cognition of those first principles on which every moral obligation was originally founded. They contain, in a summary the most brief and comprehensive that can well be conceived, a perfect outline of man's duty in relation to his Maker, and to his fellow creatures. They include, moreover, the prohibition of evil concupiscence, as well as of evil deeds; exercising a dominion over the hearts and thoughts of men. Hence they are substantially as binding now as heretofore; nor has there ever been a period when mankind were not, according to their measure of knowledge and information, responsible for their observance.

There are, however, no existing records of any such express rule of duty having been authoritatively delivered, before the giving of the Law at Horeb. What the Jews affirm respecting the seven precepts of Noah rests on no clear historical evidence; and could at most have no other than traditional authority, wanting the stability and permanency of a written law. The prevailing and increasing corruption of mankind, from the deluge to the time of Moses, affords sufficient proof, that "because of transgressions," some more solemn declaration of the Divine will had become necessary. Notwithstanding the tremendous destruction of the antediluvian

world, and the renewal of the covenant of promise to Noah, "the earth was again filled "with violence f." Hence arose the restriction of that covenant, for a while, to one particular people, who, being trained under the immediate guidance of the Almighty, were to afford in their history and conduct demonstrative evidence of His supreme authority as moral Governor of the world.

Abraham, the progenitor of this chosen race, was specially called for this purpose; that through him and his posterity the worship of the only true God might be preserved, and the promised blessing conveyed to the rest of mankind. To this peculiar people the world at large were indebted for such a knowledge of revealed religion, and such expectations resulting from it, as could not otherwise have been attainable. Yet, at no distant period from the commencement of this dispensation, the very people thus selected became tainted with the general corruption. Then it was, that Moses was raised up to be their ruler and deliverer; commissioned not only to emancipate them from a galling yoke of bondage, but also to promulgate a Law, accompanied with the most awful manifestations of the Divine presence, and

f Gen. vi. 11.

administered under such sanctions as nothing less than Divine power could have carried into effect.

This Law, however, even as to its moral purpose, had many provisions specially adapted to the exigencies of that people to whom it was more immediately given. It was framed to correct the evil propensities they had already imbibed, and to form a barrier against the mass of impiety and immorality every where prevalent around them. Hence the rigorous penalties by which it was enforced, and that unmitigated execution of its penal enactments, which led the Apostle to call it a "ministration of condemnation "." Thus the Ten Commandments became an authorized standard of duty, which none could violate without self-conviction. In this respect, the Law operated as a powerful antidote to transgressions. It shewed to God's chosen race, and through them to other nations also, the perverseness and iniquity of their ways. It manifested the Divine displeasure towards sin of every kind, and especially the sins of idolatry and apostasy. It moreover taught those who relied on the ancient promise made to the Fathers before the giving of the Law, that the same God who in

g 2 Cor. iii. 9.

infinite mercy had made that promise, was also infinite in justice and in power, terrible in his judgments, and not to be disobeyed with impunity.

Let us now consider the application of the Apostle's declaration in the text to the ceremonial law; which also was added "because "of transgressions."

The ceremonial Law had two chief objects; to preserve the Jews from the idolatry and superstitions of heathen worship; and to prepare them, by a typical and figurative service, for the acceptance of that one great atonement for sin to be effected by the promised seed.

The whole history of the Jewish people proves them to have been exceedingly prone to idolatry, and to have had an excessive fondness for external pomp and ceremony in matters of religion. Their long abode in Egypt, and their subsequent intercourse with the Canaanite nations, whom they were sent forth to exterminate, left impressions of this kind upon their minds which seem never to have been entirely effaced. To wean them from these dangerous propensities, to fix their religious affections upon the only proper object of devotion, to render their attachment to symbolical rites instrumental to their in

struction in spiritual truths, and to preclude them, by imperative restraints and prohibitions, from any intercommunity of worship with the neighbouring nations, was manifestly the purpose of this ritual.

Different opinions have, indeed, been entertained as to the Divine proceedings in this respect. Some have supposed the ritual itself to have been, for the most part, adopted from Paganism, and transferred to the Jews, in accommodation to their deep-rooted prepossessions; their heavenly Lawgiver thus condescending to human infirmity, in the very measures intended to detach them from the general corruption that prevailed. This view of the subject has been taken both by Jewish and Christian expositors of high eminence. To others, however, of no less estimation, it has seemed to derogate from the sacred character of this ritual, to ascribe to it so unseemly an origin; and it has been with great strength of reasoning, and great weight of evidence, contended, that the rites of Pagan worship ought rather to be regarded as spurious copies of Judaism, or of some divine originals of still earlier date, than as prototypes of Jewish worship. A discussion of this question would carry us too far from our present purpose. But in whichsoever way it be de