was revealed to them who is presented as the object of faith to us, it of necessity follows that the condition, or terms of salvation, was the same then as now. It was not mere faith or trust in God, or simply piety, which was required, but faith in the promised Redeemer, or faith in the promise of redemption through the Messiah. This is plain not only from the considerations just mentioned, but also further, (1.) From the fact that the Apostle teaches that faith, not works, was before as well as after Christ the condition of salvation. This, in his Epistle to the Romans, he not only asserts, but proves. He argues that from the nature of the case the justification of sinners by works is a contradiction. If sinners, they are under condemnation for their works, and therefore cannot be justified by them. Moreover he proves that the Old Testament everywhere speaks of gratuitous forgiveness and acceptance of men with God; but if gratuitous, it cannot be meritorious. He further argues from the case of Abraham, who, according to the express declaration of the Scriptures, was justified by faith; and he quotes from the old prophets the great principle, true then as now, that the “just shall live by faith." (2.) In the second place, he proves that the faith intended was faith in a promise and not merely general piety or confidence toward God. Abraham, he says, "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able also to perform." (Rom. iv. 20, 21.) (3.) The Apostle proves that the specific promise which was the object of the faith of the patriarch was the promise of redemption through Christ. That promise they were required to believe; and that the true people of God did believe. The mass of the people mistook the nature of the redemption promised; but even in their case it was the promise of redemption which was the object of their faith. Those taught by the Spirit knew that it was a redemption from the guilt and power of sin and from the consequent alienation from God. In Gal. iii. 14, the Apostle therefore says that the blessing promised to Abraham has come upon the Gentiles. That blessing, therefore, was that which through the gospel is now offered to all men.

Not only, therefore, from these explicit declarations that faith in the promised Redeemer was required from the beginning, but from the admitted fact that the Old Testament is full of the doctrine of redemption by the Messiah, it follows that those who received the religion of the Old Testament received that doctrine, and exercised faith in the promise of God concerning his Son. The Epistle to the Hebrews is designed in great part to show that the whole of the Old

dispensation was an adumbration of the New, and that it loses all its value and import if its reference to Christ be ignored. To deny, therefore, that the faith of the Old Testament saints was a faith in the Messiah and his redemption, is to deny that they had any knowledge of the import of the revelations and promises of which they were the recipients.

Paul, in Rom. iii. 21, says that the method of salvation revealed in the gospel had been already revealed in the law and the prophets; and his definite object, in Gal. iii. 13-28, is to prove that the covenant under which we live and according to the terms of which we are to be saved, is the identical covenant made with Abraham, in which the promise of redemption was made on the condition of faith in Him in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. This is a covenant anterior to the Mosaic law, and which that law could not set aside or invalidate.

The covenant of grace, or plan of salvation, being the same in all its elements from the beginning, it follows, first, in opposition to the Anabaptists, that the people of God before Christ constituted a Church, and that the Church has been one and the same under all dispensations. It has always had the same promise, the same Redeemer, and the same condition of membership, namely, faith in the Son of God as the Saviour of the world.

It follows from the same premises, in opposition to the Romanists, that the salvation of the people of God who died before the coming of Christ, was complete. They were truly pardoned, sanctified, and, at death, admitted to that state into which those dying in the Christian faith are now received. This is confirmed by what our Lord and the Apostles teach. The salvation promised us is that on which the Old Testament saints have already entered. The Gentile believers are to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The bosom of Abraham was the place of rest for all the faithful. All that Paul claims for believers under the gospel is, that they are the sons of Abraham, and partakers of his inheritance. If this is so, then the whole ritual theory which assumes that grace and salvation are communicated only through Christian sacraments must be false.

§7. Different Dispensations.

First, from Adam to Abraham.

Although the covenant of grace has always been the same, the dispensations of that covenant have changed. The first dispensation extended from Adam to Abraham. Of this period we have so few

records, that we cannot determine how far the truth was revealed, or what measures were adopted for its preservation. All we know is, that the original promises concerning the seed of the woman, as the Redeemer of our race, had been given; and that the worship of God by sacrifices had been instituted. That sacrifices were a divine institution, and designed to teach the method of salvation, may be inferred, (1.) From the fact that it is the method which the common consciousness of men has everywhere led them to adopt. It is that which their relation to God as sinners demanded. It is the dictate of conscience that guilt requires expiation; and that expiation is made by the shedding of blood. Sacrifices, therefore, not being an arbitrary institution, but one having its foundation in our real relation to God as sinners, we may infer that it was by his command, direct or indirect, that such sacrifices were offered. (2.) This may also be inferred from God's approving them, adopting them, and incorporating them in the religious observances subsequently enjoined. (3.) The fact that man was to be saved by the sacrifice of Christ, and that this was the great event to which the institutions of the earlier dispensations refer, renders it clear that this reference was designed, and that it was founded upon the institution of God.

