A common objection to the Mosaic economy is drawn from its _exclusiveness_. It contains, it is alleged, a religion not for all mankind, but for a single nation. The answer is at hand. That this economy may be rightly understood, it must be considered not separately and independently, but as one part of a great plan. It was, as we have seen, subordinate to the covenant made with Abraham, which had respect to "all the families of the earth." Chap. 8, No. 4. It came in temporarily to prepare the way for the advent of Christ, through whom the Abrahamic covenant was to be carried into effect. It was a _partial_, preparatory to a _universal_ dispensation, and looked, therefore, ultimately to the salvation of the entire race. So far then as the benevolent design of God is concerned, the objection drawn from the exclusiveness of the Mosaic economy falls to the ground. It remains for the objector to show how a universal dispensation, like Christianity, could have been wisely introduced, without a previous work of preparation, or how any better plan of preparation could have been adopted than that contained in the Mosaic economy. If the laws of Moses interposed, as they certainly did, many obstacles to the intercourse of the Israelites with other nations, the design was not to encourage in them a spirit of national pride and contempt of other nations, but to preserve them from the contagious influence of the heathen practices by which they were surrounded. On this ground the Mosaic laws everywhere rest the restrictions which they impose upon the Israelites: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." Deut. 7:3, 4. How necessary were these restrictions was made manifest by the whole subsequent history of the people. So far was the Mosaic law from countenancing hatred towards the _persons_ of foreigners, that it expressly enjoined kindness: "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Lev. 19:34.