it has become a tree of life, it has budded, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

The brief and beautiful address of Stephen, from which we quoted above, cut the Jews to the heart, and crying out with a loud voice and stopping their ears, they in their anger ran upon him with one accord, cast him out of the city, and stoned him to death. Their hearts were hardened against every evidence. Their minds were set against the truth, and even the testimony of Moses and the prophets, in whom they trusted, the more convincingly it proved that they had been the "betrayers and murderers" of the Just One, the more they raged against him and his followers. Christ had charged them with disbelieving Moses, for said he, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me."-St. John, c. v., v. 46.

Before we bring this subject to a conclusion, we will adduce further evidence from the inspired pages showing that Moses wrote of Christ, as Christ himself informs us. We have already seen that the prophet of whom Moses wrote was the Christ who when the time was come revealed himself in the flesh according to the promises, aud we have proved by the Scriptures that he was that Lord of Hosts himself who appeared with the angel (Enoch) at the bush when Moses was called, who there declared himself to be the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The following extracts will confirm these views:

Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."-St. John, c. i., v. 45.

"For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear."-Acts, c. iii., v. 22.

"This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the anger which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us."-Acts, c. vii., v. 38.

This last verse beginning, "This is he," is of itself quite conclusive. There can be no further doubt on this subject; and here there is a sure foundation on which to ground our faith, the belief in the one only Lord God Almighty, omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal, who became incarnated, who is now the Mediator, and who will yet come in glory as the Judge of the quick and the dead, and in that day there shall be one Shep

herd and one Lord, and his name one-" Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."-Luke, c. xvii., v. 30.

And that day is not far distant. God appeared, as Melchisedec, to Abraham, in the year two thousand from the creation of the world; he appeared again, in the person of Christ, in the year four thousand and four (probably the four years over the four thousand is an error in the calculation); and the Christian world may certainly expect that the day when Christ shall reappear will be about the year two thousand of the christian era, which is now drawing nigh.

We will again remärk, in conclusion, that to believe and confess that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead-God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost-is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and must be unpardonably offensive to God, who proclaims himself to be a jealous God; he is the One God Alone, who will not give his glory to another; and to divide the Godhead is to divide and tarnish the glory of God. We believe that the Almighty God is one person, having a threefold character, aptly and fully expressed in his threefold name, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and we believe that the Almighty God was revealed in the flesh in the person of Christ, as it was proclaimed that he should be by Moses, Isaiah, and other prophets; and we further believe, for these are Christ own words, that whosoever will not believe these plainly revealed truths "shall die in his sins." This is the principal oracle of God, constantly proclaimed in the Scriptures, that men may clearly understand the truth, and know Christ as he is previous to the time when the Son of Man shall be revealed. Another oracle of God was the doctrine of "original sin" as explained in the foregoing pages; and these oracles of God were the keys given by Christ to Peter; and they may be briefly summed up in the following quotations :

"When the ungodly curseth satan, he curseth his own soul."Ecclesiasticus, c. xxi., v. 27.

"Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one," &c.-1st Epis. John, c. iii., v. 12.

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God.

66 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

"And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness

of his coming:

"Even him, whose coming is after the working of satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.

V.

3-11.

"And with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."-2nd Epis. Paul to the Thessalonians, c. ii., "Faint not to be strong in the Lord, that he may confirm you; cleave unto him, for the Lord Almighty is God alone, and besides him there is no other Saviour."-Ecclesiasticus, c. xxiv., v. 24.

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to preserve you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, "To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."Jude, c. i., v. 24, 25.

LAWS, ORDINANCES, AND COMMANDMENTS. "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."-Matthew, c. xv., v. 9.

In the language of the ancient Scriptures, we are told that God grieved at his heart that he had made man, in consequence of man's rebellious nature and the general corruption of human society, which followed the unity by marriage of the two races, the descendants of Cain and Seth; and God effected a new division of the seeds in the persons of Esau and Jacob. From Jacob there grew a peculiar nation and manner of people, who were comparatively pure, though still greatly degenerated from the perfection of Adam when created. In the midst of this peculiar people God raised up Moses as a lawgiver, by whom he established laws, ordinances, and commandments, as a manifestation of the Divine will.

