UNDERSTANDEST THOU WHAT THOU READEST.-Acts VIII- -30.

LONDON:

HAMILTON, ADAMS and Co., Paternoster Row.

EXETER, DRAYTON and SONS.

PREFACE.

The experience of some years in the ministry has convinced me that the Old Testament, and the religion it reveals the Jews and their institutions, are but imperfectly understood by the generality of professing Christians. The consequence is, that frequently it is passed over as something which does not concern them, which although formerly profitable to the Jew is no longer profitable to the Christian. Such persons seem to overlook the fact, that religion can be but one and the same from the beginning, and that the religion of the Jew in its nature and essence cannot by any possibility differ from the religion of the Christian.

Consideratious such as these have induced me to compile the following pages, for the use of those who have not opportunity or leisure to consult larger works; in which, I have endeavoured to compress a large amount of information into a small compass, in order that I might place it within the reach of the poor.

The method pursued has been to give a brief history of the Jews in the first two chapters, and in the twelve that follow some account of their sacred institutions, and their various sects and orders of men. In the two last is shown that in all essentials the Jewish and Christian church is one, since they constitute that mystical body

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for which Christ died. Also the spiritual interpretation that is to be given to persons and things mentioned in the Old Testament.

This plan has been pursued from a consideration, that much of the revelation which God has been pleased. to make known to man is engrossed by such subjects; unless therefore we are conversant with them we lose much of the benefit, stimulus, and motive which is to be derived from the recorded example of holy patriarchs and prophets. The sacred institutions of Israel also, are revealed with a minuteness and precision, which at once discovers to us that they are directed to some great object, and are intended to serve some great purpose— that by them a divine light was gradually vouchsafed to a benighted world, which should be as it were a foundation of the revelations of the Lord from heaven. Indeed every one who reads with attention God's dealings with his church of old, the ordinances and ceremonies which he appointed them, must be convinced that they were embiematical and foreshadowed the great things of the gospel. It is therefore absolutely necessary that we should be intimately acquainted with them, since many doctrines of the Christian religion, and our duties also, are bound up in them.

In the religion revealed in the New Testament, there is to be traced a manifest dependance and connexion with what had been already revealed in the Old. So that unless we form clear and distinct ideas of the genius and character of that dispensation-of the Jews, and their sacred institutions, we shall have but an indistinct perception-an imperfect knowledge of the distinguishing doctrines and obligations of Christianity.

When we take the most cursory review of the history of God's ancient people, we cannot fail to perceive, that all HIS promises of good if they obeyed, and all HIS threatenings of evil if they disobeyed, were literally and most righteously fulfilled. The government of God in that only nation, in which he vouchsafed to become their king, becomes at once our warning and our encouragement, it convinces us that the word of the Lord, whether of promise or threatening, is no unmeaning word but that it is rich with blessings to them that obey it, as it is with terror to them that slight it-that like as he rewards so also will he most certainly punish.

Again, if we look carefully at the statutes and ordinances which were ordained for Jacob, we cannot fail of being convinced that the wisdom and benevolence which they display is every way worthy of God.-A wisdom and benevolence which, while it descended to the supply of their temporal wants, satisfying them with all earthly joy and gladness, was far more illustriously exhibited in providing for their spiritual, their immortal necessities. In Ceremonies, in Sacrifices, in Persons, Places, and Things, figurative and emblematical, they ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink with ourselves, and that meat and that drink was Christ, 1 Cor. x-4. Surely then we must be greatly wanting in spiritual discernment, if we fail to discover that these mystic rites, these significant ceremonies, shed a light, a lustre and meaning on the pages in which the inspired disciples and apostles of our Lord-who we must bear in mind were Jews, and thought and spoke as Jews-have delineated and unfolded the gospel of Jesus Christ. And these pages are designed, not so much to resolve any speculative