IV.  This was the hour of the abolition of the law, and the introduction of the gospel; the hour of terminating the old and of beginning the new dispensation of religious knowledge and worship throughout the earth.  Viewed in this light, it forms the most august era which is to be found in the history of mankind.  When Christ was suffering on the cross, we are informed by one of the evangelists that He said, “I thirst”; and that they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it to His mouth.  “After he had tasted the vinegar, knowing that all things were now accomplished, and the Scriptures fulfilled, he said, It is finished”; that is, this offered draft of vinegar was the last circumstance predicted by an ancient prophet that remained to be fulfilled.  The vision and the prophecy are now sealed:  the Mosaic dispensation is closed.  “And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.”

“It is finished.”  When He uttered these words He changed the state of the universe.  At that moment the law ceased, and the gospel commenced.  This was the ever memorable point of time which separated the old and the new worlds from each other.  On one side of the point of separation you behold the law, with its priests, its sacrifices, and its rites, retiring from sight.  On the other side you behold the gospel, with its simple and venerable institutions, coming forward into view.  Significantly was the veil of the temple rent in this hour; for the glory then departed from between the cherubim.  The legal high priest delivered up his urim and thummim, his breast-plate, his robes, and his incense:  and Christ stood forth as the great high priest of all succeeding generations.  By that one sacrifice which He now offered, He abolished sacrifices forever.  Altars on which the fire had blazed for ages, were now to smoke no more.  Victims were no more to bleed.  “Not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood he now entered into the holy place, there to appear in the presence of God for us.”

This was the hour of association and union to all the worshipers of God.  When Christ said, “It is finished,” He threw down the wall of partition which had so long divided the Gentile from the Jew.  He gathered into one all the faithful out of every kindred and people.  He proclaimed the hour to be come when the knowledge of the true God should be no longer confined to one nation, nor His worship to one temple; but over all the earth, the worshipers of the Father should serve Him “in spirit and in truth.”  From that hour they who dwelt in the “uttermost ends of the earth, strangers to the covenant of promise,” began to be “brought nigh.”  In that hour the light of the gospel dawned from afar on the British Islands.