"Style no man on earth your Father; for he alone is your father who "is in heaven; and all ye are brethren. Assume not the title of Rabbi; "for you have only one teacher. Neither assume the title of Leader; for you have only one leader-the MESSIAH."

Matt. xxiii. 8-10.

Paul the Apostle.

"Prove all things: hold fast that which is good.”

THE THREE AGES.

JEWISH AGE-NO. XIII.

AFTER the Jewish religion was introduced and established by Moses, there were no persons set apart to teach it or to preach it. Its genius being adapted to one nation only, and for temporary and national purposes, it looked not for proselytes beyond the commonwealth of Israel: hence it had no preachers, no proclaimers whose business it was to make proselytes. Congregations were not to assemble to hear discourses, nor was there a single missionary to go out of the precincts of the land of promise to make converts to the institutes of Moses. This is a fact of much importance, and ought to be well understood by the judaizers of this age, who are now making proselytes from among christian disciples to the law of Moses as a rule of life. No person was enjoined to take any steps to extend that religion beyond the children of the flesh of Abraham. Such as wished to become citizens of the commonwealth, and wished to be incorporated with the congregation, might, on their own application and request, be circumcised and added to the nation as proselytes. But no proselyting institution was set up by the author of that economy, nor was such a spirit cherished among the people. The priests were to officiate at the altar, to read the law, and to take care of the sacred edifice and of the autograph of the law and the constitution; so that if any difficulty should arise among the people, they were to go to the priest for the original and to seek the law at his mouth. How, then, was this religion to be perpetuated? By the instrumentality of parental authority and instruction. Fathers and mothers were to teach the religion to their children. This was the statute of Moses, (Deut. iv. 9.) "Teach them thy sons, and thy son's sons. chap. vi. 6. "And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up; and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates." In this way was the religion of Moses to be perpetuated and inculcated.

vol. vii.

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David, in the 78th Psalm, gives us the whole law concerning the Jews' religion. "Attend my people to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with parables, I will utter dark sayings of old;-such as we have heard and known, which our fathers have related to us. They were not hid from their children: one generation told another the praises of the Lord, his acts of power, and the wonders which he has done. Thus he raised up a testimony in Jacob, and established a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to make known to their children: that the succeeding generation, the children to be born, might know it and rise and tell the same to their children: that they might put their trust in God, and not forget the works of God, but seek diligently his commandments, that they might not be like their fathers, a perverse and rebellious generation, a generation which set not their hearts aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God."

Parents were the only divinely instituted teachers of the Jews' religion. To their instrumentality was referred the continuance and the influence of this institution. The confidence in God of children was made dependent exclusively upon parental authority, No şermons nor sermonizers were known in the world for more than four thousand years of its history. The religion which God gave the Jews was written in a book. That book was copied, and read, committed to memory, and taught by all the people. It was supposed sufficiently plain and intelligible to all the people; and as the religion was designed for one nation only, it was not their duty to promulgate it abroad.

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I have been censured for teaching that the promises of this religion looked to the present life and not beyond it: for saying that its motives of obedience were drawn from temporal objects. But as I have Moses with me here, I care not for such objections. I will ask, them who complain to respond to Moses, and not to me. horts to obedience in the following strains. (Deut. vi. 3.) "Hear, Moses extherefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that you may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey." (vi. 12.) "If you keep these statutes, the Lord thy God will keep his covenant with thee, and the mercy which he promised thy fathers. What is the COVENANT and the MERCY? It is this; "He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land; thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people; there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt upon thee, but will inflict them upon all who hate thee." This is the whole tenor of the covenant and the mercy promised the Jews in that institution. The threats and penalties were the reverse of these blessings. Now, why is it, let me ask, that this religion, that this institution, is confounded with christianity? Why is it that it is made a rule of life, a model for christian imitation? Does not christianity propose more sublime objects of holy enterprize? Does it not

furnish stronger motives, better arguments for obedience and a rule of life of higher and purer morality?

But my present business is with the means of its propagation and the nature of the institution, as contradistinguished from the Reign of Heaven. The Prophets of after times, besides their exhortations to compliance with the statutes and judgments from Horeb, gave various new revelations concerning the destinies, the future destinies of Israel and the Gentiles. They added nothing to the institution, gave no new laws, offered no comments, and made no amendments to the institution. They remonstrated against apostacy, preached reformation, and intimated judgments and calamities upon the disobedient and rebellious.

There is a distinction of much importance to understanding aright both Testaments, which we wish here to suggest. The prophets under an economy, and the prophets of an economy are quite differ ent characters as respects their mission and their duties. Moses was the only prophet of the economy; Isaiah, Daniel, and others prophesied under that economy, or while it was yet standing. The prophets under that economy interfered not with any item of the institution-they added nothing-they took away nothing-they warned the people of Israel of the calamities which would come upon them if they reformed not. They showed Israel their transgressions and sins against their own law, but were neither commentators nor interpreters of either the constitution or laws of Israel. They also spoke the fates and destinies of other nations, and foretold the fortunes of the Jews and Gentiles to the latest times. But as well might one call Agabus a prophet of the New Testament, because he prophesied under this new economy, as call Daniel, Ezekiel, or Malachi prophets of the Jewish economy, because they were Jews and lived while that economy was yet standing. The Scribes or Doctors of the Law among the Jews were first employed to write off copies of the law; from this they were called scribes. Some of them, from repeated writings of the law, became more skilful in it than others, and in process of time began to add their notes, glosses, and interpretations, and were looked up to as Doctors of the Law. These Doctors soon obtained credit with the people, and their opinions and interpretations were venerated; so that as the Doctors increased the people became more ignorant, and the traditions of the Senior Doctors became of tantamount and ultimately of paramount authority and veneration to the text itself. But as interpreters and expounders of the law, they had no more divine authority than Adam Clarke or Thomas Scott had to undertake their ponderous and voluminous commentaries.

