deduced from one text alone, but from the internal evidence of the universal Word; from a vast variety of texts, and words, and expressions, and examples, as well as from all the varied emblems, laws, and doctrines, which are embraced under the one comprehensive head, of Life Eternal. A single text, one word, or expression, the separate exposition of any doctrine, may here, and there, seem to be wanting in proof; but, it is on the whole train of circumstantial evidence, throughout the entire Bible, that the author relies, believing such evidence to be much more convincing to the inquiring mind, (because beyond all suspicion) than any direct word, or solitary text, or isolated doctrine. To the internal circumstantial evidence thus obtained, the proof is confidently trusted. Wise in his own conceit', no well-instructed reader in the Word,

1 Proverbs xxvi. 12.

can ever be; and where he merely examines, step by step, the doctrines of Jesus, and His Apostles, he can scarcely venture too far, or be accused of pretension and novelty, in these his sincere researches after truth. When, therefore, we observe, amongst many other similar facts, that St. Peter twice quotes the word, Hades, (or, Sheol) in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in exactly the same sense in which the Psalmist used it, nearly eleven centuries before; when, we perceive St. Paul repeating the very terms, with a slight change, which Hosea (as translated by the LXX) proclaimed to Israel eight centuries before the Gospel; as the authority, for that magnificent description of the general Resurrection in Christ, which he gives in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; when, we hear our Saviour himself, employing the very words of Isaiah,

delivered 700 years before (and using them in the same sense), the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched1, to warn his hearers, of the torments which await the wicked in Gehenna; well may we be surprised, by an assertion that the Jews, were unacquainted with a Future State of rewards and punishments. When, we observe also, our Saviour, charging the Jews (who rejected Him, and His preaching) to search the Scriptures (clearly not His Gospel, but the writings of Moses, and the Prophets) on the very ground, that they believed that these Scriptures contained the promise of Eternal Life; we may be indeed astonished, that some writers, in later days, who acknowledge implicit obedience to this teaching, have yet,

1 Compare the LXX Version of Isaiah lxvi. 24, with the Greek of St. Mark's Gospel, ix. 44, 46, 48.

overlooking all these facts, asserted that the Jewish Nation did not believe in Life Eternal.

The Word of God declares, that, Christ is Life Eternal, and Eternal Life is Christ. The only sects, seemingly interested in the assertion, that a Future State is not revealed in the Books of Moses and the Prophets, are those, who, looking to something else, beyond, and independent of Christ, for Life Eternal, deny His Divinity and Atonement. Too much vantage ground has been conceded to deistical writers, in allowing, contrary to the Article of our Church, and to the internal circumstantial evidence of the whole Bible, that Eternal Life is not declared in the Pentateuch; for, if it be not, neither is Christ, nor His Atonement, therein revealed. The variety of schismatic opinions, that are drawn from that one source, the Word of God, do indeed deeply astonish every

reflecting mind; while they point out, how vain and erring mere mortal wisdom is, when abandoned to its own teaching and guidance. It is the vanity, it is the pride of the human heart, confident in its own talents and powers and resources, which is the great stumbling-block of man's salvation. not be taught, as a little child; and thus, the Kingdom of Heaven is closed against him. Our unwillingness to admit the doctrine of the corruption of human nature, our confidence in our own innate powers and righteousness, tempt us too often to deny the Lord our Righteousness1 No one comes to Christ, but he who feels his want of knowledge, of virtue, (that is, of power to do the will of God,) and of atonement for his frequent lamentable failures. All these

Man will not listen, he will

1 Jeremiah xxiii. 6.