66 Judaizing Christians, concerning what it was that justi-} fied before God, or entitled to that eternal life brought to light by the Gospel. They held it to be the works of the Law (believing, perhaps, as the objector assures us they did, that this text, in Leviticus, had a respect to the life to come): St. Paul, on the contrary, that it was faith in Jesus the Messiah. And thus he argues-" But that noman is justified by the Law in the sight of God it is evident; for, the just shall live by faith. And the "Law is not of faith: but the man that doth them shall "live in them."-As much as to say-That no man can obtain eternal life by virtue of the Law is evident from one of your own prophets [Hab.] who expressly says, that the just shall LIVE by FAITH. Now, by the Law, no rewards are promised to faith, but to works only. The man that DOTH them (says the Law, in Levit.) shall live in them.-Here then we see that this very tert which the objector brings to prove eternal life by the Law, St. Paul urges, to prove it not by the Law. Let us attend to the apostle's argument. He is to shew, that justification, or eternal life, is by faith. This he does, even on the concession of a Jew, the prophet Habakkuk; who expressly owns it to be by faith. But the Law, says the apostle, attributes nothing to faith ; but, to deeds only, "which if a man do he shall live in them." Now, if, by life, be here meant, as the objector supposes, eternal life, then St Paul's argument does not come out as he intended it; namely, that faith and not the works of the Law justify; but thus, that both faith. and the works of the Law justify, which would have satisfied these Judaizers, (as reconciling, on their own prejudices, Moses and Habakkuk); but, by no means, our apostie; whose conclusion on this question (where discussed at large, in his epistle to the Romans) is, that a man is justified by faith WITHOUT the deeds of the Laws. The very drift of his argument therefore shews us, that he must necessarily understand the life, promised in this text of Leviticus, to be TEMPORAL life only. But charitably studious, as it were, to prevent all possible chance of our mistaking him on so important a point, Gal. ii. 11, 12. 1 Ch. xviii. 5 + Ch. ii. 4. he : T he immediately subjoins, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law*. Now we know that our redemption by Christ was from that death which the first man brought into the world: this was the curse he entailed upon his posterity. The apostle's transferring this term from Adam to the Law shews, therefore, that, in his sentiments, the Law had no more a share in the redemption of fallen man than Adam himself had. Yet it is certain, that if the Law, when it said, He who keeps these statutes and judgments shall live in them, meant for ever, it proposed the redemption of mankind as certainly as the blessed Jesus himself did, when he said, He that believeth in me shall have everlasting life. This becomes demonstrably clear if St. Paul's reasoning will hold, who surely had heard nothing of this prerogative of the Law, when he said, If there had been a Law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law. Where observe, I pray you, the force of the word (wow, which signifies to quicken, or to make alive; plainly intimating the same he had said in the place before quoted, that those in subjection to the Law were under a curse, or in the state of death.-Let me add only this further observation, that if (as the objector pretends) by life, in the text of Levit. be meant eternal life; and if (as the apostle pretends) by life in the text of Habakkuk he meant eternal life: then will Moses and Habakkuk be made directly to contradict one another; the first giving eternal life to works; the latter, to faith. 66 But the objector would insinuate, that Jesus himself seems to have fixed this sense to the text in Leviticus; at least that he has plainly inferred, that eternal life was taught, if not obtained by the Law." When the lawyer "in the Gospel (says he) had made that most important demand, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal "life? our blessed Lord refers him to what was written “in the Law, and upon his making a sound and judicious "answer, approves of it; and for satisfaction to his "question, tells him, This do and thou shalt live."Would not any one now conclude from the sense here put upon the words of Jesus, that the sound and judicious † Luke x. 25. Gal, iii. 13.. answer answer of the lawyer must have been a quotation of the text in Leviticus, or at least some general promise made to the observers of the whole Law of Moses? Nothing like it. On the contrary, the lawyer's answer was a quotation of only one precept of the Law, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, &c. and thy neighbour as thy self. Now how much soever we may differ about a future life's being held out by the Law through a Messiah that was to come, I suppose we are both agreed that faith in the Messiah, either actual or imputed, is necessary to obtain this future life. There are but two ways then of understanding this text of St. Luke, neither of which is to his purpose. The first is supposing Jesus included faith in himself in this precept of loving God with all the heart, &c. which will appear no forced interpretation to him who holds Jesus to be really and truly God; as I suppose we both do; and may be supported by a circumstance in the story, as told by St. Matthew*, though omitted by St. Luke, which is Jesus's saying, that on these two commandments hang att the Law and the PROPHETS. The second and exacter interpretation is, that Jesus spoke to a