There were indeed wise reasons for such a dispensation: to keep the Jews a distinct people, and preserve them from idolatry, while they were continually employed in the service of God; to remind them of their obligations to purity, inward and outward holiness; and, as a schoolmaster, to bring them to Christ; the law being a type and shadow of that “truth and grace which came by Jesus Christ,” who was “the end of the law for righteousness.” On which account, the law of Moses was not perpetual, but a temporary institution: thus the Apostle reasons, “There is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof; for,” as he says in another place, “the law could not in any wise make the comers thereunto perfect.” He calls the law, “a shadow of good things to come.” The Levitical ceremonies led the Jewish church into the knowledge of the promised Messiah, and what he was to do, suffer, purchase, and apply. Hence the words of St. Peter, “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” The Christian dispensation is attended with greater clearness. We have a far more comprehensive knowledge of the glorious Redeemer, in his person, natures, offices, and blessings; of the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and the way of salvation through faith in him, than what the Jews had. Thus the Apostle says, “But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”