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purified with these things that were also types. It was necessary that the law should contain such external objects to describe the person, actions, and sufferings of Christ, and convey the benefits of them, to purify. Christ was at a distance: It was therefore necessary that the wrath he had engaged to undergo, and all the circumstances of his sufferings should be on many accounts pointed out and demonstrated continually till he came. The external action, the type was necessary, because the Jews had bodies: and faith or an insight into the spiritual sense was necessary, because they had souls which only can be purified through faith, hope, and charity. And thus it was necessary there should be material objects to demonstrate the heavenly things, because the eye of the soul sees only through the eye of the body: but the heavenly things themselves (which these demonstrated) by better sacrifices than these, it was necessary to the nature of the soul, that there should be faith, that it should be purified by the originals themselves, by looking at the real blood of that person, which the blood of the beasts demonstrated. All the types and ceremonies were demonstrations of something they pointed at; material representations of something spiritual, which could communicate no virtue but when carried up from the literal to a higher meaning: because those things which the law demonstrated, as remission by blood, &c. were to be rightly apprehended before effectual. The beast, till Christ came, was to be slain, his blood to be poured out, some parts to be burnt, &c. But then the benefit the sacrificer was taught to expect was from a better sacrifice than this: he was, if St. Paul may be believed, to look upon it in no other view, than as it demonstrated the great sacrifice of Christ, who was in effect "the Lamb

slain from the foundation of the world." And therefore if the law did really explain its types and ceremonies, and if St. Paul says it was necessary it

*Rom. ii. 28, 29. Deut. x. 16. viii. 3. Rom. iii. 30, 31. x. 5, 6. 1 Cor. x. to ver 13.

should do this, should contain demonstrations of heavenly things, was it not also necessary the Jews should know it? Else how could it demonstrate what was not seen, or why was it a pattern, unless they could observe some comparison ?

But if it should be said, as it often hath been, that if the Jews were always capable of this spiritual sense, what occasion for a carnal one? The reason of instituting the types hath been hinted at above, and will be more fully considered under my second proposition. But let it suffice to observe at present, that though the Egyptian religion was hieroglyphical, yet it was not therefore unintelligible: did not the Greeks travel thither for knowledge, and set up for philosophers with the small stock they had got from the Egyptian priests? And if all our knowledge come in originally by our senses, is it not absolutely necessary that we should have some outward and visible signs of what is absent and invisible? Are not the Christian sacraments such, and are they not more useful, the more plain and expressive they are? And if they had not been in-telligible and adapted to the meanest capacities, with what justice could God have so often reproved the Jews by his prophets for resting on the letter of the law? or where would be the crime of the apostate author of the plain account to degrade and sink one of the Christian sacraments into a common meal? The Jewish as well as the Christian religion was intended to make men wise unto salvation, and therefore whether or no they knew that salvation, yet certainly the means ought to have been plain and obvious, otherwise it could not have been criminal to have had a wrong notion of the means, when they were ignorant of the end. There was this occasion then for the carnal sense that the spiritual could not have subsisted without it, and that we must have such helps, whilst we go through this state of trial to the regions of vision and happiness.

* Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacræ, p. 223, 224. sect. 12.

I have mentioned but a small part of the evidence which the New Testament affords to prove that a future state ought to have made part of the law by Moses. However enough hath been said to convince every Christian that such a doctrine actually is there, because Christ and his apostles have asserted that it is-have produced texts from Moses to prove the certainty of it-have said that he wrote about Christ's resurrection, and ours-that the ceremonies instituted by him were intended to describe the Jews' hope in a future state-that the whole law was spiritual-was a shadow of the good things to come of the true things-an example and shadow of heavenly thingsand a figure to the time then present. So it was in Moses' writings whether the Jews saw it or no; but numbers are mentioned who did see it, who saw the promises afar off; were persuaded of them, and in consequence thereof expected an happy resurrection.

But we need not rest the point here. If it hath appeared from plain arguments drawn from the reason of the thing, and from positive texts of scripture, that the doctrine of a future state ought to be found in the law, may we not fairly conclude that it is there, that it is actually to be found in, and doth make a very great part of the writings of Moses. One might easily shew the force of this conclusion, if we had no better proofs: but when we shall have proved our second proposition" that the doctrine of a future state ac"tually is to be found in, and doth make a very great part of the writings of Moses; the obligation to ob"serve every law, rite, and ceremony being enforced upon the sanctions of future rewards and punishments," this will more fully clear up the point. time will not permit me to prove and enlarge upon it at present. I will only trespass upon your patience whilst I mention one thing, which comes particularly recommended to the serious attention of every one in this place, viz. That the articles and homilies of the church of England expressly assert, that Moses

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hath treated of a future state. thus:

The 7th article begins

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Whereof they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.

*

We have the

The words of the second part of the homily on faith are these: This is the Christian faith, which these holy men (of whom St. Paul speaks in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews) had, and we also ought to have. And although they were not named Christian mèn, yet was it a Christian faith that they had, for they looked for all benefits of God the Father, through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ, as we do now And in effect they and we be all one. same faith that they had in God, and they the same that we have. And St. Paul so much extolleth their faith, because we should not less, but rather more give ourselves wholly unto Christ, both in profession and living, now when Christ is come, as the old fathers did before his coming. And by all the declarations of St. Paul it is evident, that the true, lively, and Christian faith is no dead, vain, or unfruitful thing, but a thing of perfect virtue, of wonderful operation, of working and strength, bringing forth all good motions and good works.

If then the articles and homilies of the church of

* 1 John v. 11. "God hath given us eternal life, and that life is in his Son; therefore if they knew the Son (Christ) they must know eternal life. Life and immortality were lost and forfeited in Adam, and restored to us again by Jesus Christ, and how then could there be faith in Christ, unless there was an assurance that he would give them the eternal life forfeited? Can that be faith in Christ, which hath no regard to what he was to do and suffer for us, or to what end he was to suffer? But if it was the same faith as we have, then the homily means, that they expected all the same advantages as we do here and hereafter from our common Redeemer, and our common faith in him, Heb. vi. 1, 2 Acts iv. 2. Rom. vi. 23.

England assert, that the fathers of the Jewish nation expected a future state of eternal happiness through the merits of Christ, we, who have subscribed to those articles and homilies, must believe this doctrine. And

if men may disbelieve the articles and homilies, and yet subscribe to them-and after that subscription write directly against those very doctrines to which they have subscribed and if they should be encouraged and countenanced by numbers who also have subscribed to them-and if that very church, which requires this subscription, should not censure such a manifest breach of her laws, which she maintains are founded upon the: laws of God; this would be a most melancholy state of religion, and from such persons and such proceedings. will all Christians pray,

Good Lord deliver us.

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