6. When man’s life was shortened, and reduced to the same standard, as now it is, of threescore and ten years, and the church was very numerous, increased to a great nation, and God had promised that he would increase them yet more, then they stood in greater need of a written word to prevent the inconveniences that might have arisen from their continuing any longer without one, and God thought fit, as a great instance of favour to man, to command Moses to write his law, as a standing rule of faith and obedience to his church. This leads us to consider a very important question, _viz._ whether the church, under the Old Testament dispensation, understood this written word, or the spiritual meaning of those laws that are contained therein? Some, indeed, have thought that the state of the church, before Christ came in the flesh, was attended with so much darkness, that they did not know the way of salvation, though they had, in whole or in part, the scriptures of the Old Testament. The Papists generally assert, that they did not; and therefore they fancy, that all who lived before Christ’s time, were shut up in a prison, where they remained till he went from the cross to reveal himself to them, and so, as their leader, to conduct them in triumph to heaven. And some Protestants think the state of all who lived in those times, to have been attended with so much darkness, that they knew but little of Christ and his gospel, though shadowed forth, or typified by the ceremonial law; which they found on suchlike places of scripture as that, where Moses is said to have _put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished; and that this vail is done away in Christ_, 2 Cor. iii. 13, 14. and those scriptures that speak of the Jewish dispensation, as _a night of darkness_, compared with that of the gospel, which is represented as _a perfect day_, or the _rising of the sun_, Isa. xxi. 11. Cant. ii. 17. Malachi iv. 2. And as these extend the darkness of that dispensation farther than, as I humbly conceive, they ought to do, so they speak more of the wrath, bondage, and terror that attend it, than they have ground to do, especially when they make it universal; since there are several reasons, which may induce us to believe that the church, at that time, understood a great deal more of the gospel, shadowed forth in the ceremonial law, and had more communion with God, and less wrath, terror, or bondage, than these suppose they had; for which I would offer the following reasons,