undertake to refute it. But I shall do neither; for in pursuing the structure of Prophecy, I wish to impose upon myself the rule of distinguishing between what is clear, and what is justly liable to question or exception. Under this rule, I forbear to urge, in the prophecy which is before us, a sense of it, which yet has no small evidence in its favour, and would, if received, improve the apparent connexion of early prophecy in its several parts.

So much however is clear, that any one considerable instance of God's promises brought into a course of fulfilment, becomes a pledge for the completion of others yet depending; and therefore the safety and security of the Earth, and of the Natural System, which were witnessed subsequently to the deluge as mercies in possession, and in virtue of the promise made to Noah, would furnish an argument of religious trust in the faithfulness of any other mercies which might yet be only in prospect. So far the promises at the Fall, and after the Flood, may be safely connected.

And in truth it is a distinguishing point of these chief revelations instant after the Flood, that they are peaceful and cheering. It is a display of God's mercy and goodness, without any admixture of another nature: his placability, his present acceptance of man, his future favour, are the things signified; all encouragements to faith and obedience. So that when God "renewed the face of the earth," he revived the stock of religion too: the fairest part

of the change was in these discoveries of mercy, when prophecy rose in an orb of light on the restored world, and shed in the hearts of men hope and consolation. This was a service to religion suited to its exigency. For the gloom of the Fall, and the fate of the old world, which had gone down in the darkness of the Deluge, were now before men's eyes; and if we carry ourselves back to their state and feeling, so placed as they were, we shall see it was of God's wisdom, as well as his goodness, that he was pleased to temper and qualify to them the terrors of his past dispensations, and make prophecy at this time the messenger of reconciliation, and peace, and an immediate hope.

III. The next epoch of Prophecy is the Call of Abraham. He is the Father of the Faithful; and in him Prophecy began to make its larger revelations of the objects of faith. Among the predictions, often repeated, with which he was favoured, two are distinguished among the rest, and they nearly include the sum of the whole; the possession of the land of Canaan by his family, being the subject of the one; the universal blessing of Mankind, "the blessing of all families of the earth in his seed," that of the other*; and a solemn pact, or covenant, founded upon these promises, and accompanied with large assurances of God's favour and protection to him and his posterity, being ratified to him.

* Genesis xii. 3; xiii. 14, &c.

This mixed subject requires to be distinctly noticed. We have here the first point of union, in Prophecy, of the two dispensations, the Jewish and the Christian: and from this æra Prophecy takes up and preserves a twofold character, related to them both. The possession of the land of Canaan by Ábraham's offspring, now promised, identifies itself with the establishment of the Hebrew people; thereby it leads us into that dispensation which includes the law of Moses; the extraordinary superintendence of the Theocracy over that people; with the authentic transmission of the divine promises and revelations in one line, by their hands down to the æra of the Gospel. This is the one part of the divine economy resting on the promise of the land of Canaan.

With regard to the second, and greater, the universal blessing of the human race, it is the original promise made to our First Parents, repeated and confirmed, with this provision annexed, that the blessing of the human kind, the blessing " of all nations of the earth" should spring from the succession of the Jewish Patriarch. And as our Saviour explained the faith of Abraham, when he said, “Abra"ham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad," no doubt we are to understand that the Patriarch beheld that day of Christ through the medium of this same promise which we are now considering; perhaps in other ways; but unques

tionably by this prediction, that "in his seed all "nations of the earth should be blessed."

That we do right in connecting the promise given to our First Parents with that of the universal blessing made to Abraham, the common direction of both, which we know to be to the person of Christ, the promised Seed, sufficiently shews. This, however, is an interpretation deduced from the . event. But the relation of the two seems to result also from the very purport of the promises as they were to be understood when given. It was too plain, in the time of Abraham, that "the serpent's "head" had not been broken; there were no signs in the Flood, nor in any thing before it, or after it, that the worst evil of the Fall had been done away. The moral interdict, the primeval sentence, therefore, remained; and when a general blessing to extend to all the nations of the earth was revealed, it could not be understood otherwise than as applying to the redemption of man from the state of condemnation into which he had passed. The Evil and the Blessing would explain each the other.

1. With respect to the promises given to Abraham, I repeat again, that one of them was exclusive and particular to his family; the other extended to all the nations of the earth. The possession of Canaan clearly could not be the universal blessing. They are, therefore, exceedingly distinct, in their extent, and in their kind; and their distinction was

marked from the beginning. Further, I assume it as a principle, which indeed has been sufficiently established upon scripture evidence, and vindicated by learned divines, that we are to consider the selection and appointment of a separate people to have been made for the custody and transmission of the divine promises of that more general nature. It is not affirmed that the sense of Scripture, on this head, directs us to think that such was the only purpose to be served by the selection and appointment of the Jewish people; or that other great and material ends were not thereby promoted: but that the leading and most comprehensive design of the appointment was to introduce the Gospel, by connecting and preserving the several revelations of God, till they merged in the last, to which the whole Jewish economy is declared to have been subservient; the Law, being described as "an elementary teacher to "bring men to Christ," in respect of the imperfect knowledge of the Gospel, and the preparatory discipline for it, which it contained; or "as being the "shadow of the good things to come:" and the Prophets, who were sent to that separated people, having it as an eminent part of their mission to "bear witness to Christ," and announce his religion. For the benefit and privilege of the Israelite consisted in this, “chiefly because to him were com"mitted the oracles of God;" and those oracles were a perpetual witness of the better dispensation. So that the hopes of the ancient believer may be