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

*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.

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 instrumentality, 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 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:-

* 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.

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, 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 pertaining 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.*

CHAPTER X.

CONCERNING THE MEDIUM OF CONVEYING TO MEN PERFECT INSTRUCTION IN DOCTRINE AND DUTY.

The knowledge which the old dispensation was designed to generate, had been transmitted into the minds of the Jews; and the Jews had been prepared to transmit the abstract import of those spiritual ideas into other languages. The Mosaic institution, having accomplished its design, was about to * Appendix, No. 2.

"vanish away," and give place to the new dispensation, which would end the series of God's revealed instructions, by giving men a perfect system of religion, accompanied by those aids and influences which would be adapted to develop and perfect man's moral powers, and render him, in his present condition, as perfect as his nature and his circumstances would allow.

At this point of our progress the inquiry presents itself What can we learn, from the present constitution of things, concerning the medium or instrumentality that God would adopt in giving mankind a perfect system of religion?

When the ideas that conveyed the knowledge of God were understood by the people, human language would then become the proper medium of communication. The very fact that the ideas were generated and thrown into language, evinces that language was designed, eventually, to be the medium through which they should be transmitted to the world. When the ideas were prepared, as has been stated, then all that would be necessary, der to the further and more perfect communication of knowledge, would be, that men should have a teacher to use this language-to expand, illustrate and apply these ideas; and by these give definitions, and illustrate and spiritualise other ideas when ne

cessary.

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Further man's senses are constituted with an adaptation to the external world; and his intellectual constitution is adapted to intercourse with his fellow-man. The delicate bony structure of the ear,