sibility of doubting whether it was a real or an imaginary revelation: thus the sacrifice of Abraham appears to be clear of all superstition, and remains the noblest instance of religious faith and submission that was ever given by a mere man: we cannot wonder that the blessings bestowed on him for it should have been extended to his posterity. This book proceeds with the history of Isaac, which becomes very interesting to us, from the touching scene I have mentioned--and still more so, if we consider him as the type of our Saviour: it recounts his marriage with Rebecca-the birth and history of his two sons, Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes, and Esau, the father of the Edomites or Idumeans-the exquisitely affecting story of Joseph and his brethren -and of his transplanting the Israelites into Egypt, who there multiplied to a great nation.

In Exodus, you read of a series of wonders, wrought by the Almighty, to rescue the oppressed Israelites from the cruel tyranny of the Egyptians, who, having first received them as guests, by degrees reduced them to a state f slavery. By the most peculiar mercies

and exertions in their favour, God prepared his chosen people to receive, with reverent and obedient hearts, the solemn restitution of those primitive laws, which probably he had revealed to Adam and his immediate descendants, or which, at least, he had made known by the dictates of conscience, but which, time, and the degeneracy of mankind, had much obscured. This important revelation was made to them in the Wilderness of Sinah: there, assembled before the burning mountain, surrounded "with blackness, and dark"ness, and tempest," they heard the awful voice of God pronounce the eternal law, impressing it on their hearts with circumstances of terror, but without those encouragements and those excellent promises, which were afterwards offered to mankind by Jesus Christ. Thus were the great laws of morality restored to the Jews, and through them transmitted to other nations; and by that means a great restraint was opposed to the torrent of vice and impiety, which began to prevail over the world. To those moral precepts, which are of perpetual and universal obligation, were super

added, by the ministration of Moses, many peculiar institutions, wisely adapted to different ends either, to fix the memory of those past deliverances which were figurative of a future and far greater salvation-to place inviolable barriers between the Jews and the idolatrous nations, by whom they were surrounded-or, to be the civil law, by which the community was to be governed.

To conduct this series of events, and to establish these laws with his people, God raised up that great prophet Moses, whose faith and piety enabled him to undertake and execute the most arduous enterprises, and to pursue, with unabated zeal, the welfare of his countrymen; even in the hour of death, this gene. rous ardour still prevailed: his last moments were employed in fervent prayers for their prosperity, and, in rapturous gratitude, for the glimpse vouchsafed him of a Saviour, far greater than himself, whom God would one day raise up to his people.

Thus did Moses, by the excellency of his faith, obtain a glorious pre-eminence among the saints and prophets in heaven; while, on earth, he will be ever revered, as the first of those benefactors to mankind, whose labours for the public good have endeared their memory to all ages.

The next book is LEVITICUS, which contains little besides the laws for the peculiar ritual observance of the Jews, and therefore affords no great instruction to us now; you may pass it over entirely :-and, for the same reason, you may omit the first eight chapters of NUMBERS. The rest of Numbers is chiefly a continuation of the history, with some ritual laws.

In DEUTERONOMY, Moses makes a recapitulation of the foregoing history, with zealous exhortations to the people faithfully to worship and obey that God, who had worked such amazing wonders for them: he promises them the noblest temporal blessings, if they prove obedient, and adds the most awful and striking denunciations against them, if they rebel, or forsake the true God. I have before observed, that the sanctions of the Mosaic law were temporal rewards and punishments, those of the New Testament are...eternal: these last, as they are so infinitely more forcible than the first, were reserved for the last, best gift to mankind-and were revealed by the Messiah, in the fullest and clearest manner. Moses, in this book, directs the method in which the Israelites were to deal with the seven nations, whom they were appointed to punish for their profligacy and idolatry; and whose land they were to possess, when they had driven out the old inhabitants. He gives them excellent laws, civil as well as religious, which were ever after the standing municipal laws of that people. - This book concludes with Mores' song and death.

The book of JOSHUA contains the conquests of the Israelites over the seven nations, and their establishment in the promised land.Their treatment of these conquered nations must appear to you very cruel and unjust, if you consider it as their own act, unauthorized by a positive command: but they had the most absolute injunctions, not to spare these corrupt people-" to make no covenant with " them, nor shew mercy to them, but utterly. " to destroy them." And the reason is given