But the people were unable to bear the yoke thus placed on them.

The laws, though imperfect, were just and holy, but the people were not holy; they were continually disobedient, and the chastisement which certainly followed thereupon, burnt into the memory of the race, as it were by the fire of affliction, the important truth that they were naturally opposed to the will of God and unable to keep his holy law, and were thus utterly unworthy of the favours and grace of their Creator. And in this the Divine purpose was accomplished, which was to chastise their self-righteousness, and to teach them the great lesson that being naturally weak they should distrust their own sufficiency, and rely on God's goodness and mercy, having faith in the promises made by God to Abraham and the fathers. By the law no man living can be justified, and had the Israelites been strict in their obedience to the laws of Moses, it could have availed them nothing for the purpose of reconciling them with their Maker. The purest and best of human actions amounts to nothing more than a duty, which one man owes to another, and such actions are as nothing in securing the salvation of man. The purified priests of the Jews presented sacrifices and offerings, and burnt incense to atone for the sins of the people; which sacrifices were types of the greater sacrifice afterwards made by Christ for the sins of the world.

It should be observed that these laws, ordinances, and commandments, of Moses were intended for the Jewish people alone; no other nation or people having at any time been commanded to observe them. The Israelites were the Lord's people; and the descendants of the other seed were called the gentile or heathen world, and they were without hope and without God in the world. The gentiles were without the pale of the temple, and beyond the dispensation of the laws of Moses; they were a law unto themselves; and dying as they had lived, were without a hope of the life hereafter. Before Christ, the gentile world knew but little respecting a future life, neither dreading its punishments nor anticipating its rewards, and they will have no part or lot in the resurrection, either to future bliss or future woe.

It would be superfluous to enter into a minute consideration of the laws, as the pith of the comments we should make are contained in our remarks on other subjects, and we will therefore now but briefly allude to this portion of the subject. These are the words of Christ, already quoted, "In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." But these words could not have applied to the laws

of Moses, for they were the commandments of God, except we regard them as a condemnation of the false traditions and human interpretations of those laws that had long prevailed. Those laws of God are markedly distinguished from the laws of man; our common nature, though corrupted by its own sinfulness, bearing witness of the sin caused by the breach of those laws. One of those laws enjoins, "Thou shalt not commit adultery ;" and whosoever broke this law was to be stoned to death. The punishment for the breach of this law may appear severe, when even murder was punished with less stringency, probably by a much easier death. But we must consider what crime this law comprehended, and what meaning it attached to the word "adultery." One of the special objects of the laws of Moses was to strictly guard the purity of the race of God's people, that they should not by marriage or concubinage with the gentile nations again defile the race, as was the case before the flood, the seeds having been anew divided in the persons of Jacob and Esau. If a union between the races had been permitted, the world would soon have returned to the condition of its former corruption, and the great work of redemption would have been frustrated. And this is the great crime of "adultery," so strictly forbidden the Jews--the unity by marriage or otherwise with the gentile nations, and the punishment for such an offence, though very terrible, appears to be amply justified. The offspring of such criminality, whether of marriage or concubinage, were treated, by the law as illegitimate; they were forbidden to enter into the congregation of the Lord's people, or into the temple. The law of adultery, therefore, in the code of Moses, was specially adapted to the circumstances of the Israelites; and we must not give a modern interpretation to the language of ancient law, for, in the words of Christ, "In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

The crime of adultery as understood by modern law is essentially different, and was not comprehended by the law of Moses on which we have commented; doubtless that crime is a great sin against human society, and a greater sin against their own nature by those who commit it, as witness their own feelings, the sense of disgrace and shame by which they are self-condemned; but it is not now, nor was it regarded by Moses, as an offence deserving death. Christ dismissed the woman who had committed this offence, and who was brought to him by her