full and universal.  No man can conceive of any thing more glorious and excellent than this.  We may boldly challenge the unbeliever to name a corrupt passion in the heart or a vicious practice in the life that could remain.  Let every man love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, and bolts and bars, prisons and penitentiaries, would be unnecessary.  One might safely journey around the world unarmed and unattended, for every man would be a friend and brother.  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men,” would reign from pole to pole.  The whole earth would be at rest and be quiet:  it would break forth into singing.  That such a glorious result would certainly come from simple obedience to the precepts of the Bible is undeniable.  And can any man persuade himself that this perfect code of morals comes not from heaven, but from sinful man?

4.  We have, once more, the wonderful harmony between the different parts of the Bible, written as it was in different and distant ages, and by men who differed widely from each other in natural character and education, and lived in very different states of society.  In outward form and institutions the manifestation of God has indeed undergone great changes; for it has existed successively under the patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian dispensations.  But if we look beneath the surface to the substance of religion in these different dispensations, we shall find it always the same.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, Samuel, and David, is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.  While he changes from time to time the outward ordinances of his people, he remains himself “the same yesterday and to-day and for ever.”  Under the Old Testament, not less than under the New, he is “the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.”  Exod. 34:6, 7, etc.  Under the New Testament, not less than under the Old, he is to all the despisers of his grace “a consuming fire,” Heb. 12:29; and his Son Jesus Christ, whom he sent to save the world, will be revealed hereafter “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess. 1:7, 8.  If the New Testament insists on the obedience of the heart, and not of the outward letter alone, the Old Testament teaches the same doctrine:  “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” 1 Sam. 15:22.  “Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:  thou delightest not in burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”  Psa. 51:16, 17.  “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.  This also shall please the Lord better than an ox