The great and essential distinction betwixt the legal and evangelical dispensation, is accurately pointed out by the Apostle, where he tells us, that "the law is but the shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." Its types, ceremonies, and outward ordinances, are taken from the objects of temporal nature, which are, at best, but shadowy representations of Eternal Truth. "The comers thereunto could never be perfected," by the most minute observation of its external rites. The pious, spiritual Jews, therefore, must have looked further than these, and considered every outward purification, as figuratively expressive of an inward cleansing to be performed in their hearts. Moses, their inspired Legislator, and the prophets that succeeded him, did not fail to acquaint them with the immediate and necessary reference of these temporal symbols to Spiritual and Eternal Truths. Nevertheless, it appears but too evident, from the whole Jewish history, that the generality rested their hopes of salvation, merely upon their outward law: "They went about to establish a righteousness of their own," founded upon a strict observance of the Levitical ceremonies, which were only adapted to their present circumstances, without paying the least attention to that Inward Law of Righteousness, to which these ceremonies referred. Hence it was, that their prophets were directed by the Most High, to express, in the strongest terms, his disapprobation of those very ordinances, which he himself had originally instituted for their good; and to tell them, that "he had no pleasure in their burnt-offerings and sacrifices, that their oblations were vain, and that incense was an abomination in his sight." His displeasure was not with the ordinances themselves; for, if considered and observed with proper views and dispositions, they would have been subservient to the most glorious purposes: but he was offended with the gross and flagrant abuses of them, which the people were daily committing. Hence also it was, that the same inspired prophets, when the hand of the HIGHEST drew aside the curtain of futurity, and exhibited to their astonished view the successive displays of Gospel Light and Truth, with all that variety of heavenly scenery, which his INCARNATE SON was to open upon our benighted world; hence it was, I say, that the same inspired prophets were particularly careful to distinguish the new dispensation, by every figure and mode of expression, that might lead the most dark and ignorant Jew to consider it as internal and spiritual.