died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." "

....

The Law, then, according to the concurrent testimony of prophets and apostles, is a scheme of redemption, reconciliation, and salvation: redemption through a vicarious atonement; reconciliation to offended Deity, by means of a self-sacrificing Mediator; and salvation through His blood. The doctrine of imputed righteousness has been set forth in the Law, as well as in the Gospel. But in the former it was veiled in allegory, and illustrated by emblems and symbols; whilst, in the latter, the doctrine is set forth in the plainest possible terms, so that no excuse should remain for unbelief. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. . . . . If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father."'

It took a long time to unveil and to explain the purport of the mystic rites and sacraments of the Mosaic system. The intelligent, industrious, and sober-minded Christian students and philosophers discover that the Law was a system of progression and development, which has had its cycles of illustration and illumination, as well as other departments of the Almighty's work.

Suppose we borrow a few illustrations from natural science. The stupendous and powerful agency of steam was clearly in the Book of Nature's God long ere it became palpable and perceptible. Many were the contradictory theories which were propounded by divers shades of philosophers respecting the use and abuse of steam, even after its importance had been acknowledged. It took years before its claims were firmly established upon the narrow-minded world. The same may be said of the wonderful provision in the applicability of gas. Its existence

3 Rom. vii. 7—14.

4 John xv. 22-24.

The whole press of England brought to bear its united influence to exorcise the demon, Steam-locomotion, from the great minds of the discoverers. Lord Ravensworth was pronounced to be an incurable fool for advancing money for an experimental locomotive; and Mr. Stephenson was voted a coxcomb. A writer in the Quarterly

was unknown to the unnumbered ages before the beginning of this century. And when its applicability to lighting the streets was first suggested, the principal scientific man of the day pronounced the philosopher, who propounded the scheme, a madman. But the principal of that species of light was clearly laid down in the Book of Nature's God, long ere the naturalists and philosophers of the present century had any intimation of its existence. How long a period since the creation of the Universe had slipped away ere the multitudinous operations of electricity were even dreamt of in our philosophy! It is true that some ingenious Biblical students thought that its telegraphic departinent was intimated in the Bible, when the Almighty said to the afflicted Patriarch, "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Behold us?" Be this as it may, the Lord's address to Job, consisting of four chapters, is clear on the subject of man's short-sightedness,-the divers uses of electricity were unknown until a recent date. But would any one presume to say that the laws and regulations affecting that agency were not legibly put down in the Code of Nature's God? In like manner might we adduce photography, and a hundred other sciences which have been, and are daily being, made manifest. The laws contained in the Book of Nature's God may be said to be a system of progression and development.

Even so is the character of the science of righteousness, which is contained in the written volume of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, which St. Paul describes thus in his second letter to his "own son in the faith :"-" The Holy Scriptures, which

Review, not later than 1825, condescended thus to write, in a long, vituperative article, against a projected railway line:-"The gross exaggeration of the powers of the locomotive steam-engine, or to speak more plainly, the steam carriage, may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification of those concerned. . . . It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour, by means of the high-pressure engine, to be told that they are in no danger of being sea-sick while they are on shore. . . . But with all these assurances, we should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off by one of Congreve's ricochet rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate."

6 The writer had once the honour of meeting the Rev. Francis B. Grant, a late Rector of Shelton, Staffordshire-from whom he learnt that when Mr. Grant's father first proposed to light the streets of London with gas the most scientific man of the day, a personal friend, invited Mr. Grant to a friendly entertainment, with a view to dissuade him from bringing his "preposterous notion before Parliament," as it would be sure to cause his "consignment to a lunatic asylum."

7 Job xxxviii. 35.

are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Not in the vague and unmeaning sense which modern writers are labouring to put upon the word "inspiration." In that sense it would not be true that Holy Scripture "is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.'

