interpreter of Scripture *) being this; that "we should look as they did who went before us, unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith: that seeing Him to be the beginning of our strength, and the end of our hope, we may follow Him through the dangers of life and the terrors of death, to that Rest which remaineth for the people of God."

With such a connected chain of argument on this subject to be met with in the Apostolic Writings, it seems somewhat strange that a position in such direct contradiction to it, which represents the Jews as looking only for temporal rewards under a temporal Covenant, should be maintained by Divines of the Christian Church. But this position, like that respecting natural religion, stands in a great measure on the sandy foundation of a misinterpreted text of Scripture. From the account the Apostle has given of the manifestation of the Grace of God by the appearance of Jesus Christ in the flesh, for the

*Rev. W. Jones. See his excellent "Course of Lectures on the figurative Language of the Holy Scripture."-Lecture 2, on the Hebrews.

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purpose of "abolishing death and bringing life and immortality to light," it has been hastily and generally concluded, that all those who lived previous to Christ's Incarnation, were in a state of blindness with respect to a future state. But if from the above account we are to conclude that the doctrine of immortality was first brought to light by Jesus Christ in the flesh; in other words, that He revealed what was not known before; oùr conclusion will certainly not be warranted by Scripture. The Gospel we are told was preached to Abraham, the Patriarchs, and their successors under the law. By whomsoever the Gospel was understood, to them it brought life and immortality to light. For by the Gospel we understand, glad tidings to fallen man of a restoration to his lost condition. Had not man sinned, death had not entered into the world; man consequently would have been immortal. A restoration therefore to the condition man had lost by the fall, must be a restoration to life and immortality.

What the Apostle says then on this subject, refers not to the doctrine of immortality

mortality, but to the event by which that doctrine was clearly established. Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light by what he did, not by what he preached. During his appearing on earth, he actually manifested that " which grace was given us in him before the world began," by abolishing death, and giving us a demonstration of life and immortality, by his resurrection from the grave: QWTIGAVTOS, illuminating, or bringing to the light in his own person, life and incorruption.

That the Jews at the time of our Saviour's appearance were become carnally minded, is a point on all hands admitted. From the Babylonish Captivity to the coming of Christ, in consequence of the prevalence of oral tradition, the plain letter of Scripture was in a progressive state of corruption. Still, under such circumstances, the belief of a resurrection was generally received among them. The doctrine was so firmly established, as apparently to bid defiance to the growing corruption. I know (said Martha, speaking of her brother who then lay dead) that

he

he shall rise again at the resurrection, at the last day." John xi. 24.-In consequence indeed of that spiritual ignorance which had been suffered to grow on the minds of the Jewish people, their law had, for the most part, become a dead letter. But our Saviour gave the reason for this, when he told the lawyers, that "they had taken away the key of knowledge."-Luke xi. 52.

The wisdom of God, in communicating himself to man, has generally thought fit to lock up the precious doctrines of life under the cover of parables and figures: for the unlocking of which, a key of knowledge was prepared for the use of the wise and prudent. And there certainly was a time when this key was properly employed.

To form an estimate therefore of the spiritual state of the Jewish nation, at a time when this key of knowledge was confessedly lost among them; is certainly to do great injustice to the dispensation under which they lived: and such misrepresentation tends to disfigure the plan of Divine Providence, by destroying the

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connection between its several parts. On this supposition, that intervening link in the chain of the divine œconomy of Grace, which was intended to connect the Patriarchal and Christian dispensation, becomes inadequate to the purpose to which it was designed to minister. For if the doctrine of life and immortality, which had been revealed in Paradise and to the Patriarchs, was a doctrine which had no existence under the Jewish law; there appears to be a sort of unintelligible chasm in the great scheme of Redemption, to→ tally irreconcileable with that unity of design, which must characterize the plan of an all-wise Being.

Nevertheless, such has been the system of divinity which has received the sanction of great learning in the Christian Church; and thereby become a sort of standard of direction to those, who have either not possessed the ability or inclination to examine this subject for themselves: a system which, in defiance both of Scripture and reason, represents the Jews, whom Moses describes to be a wise and understanding people," in consequence of their communi