gospel." (b) By these expressions Paul means, not that the fathers were immerged in the shades of death, till the Son of God became incarnate; but claiming for the gospel this honourable prerogative, he teaches that it is a new and unusual kind of legation, in which God hath performed those things that he had promised, that the truth of the promises might appear in the person of his Son. For though the faithful have always experienced the truth of an assertion of Paul, that "all the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen;" (c) because they have been sealed in their hearts: yet since he has completed in his body all the parts of our salvation, the lively exhibition of those things has justly obtained new and singular praise. Hence this declaration of Christ: "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." (d) For though he seems to allude to the ladder which the patriarch Jacob saw in a vision, yet he displays the superior excellence of his advent by this character, that he has opened the gate of heaven to give us free admittance into it.

III. Nevertheless we must beware of the diabolical imagination of Servetus, who while he designs to extol the magnitude of the grace of Christ, or at least professes such a design, totally abolishes all the promises, as though they were terminated together with the law. He pretends, that by faith in the gospel we receive the completion of all the promises; as though there were no distinction between us and Christ. I have just observed, that Christ left nothing incomplete of all that was essential to our salvation: but it is not a fair inference, that we already enjoy the benefits procured by him; for this would contradict the declaration of Paul, that "hope is laid up for us." (e) I grant indeed, that when we believe in Christ, we at the same time pass from death to life; but we should also remember the observation of John, that though "we are now the sons of God, it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (ƒ) Though Christ therefore offers us in the Gospel a present plenitude of spiritual

(b) 2 Tim. i. 10.
(e) Col. i. 5.

(c) 2 Cor. i. 20.

(d) John i. 51.

(ƒ)1 John iii. 2.

blessings, yet the fruition of them is concealed under the protection of hope, till we are divested of our corruptible body, and transfigured into the glory of him who has gone before us. In the mean time, the Holy Spirit commands us to rely on the promises, and his authority we ought to consider sufficient to silence all the clamours of Servetus. For according to the testimony of Paul, "godliness hath promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come:" (g) and therefore he boasts of being an apostle of Christ, "according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus." (h) In another place he apprizes us that we have the same promises which were given to the saints in former times. (¿) Finally, he represents it as the summit of felicity, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. (k) Nor indeed have we otherwise any enjoyment of Christ, any farther than as we embrace him. invested with his promises. Hence it is, that he dwells in our hearts, and yet we live like pilgrims at a distance from him; because "we walk by faith and not by sight." Nor is there any contrariety in these two positions, that we possess in Christ all that belongs to the perfection of the life of heaven, and yet that faith is a vision of invisible blessings. Only there is a difference to be observed in the nature or quality of the promises; because the gospel affords a clear discovery of that which the law has represented in shadows and types.

IV. This likewise evinces the error of those who never make any other comparison between the Law and the Gospel, than between the merit of works and the gratuitous imputation of righteousness. This antithesis, I grant, is by no means to be rejected; because Paul by the word law frequently intends the rule of a righteous life, in which God requires of us what we owe to him, affording us no hope of life, unless we fulfil every part of it, and on the contrary annexing a curse if we are guilty of the smallest transgression. This is the sense in which he uses it in those passages, where he argues that we are accepted by God through grace, and are accounted righteous through his pardon of our sins, because the observance of the law, to which the reward is promised, is not to be found in any

man. Paul therefore justly represents the righteousness of the law and that of the gospel as opposed to each other. But the gospel has not succeeded the whole law so as to introduce a different way of salvation; but rather to confirm and ratify the promises of the law, and to connect the body with the shadows. For when Christ says that "the law and the prophets were until John," he does not abandon the fathers to the curse which the slaves of the law cannot escape; he rather implies that they were only initiated in the rudiments of religion, so that they remained far below the sublimity of the evangelical doctrine. Wherefore when Paul calls the gospel "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," he afterwards adds that it is "witnessed by the law and the prophets." (1) But at the end of the same epistle, although he asserts that the preaching of Jesus Christ is "the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began," he qualifies this sentiment with the following explication: that it is now made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets made known to all nations." (m) Hence we conclude, that when mention is made of the whole law, the gospel differs from it only with respect to a clear manifestation: but on account of the inestimable plenitude of grace, which has been displayed to us in Christ, the celestial kingdom of God is justly said to have been erected in the earth at his advent.

