SERMON XLIV. 2g tance with him. And these forms and ordinances, which were of such infinite importance, should have been preserved alive by constant tradition amongst all mankind. Whatsoever divine in- structions God gave to Adam and Noah, were the appointed methods of worship and access to God for all their posterity, that is, for all the world, till God should reveal some new methods to them : for each of those two patriarchs were the fathers of all mankind; one before, and the other after the flood. But when God called Abraham, he favoured him and his household, with peculiar privileges, and appointed to them new and peculiar forms of worship, and access to himself. And here began the distinction of the world into two parts : Some were obliged to the religion of Abraham, the rest left to the religion of Noah. But as most of the posterityof Noah soon forgot the true God, and degenerated into various forms of idolatry, so the re- ligion of Abraham was also, for the most part, lost among the families of Ishmael and the sons of Keturah, and was chiefly re- tained and practised in thehousehold of Isaac, and in the tribes of Jacob, surnamed Israel. In the days of Moses large additions were made to the reli- gion of Abraham, and thenthe family or nation of Israel was, in a special manner, separated to be a peculiar people to God. Their methods of access to God, by priests and sacrifices, by blood and incense, by sprinklings and washing, were verynu- merous, and continued to be practised in the Jewish nation for many ages, even till the Messiah came, while the Gentiles had utterly lost the religion of Noah their father. But here observe, that all the chief rites and ceremonies of worship whichwere ever given to Adam or Noah, to Abraham or Moses, pointed to the great Messiah, and to the religion of Christ. These ceremonies had no power to save, but by virtue of their relation to Christ, the seed of the woman, the great Re- conciler who was to come. It was therefore through the media- tion of Christ, and by the influence of the blessed Spirit, that Adam, Noah, Abraham and Israel; that sinful mankind in all nations and in all ages, had ever any true access to God, or were received intohis favour ; though the person andoffices of Christ were in those days concealed under ceremonies, figures and sha- dows, andthe influences of the blessed Spirit were not quite so clearly revealed. To them was the gospelpreached as well as unto us ; Gal. iii. 8. I-Ieb. iv. 2. the same gospel and the same salvation, but covered with manyveils. It is no wonder then that when Christ himself, the Son of God and of man, the great Reconciler, was come into the 'world, andhad revealed to men in aclearer light, the doctrineofhis own
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