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knowledged Doctrine of the Church to which they belonged. That a Resurrection from the dead was a settled article of belief in the Jewish Church, there cannot (it should be supposed) remain the least doubt, in the mind of any one tolerably conversant with the Sacred Writings. St. Paul, when he stood before Agrippa, spoke most decidedly on this subject. "I stand (said he) and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers. Unto which promise our Twelve Tribes, instantly, serving God night and day, hope to come: for which hope's sake I am accused." To prove what the promise was, as well as the absurdity of the accusation brought against him, the Apostle immediately subjoins; Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the Dead?"-Acts xxvi. 6. -The promise therefore, to which the Twelve Tribes looked forward in hope, was that of a Resurrection from the Dead.

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Judaism, it must be observed, was the Type of Christianity. The promise, therefore, relative to the Land of Canaan, must have its spiritual accomplishment,

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as well as every other part of the Jewish dispensation. If this were not the case, the person to whom the promise was originally delivered, was certainly deceived by it: for if the reward of his faith and obedience was to consist in the possession of temporal blessings in the Land of Canaan, Abraham never received it.-St. Stephen, speaking of Abraham, says, what every one acquainted with the history of the Patriarch knows to be true; that "God gave him none inheritance in Canaan, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession."-Acts vii. 5.— The earthly Canaan was therefore the Type or figure of that heavenly country, to which the faithful were taught to look forward for a possession. That they really did so, St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, expressly declares, producing instances through the whole course of the Patriarchal and Jewish dispensation of those faithful worthies, who lived in hope of promises they had never received: looking in eager expectation to their accomplishment in a better country, namely

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an heavenly. God having " provided better things" for them, than an earthly Canaan was able to furnish.

That a future state was pointed out to the Jews, under the emblem of Canaan, as the land in which faithful travellers through the wilderness of this world, should ultimately find a rest; is moreover to be demonstrated by St. Paul's mode of arguing on this subject.-The Apostle after having spoken of that rest in the Land of Canaan into which those "whose carcases fell in the wilderness, were not permitted to enter because of unbelief;" Heb. iii. 17, &c. thus applies the case to Christians. "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his Rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them."-Heb.iv.1. But what (it may be asked) had Christians to do with the Rest in Canaan, taking those words in their literal sense? "We, which have believed (says the Apostle) do enter into Rest." There is a Rest then under the Christian dispensation for all true believers. But this Rest cannot mean ⚫ that

that which God is said to have entered into, when he finished the works of Creation; for this had taken place from the foundation of the world. Nor can it mean the Rest of the Israelites in Canaan; for then the Psalmist would not have spoken of it as of a Rest still to be looked forward to, at a time when the Israelites were in actual possession of that promised Land. Psalm xcv." Seeing therefore (continues the Apostle) it remaineth, that some must enter into Rest, and they to whom the Gospel was first preached, entered not in because of unbelief;" seeing, moreover, that the promise of this Rest, was limited by David to a certain day, as it is said,

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to-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts:"-For if the meaning contained in this prophecy, was completed when Joshua led the Israelites into the Land of Canaan; if he had then given the Rest here spoken of, "then would he not afterward have spoken of another day:" Then follows the conclusion of the Apostle's argument; "There remaineth therefore a Rest for the people of God.” A conclusion, which carries with it irresistible

sistible conviction.

And what the nature

of the Rest under consideration was, the Apostle proceeds to inform us, by comparing it with that Rest which God is said to have entered into when he finished the works of Creation. "For he that is entered into his Rest, he hath also ceased from his own works, as God did from his." The Rest therefore here pointed out, into which the Christian was to labour to enter, was that Rest which was to take place when he had finished his works on earth: of which Rest the Land of Canaan was but the Type or Emblem. For the Patriarchs and holy men under the Jewish dispensation, who were in actual possession of the literal Canaan, still looked forward to a spiritual Canaan; a Land of Rest eternal in the Heavens; considering themselves as strangers and pilgrims on earth: on which account they are pointed out by the Apostle in a subsequent part of this Epistle, as examples for Christians to follow after.

The moral of the whole doctrine delivered by the Apostle on this subject, (to make use of the words of an excellent

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