ETERNAL LIFE, &c. SERMON I. LUKE X. 25-29. And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, "Master, what shall I do to inherit Eternal Life?" He said unto him, "What is written in the Law? how readest thou?" And he answering, said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, "and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and "with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." And he said unto him, "Thou hast answered right: "this do, and thou shalt LIVE." AMONGST the expedients which have been employed by the enemies of the cross of Christ to weaken the faith of the wavering and unstable, in the Word, none, perhaps, have been adopted with greater success, than the unfair production of seeming contradictions as arguments of its inconsistency. They advance such apparent B or differences as so many proofs, that Sacred Scripture is at variance with itself, and has, at several periods, promulgated doctrines either decisively different, or at least, founded upon different principles. They contrast the exterminations 1 dained by the God of Israel, with the allmerciful precepts of our Saviour; and will not see, that the same long-suffering justice, (guided, doubtless, by the wisdom and foreknowledge of the Deity,) and the same eternal hatred to sin, (as destructive of man's every hope of happiness,) breathe, equally throughout, these separate dispensations. Pursuing the same insidious plan, they assert, that (although the Moral Law is, to a word, the same in both) the sanctions of the Law of Moses, and those of Christian morality, are totally distinct; the one, being enforced only by temporal, and the other, by the far more awful consequences of eternal rewards, and punishments. From this seeming discrepancy, they would argue the falsehood of both revelations (for they must 1 See Archdeacon Paley's Sermon on Joshua x. 40. stand or fall with each other); that, they might free themselves, on either hand, from the fear of an avenging God, in giving a full loose to the gratifications of their lawless desires, and in, committing all iniquity with greediness, unchecked and uncontrolled. Hating righteousness, and loving iniquity, these are the consequences which those who live in known sin, and whose interest therefore it is to number themselves with the brutes that perish, would willingly deduce. Abhorring the light, because their deeds are evil, and therefore, closing their eyes, and hearts, against its admittance,-conscious, moreover, of their evil passions, yet unwilling to be freed from their bondage, they would, in all the meanness and infatuation of their grovelling nature, cast behind them, as a worthless thing, the glorious hope of immortality. They assert, then, that neither the Law, nor the Prophets, revealed the fact of a future state, and consequently, that the Gospel of Jesus first promulgated this doctrine; thereby insinuating that the Sacred Scripture is at variance with itself. Let us turn how ever, from these deluded persons to the Word of God. Let us search these Holy records in humble confidence, and throughout them, even from the beginning to the end, shall we find plainly delineated, the revelation, not of a perishing, but of an Eternal Life. From many circumstantial proofs scattered throughout the New Testament, which, when collected together, form a train of evidence that cannot be gainsaid, it appears, that the doctrines of a resurrection, and of a future state, were held nationally by the Jews, before our Saviour preached; and, that they were referred, by the Jews, by our Saviour Himself, and by the Apostles, to the earlier revelations of the Word of God. To this point, my present discourse must be confined, as these proofs are numerous; and I trust that I shall be enabled to make such a selection, that the most conclusive evidences may be submitted to your attention. Our text first demands our examination. Reverting then to it, we find that a certain lawyer, (or person skilled in the exposition of the law of Moses,) tempting |