoubting, self-surrendering confidence in God.

4. There is yet another view of the events recorded in the Old Testament, not to be overlooked. Great as was the truth taught by Moses, and protected and established in the world by his institutions, the Mosaic dispensation was not intended to terminate in itself. It was preparatory to still further and higher revelations of God's providence. The remembrance of this may help us to form a more correct judgment of the prophetical parts of the Old Testament.

The interpretation of the prophecies has always been a source of perplexity to commentators. Nor is it at all surprising. Written in a remote age, relating to men and transactions of which in many cases scarcely any other record sur

vives, preserved in a language with which we are not familiar, and whose vivid idioms can scarcely be translated into the precise and frozen formulas of our Northern speech, it would be wonderful if the prophecies were free from difficulties.

But granting this, and granting also that there is much uncertainty about the force of particular predictions, one great and indisputable fact remains, that, all together, they awakened among the Jews a singular anticipation of a happier state, to be ushered in by the advent of one holding a peculiar connection with God. Viewed separately, the prophecies may make little impression upon our minds, while viewed in their connection they suggest the sublimest ideas of a Providence. Their real force is not felt till we look at them as forming a part of a longextended if we may so term it prophetic history.

In the Jewish annals we see that there was an order of events in which one thing prepared the way for another;Abraham, Moses, the peculiarities of the Jewish state, the prophets, under the guidance of Providence, preparing the way for the higher manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. We know historically, that the Jews understood this to be so. Doubtless their expectations were very vague, uncertain, and indistinct. But notwithstanding this, their expectation of a Divine deliverer who was to come was so confident, that in the most disastrous times it kept up the courage of the Jewish heart, and bound the exiled people together by a hope of the future scarcely less powerful than their memories of the past, confidence increasing so with time, that, when Jesus appeared, Judea was rocked from side to side with the restless passions of the people made impatient by the delayed coming of the Messiah. This expectation was derived from the prophetic intimations of the Old Testament. To these the Jews and our Saviour alike appealed.

Here, then, is presented a remarkable state of things. It would appear as a matter of fact, that, in the order of his providence, God opened the minds of the Jews to this expectation, — that certain men were raised up and impelled to prophesy

of what was to be, that in some way there was given to them, to an extent sufficient to awaken the most profound and anxious expectation, a vision of that great event on which the fortunes of the world would turn, and for which their own history, though they then might not see it, was a gradual preparation. These men claimed, and were understood, to speak from a Divine impulse. The Jews recognized that claim, and Christ recognized it. And the expectation which they had thus awakened, was more than met by the coming of our Lord. It is not necessary to say that they were inspired in all they said or did, nor to define the mode or extent of the Divine impulse that moved them. They themselves, perhaps, hardly understood its nature; they doubtless uttered words which they themselves but inadequately comprehended, and which could not be fully understood till interpreted by the event. But this does not in any way affect the fact that they were moved to speak by a wisdom higher than their own. At any rate, till it is proved that God was not in this wondrous order of events, that he gave no anticipatory intimations, no vision of what was to be, the mind may rest quietly in the faith of so many ages, that the prophets spoke, as they claim, from a Divine impulse, moved thereunto by the Holy Spirit. Were there uncertainty in regard to the meaning of every separate prophecy commonly applied to the Saviour, it would not affect our faith in the supernatural and providential control exercised over the progress of the Hebrew race. The whole dispensation was prophetical; from the beginning, it was intended that Christ should come and complete this order of Divine communications; and the whole course of Providence in regard to the Jews was prophetic of this event.

There is nothing more sublime than the gradual unfolding of the great plan of Providence, which ushered in the advent of the Saviour, and few things are more interesting than the manner in which the expectation of that event was awakened. From the earliest times, the Hebrew was made sensible that in some mysterious way he was connected with a course of