St. _Paul_ says, _God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself_. A comfortable doctrine indeed, and full of hope of immortality; yet only the same comfort and hope of immortality which had been openly preached by _Moses_.
When _Moses_ bringeth in the Deity, as saying, _The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent_; he preaches _that_ very same gospel, and in the same manner which the apostle did. For his words plainly teach, _that God was in the seed of the woman reconciling the world unto himself_; as when St. _Paul_ says, _that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself_; the difference is nothing else, but in two different names given to our Redeemer.
* Now tho’ _Moses_ was the first _recorder_ of the gospel salvation in a written book, yet was he not the first _preacher_ of it. For it was proclaimed in _Adam_’s day, from heaven, as the birth of Christ in the flesh, in the days of Herod. For when God said, _The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent_, the same good tidings of salvation was _proclaimed from heaven_ by God himself, as when the angel said to the shepherds, _Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord_.
* But how can we know this? Only by God’s own teaching. For nothing can be truly known of God by the creature, but that which God makes known of himself.――So far as God operates in the creature, and manifests himself in it, so far it truly knows, and _is taught of God_.――Any other knowledge of God, however learned, high, or deep it may pretend to be, is as vain and spurious as _that goodness_ which proceeds from something else, than God’s good Spirit living in us.
* Genius, parts and literature, however set forth with wit and rhetoric, have no affinity with divine knowledge; they can no more give it, than the lust of the eyes and the pride of life can generate humility and purity of heart. These accomplishments live and act in a sphere of their own, and have no more power of taking to themselves any living knowledge of God, than the art of painting to the life, can give the power of _creating_ life.
* The blindness, and follies which have over-run both the antient and modern world in matters of religion, are a full proof of the capital doctrine of divine revelation, _namely_, that man (now the defaced image of God) is so miserably changed and fallen from his first created state, that nothing less than a new birth, can bring him again into the region of divine _truth_.
And hence it is, that tho’ religion has its deepest ground in the nature of man, tho’ God be _essentially_, present in the souls of all men, yet from the fall of _Adam_ to the end of the world, it will be an immutable truth, that _strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth_ unto divine knowledge; and none but the simple of heart, _the poor in spirit_, or the real followers of Christ can find it.
* But it is time to have done. I shall only trouble your Lordship with the few following remarks.――Dr. _Warburton_ says, “He has proved that the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be _found in_, nor did make a _part_ of the Mosaic dispensation.”¹ The Mosaic dispensation means nothing else, but a _temporary_ ritual, and a _temporary_ theocracy of worldly blessings and curses to support it. These are its fixed bounds within which it is confined.――Therefore, to prove that a state _beyond_ this world, was not to be _found in_, nor did make a _part_ of a state, that is confined to this world, is as easily and as vainly done, as to prove that the _garden of Eden_ is not to be _found in_, nor makes a _part_ of a map that is confined to _England_. And to infer _that_ the _Israelites_ therefore had no notion of an immortality, because it was not a _part_ of their ritual, is no better than to infer, that the people of _England_ can have no notion of the garden of _Eden_, because nothing of it is to be seen in the map of this island.――But tho’ not in the _ritual_, yet _Moses_ in other parts of his books written for the instruction of those to whom he gave the ritual, has given them the fullest notice and highest proof of that _godlike_ and _immortal_ nature they received at their creation, shewing them to be the children of the _patriarchal covenant_, heirs of all the promises of eternal redemption made to their fathers from the beginning of the world. Nay, the most heavenly doctrines and precepts given by the apostles to the redeemed of Christ, as _heirs of immortality_, are to be found in the books of _Moses_.
¹ D. L. Vol. II. page 474.