HAVING REFERENCE TO SOME OF THE AWFUL HERESIES OF THE
PRESENT DAY, LATELY INTRODUCED INTO THE PARISH
OF HAREWOOD.

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"In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."-Hebrews, Chap. VIII., Verse 13th.

A COVENANT is a compact, agreement, or bargain made between two parties. Now the Apostle in this text refers to a Covenant or bargain, which God had made with the people of the Jews some 1500 years before, and; which he says had waxed old, and was ready to vanish away, for when he wrote this epistle, the time was at hand when Jerusalem and its Temple should be destroyed, and the Jews become. a scattered people, as they are at this day; being considered by all the nations amongst whom they have been driven as vagabonds, or to use God's own words by the Prophet—a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places. (Jeremiah, xxiv. 9.) When the Apostle says, "He saith", or "It is written", we may be sure he refers to some word of God recorded by some of the Prophets, and we shall find that the word which he here refers to, is written in the 31st of Jeremiah, and the 31st and 32nd verses: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; (which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord.)" Now first, let us see what was that covenant which God made with the Jews when he took them by the hand, and brought them out of the land of Egypt.

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God made this covenant with them by or through his servant Moses. It was a solemn covenant,- God, on his part, promised certain temporal blessings on certain conditions, and the Jews, on their part, promised to comply with those conditions, that they might obtain the blessings.

From the time that God chose Abraham to be the Father of the Jewish people, to the time of bringing them out of Egypt by his servant Moses, there must have been a period of five or six hundred years, and during this long period we read of no covenant or laws that he had given them; but before he in possession of the good land of Canaan, which he pro

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Abraham for his posterity when he first called him, he gave them laws, and made a covenant with them by Moses, which amounted to this, that if they would be obedient to those laws and worship him only to the exclusion of all idols, for he said, "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images,"-(Isaiah, xlii. 8th verse.), then he promised that he would, in a special sense, be their God, that he would preserve them from the hands of their enemies,—that he would be present amongst them, hear and answer their prayers, provide them with all temporal blessings, and preserve them as a distinct and favoured nation. God said by Moses,--" If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people." (Exodus, ix. 5th verse.) At a subsequent period God threatened them and said, If ye turn away and forsake my statutes, and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them, then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land, which I have given them."-(2 Chronicles, vii., 19, 20, 21, 22 verses.) "But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a by-word among all nations. And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them." The Temple is no more-not a vestige of it remains, for it was burnt according to another remarkable prophecy recorded in Zechariah, xi. 1st verse,- Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars",—and that too by the Roman soldiers in direct opposition to the express wish of Titus, who headed the expedition against Jerusalem. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says, that before the Temple was burnt, while a Priest was ministering within the same, the doors flew open, and he heard a voice say, let us flee hence; and when the Roman Emperor, Julian, the Apostate, afterwards tried to rebuild the Temple, fire came out of the ground and stopped the workmen at once, thereby shewing that God is jealous of his purpose, and will not suffer it to be thwarted by any creature.