Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

To preserve these hopes in the world, upon which the restoration of the world to life and immortality depended, was Abraham called from his own country and kindred, then tainted with idolatry, to be a witness to God and his truth. Had he, with all the reft of mankind, been suffered to continue in idolatry, the knowledge of God had been loft, and the remembrance of his providence in creating man at firft, of the hopes given of a second and better creation after the fall, had utterly perifhed. Abraham was not called merely for his own fake; much less were his pofterity, a stubborn and stiff necked people, preferved for their own fakes; but he was called, and they preserved, to be inftruments, in the hands of God, for fulfilling the purposes of his mercy in the restoration and redemption of the world. The great article of the covenant, limited to Abraham and his chofen feed, moft evidently regarded the whole race of man, and was to grow, in the fulness of time, into a bleffing upon all the nations of the earth he and his pofterity were depofitaries of these hopes; or, to use the words of St. Paul, this was the Jews' chief advantage above others, that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

This account will help us to a diftinct view of the prophecies, relating to this period of time of which we are speaking. As two covenants were given to Abraham and his feed, one a temporal covenant, to take place and to be performed in the land of Canaan; the other a covenant of better hopes, and to be performed in a better country; fo are the prophe

cies given to Abraham, and to his children after him, of two kinds: one relative to the temporal covenant, and given in difcharge and execution of God's temporal promises; the other relative to the fpiritual covenant, given to confirm and establish the hopes of futurity, and to prepare and make ready the people for the reception of the kingdom of God.

Many of the ancient prophecies relate to both covenants; and hence it comes to pafs, that, at the first appearance, many of the ancient predictions feem to be hardly confiftent with themselves, but to be made up of ideas, which can never unite in one person, or in one event. Thus the promises to David of a fon, to fucceed in his throne, have fome circumstances which are applicable only to Solomon, and the temporal dominion over the house of Ifrael; fome, which are peculiar to that Son of David, who was heir of an everlasting kingdom, which was to be established in truth and righteousness. Hence it is that we often find the promises of temporal felicity, and temporal deliverances, raised so high, that no temporal felicity or temporal deliverance can answer the description; the thoughts and expreffions of the prophet naturally moving from the bleffings of one covenant to the bleffings of the other, and fometimes describing the inconceivable glories of one covenant, by expreffions and fimilitudes borrowed from the more fenfible glories and bleffings of the other. The prophet Ifaiah, being sent to raise the drooping fpirits of Ahaz and the house of David, threatened at that time with immediate ruin by two potent enemies, could not but remember the double promife of a kingdom given to David, which was a double fecurity for the efta

blishment of his house; together therefore with the affurances and the figns given of temporal deliverance, he intermixes the affurance and the fign of the greater deliverance, before the completion of which the house of David could not fail; for that house should continue till the virgin conceived and brought forth Immanuel, that Son of David, to whom the everlasting kingdom was promifed. Ought it to be matter of wonder, that the prophets, who were minifters of both covenants, entrusted with the counsel of God for the direction of the temporal affairs of the people of Ifrael, and commiffioned to cherish the hopes and expectations of a better kingdom, to be given in virtue of God's everlasting covenant; ought it to be wondered at, I fay, that they often fpeak of both kingdoms together, that they make use of the temporal deliverances as an argument to encourage the hopes of the fpiritual? when in truth the temporal deliverances, being the actual performance of one covenant, were a great fecurity for the performance of the other; and it was unnatural to fee the hand of God performing one promife, and not to reflect upon the certainty of his performing

the other.

The bleffings belonging to the fpecial covenant, given to Abraham and his feed, were referved to be revealed in God's appointed time. The prophets under the law could not be commiffioned to declare these bleffings openly and nakedly, without anticipating the time of their revelation. Hence it is that the predictions concerning Chrift and his kingdom are clothed in fuch figures, as were proper to raise the hope and attention of the people, without carry

ing them beyond the bounds of knowledge, prescribed by God to the age of the Jewish covenant.

If we confider each kind of prophecy diftinctly by itself, we fhall the better difcern how this cafe ftands. To begin then with thofe relating to the temporal covenant: Abraham was called from his father's houfe, upon a promife, that he should become a great nation, and that his feed should poffefs the land of Canaan. This promife could not be fulfilled in all its parts till Abraham's family was multiplied into a nation. This required many years; and what must become of these children of promise in the mean time? They had no country of their own; where then should they settle and multiply? I will not launch out into fpeculation upon the methods of Providence by which the people of Ifrael were raised and preserved; but let any one read the prophecies from the call of Abraham to Mofes, he will evidently fee that they refer to this ftate of things. To arm the faith of Abraham and his posterity against the fears of disappointments, under the neceffary delays, and fome evil treatments they were to undergo, God acquaints Abraham with his purpose, and tells him, his feed should be four hundred years in a frange land. This circumftance, had it not been foretold, would in all probability have blotted out the memory of the promise: four hundred of diftrefs are fufficient to cure any people years of their great expectations. But this prophecy was a warning and a fecurity in this refpect. When the time of fervitude drew near, and the people wanted more than ordinary help to preserve their truft in the promise of God, Jacob, before his end, was en

lightened, by the spirit of prophecy, to fet before the twelve tribes the glory, and honours, and poffeffions, that should accrue to each in the happy day of their triumph: by the fame fpirit, Jofeph, on his death-bed, affures them, that God would furely vifit them, and bring them into the land which he fware to Abraham, to Ifaac, and to Jacob. These were cordials prepared against the day of distress, then near

at hand.

The times of Mofes and of Joshua, those days of miracles as well as prophecies, want no explication: the intention of Providence appears plain in every step, and may be difcerned by every eye.

The commonwealth of Ifrael was raised, and flourished under the temporal covenant, given at firft to Noah; and in a particular manner, with additional promises, confirmed to Abraham and his feed: for this reafon all the promises and threatenings of the law are temporal, fuitable to the age and feafon of the world. But these temporal bleffings and punishments were fo vifibly administered by the hand of God, that every inftance of the execution of the threats and promises of the law became a new proof of its divine authority. If you inquire, why God did fo visibly interpofe in the government of this people, always guiding and directing them in the conduct of temporal affairs, and matters of state, by the voice of his prophets, when all other nations, before and fince, have been left under the general rules of Providence to their own conduct and difcretion; the answer, I think, is this: no other nation ever had a divine law, given upon the establishment of temporal bleffings and punishments; and therefore God had not fo