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Untitled Article
at length arrived when it was to be established id its due supremacy in the human reason , by the highest authority and the most unquestionable test i * mony . It should be ever borne in mind that the administration of a moral go * vemment is the ultimate object of all the disci p line to which mankind has been subjected , —of the development of reason by natural means * of the Old and New dispensations . It is usually declared that the grand purpose of the Christian revelation is to teach the doctrine of a future life * It is true that
this is the essential doctrine of the system ; but we roust again observe , as we did before respecting the doctrine of the Divine Unity , that the knowledge of this important truth is only valuable in its relation to an ulterior object , —the recognition of a moral government-. The popular conceptions of such a government , though now distinct , were narrow and mean in comparison with what they might become under a fuller revelation ; and it was in order to enlarge and elevate these conceptions that a spiritual was now to be substituted for a ritual law , and that a higher sanction was to supersede those which had hitherto been admitted . The revelation of a fitfore life was
important , not as an isolated truth , but as the highest sanction of the divine law A . remarkable provision had been early made for the changes and substitutions which were now to take place , and which were little accordant witfe the inclinations of the Jewish people . By the terms of their covenant with GoaV they were bound to receive every message which be should send , and to honour every messenger whom he should appoint , though the one should
command the overthrow of their peculiar institutions , and the other be made the agent of the revolution . In answer to the petition of the people , proffered amidst the terrors of Horeb , that they might no more hear the voice of Jehovah or behold his lightnings , a promise was given that prophets should henceforth be the exponents of tne Divine will ; this promise being coupled with the necessary condition that the voice of the prophet should be listened to and his commands obeyed as readily as if they proceeded immediately from God . From this condition there was no escape ; and by a requisition of
their own law , the Jews were obliged to receive every divine message , and to act upon it , even though it should command the abolitkm of that ktwr , and the extinction of its sanctions . The punishment aUo of those who violated this national covenant , involved in it the overthrow of the preparar tory institution , and left the way open for the establishment of the more im ~ portant one which was to supersede it . These provisions afford unquestionable evidence of the wisdom by which the one dispensation was made subsarvient to the other , and both to the advancement of the human mind .
As the new revelation was not appropriated to the peculiar people , but , on the contrary , intended to abolish their peculiarity , it bad a twofold character , and its administrator a double office . The gospel was presented in one aspect to the Jews , in another to mankind at large ; for the sake of the former , it bore a particular , for the latter , an universal character . To the one , it was the glad-tidings of the kingdom ; to the other , the message of salvation . To the one , Christ came as their king ; to the other , as the givei ; of life . To the one , he was the Messiah ; to the other , the Saviour . This
distinction , this double character , as it was the consequence of the old institutions , was destined to disappear in their abolition . To the Jews wha rejected the new dispensation , the gospel was not glad-tidings , nor Jesus a king . By those who embraced it , the separation from the rest of their race which had subsisted from their origin as a nation , was soon found to be no
Untitled Article
The Education of the Hume * / tar * . 455
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1830, page 455, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2586/page/23/
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