itself is the only book from which the whole can be properly learned, but the Bible will be better understood, if this little introduction is comprehended and remembered.

2. One of the most eminent men in all history is Moses. The religion which God taught Moses, and which he taught to his countrymen, is called by his name-The Mosaic Dispensation. The religion which Jesus Christ taught to the same people, but for the benefit of all mankind, is called The Christian Dispensation.

3. The religion of Moses related to the Hebrews principally, and spoke of this world only; the religion of Christ mentions another life: he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, to prove to us that we shall rise from apparent death, and inherit eternal life; therefore is it written in the New Testament, that "The law (the Jewish law) came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

The most valuable part of the law of Moses is the Decalogue.

In the nineteenth chapter of Exodus it is related that God commanded Moses to repeat to the children of Israel the benefits they had received at his hands, and his will that they should obey his laws and be a "holy nation ;" and moreover, God, in a sensible manner, declared his will from Mount Sinai. God's declaration from Mount Sinai is the ten commandments, or the Decalogue, which follows:

I. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.

V. Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house,

thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neigh bour's."

Illustration.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt have no God besides me. "The Lord our God is one God," is declared often in the scriptures. This great doctrine is called the Unity of God. The word God is sometimes used in the scriptures in an inferior sense. In one place it is said, "there are gods many, and lords many;" in another, "Moses was unto them as a God." This is an oriental or Asiatic mode of expression. In those countries in ancient times, great dignity and importance were attached to men of high stations-the humbler classes prostrated themselves before them. When Joseph appeared abroad in Egypt, persons went before him, who cried out, "Bow the knee ;" and the people kneeling awaited his coming: this is sometimes called worship. This worship often became supreme homage.

2. God revealed himself to Adam, Noah, and other patriarchs. This is Primitive Revelation. The patriarchs transmitted this revelation to their descendants, but they forgot it, and many of them invented Polytheism, or worship of many gods. It has already been told, that men, and even brute animals were deified, or made objects of religious

worship. The commandment prohibits this ido latry.

3. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c. The second commandment is like the first. "God is a spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth," says Christ. God is a mind--he must be worshipped in the mind, and honoured in the heart. He is the object of thought, not of sight. "No man hath seen God at any time."-God cannot be represented by any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath." He is a pure moral being-" a jealous God," that is, one who knows his own infinite excellence, and who requires of his creatures their supreme love and praise.

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4. He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, &c. "He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity" with complacency. He punishes all sin. When parents by their vices and bad examples corrupt their children, God punishes the crimes of the children which were caused by the neglect of the parents. But this just God, who "will by no means clear the guilty," shows mercy to them who love him, and keep his commandments. It is this attribute of love that should make us love him, and his Son Jesus Christ, who was the minister of his father's will to man, long after Moses.

5. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, &c. This commandment is connected with the first two. It suggests the reverence due to God in all our words. Want of respect to the divine presence, to him who is about our bed and about our path, who knoweth our down-sitting, and our up-rising, and all our