V. Now John was placed between the Law and the Gospel, holding an intermediate office connected with both. For though in calling Christ "the Lamb of God" and "the victim for the expiation of sins," (n) he preached the substance of the Gospel; yet because he did not clearly express that incomparable power and glory, which afterwards appeared in his resurrection, Christ affirms that he is not equal to the apostles. This is his meaning in the following words: "Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (0) For he is not there commending the persons of men, but after having preferred John to all the prophets, he allots the highest degree of honour to the preaching

(1) Rom. i. 16. iii. 21.
(n) John i. 29.

(m) Rom. xvi. 25, 20.
(6) Matt. xi. 11.

of the Gospel, which we have elsewhere seen is signified by "the kingdom of heaven." When John himself said that he was only a "voice," (p) as though he were inferior to the prophets, this declaration proceeded not from a pretended humility; he meant to signify that he was not intrusted with a proper embassy, but acted merely in the capacity of a herald, according to the prediction of Malachi: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (q) Nor indeed, through the whole course of his ministry, did he aim at any thing but procuring disciples for Christ, which he also proves from Isaiah to have been the commission given him by God. In this sense he was called by Christ "a burning and a shining light," (r) because the full day had not yet arrived. Yet this is no reason why he should not be numbered among the preachers of the gospel, as he used the same baptism which was afterwards delivered to the apostles. But it was not till after Christ was received into the celestial glory, that the more free and rapid progress of the apostles completed what John had begun.

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CHAPTER X.

The Similiarity of the Old and New Testaments. FROM the preceding observations it may now be evident, that all those persons, from the beginning of the world, whom God hath adopted into the society of his people, have been federally connected with him by the same law and the same doctrine which are in force among us: but because it is of no small importance that this point be established, I shall shew, by way of appendix, since the fathers were partakers with us of the same inheritance, and hoped for the same salvation through the grace of our common Mediator, how far their condition in this connection was different from ours. For though the testimonies we have collected from the law and the (p) John i. 23. (9) Mal. iv. 5. (r) John v. 35.

prophets in proof of this, render it sufficiently evident that the people of God have never had any other rule of religion and piety; yet because some writers have raised many disputes concerning the difference of the Old and New Testaments, which may occasion doubts in the mind of an undiscerning reader, we shall assign a particular chapter for the better and more accurate discussion of this subject. Moreover, what would otherwise have been very useful, has now been rendered necessary for us by Servetus and some madmen of the sect of the Anabaptists, who entertain no other ideas of the Israelitish nation, than of a herd of swine, whom they pretend to have been pampered by the Lord in this world, without the least hope of a future immortality in heaven. To defend the pious mind therefore from this pestilent error, and at the same time to remove all difficulties which may arise from the mention of a diversity between the Old and New Testaments; let us, as we proceed, examine what similarity there is between them, and what difference; what covenant the Lord made with the Israelites in ancient times before the advent of Christ, and what he hath entered into with us since his manifestation in the flesh.

II. And indeed both these topics may be dispatched in one word. The covenant of all the fathers is so far from differing substantially from ours, that it is the very same; it only varies in the administration. But as such extreme brevity would not convey to any man a clear understanding of the subject, it is necessary, if we would do any good, to proceed to a more diffuse explication of it. But in shewing their similarity, or rather unity, it will be needless to recapitulate all the particulars which have already been mentioned, and unseasonably to introduce those things which remain to be discussed in some other place. We must here insist chiefly on three principal points. We have to maintain, First, that carnal opulence and felicity were not proposed to the Jews as the mark towards which they should ultimately aspire, but that they were adopted. to the hope of immortality, and that the truth of this adoption was certified to them by oracles, by the law, and by the prophets. Secondly, that the covenant, by which they were united to the Lord, was founded, not on any merits of theirs, but on the mere mercy of God who called them. Thirdly, that they VOL, I. 3 M