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our sins. By contending for a retrospect to the doctrines and sanctions of christianity, they consequently maintain, that the light of life has dispelled that ignorance which must otherwise have enveloped the world, for more than twothirds of the time of its existence;-they unite the promise with the performance, the prophecy with the completion, the anticipation with the event; they behold the elders (though not in possession of the promises which were yet afar off) preferring the reproach of Christ to every temporal enjoyment; they see them contemplating the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow;-they do not barely affirm that God bore testimony to his proposed re demption, but that through his Holy Spirit that testimony was received; that he gave faith (without which it is impossible to please GoD) to justify, and hope to console, his chosen servants, till the appointed manifestation of the great Author and Finisher of that faith should be made to the subjects of his universal redemption.

In this do all the prophets agree; and throughout the whole of this epistle, a continued succession of witnesses, with an in

spired collection of authentic testimonies from the scriptures of the Old Testament, concur

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in asserting an uniformity of belief in the nature, and of hope in the coming, of a promised Deliverer. Under the warrant, therefore, of such authority, we may surely consider the defenders of opposite opinions as the propounders of strange doctrines; of doctrines, that would separate the branch of righteousness from its parent stock, and disjoin the evangelical blessings from every former act of God's interfering providence for the happiness of his people.

The sum and substance of the Apostle's reasoning upon the proposition before us is, that the faith which he exhorts the Hebrew believers to keep whole and undefiled, has been one and the same in all ages of the church; that it was no variable thing, either in itself, or in its effects, but immutable, as the Divine Mediator, whose religion it is. Remember them, says St. Paul, which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of GOD, whose faith follow-considering the end of their conversation Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever: That is, the one redeeming

Saviour, of whom, the promise, the performance, and the perpetual administration of the Holy Spirit, conspire to testify in due proportion to the past, the present, and the ages that are to come. For on the Patriarch, the true Israelite, and the faithful Christian, one light has invariably shone, though with different lustre; and the GoD of mercy and love bade sinful man look forward to his covenanted restoration, from the promise in the garden of Eden, to the confirmation of every assurance, when the hour of his judgment is come.

Our endeavours will be to establish this important truth, and the course of our enquiry will necessarily carry us through a wide field of discussion. We trust, however, in the extensive survey to discover the path of life; and should we from our christian eminence look down upon the subsisting traces of the Patriarchal and the Jewish churches, all pursuing the same road, all leading to the same end;should we, in the wildest digressions of heathen mythology, be able to measure back the wandering footsteps of idolatry to the very point of departure from the true faith; and to pick out,

from the tenets and precepts of pagan philosophy, authentic vouchers of the existing hope and promise of a Redeemer mighty to save ;-we shall then not only behold the glorious, but the uniform design of the Gospel institution; we shall shew forth a Saviour's love upholding fallen man, and recovering his faded dignity; we shall exhibit Christianity as it is-the triumph of grace over sin and death, the fruit of the seed that was to bruise the Serpent's head; we shall welcome with more abundant gratitude the glad tidings of joy, which ushered in a Saviour's birth, who came to ratify man's primæval assurance of pardon, to complete his promised restoration to his forfeited inheritance, to confirm his justification unto holiness, and his resurrection unto life eternal,

Previously, however, and as a sort of preparatory introduction to those scriptural proofs, which I mean to produce in a series of declarations and promises through the several periods and families of God's church, let me be allowed to trace out a general line of argument, which hereafter may be examined with more minuteness of investigation. The farther such

enquiries go, the more firmly will our faith be established; and each step affording some characteristic evidence of the Apostle's assertion, we shall be conducted along the ways of GOD'S righteous providence, every where collecting arms for the christian warrior to repel the attacks of the infidel, and exposing the temporizing soldier, who pretends to fight under the banners of the cross.

The first revelation made to Adam, after his fall, was a promise of redemption; and this appears to have been connected with a typical ordinance, to preserve a prospect of acceptance resulting from the shedding of blood. For though we do not read the injunction, we learn the respect that the Almighty shewed to the sacrifice of Abel, which exactly coincided with that which he afterwards required in the institution of the Mosaic ritual. That this revelation continued in force through all the antediluvian ages of the world, we may infer from the righteousness of Noah who walked with God; and who was therefore saved, when a defection from the faith had filled the earth with violence, and in consequence of their guilt,

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