persuaded of them, and embraced them. They lived in comfort, and died not only in peace, but in hope. To us the fulfilment of those hopes in the atonement and grace of Jesus Christ, presents an unity of design, and identifies the great lines of the Jewish religion with our own.

Contrasted with the gloom of heathenism, which the Scripture calls the region and shadow of death, the Jewish dispensation opened a reviving prospect. Its High Priests, its sacrifices, and its numerous washings, suffered not the hopes of the penitent to die. These divine institutions proclaimed, that with God there was mercy, that he might be feared, and plenteous redemption, that he might be sought unto. It was not, indeed, in themselves, but in their relation to a more glorious dispensation of grace to which they pointed, that their efficacy was such as to bind up the hearts of men, broken for their sins. They were the beginnings of a system, which was afterwards to be unfolded, with a splendour, a glory, and a grace, sufficient at once to attract and to dazzle the eyes of angels. Though, of themselves, they made nothing perfect, when we view them in connexion with the High Priest of our profession, who has with his own blood entered into the most holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us, and has baptized his people with the Holy Ghost, they, derive an importance and a dignity that is new. We see Moses and Elias appear in a glory not their own, when they appear on the Mount with Jesus.

So uncertain were the limits of Bishop Warburton's scheme, that he found it necessary to contract, or enlarge them, as circumstances dictated the necessity of the one, or of the other. He sometimes argues, as if all knowledge of a future state had been denied to those who lived in that infant state of the world. At other times, he con

fesses that there were even then, pious men, who rose far above the general level, and apprehended the promise of an eternal inheritance, a truth which no man who believes in the declarations of the New Testament, can controvert. Besides the hopes held out by the ceremonial law, a shadow of which Christ was the substance, there were a few direct promises which were designed to preserve and nourish the faith of pious men. Such was the first promise given to the parents of the human race, after the fall. Such was the promise made to Abraham, that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. It must, after all, be allowed, that whatever notices of future bliss, and of the way that led to it, were given to men under the law, it is only by the Gospel that life and immortality are brought to light.

The celebrated Maimonides, a learned Jewish rabbi, who lived in the eleventh century, drew up a confession of faith, which is received by all the modern Jews. It consists of thirteen articles, and is as follows:

1. I believe, with a true and perfect faith, that God is the Creator, (whose name be blessed,) Governor, and Maker of all creatures; and that he hath wrought all things, worketh, and shall work for ever.

2. I believe, with perfect faith, that the Creator, (whose name be blessed,) is one, and that such an unity as is in him can be found in none other; and that he alone hath been our God, is, and for ever shall be.

3. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (whose name be blessed) is not corporeal, not to be comprehended with any bodily properties; and that there is no bodily essence that can be likened unto him.

4. I believe, with a perfect faith, the Creator (whose name be blessed) to be the first and the last, that nothing

was before him, and that he shall abide the last for ever. 5. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (whose name be blessed) is to be worshipped, and none else.

6. I believe, with a perfect faith, that all the words of the prophets are true.

7. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the prophecies of Moses (our master, may he rest in peace) were true; that he was the father and chief of all wise men that lived before him, or ever shall live after him.

8. I believe, with a perfect faith, that all the law, which at this day is found in our hands, was delivered by God himself to our master Moses (God's peace be with him).

9. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the same law is never to be changed, nor any other to be given us of God (whose name be blessed).

10. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (whose name be blessed) understandeth all the works and thoughts of men, as it is written in the prophets; he fashioneth their hearts alike; he understandeth all their works.

11. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God will recompense good to them that keep his commandments, and will punish them who transgress them.

12. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Messiah is yet to come, and although he retard his coming, yet I will wait for him until he come.

13. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the dead shall be restored to life, when it shall seem fit unto God, the Creator, (whose name be blessed, and memory celebrated, world without end. Amen).

We have already considered that part of the ceremonial law which was typical. There was another part of it which related to meats, to animals which were clean or

unclean. When men consider these prescriptions of the Jewish laws, without entering into the design of such institutions, they will certainly consider them as frivolous and of no value. But, to preserve one nation from the contagion of idolatry, with which all the other nations of the world were infected, was an end highly worthy of God. To preserve them from that infection, it was a powerful means to keep them from the society of idolaters, and that intercommunity was most effectually prohibited by a cere monial law, which made the food of the one the abomination of the other. Convivial entertainments between Jews and Gentiles must have proved fatal to the religious purity of the former. In the seasons of festivity, the mind is generally most off its guard, and the least aware of its own danger. So addicted were the Jews to superstition, that before the captivity we find them, even with a ceremonial law, almost perpetually disposed to mingle the rites and worship of the neighbouring nations with their own. What, then, must the consequences have been, had no middle wall of partition kept them from the motley society of their neighbours?

The Jews are supposed to be as numerous in their present dispersed, as they formerly were in their collected state, in the land of Judea; though the prophecy has repeatedly been fulfilled by the sword of their enemies, that they should be left few in number.-Deut. xxviii. 62. Yet so rapid has been their increase, that the waste of former wars has been repaired by their fecundity in modern times. Almost all of them marry, and marry early. "A man that lives single till he is twenty, is looked upon as a profligate," says one of their late writers, and when a

• Levi's Ceremonies of the Jews, p. p. 51, 52.

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woman is twelve years and a day old, she is declared to be of age. The males are considered as having entered the state of manhood at thirteen, and then, by a religious ceremony, they are declared "sons of the precept."

The Jews in their religious worship continue, as formerly, to use a liturgy, which contains the prescribed forms of their prayers. Those whom business or distance of place keeps from the synagogue, are required to say their prayers at home in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. Their liturgical forms contain some strange requests. "We supplicate the Divine Majesty to deal mercifully and graciously with us, and to remember unto us the merits of our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Again, "We beseech the Almighty, through his infinite mercy, to let us reap the merits of his righteous and faithful servant, Moses."-Levi's Ceremonies, p.p. 78, 115. Their own law tells them that it was the faith, and not the works of Abraham, that was counted to him for righteousness.-Gen. xv. 6. The same law tells them, that the demerits of Moses excluded him, as those of Aaron, their high priest, excluded him too, from the temporal rest of Canaan.-Deut. xxxii. 49, 50, 51. No good can be expected from prayers, that stand almost equally opposed to the spirit of the law, and to the spirit of the Gospel. The following is a form of prayer used by all the Jews, in their synagogues, throughout the British empire, on their sabbath day and other festivals, for the Royal Family.

"He that dispenseth salvation unto Kings, and dominion unto Princes; whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; who delivered his servant David from the destructive sword; who maketh a way in the seas, and a path through the mighty waters: He shall bless and preserve, guard