CONTENTS. The Incarnate Word the key to the Written Word (1) Analogy between the letter and Christ's flesh Both are open to the objection of being merely And are therefore liable to dissection But cannot see corruption (2) Both are also a veil as well as a revelation And therefore apparently inconsistent PAGE The same characteristics are found in all. Because all are from the same Hand (3) Why God has so revealed Himself under a veil Because man was where and what he is The necessary consequence of His doing this The revelation is open to the objection of being in- II. The teaching of Scripture, as to the destiny of the Human a (1) First-that God's purpose is by a first-born to save This secret revealed by degrees Who the first-born are The double first-fruits at Passover and Pentecost The earthly and heavenly first-born PAGE The use and sense of the words αἰὼν and αἰώνιος (3) Thirdly- that this purpose is only accomplished Popular error, that we are saved from death, instead pose Both first-fruits and harvest are tried by fire. But He can turn curses into blessings Souls are " delivered to Satan that they may learn The second death therefore, like the first, may be a The lesson taught by God's precepts, as to His pur- (iv) It is contrary to the analogy of nature (v) It is answered by the existence of present evil He that hath my word, let him speak my word The supposed consequences of this doctrine "Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? "Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? "Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Psalm 1xxxviii. 10-12. THE SECOND DEATH, &c. MY DEAR C— The account you give of your perplexity, and of the answers with which it has been met by some around you, reminds me, (if one may refer to it in such a connection,) of what happened some months ago in a Sunday-school. The boys in one of the classes were reading the chapter which records how David, as he walked on the roof of his house, saw Bathsheba. One of the boys, looking up through the school-room window at the steep roofs of the houses opposite, after a pause said,-" But, Teacher, how could David walk on the roof of his house?" The teacher, on this point as ignorant as his scholar, at once checked all enquiry by saying, "Don't grumble at the Bible, boy." Meanwhile the teacher of an adjoining class had overheard the conversation. Leaning over to his fellow-teacher he whispered, "The answer to the difficulty is, 'With men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible."" Such was the solution of "the difficulty," too true a sample, I fear, of the B |