That which was required of Adam and his immediate posterity after the fall, was the first faint sketch of revealed religion; the duties of worship required of Noah and his family after the flood, came next: then followed the Jewish polity, which, having amplified all preceding acts of religious observances, condensed them into a more regular and systematic form of worship. Yet all this was but "a shadow of good things that were to come;" for the religious duties which Adam, Noah, the Patriarchs, and Jews had practised, were now purified and reduced to a system, the peculiar features of which are, "glory to God in the highest, on earth, peace, and good-will to men ;"-features which had been previously traced out in the two tables of the law of Moses, the first of which had regard to the worship of God; the other, to the observance of all those moral duties which have reference to man. From the scheme of religion, as developed in the Gospel, we see Jesus Christ "the chief corner stone," and

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learn that the necessity of all religion arises from the original sin of Adam, which tainted with corruption the hearts of all his posterity, who increase the condemnation of it by their own actual transgressions. We are convinced that death, natural and eternal, would have been the portion of all born into the world, had not the Mediation and Atonement of Jesus Christ, paid the ransom of our disobedience, and restored man to a condition of favour with his offended Creator. In the execution of this expiatory character, we see him giving laws and ordinances of a nature so pure, maxims of morality so simple, and forms of worship and faith so extensive and yet so easy of adoption, that whilst we are bound by strongest ties of gratitude to him for his redeeming love, we are invited, as well by the music of his voice, as the suggestions of our own best interests, to "come to him, and take his yoke upon us, and learn of him." How greatly thankful, how gratefully anxious should we be to testify our sense of

the refusal of such a yoke, and the benefit of such a teacher! And how is this sense heightened, by the consideration of that yoke which was imposed upon the Jews, which was such "that neither they nor their fathers were able to bear it ;" a yoke that required unsinning obedience, burdened by rites, and heavy with sacrifices; which, whilst it bowed down the neck of its followers, compelled them to trust the success of the performance of several important duties "to men of like passions as themselves." And though the high priest went in yearly to the holy of holies, to offer for himself first, and then for the sins of the people in general, yet this offering could only be an atonement for those actually committed, and not for that sin, which in its baneful curse, involved the whole human race. "In temples made with hands," this sacrifice was offered, human were the agents, brutal the victims: but under the Christian dispensation, the High Priest of our profession, whilst he can be touched with the feel

ings of our infirmities," made "one sacrifice for sin, and then for ever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." This sacrifice is one and complete the atonement universal the redemption general- God himself in Christ was the victim, man at once the agent and object of favour. How superior then is our lawgiver to him, who was his type! For, though Moses was the meekest of men, yet because he was man alone, he was liable to infirmities and sinned; but Christ uniting in himself humanity and divinity, as one exacted, and as the other paid the penalty; proving himself to be man by his sufferings, and God by his mighty acts, even by the raising himself from the dead, by "leading captivity captive, and receiving gifts for men." Mark, then, in all respects, the superiority of the Christian over the Jewish dispensation! Limited and confined to stated ordinances, suited to their nature, and necessary to restrain their waywardness, the

Jews were under a law, in which works were all in all. But to us as Christians, a broader and more general, even an universal law is given, constituted in accordance to the two natures of man,of faith and practice. The shadow of the cloud has vanished before the risen brightness of the Sun of Righteousness, and the mists of ignorance have dissolved before the rays of his glory. God has visited his people, the light of his countenance has shone around them, and hence are they required to be as "sons of light;" a light, which, in guiding them on their uncertain way, by the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, causes them to lift up their eyes to that heavenly Canaan, whither the Redeemer is gone before, and whither they are anxious by the performance of all "those works, which he has prepared for them to walk in," to follow him into the realms of glory. The films of darkness are removed from their eyes, and they see; the mists of ignorance