"18

Let the reader just contemplate the revelations which were gradually made of the coming righteousness, in the various stages of the formation of the law. There is no need for our mentioning each revelation separately; they will occur to the reader's mind the moment we state the personages through whom, and to whom, the divine communications were made. To Adam, to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Moses, to Samuel, to David, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel, to Micah, to Zechariah, to Malachi. Are we doubtful of the import of all those revelations, which were made to those holy men, then let us join for a while the two disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and hear what Jesus Himself thinks of the purport of the law and the prophets. Let not the doubting and unbelieving feel aggrieved at the appellation of "fools and slow of heart." Are they aught better than Cleopas and his companion, whom the risen Saviour thus addressed :-" O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His Glory? And beginning at Moses," adds the Evangelist, "and ALL THE PROPHETS, He expounded unto them IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES the things concerning HIMSELF." Hence said the great Apostle, whose inspired mind was stored with the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures :-"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster." .... "Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world; but when the fulness

8

2 Tim. iii. 15, 16.

9 Luke xxiv. 25-27

of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."1

Some of the modern masters and teachers of the rising generation must bear with us, if we prefer the treatises in the Bible, "On the Education of the World," or "On the Interpretation of Scripture," to their theories on those important themes. The Evangelists and Apostles are, to the mind of the Christian philosopher, safer guides than certain modern writers who have of late years surprised the Church with such painful consternation. The Christian philosopher is convinced that the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of the whole law.

II. The final development of the Law. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness." How amply does the inspired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews explain this momentous truth in the very beginning of his wonderful treatise :-" God," he commences, "who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days s poken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The writer then proceeds, in his vigorous and lucid style, to illustrate the words under review—“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.' He brings successively under review the High Priest, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the Sacrifices; in short, the whole Levitical system, and shows that it was "a shadow of good things to come;" which "good things" were brought to light by "Christ, the end of the law for righteousness." Well might St. Paul exclaim, when writing to the Galatians, and contrasting the final development with the gradual, but tardy, process of the legal dispensation, "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements?" "

Let us revert again, for a few moments, to the illustrations. from natural science which we have already adduced.

1 Gal. iii. 24, 25; iv. 1—5.

2 Gal. iv. 9.

What

we should think of the individual who refused to avail himself of the present highly developed mode of locomotion, because he cannot comprehend the complicated process by which the wonderful velocity has been attained; or because that in the process to the present state of its almost perfection, many who meddled with it, without understanding its principles, have perished? Again, what estimate should we put upon the sanity of a person who would obstinately close his eyes to the marvellous development of the different sources of natural light, which we at the present time enjoy, because he has not a clear perception how such light springs forth from the darkest and blackest materials? Should we think any individual in a healthy state of mind, who would resolutely refuse to receive a message, upon which his existence depended, until the principle of communication by electricity was explained unto him? The same mode of illustration might be borrowed from photography, and a hundred other scientific developments, which are daily recorded and chronicled. Just so is the state of the spiritual-ay, and mental-sanity of a man or a woman problematical, who refuses to accept the righteousness, life, and immortality which are brought to light by the Gospel, because he or she cannot understand how the types, symbols, emblems, and prophecies contained in the Old Testament, foreshadowed, prefigured, and predicted, that righteousness, life, and immortality could only be achieved and secured by Christ first suffering, and then entering into glory.

"Christ is the end of the law for righteousness," is a truth which is capable of acceptation by the youngest and most untutored. All that labour and are heavy laden may avail themselves of that glorious announcement, and find rest to their souls, without the drudgery of wading through the process of the gradual development of God's plan of salvation and scheme of redemption. The hungry man wastes not any time ere he partakes of proffered food, by inquiring and quibbling as to how the bread attained the shape in which it is presented unto him. loses no time to satisfy the cravings of his body, and leaves all secondary inquiries for a time when his mind is at ease, and his body strengthened, by reason of his great wants having been supplied. The thirsty, scorched, and parched traveller stops not to question how the water is welling up from the fountain which

He