at of
Moses; nor the work of Moses that of David; nor David's work that of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; nor did any one of the Old Testament
believers receive the broad commission: "Go ye into all the world; and
preach the gospel to every creature." They could not receive such a
commission, for the way was not yet prepared. Abraham must sojourn in
the land of promise "as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob" (Heb. 11:9); Moses must lead Israel out of Egypt,
and be God's mediator for the law given on Sinai; Joshua must take
possession of the land of promise and David maintain it, sword in hand;
the prophets must foretell the future glories of Christ's kingdom, not
preach it, as did the apostles, to all nations. But in the divine plan
this manifoldness of service constitutes a self-consistent and
harmonious whole.

6. The same unity in diversity belongs to _the spirit of revelation_.
Failing to apprehend the character of God in its entireness, Marcion
rent the seamless garment of divine perfection into two parts, the one
consisting of _justice_, which he assigned to the "Demiurge" of the Old
Testament, the other of _goodness_, as the attribute of the supreme God
of the New Testament. He did not see that God's character is alike
infinite on both sides; that his justice is a justice of infinite
goodness, and his goodness a goodness of infinite justice. Hence he
arrayed in opposition to each other two caricatures of deity, the one
drawn from the Old Testament, the other from the New; an error in which
he has had too many imitators in modern times. To see the harmony of the
spirit that pervades the Holy Scriptures from beginning to end _in
respect to the Divine character_, we should take a comprehensive instead
of a partial view of their representations. It is true that the Old
Testament describes God as infinite in holiness and inflexibly just. But
it also describes him as "the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." It is true
that God's covenant under the Old Testament was restricted to a single
nation; but this was, as has been heretofore shown, _preparatory_ to a
universal dispensation of mercy, as when a general seizes one strong
position with a view to the conquest of an entire region. Chap. 18. It
is true, on the other hand, that the New Testament is, in a peculiar
s