As a picture in a child's primer will convey an idea to the infant mind, long before it can be taught by abstract signs, so the Jews, in the infancy of their knowledge of God, and before there were any abstract signs to convey that knowledge, had thrown into their minds, through the senses, the two essential ideas of God's justice and mercy: His justice, in that the wages of sin is the death of the soul; and His mercy, in that God would pardon the sinner, if he confessed his sin, acknowledged the life of his soul forfeited, and offered the life of the sacrifice as his substitute. In this manner an idea of the desert of sin was conveyed to the minds of the Jews; God's law honoured, and the utter hostility of the Lawgiver to sin clearly manifested; and God's mercy was likewise revealed as stated in the preceding paragraph. Thus, in a manner accordant with the circumstances of the Jews, and by means adapted in their operation to the constitution of nature, was the knowledge of God's attribute of justice, and the relation which mercy sustains to that attribute, fully revealed in the world; and in view of the nature of things, it could have been revealed in no other way.[21] [21] Inquiring readers of the Old Testament often find many things announced in the name of God, which must seem to them inconsistent with the majesty of the Divine nature, unless they view those requirements in the light of the inquiry, 'What impressions were they adapted to make upon the Jewish mind?' There are but few readers of the Old Testament who read on this subject intelligently. In this remark we do not refer to the historical or preceptive portions of these writings, but to the elements of the Mosaic institution. In order to see the design of many items of the system, we must consider those items as exhibitions to the senses, designed chiefly, perhaps only, to produce right ideas, or to correct erroneous ones then existing, in the minds of the Jews. The inquiry ought not to be, What impressions are they adapted to produce upon our minds concerning God? but, What impression would the particular revelation make upon _their_ minds? An instance or two will illustrate these remarks.