Under the Covenant of Works, established at the Creation, man's continuance in his primitive state of innocence and happiness, and his advancement to a still higher state of existence, depended upon faith in God his Creator, through want of which he fell. And under the Covenant of Grace, which was mercifully made with him immediately after the Fall, his pardon, and deliverance, and hopes of glory, depend upon faith in God his Redeemer, the failure of which no less certainly exposes him to irrecoverable misery and destruction than it has already done to degradation and death. This great doctrine of Salvation by Faith in the Redeemer was revealed to Adam and Eve, as far as was necessary to enable them firmly to lay hold of the hope set before them in the Covenant of Grace. From them it was transmitted to their descendants, at first by oral tradition, which, but for man's perverseness, would have been a sufficiently secure mode of transmitting truth in the days of primitive longevity. It was, moreover, typified in the rite of animal sacrifice, which, if not formally appointed, was at least accepted, and therefore, we are sure, suggested by God, at its commencement, as a type of the one true sacrifice, to be once offered for the sins of the whole world. (~) And the knowledge of this doctrine was, from time to time, revived and enlarged by special revelations, and miraculous interpositions of Providence.* The most remarkable of these Divine interferences, was the separation of Abraham and descendants to be the more immediate heirs and depositaries of the Promise, the remembrance of which was rapidly disappearing from among the children of men; who, instead of meekly abiding by the simplicity of the Divine institutions, "went awhoring with their own inventions." Instead of using the rite of animal sacrifice, according to its original intention, as an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of the promised atonement; mankind, through "an evil heart of unbelief," had almost universally "departed from the living God." Retaining merely the sign, without the thing signified; the body, without the soul of Religion; they foolishly imagined, that the blood of bulls and of goats could wash away sins. Forgetting that the ultimate amount of all that the Lord requires of Man is, "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God;"1 they arrogantly sought to "please him with thousands of Read Blomfield's Dissertation on the Tradition of the Promise. 1 Micah, vi. 8. rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil."2 Horribly perverting the tradition respecting the sacrifice of the promised seed, they even gave their "first-born for their transgression, the fruit of their body for the sin of their souls." "Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils; and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto idols."3 In the midst of this general corruption and apostacy, "God assayed to go and take him a nation, from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors," that one nation at least might know and consider "that the Lord he is God, in heaven above, and in the earth beneath; there is none else."5" Out of the heaven he made the Israelites to hear his voice, that he might instruct them; and upon earth he shewed them his great fire; and they heard his words out of the midst of the fire." The grand result of all these splendid miracles was the Sinaitic Covenant, the main scope and object of which was the promised Re 2 Micah, vi. 7. 3 Ps. cvi. 37, 38. 4 Deut. iv. 34. 5 Deut. iv. 39. 6 Deut. iv. 36. deemer, in whose death it received its completion, and whose office and attributes were shadowed forth, in types and symbols, in the various ceremonies and ordinances of the law. Before the coming of the Messiah, all that it concerned any individual to know was, that God had promised redemption and salvation through Him. Whoever knew that the promise had been made, and duly believed in the power and wisdom, the truth and faithfulness of Him who had promised, possessed every thing requisite to enable him to repose, with full assurance of faith, in the mercy of God through Christ. The particular circumstances and time of Christ's appearance in the world, all the details, the express revelation of which would have imposed an unnecessary and dangerous burden on the frailty of human faith, (0) were therefore, in God's mercy, either totally concealed behind the veil of futurity; or very partially revealed, for the purpose of strengthening the faith of those who should live after the events, and must, therefore, be required to believe them. Even the prophets themselves, "who prophesied of the grace that should come unto us," were far from having a full comprehension of "what, or what manner E of time, the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow ;" insomuch, that when they " inquired and searched diligently" into those particulars, “ it was revealed unto them, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things that are now reported unto us by them that have preached the Gospel."7 But" when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman ;" and then took place the full " revelation of the mystery," "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it was now revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit ;" which had been, in many points, " kept secret," or but partially revealed, " since the world began ; but is now made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations, for the obedience of faith."8 Let us, therefore, my brethren, who live under the clear light of that revelation, of which the re 7 1 Pet. i. 10, 11, 12. 8 Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 9 Ephes. iii. 5. |