the grand movements that prepared the way for his advent.  But it was neither all type nor all preparation.  To the covenant people of that day it was a true deliverance; and to the believing portion of them, a deliverance of soul as well as of body.  “The law,” says Paul, “was our school-master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”  Gal. 3:24.  But while it had this preparatory office, it was to the Israelitish nation a true rule of life; and under it many, through faith, anticipated its end.  The prophets prophesied for the men of their own age, as well as for distant generations.  The sweet psalmist of Israel, while he foreshadowed the Messiah’s reign, sung for the comfort and edification of himself and his contemporaries; and Solomon gave rules of practical wisdom as valid for his day as for ours.  The revelation of the Old Testament was not complete, like that which we now possess; but it was sufficient for the salvation of every sincere inquirer after truth.  When the rich man in hell besought Abraham that Lazarus might be sent to warn his five brethren on the ground that, if one went to them from the dead they would repent, Abraham answered:  “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

7.  There is another practical error against which Christians of the present day need to be warned.  It is the idea that the full revelation of the New Testament supersedes in a great measure the necessity of studying the previous revelation contained in the Old Testament.  Few will openly avow this, but too many inwardly cherish the delusion in a vague and undefined form; and it exerts a pernicious influence upon them, leading them to undervalue and neglect the Old Testament Scriptures.  Even if the idea under consideration were in accordance with truth, it would still be to every earnest Christian a matter of deep historical interest to study the way by which God prepared the world for the full light of the gospel.  But it is not true.  It rests on a foundation of error and delusion.  For, (1.) The system of divine revelation constitutes a whole, all the parts of which are connected, from beginning to end, so that no single part can be truly understood without a knowledge of all the rest.  The impenetrable darkness that rests on some portions of Scripture has its ground in the fact that the plan of redemption is not yet completed.  The mighty disclosures of the future can alone dissipate this darkness.

  “God is his own interpreter,
  And he will make it plain.”

(2.) We know that the writers of the New Testament constantly refer to the Old for arguments and illustrations.  A knowledge of the Old Testament is necessary, therefore, for a full comprehension of their meaning.  How can the reader, for example, understand the epistles to the Romans and Galatians, or that to the Hebrews, without a thorough acquaintance with “Moses and the prophets,” to which these epistles have