The Second Dispensation.

The second dispensation extended from Abraham to Moses. This was distinguished from the former, (1.) By the selection of the descendants of Abraham to be the peculiar people of God. They were chosen in order to preserve the knowledge of the true religion in the midst of the general apostasy of mankind. To this end special revelations were made to them, and God entered into a covenant with them, promising that He would be their God, and that they should be his people. (2.) Besides thus gathering his Church out of the world, and making its members a peculiar people, distinguished by circumcision from the Gentiles around them, the promise of redemption was made more definite. The Redeemer was to be of the seed of Abraham. He was to be one person. The salvation He was to effect should pertain to all nations. (3.) Subsequently it was made known that the Deliverer was to be of the tribe of Judah.

The Third Dispensation.

The third dispensation of this covenant was from Moses to Christ. All that belonged to the previous periods was taken up and included in this. A multitude of new ordinances of polity, worship, and

religion were enjoined. A priesthood and a complicated system of sacrifices were introduced. The promises were rendered more definite, setting forth more clearly by the instructions of the prophets the person and work of the coming Redeemer as the prophet, priest, and king of his people. The nature of the redemption He was to effect and the nature of the kingdom He was to establish were thus more and more clearly revealed. We have the direct authority of the New Testament for believing that the covenant of grace, or plan of salvation, thus underlay the whole of the institutions of the Mosaic period, and that their principal design was to teach through types and symbols what is now taught in explicit terms in the gospel. Moses, we are told (Heb. iii. 5), was faithful as a servant to testify concerning the things which were to be spoken after.

Our

Besides this evangelical character which unquestionably belongs to the Mosaic covenant, it is presented in two other aspects in the Word of God. First, it was a national covenant with the Hebrew people. In this view the parties were God and the people of Israel; the promise was national security and prosperity; the condition was the obedience of the people as a nation to the Mosaic law; and the mediator was Moses. In this aspect it was a legal covenant. It said, "Do this and live." Secondly, it contained, as does also the New Testament, a renewed proclamation of the original covenant of works. It is as true now as in the days of Adam, it always has been and always must be true, that rational creatures who perfectly obey the law of God are blessed in the enjoyment of his favour; and that those who sin are subject to his wrath and curse. Lord assured the young man who came to Him for instruction that if he kept the commandments he should live. And Paul says (Rom. ii. 6) that God will render to every man according to his deeds; tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil; but glory, honour, and peace to every man who worketh good. This arises from the relation of intelligent creatures to God. It is in fact nothing but a declaration of the eternal and immutable principles of justice. If a man rejects or neglects the gospel, these are the principles, as Paul teaches in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, according to which he will be judged. If he will not be under grace, if he will not accede to the method of salvation by grace, he is of necessity under the law.

These different aspects under which the Mosaic economy is presented account for the apparently inconsistent way in which it is spoken of in the New Testament. (1.) When viewed in relation to the people of God before the advent, it is represented as divine

and obligatory. (2.) When viewed in relation to the state of the Church after the advent, it is declared to be obsolete. It is represented as the lifeless husk from which the living kernel and germ have been extracted, a body from which the soul has departed. (3.) When viewed according to its true import and design as a preparatory dispensation of the covenant of grace, it is spoken of as teaching the same gospel, the same method of salvation as that which the Apostles themselves preached. (4.) When viewed, in the light in which it was regarded by those who rejected the gospel, as a mere legal system, it was declared to be a ministration of death and condemnation. (2 Cor. iii. 6-18.) (5.) And when contrasted with the new or Christian economy, as a different mode of revealing the same covenant, it is spoken of as a state of tutelage and bondage, far different from the freedom and filial spirit of the dispensation under which we now live.

The Gospel Dispensation.

The gospel dispensation is called new in reference to the Mosaic economy, which was old, and about to vanish away. It is distinguished from the old economy,

1. In being catholic, confined to no one people, but designed and adapted to all nations and to all classes of men.

2. It is more spiritual, not only in that the types and ceremonies of the Old Testament are done away, but also in that the revelation itself is more inward and spiritual. What was then made known objectively, is now, to a greater extent, written on the heart. (Heb. viii. 8-11.) It is incomparably more clear and explicit in its teachings.

4. It is more purely evangelical. Even the New Testament, as we have seen, contains a legal element, it reveals the law still as a covenant of works binding on those who reject the gospel; but in the New Testament the gospel greatly predominates over the law. Whereas, under the Old Testament, the law predominated over the gospel.

5. The Christian economy is specially the dispensation of the Spirit. The great blessing promised of old, as consequent on the coming of Christ, was the effusion of the Spirit on all flesh, i. e., on all nations and on all classes of men. This was so distinguishing a characteristic of the Messianic period that the evangelist says, "The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." (John vii. 39.) Our Lord promised that after his death and ascension He would send the Comforter, the