of the Old
Testament. It interprets the Old Testament, and is itself interpreted by
it. The two constitute together an organic whole, and can be truly
understood only in their mutual connection. To discard the Old Testament
whether formally or in practice, is to throw away the key which unlocks
to us the treasures of the New; for the writers of the New Testament
continually reason out of the Scriptures of the Old. If we cannot truly
comprehend the Old Testament except when we view it as preparatory to
the revelation contained in the New, so neither can we have a full
understanding of the New except as the completion of the revelation
begun in the Old. In a word, we understand revelation aright only in its
unity.

2. The New Testament _uses_ all the teachings of the Old, but it does
not _repeat_ them all. The unity, personality, and infinite perfections
of God; his universal providence, and his supremacy as well over nations
as individuals; the duties that men owe to God and each other, as
embodied for substance in the ten commandments and expanded in the
teachings of Moses and the prophets; the indissoluble connection, on the
one hand, between righteousness and true prosperity, and on the other,
between sin and ruin--all these great truths are so fully unfolded in
the Old Testament that they need no formal repetition in the New. The
person and office of the Messiah--as that great prophet, like unto
Moses, whom God should raise up for his people in the latter days; as
that mighty king of David's line, who should sit on his throne and in
his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with
justice forever; as that high priest after the order of Melchisedec whom
God should establish forever with a solemn oath--had been prefigured in
the institutions of Moses, in the Psalms, and in the writings of the
prophets.

Some other important truths not so fully revealed in the Old Testament
but deducible in a legitimate way either from its general scope or from
some brief hints in its teachings, had become firmly established in the
faith of the Jewish people during the long interval that elapsed between
Malachi and Christ. Such particularly were the doctrines of the
resurrection of the dead and of future rewards and punishments. These
truths, also, as well as those more directly and fully taught in the Old
Testament, were assumed by the Saviour and his apostles as a platform
for the peculiar revelations of the gospe