They were no part of the means appointed by Moses for the perpetuation of the knowledge and meaning of the law. They were an excresence upon his institution. It only required to be read, and parents were as competent to be instructers of their offspring in the whole institution of Moses, as the most learned and skilful scribe in the family of Levi or commonwealth of Israel. Copies only were wanting, and scribes were as necessary then as printers now. But whenever the scribes became "Doctors of the Law," the people became ignorant of the laws; and so it has come to pass in every country, that, in proportion as the teachers of religion have been

con

multiplied, in the same proportion has ignorance of the sacred writings abounded. It is with learning as with wealth. A few cannot be immensely wealthy, but the many must be poor. One palace, and a thousand cabins-a few "nobles," and a "numerous rabble, stitute those societies where there are patented and privileged classes. So it is in learning, sacred and common. A few trained and privileged teachers of religion have always produced an ignorant laity.". Nothing can prevent this but the illumination of the public mind upan one point-the plainness and intelligibility of the New Institutionand that men of common education, by strict attention, may be able to understand the christian facts, and teach their meaning to their own households as usefully as any one of the privileged classes.

I have much to say upon this subject which I have not yet said; but for the present these remarks, suggested by examining the method of perpetuating the Jews' religion, must suffice. We have seen that no order of teachers, nor expositors, sermonizers, textuaries, commentators, nor public instructers, other than readers of the law; and parents were ordained by divine authority in the former institutions, whether Jewish or Patriarchal. To conclude. The Messiah said all this in one sentence:-"The law and the prophets," (the writings of Moses and the writings of the prophets, all inspired,) "were your instructers until John the Immerser" began to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and to introduce a new economy, called emphatically the Reign of Heaven.

The priesthood was the symbolic gospel, or the gospel under a veil in the Jewish institution. This part of the institution Paul does ample justice to in his letter to the Hebrews. They, their service, and the house in which they officiated, were the patterns of things in the heavens; but never intended to be the patterns or models of christian teachers, congregations, and meeting-houses, as some have foolishly supposed. EDITOR.

SERMONS TO YOUNG PREACHERS-No. 4.

IT is owing to want of observation and reflection, that manv grow up to manhood without any fixed principles, without any certain knowledge of men or things. We are obliged from the law of our creation at first to take every thing upon trust. This is the fate of childhood; and some never rise above it.

The world, many think, is too old, and men have reflected so deeply on all subjects that there is nothing to be originated, and little advance to be made in any department of thought. This is a great mistake. The last 400 years have done more, by new dis coveries and inventions, to improve human circumstances, than the twelve hundred years before. There is scarcely any thing of which it can be said, This is altogether new. New combinations, and new associations of ideas, and new discoveries, are, however, incessantly obtruding themselves upon the world. Ten years now almost count a hundred in improvement, and the seventy or eighty years of man's life teem with as many new and unexpected events, as we have reason to think distinguished the seven and eight undred years of the antediluvians,

But in religion the most important of all objects of thought, there is nothing new, or at least there are no new discoveries to be made. All that we can discover is, how far men have corrupted christianity; and to me the greatest wonder is, that a book so small, so simple, so perspicuous, so plain, as the New Testament, on which so many ship loads of books have been written, could have been so little understood, even by those who teach it for a lifetime.

The first thing which a young preacher ought to consider in respect of any particular congregation which he is about to address, and, indeed, old preachers had better also attend to it, is, to ascertain the stature of the mind, or the amount of information which his audience may be supposed to possess. What foundation he is to build upon, is the first question as respects the audience, which a prudent speaker proposes to himself. And here it may be noted, and it is at all times worthy of note, how much is taken for granted by almost every preacher. It is almost universally taken for granted that the audience believe that there is a God, a Saviour, a judgment, a heaven, a hell. I do not recollect that I have heard any preacher address any congregation, who did not presume thus much upon the previous instruction of his congregation. There is more in this than I am able to unfold in half a dozen of essays of the dimensions of this paper. A few remarks I am, however, constrained to make upon this presumption.

How, let me first ask, how is it that all preachers presume this much? The principal answer, if not the only one which can be given, is this-That in the early education of all persons born in a christian land these fundamental truths are planted in the minds of all. All some way know, all have some perception of those first and most fundamental truths. Hence it was that I once asserted that I did not know that the ten thousand preachers in these United States had, in ten years, converted any one individual, out and out, as some would express it. The ground was fallowed. was ploughed once before their share ever touched it. Mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, or some other benevolent being, nurse, guardian, schoolmaster, or other, had planted these seeds before the preacher ever addressed them from his sacred tub. He only harrowed the ground which they had fallowed. If he convicted his audience of guilt, it was because he had revived their early convictions: and their incongruous actions, their departure from their own concessions, and their suppressing the light which they had, were the arguments .which he found available to convict them.

'Tis because missionaries to pagan lands have not the ground thus fallowed for them, that so poor a harvest rewards their toils. I might ask some curious questions here were it in my way; such as, Why could not those who broke up the soil, who fallowed the field, have harrowed it? Or why could not those who first planted these fundamental truths in the infant mind, have also planted all the other truths of the gospel, had they been as well instructed in them, themselves. Why, in one word, could they who instructed the infants in the knowledge of those first truths, have made them equally well acquainted with all the gospel facts? Nay, let me go VOL. VII. 17*