Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/13

I] found their highest expression in the history of the Jewish nation.

Nor is it only for the sake of a mere formal completeness that we must thus combine the old and the new in our historical studies. Consider well what that history is,—what a field it opens, what light it receives, what light it gives, by the mere fact of being so regarded. Of all histories, it is not only the most sacred, it is also (if one may use the expression) the most historical. So far from being exempt from the laws of gradual progress and development to which the history of other nations is subject, it is the most remarkable exemplification of those laws. In no people does the history move forward in so regular a course, through beginning, middle, and end, as in the people of Israel. In none are the beginning, middle, and end so clearly distinguished, each from each. In none has the beginning so natural and so impressive a preparation, as that formed by the age of the patriarchs. In none do the various stages of the history so visibly lead the way to the consummation, which, however truly it may be regarded as the opening of a new order, is yet no less truly the end of the old. And nowhere does the final consummation more touchingly linger in the close, more solemnly break away into new forms and new life, than in the last traces of the effects of the Jewish race on the Apostolic age.

The form, too, of the sacred books of the Old Testament is one of all others most attractive to