professing fol lower, who pretended to acknowledge his mission, and wanted only a rule of life. For Jesus is here preaching the Gospel to his disciples, and a lawyer stood up and tempted him, that is, on the false footing of a disciple required a rule of life. Now in either case, this reference of Jesus to the Law must imply this, and this only, that without righteousness and holiness no man shall see the Lord. A point in which, I suppose, we are agreed. But still the objector will say that these words of Jesus allude to the words of Micses. Admit they do. It will not follow, as he seems to think, that they were given to explain them. How many allusions are there in the New Testament to passages in the Old, accommodated to a spiritual sense, where the texts alluded to are seen, by all but Fanatics, to have only a carnal? And even in this very allusion, if it be one, we find that the prontise made to the observers of the whole Law is transferred to the observance of one single precept in the moral part of it. but let us grant him all he would have; and Matt. xxii: 40. admit that these words of Jesus were given to explain the words of Moses. What would follow from thence, but that the promise in Leviticus was prophetical, and had a secondary sense, of a spiritual and sublimer import? Will this give any advantage to our adversaries? surely none at all. And yet the abuse of this concession is all they have for it, to support their systems. Thus the reader has seen how the Examiner of the second Proposi tion triumphs on my assertion, that the later Jews exco gitated the doctrine of the resurrection from the pros phetic language of former ages; and asks (with an ignorance excusable only in a savage to his catechist) how these Jews came to be more quick-sighted than those contemporary with the prophets? I had in vain endeayoured to teach him that a carnal and a spiritual sense (both of which, we are agreed, the Law had, in order to fit God's word to the use of two dispensations) implied an ignorance of the spiritual sense during the first of them. But my word ought to go for nothing, in this case, when unsupported by Scripture. Let us hear then what the apostles themselves say to this matter: who, fr order to shew the superior excellence of the Gospel, in their reasoning against Jews and Judaizing Christians, set the Law in contrast to it, under the titles of the law of a carnal commandment; the ministration of death; the law of works; and call subjection to it, subjection to the flesh. Yet these very writers at the same time own that the Law was SPIRITUAL, or had a spiritual sense. But if by this they meant, that that sense was generally understood during the Law dispensation, their whole argument had ended in the highest futility. For then it was not a law of a carnal commandment, a ministration of death; but, indeed a law of the spirit, a ministration of life; only under a dead and carnal cover; which, being clearly seen through, was no other than a foil to set it the better off: and consequently was of equal dignity, and, though not of equal simplicity, yet, indeed, essentially the same with the Gospel. Thus we see into how high a degree of contempt with unbelievers, these principles of my adversaries would naturally bring the holy apostles, did not those admirable reasoners take care themselves to guard against so horrid a perversion a perversion of their meaning. They owned, we see, that the Law had a spiritual sense: but when, and by who discovered, the apostle Paul informs us, by calling that sense the NEWNESS OF SPITIT*; which he opposes to the oldness of the letter, that is, the letter of the Law. In the former part of the verse, he speaks of the Law being dead; and, here, of its being revived again with a new spirit, in contradistinction to the oldness of the letter. So true was it, what, in another place, he observes, that the Law was a SHADOW of things to come but the BODY was of Christ. The shadow not of a body then to be seen or understood, as our adversaries imagine, but of a body that was to come, and, by its. presence, explain the meaning and reason of the shadow. For the Jews being, as the apostle says, in bondage under the elements of the world, were as men shut up in prison, with their faces kept turned from the light, towards the whited wall of ceremonies: on which indeed they saw many shadows; but the body or opposite substance at their backs, to which they could not turn, they And in this state, says the same apostle, they were kept shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed §. Till that time, therefore, it appears that the body of the Jews had no knowledge of this faith; one of the essential articles of which is life everlasting This we must needs have concluded, even though he had not said that till that time they were in bondage under the elements of the world. A proper character truly of a people acquainted with the revealed doctrine of life and immortality! saw not. But, as the epistle to the Hebrews, is so much insisted on by my adversaries, I shall, in the last place, produce a text or two from it, sufficient alone to determine the controversy between us; and to justify what I said of it in the Divine Legation, that in this epistle there are more express declarations that life and immortality was not taught by nor known under the Law, than in all the other books of the New Testament. For which indeed a very good reason may be given; as it was addressed solely to the Jews; amongst whom this fatal prejudice, that a future stute was taught by the Law, was then, and Rom. vii. 6. + Col. ii. 17. Gal. iv. 3. § Gal, iii. 23: has |