in clearing the letter of the scripture from the ambiguities to which all language is subject. The difficulties under which the Jews laboured were not grammatical difficulties: and whatever these may be in the original, they are removed for all common readers by the translation of the bible into their mother tongue. The great difficulties of the scripture arise totally from other causes and principles; namely, from the matter of which it treats, and the various forms under which that matter is delivered.

Let us consider first, how the case stands with respect to the matter of the scripture ; and then secondly, with respect to the form or manner in which that matter is represented.

The bible treats of a dispensation of God, which began before this world, and will not be finished till the world is at an end, and the eternal kingdom of God is established. It informs us of the institution of religion in paradise, with the original dependence of man upon his maker: of a primitive state of man under a former covenant, which is now forfeited: of his temptation and fall of the causes of death, and the promise of redemption. It founds a ritual on the remission of sin by the shedding of blood, and the benefits of intercession; which the heathens also acknowledged in the traditionary rites of

their priesthood. It relates the dispersion of the Gentile nations, and the separation of the Hebrews. It foretells the manifestation of a Saviour in the flesh; the rejection of the Jews; the calling and conversion of the heathens; the establishment of the Christian Church, with its preservation against the powers of the world, and the gates of hell. It treats of a spiritual life, and renewed affections in its members; that they must even be born again in a spiritual manner, and return to a state of childish simpli city in their understandings; it assures us of the resurrection of the body after death; of the future judgment of the world by the man Jesus Christ; of the glorification of the faithful, and the condemnation of the wicked. It opens to us an invisible world of spirits, some of whom are in alliance with God, and others in rebellion against him; assuring us withal, that every man will have his final portion with the one party or the other.

None of these things are known to us by nature; and it is not pretended that they are; for if man draws a scheme of religion for himself, not one of all these articles finds a place in it. Therefore as the nature of man doth not know any of these things till God reveals them, it must of course be under two very great diffi

culties;

culties; first, of understanding or comprehending; and secondly, of admitting or receiving them.

From the difficulty we are under of comprehending such things as are above natural reason, the manner of the scripture is as extraordinary as its matter: and it must be so from the necessity of the case. Of all the objects of sense we have ideas, and our minds and memories are stored with them. But of invisible things we have no ideas till they are pointed out to us by revelation: and as we cannot know them immediately, such as they are in themselves, after the manner in which we know sensible objects, they must be communicated to us by the mediation of such things as we already comprehend. For this reason, the scripture is found to have a language of its own, which doth not consist of words, but of signs or figures taken from visible things. It could not otherwise treat of God, who is a spirit, and of the spirit of man, and of a spiritual world; which no words can describe. Words are the arbitrary signs of natural things; but the language of revelation goes a step farther, and uses some things as the signs of other things; in consequence of which, the world which we now see becomes a sort of commen

tary

tary on the mind of God, and explains the world in which we believe.

It being then the professed design of the scripture to teach us such things as we neither see nor know of ourselves, its stile and manner must be such as are no where else to be found. It must abound with figurative expressions; it cannot proceed without them: and if we descend to an actual examination of particulars, we find it assisting and leading our faculties forward; by an application of all visible objects to a figurative use; from the glorious orb which shines in the firmament, to a grain of seed which is buried in the earth. In this sort of language did our blessed Saviour instruct his hearers; always referring them to such objects as were familiar to their senses, that they might see the propriety and feel the force of his doctrine. This method he observed, not in compliance with any customary figures of speech peculiar to the Eastern people, but consulting the exigence of human nature, which is every where the same. He spake a sort of language which was to be carried out into all lands; and which we of the western world are obliged to follow in our preaching of the gospel, because we cannot otherwise preach it so as to be understood by

our

our hearers. Here I find it necessary to confirm what I have advanced by some examples.

As we have but imperfect notions of the relations and differences between life and death, our Saviour, when he was about to raise a maid to life, said to those who were present, the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. He did not say, she is dead, and I will raise her to life; but she is asleep; whence it was to be inferred that she would awake. They who were not skilled in the divine language of signs and figures, laughed him to scorn; as if he had spoken in ignorance what was expressed with consummate truth and wisdom: for the substitution of sleep for death, when we have it upon such great authority, has the force and value of an whole. sermon in a single word: it is a seed from whence a tree of life may be unfolded.

Upon another like occasion our Saviour expressed himself in the same manner to his disciples; our friend Lazarus sleepeth; and when they did not understand the force of his words, he said plainly, Lazarus is dead. When he spake of the deadness of the mind, a state, which, however real, must always be invisible, because the mind itself is so; he expressed it under the same term with the death of the body; let the dead bury their dead: of which expression