CHAPTER VIII.

RECAPITULATION.

In the preceding chapters we have traced a brief outline of the media through which knowledge, concerning the ways and purposes of God, was first communicated to man.

On reviewing what has been written, we are deeply sensible of the inadequate command of language to describe a mode of teaching which had Inspiration for its guide, and the tongue of angels to give it utterance. It would, indeed, be a subject, in every respect too high for us, or for any uninspired pen, were it necessary to demonstrate how the Illustrative Symbols, and the Wondrous Speech which accompanied them, were first interwoven; or to describe or analyse the process of thought or of reasoning, by which the phenomena of nature were rendered so deeply interesting to the patriarchs, and so fertilising to the primitive stock from which all languages have sprung. It is fortunate that we require not to do more than prove that, by some radical connexion between natural signs, and words, and ideas, a rich fund of illustrative and prophetic

metaphor was opened up to the early worshippers. We cannot now understand fully, nor is it requisite for us to do so, why such or such a form or figure conveyed such or such a lesson or doctrine; but it is a most important step, towards understanding what they did and said of old, that we ascertain the fountain from whence the fathers drew the living waters, which refreshed them in their pilgrimage through life. Our enquiry, too, has this encouragement attending it, that it is not a fanciful question, such as a discussion respecting the situation of paradise, the stature of the antediluvians, or the cause of their longevity, but involves questions of the deepest moment and interest to all the human race; the answers to which are appeals to the Law, to the Testimony, and to the history of the human race; as recorded, and as prophesied of, in the Scriptures of Truth. If we speak not according to these Scriptures, there is no truth in what we have written; but if we have quoted them aright, the truths we contend for will compel attention, and convince the understanding, however weak the language in which they are couched.

Although we have already ascertained circumstances, in the early history of the world, which can only be accounted for on the principles advocated in the preceding chapters, the Great Foundation on which our argument has rested is the Eternal and Unchangeable nature of the Purposes of Grace concerning man; the CERTAINTY that they were promised in Christ Jesus before the world began; and that, consequently, every part of creation must have been

framed in reference to the declaration, the illustration, and the fulfilment of these purposes. Feeling that the whole gist of the subject lies here, we shall be pardoned for, in this place again, earnestly calling the attention of the reader to it.

If the universe generally, according to one school of modern philosophy, existed before the creation of the world: if the world, at whatever time created, was a small part of a system; into which part sin unexpectedly entered, so as to threaten the ruin of the inhabitants of that little planet, had a Great Being not interposed, and come into that planet to counteract, either by expiation or moral influence and example, the progress and the effects of this unanticipated interruption of God's purposes:-or, if by any other arrangement of Providence, which can be described or imagined, the bringing of Life out of Death, or Good out of Evil, can be considered a secondary or accidental circumstance in the great designs of heaven:—or, if the bringing of Life out of Death is a work which any but God could devise, or any being but God himself, in very deed, execute then, if all or any of these suppositions be true, our premises are unstable and our conclusions worthless! Our premises! Alas, what is man, whence came he or whither goes he, if the DIVINITY of the PERSON, and, consequently, the ETERNITY of the PURPOSE, of the Son of God, be yet a matter requiring proof?

But if that Holy Child, Jesus, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was in very deed GOD, then life and immortality are not only brought to light, on a foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail,

but the light from His Sepulchre illuminates all the pathways of Providence. It shows a unity of design, and a consistency of procedure in them, from the first creation of matter, to the hour when the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. It establishes the name and character of the Saviour as the First and the Last, the Beginning and the Ending; it identifies the Word that said 'Let there be light,' with the voice that cried at the grave of Lazarus, 'Lazarus, come forth!' The same yesterday, to-day, and for

ever.

IMMUTABILITY is the grand characteristic of Truth and of the True God. 'I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.' The more we learn in the Scriptures of the immutability of the counsels of the Lord, the more firmly will the mind resist the reasonings of unbelief. Whenever we begin to think 'the way of the Lord is hidden from us,' then the anchor of the soul loses its hold. The strength of the anchor consists in the force of the evidence. I ever spake openly,' is the language of Jesus in the New Testament; 'I have not spoken in secret; I said not to the house of Israel, Seek ye me in vain,' are the words of the same Divine person in the Old Testament. He ever spake openly, but it was always in figure or by parable; because figures or parables were not only the best elucidators of heavenly things, but because, 'when the thing came to pass' that had been spoken of by figures, the evidence was more conclusive to the mind, when the event fulfilled many different figures,

than it could possibly have been by merely fulfilling one often-repeated saying.

The mind of man is peculiarly fitted for receiving, sifting, and appreciating evidence. The force of philosophy and the strength of science lie in the powerful effect which a chain of evidence, or of inductive reasoning, has on the mind; and the benign providence of the Giver of all good is seen, in filling nature with objects of endless interest and infinite variety, for the exercise of this great faculty of the human understanding. Can it be imagined, that the Creator would provide so abundantly towards the temporal wants, and even amusements, of his creatures, in the construction of the universe, and give him nothing in it for the exercise of his noblest faculty, in reference to a matter of such overwhelming interest as His own intentions regarding man? And if he did fill nature with testimonies concerning himself, in what way could such testimonies operate as counsellors, as strengtheners to the mind of man, but as all bearing witness to some one great purpose, as everlasting in its origin as the God from whom it proceeded?

True it is, the things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven are often, or generally, considered, as not possessing the same degree of evidence as is found in mathematical demonstration: or, if they are thought capable of demonstration at all, how often are they only considered so, in consequence of a skilful application of the rules of rhetoric, or of moral philosophy, to the subject. The evidence does not lie in the light of the truth itself, but in