believe in the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that he would give them the land of Canaan, as a promised inheritance at the time when he declared himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now you must acknowledge, that neither of them, ever received the fulfilment of this promise during their lives; therefore unless you deny the promise, or the faithfulness of God to fulfil it, you must agree, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must be raised from the dead to inherit that land; whereby God in the fulfilment of his word to them, will be their God living, in the enjoyment of that, which was the subject of the promise made to them— This was a conclusion that could not be denied, and they submitted to its force.*

* This seems to be the view, that St. Stephen had of this covenant and promise of God with and to Abraham; for he says, in his account of God's appearance unto Abraham in the viith chap. of the Acts of the Apostles," and God gave Abraham none inheritance in it, (the land of Canaan) no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession."-And St. Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews pursues the same idea; where after mentioning the same fact, connected with Abraham's offering up Isaac, although he had received the promise, "that in him all the nationsof the earth should be blessed, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure" (of the first resurrection) he says, "and these (Abraham and several others mentioned before) all having obtained a good report, through faith received not the promises; (though actually made to them) God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be

The prophet Ezekiel holds up this doctrine in his xxxviith chap. from the 12th ver. "therefore prophecy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, behold O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, 0 my people, and brought you up, out of your graves; and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall

made perfect"—that is, that they should wait in a state of death, as to the body, till the church of Christ should be completed and we should all be perfected together, at the first resurrection at the second advent of the glorified Saviour, when these promises should be literally fulfilled.

All the patriarchs seem to have considered the promise in this sense. Isaac and Jacob on several occasions acknowledged themselves strangers and pilgrims on earth-They wandered to and fro without a settled place of abode-The Israelites, even after they had got possession of Canaan, were always in a state of warfare and confusion-This David frequently acknowl edges in the Psalms, "Thou hast cast us off and put us to shame, and goest not forth with our armies. Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen-O God the Heathen are come into thine inheritance, thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps-I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were"-and yet in this distressing situation, David with joy was mindful of the covenant God had made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac, and which he had confirmed to Jacob as a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying "unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance."

place you in your own land; then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord."

These were undoubtedly the sentiments of the ancient Jews, as will further appear from the language of Baruch, v. 3. to 6. though an apocryphal book, "for God will show thy brightness (meaning Jerusalem's) unto every country under heaven; for thy name shall be called of God forever, the peace of righteousness and the glory of God's worship. Arise O Jerusalem and stand on high: look about towards the east and behold thy children gathered from the west unto the east, by the word of the holy one, rejoicing in the remembrance of God." But more par. ticularly in the conduct of Judas Maccabeus, in the xiith chap. of the 2d book of Maccabees-He went out to fight with Georgias, the Governor of Idumea, and in the battle a number of the Jews were slain, though Judas finally prevailed; and when he came to bury their dead brethren according to his custom, they found under the coats of every one of the slain, things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites, which was forbidden by their law-Judas and his company immediately betook themselves to prayer, that the sin might be wholly put out of God's remembrance, and he improved the opportunity, by warning his company from this example, to keep themselves from sin, which had produced the loss of their companions; and when he had made a gathering throughout the company, he sent it to Jerusalem, to

offer a sin-offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection

For if he had not hoped, that they who were slain, should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead:* wherefore he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin."-Here is a plain and direct proof of the belief of the Jews in this doctrine of the resurrection of the body.

Another difficulty the Jews lay under, not unlike that which blinds many christians at this day, was the double views contained in most of the prophecies; for as has been well observed by an excellent writer, "all the prophecies may, and undoubtedly have respect to more fulfilments than one-they may be typical of things past as well as those to come, here and hereafter. The temple with its apparatus were figures of what Moses saw in the mount, yet they were manifestly types of things to come-the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt-their passage through the red sea-their journeying in the wilderness their settlement in the promised land, all had reference both to temporal and spiritual fulfilments— Many earthly sovereigns and men of great temporal power were among the types set forth in the scriptures, which led the minds of the Jews to a temporal deliverance, in their fulfilment-For instance,

* Vide 1 Cor. xv. 29. Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

I

Moses, Joseph and David with others, were types of Christ. The conversion of St. Paul was typical of the conversion of the Jews, and as he had an Anannias to instruct him, so may the Jews have at last, a second Elias for the same purpose.-Moses went into the mount and Jesus into heaven.-The people said as for this Moses we wot not what is become of him. The scoffers say of the second coming of Christ, "where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as at this time."-Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brethren out of envy; and Christ was sold by his friend, and Pilate knew it was from envy that the Jews, his brethren according to the flesh, had delivered him to his power-Joseph was confined with two thieves, one of whom was restored to the monarch's favor-Christ was crucified between two thieves, to one of whom he said, this night thou shalt be with me in paradise-Joseph was not known to his brethren till the second time of his coming to them: Christ will not be known or acknowledged by the Jews till his second coming in glory-David was hated and persecuted without a cause-Christ more remarkably so-David was accused of crimes he never had committed-Christ was not only accused but died for the sins of the world, which he bore as the substitute of guilty man-David's life was embittered by affliction and overwhelmed with sorrow

Christ was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief-David went over the brook Cedron (an em