But while all this is important to be remembered, it is also true that the Mosaic economy was thickly sown by God's own hand with the seeds of higher principles--those very principles which Christ and his apostles _unfolded out of the law and the prophets_. Thus it constituted a divine training by which the people were prepared for that spiritual kingdom of heaven which "in the fulness of time" the Saviour established. "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John"--not the prophets and the law in certain separate passages alone, but the prophets and the law as a whole. They prophesied of Christ, and in Christ their prophecy has its fulfilment. 7. The consideration of the _extent of the canon_ of the Old Testament does not properly belong here. It is sufficient to say that we have no valid reason for doubting the truth of the Jewish tradition, which assigns to Ezra and "the great synagogue" the work of setting forth the Hebrew canon as we now have it. That this tradition is embellished with fictions must be conceded; but we ought not, on such a ground, to deny its substantial truth, confirmed as it is by all the scriptural notices of Ezra's qualifications and labors. It is certain that the canon of the Jews in Palestine was the same in our Lord's day that it is now. The Greek version of the Septuagint contains indeed certain apocryphal books not extant in the Hebrew. These seem to have been in use, more or less, among the Alexandrine Jews; but there is no evidence that any canonical authority was ascribed to them, and it is certain that the Jews of Palestine adhered strictly to the Hebrew canon, which is identical with our own. 8. The _principle_ upon which the canon of the Old Testament was formed is not doubtful. No books were admitted into it but those written by prophets or prophetical men. As under the New Testament the reception or rejection of a book as canonical was determined by the writer's relation to Christ, so was it under the Old by his relation to the theocracy. The highest relation was held by Moses, its mediator. He accordingly had the prophetical spirit in the fullest measure: "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold." Numb. 12:6-8. The next place was held by prophets expressly called and commissioned by God, some of whom also, as Samuel, administered the affairs of the theocracy. Finally, there were the pious rulers whom God placed at the head of the covenant people, and endowed with the spirit of prophecy, such as David, Solomon, and Ezra. To no class of men besides those just mentioned do the Jewish rabbins ascribe the authorship of any book of the Old Testament, and in this respect their judgment is undoubtedly right.