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BOOK III.

RESPECTING THE OBJECT

OF THE

CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION.

CHAPTER I.

THE OBJECT OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION WAS TO ENFORCE THE VITAL DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION THROUGH A DIVINE MEDIATOR AND THE CONSEQUENT CERTAINTY OF ETERNAL LIFE WITH A DEGREE OF CLEARNESS AND FULNESS HITHERTO UNKNOWN.

THUS, I am willing to hope, the object of the successive Patriarchal and Levitical Dispensations has been satisfactorily ascertained; those Dispensations, which either historically or politically or theologically form the varied theme of the great legislator of the Israelites. It now only remains, as a proper winding up of the whole argument, to discuss the object of the Christian Dispensation.

What its predecessors taught and announced prospectively, this concluding Dispensation has exhibited in actual accomplishment, and to the very end of time will teach and enforce retrospectively. The early-promised and long-expected Angel-Redeemer has now been manifested in the flesh he has made a full and perfect atone

ment for the sins of lost mankind: he has exhibited himself as the mediator of the new covenant and, the shadows of comparative night having passed away, he has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

As the substance of all the three Dispensations is the same, a triple cord not quickly broken; so, with some shades of difference, the object of all the three may be pronounced the same also.

Of the Patriarchal Dispensation, the object was to inculcate the doctrine of Redemption with its necessary concomitant the doctrine of a recovered happy immortality.

Of the Levitical Dispensation, the object was to preserve the knowledge of the true God in the midst of surrounding idolatry and to perpetuate and confirm the aboriginal doctrine of Redemption with all the blessed consequences which flow from it.

Of the Christian Dispensation, the object is still to enforce the same vital doctrine, namely the doctrine of Redemption through a divine Mediator and the consequent certainty of eternal life; but to enforce it with a degree of clearness and fulness, which can only spring from a now actually completed deliver

ance.

In discussing this topic, I shall treat of the nature of God's covenant with man as ratified by Christ the Mediator, and shall maintain that the knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus in his character of the Messiah is the basis of eternal life. Such matters having been settled,

I shall next set forth the mode in which God's love to fallen man is described as operating: and, when this has been done, I shall conclude with some observations on the nature of that happiness of the blessed in heaven, which is the end or object or design of the Christian Dispensation.

Meanwhile, we may say with St. Paul. As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ also himself likewise took part of the same: that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage. For, verily, he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things, it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren; that he might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people'.

1 Heb. ii. 14-17.

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