originated, and the spiritual idea connected with the sign or word conveying its proper sense, it is desirable, in order to their greatest force and perspicuity, that their connexion with materiality should be broken off in the mind.

In all written languages, this advancement from one stage of perfection to another, by the addition of abstract ideas, can be traced; and experience teaches, incontrovertibly, that the advancement of human language, as above described, and the ad vancement of human society, are dependent upon each other.

The preceding principles being applied to the subject under consideration, it would follow that the Mosaic machinery, which formed the abstract ideas, conveying the knowledge of God's true Character, would no longer be useful after those ideas were originated, defined, and connected with the words which expressed their abstract or spiritual import. It would follow, therefore, that the machinery would be entirely dispensed with whenever it had answered the entire design for which it was put into operation. Whenever the Jews were cured of idolatry, and had obtained true ideas of the attributes of the true God, then the dispensation of shadows and ceremonies, which "could not make the comers thereunto perfect," would, according to the reason of things, pass away, and give place to a more perfect and more spiritual dispensation.

We find, accordingly, that the machinery of the tabernacle was gradually removed; it never having existed in perfection after the location of the tribes in Palestine. They sojourned in the wilderness until those who had come out of Egypt died. generation who succeeded them had the advantage of having received their entire education through

The

the medium of the Mosaic institution, and thus of being freed from vicious habits and remembrances contracted in idolatrous society.

Afterwards the prophets held an intermediate place between the material dispensation of Moses and the pure spirituality of that of Christ. In the prophetic books, especially the later ones, there is an evident departure from a reliance upon the external forms, and an application of the ideas connected with those forms to internal states of mind. Their views of the old dispensation were more spiritual than the views of those who lived near the origin of the institution. And in the dispensation of the Messiah, the prophets evidently expected clearer light and purer spirituality.

The state of the case, then, is this: The old dispensation was necessary and indispensable, in itself, and in its place; but it was neither designed, nor adapted to continue: the knowledge of Divine things which it generated was necessary for all men, but, as yet, it was circumscribed to a small portion of the human family: the point of inquiry now presents itself, How could this essential knowledge concerning the Divine Nature and attributes, be extended throughout the world?

There would be but two methods possibleeither the same processes, and the same cumbrous machinery, (which were a burden' that an apostle affirmed neither he nor his fathers were able to bear,) must be established in every nation, and kindred, and tribe of the human family, and thus each nation be disciplined and educated by itself: or, one nation must be prepared and disciplined,— their propensity to idolatry destroyed-the ideas coined in the die prepared by Jehovah, thrown into their minds, and then, being thus prepared, they might be made the instruments of transferring

those ideas into the languages of other nations.* If the Almighty were to adopt the first method, it would exclude men from benevolent labour for the spiritual good of each other; and besides, the history of the process with the Jews, as well as the reason of the thing, would indicate that the latter method would be the one which the Maker would adopt.

But, in order to the diffusion of the knowledge of God by the latter method, some things would be necessary as pre-requisites, among which are the following

1. That the Jews, who possessed these ideas, should be scattered throughout the world, and that they should be thus scattered long enough before the time of the general diffusion of Divine knowledge to have become familiar with the languages of the different nations where they sojourned. This would be necessary, in order that, by speaking in other tongues, they might transfer into them their own ideas of Divine things, by attaching those ideas to words in the respective languages which they spoke, or by introducing into those languages words and phrases of Hebrew origin, conveying the revealed ideas. Whether the different languages were acquired by miraculous or by human instru mentality, there would be no other way possible of transferring ideas from one language to another, but by the methods above mentioned.

2. It would be necessary, before the Jews were thus scattered, that their propensity to idolatry

* There is a common, and, to some minds, a weighty objection against the truth of revealed religion, stated as follows:-If God ever gave a religion to the world, why did he not reveal it to all men, and reveal it at once and perfectly, so that no one could doubt? If this had been possible, it might not have been expedient; but the nature of things, as we have seen, rendered it impossible to give man a revelation in such a manner.

should be entirely subdued, otherwise they would, as they had frequently done before, fall into the abominable habits of the nations among whom they were dispersed.*

3. The new and spiritual system should be first propagated among those who understood both the spiritual import of the Hebrew language, and likewise the language of the other nations to whom the gospel was to be preached. It was necessary that the new dispensation should be committed, first to the Jews, who were scattered in the surrounding nations, because, as we have seen, they were the only individuals immediately prepared to communicate it to others.

Now the following facts are matters of authentic history.

1. By instruction and discipline the Jews were entirely cured of the propensity to idolatry-so much so that their souls abhorred idols.

2. They were, and had been for many generations, dispersed among all nations of the Roman world; but still, in their dispersion they retained their peculiar ideas, and multitudes of this peculiar people assembled out of all countries, at least once a year, at the city of Jerusalem, to worship Jehovah; and it was while the multitudes were thus assembled, that the gospel was first preached to them; and preached, as was proper it should be, by power and miracle, in order that those present might know assuredly that the dispensation was from heaven.

3 The new dispensation was likewise introduced,

* Idolatry is one of the most unconquerable of all the corrupt propensities of the human soul. Miracles under the new dispensation had scarcely ceased-the apostolic fathers were scarcely cold in their graves, before idolatrous forms were again superinduced upon the pure spirituality of the holy gospel; and in the papal church the curse continues till this hour.

in the first place, among the Jews who continued to reside in Palestine, and when a sufficient number of them were fully initiated, persecutions were caused to arise which scattered them abroad among the nations; and the Gentile languages not being known to them, they were miraculously endowed with the gift of tongues, that they might communicate to others the treasures of Divine knowledge committed to them.

Thus, when the old dispensation had fulfilled its design in disciplining the Jews, in imparting first ideas, and thus, as a "schoolmaster," preparing the people for the higher instruction of Christ; and when the fulness of the times had come, that the means and the material were prepared to propagate the spiritual truth of the new dispensation, then the Mosaic cycle would appropriately close-it would not be consistent that it should remain longer, for the plain reason given by Jesus himself, that new wine should not be put into old bottles, nor the old and imperfect forms be incorporated with the new and spiritual system.

Therefore it was, that so soon as the new dispensation had been introduced, and its foundations firmly laid, Jerusalem, the centre of the old economy, with the temple, and all things pertain ing to the ritual service, was at once and completely destroyed, and the old system vanished away for ever. It would not have been expedient for God to destroy the old system sooner, because it was necessary to engraft the new system upon the old; and it ought not to have remained longer, for the reasons above stated *

*It was necessary that the old system should be destroyed at this time, in order to throw the Jews upon Christ, as the sacrifi e for their sins. Under the old dispensation, the sacrifices for sin were allowed to continue to the end. From this sacrifice they were