of the wills, but remember there were two wills. Which one are you quoting from? let me see." They show him.

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He looks at the date.

Why, that is the old will; it was cancelled. I do not inherit or hold my property under those terms at all. Let us look at the last, at the second will. You are not good men of business; you cannot distinguish between a deed that is in force and one that has been cancelled." Now, in like manner, God has made two wills. But the first one He has cancelled, as He Himself tells us in the plainest language; and has superseded it by another. What can be plainer than the language of Heb. viii.? We are there told that Jesus is made "the Mediator of a better covenant —or will-for it is the same word, dia0nen. And it is added, "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second; for finding fault with them (that is, with the terms of the first will), He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. . . and in that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old." And in chapter x. 9, continuing and summing up his argument, the Apostle tells us that God taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. In Gal. iii. 17, there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. Are not these words almost equivalent to the well-known formula before alluded to: "This is my last will and testament, revoking all other"?

A will, to be valid, must be signed and witnessed. Jesus signed the new covenant with His blood; and the night before His death, in the presence of His chosen witnesses, He said, "This is my blood of the New Testament." Lastly, to give complete validity to His will, the Son of God laid down His life. The Apostle draws our attention to this fact, saying, "Where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator; for a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.”

Taking all these passages together in their plain meaning, it must be allowed that the parallel I have drawn is something more than a mere illustration-it is a divine truth. Thus, the old will was disannulled, revoked, and superseded by the new; and can they be said to be "able ministers of the New Testament" who do not even attempt to distinguish between the two; and who, like the unbusiness-like trustees of whom I spoken, are for ever imposing the conditions which are clauses of the obsolete will upon the "heirs according to the promise," who inherit under the New Testament? It would be wise of these heirs, when harassed by those who desire to bind heavy burdens upon them, and grievous to be borne, under the pretext, or let us rather say, under the impression, that they are only enforcing God's conditions-it would be well, I say, if the heirs were to ask them, "Which will are you quoting; the new one, or that which has been disannulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof?" Such a question would help to clear up many a difficulty, and would prove how very necessary it is that we should be able ministers of the New Testament; because it requires no little discernment to distinguish between the two Testaments, and rightly to divide the Word of Truth; for there is a great deal of New Testament anticipated in the books that are known as the Old Testament Scriptures. And, on the other hand, there are many Old Testament clauses found in the New Testament Scriptures; in fact, the Old Testament books are full of Gospel-Moses, David, and the prophets, all spoke

of Christ. The old fathers did not confine their view to the transitory promises they obtained eternal life on New Testament terms. "Your father Abraham," said Jesus, "rejoiced to see my day, and He saw it, and was glad." In many portions of the law and the prophets the Gospel is veiled under type and symbol, but oftentimes it stands openly revealed, as in Isaiah liii., and in Psalm xxxii.; which the Apostle quotes in Rom. iv. 6, 7, 8 as a sample of Gospel truth. There are also many direct promises of the new covenant, where God expressly says, "A new covenant will I make with you, not according to the covenant I made with your fathers." Thus, the New Testament is abundantly anticipated in the canon of Old Testament Scriptures; while, on the other hand, our Saviour's words, "This do, and thou shalt live," and the whole of the second chapter of Romans, are instances of Old Testament clauses in the New Testament canon, in which cases the law is used as "our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." It is because the two Testaments are thus intermingled that so much heavenly guidance is necessary to make us "able ministers of the New Testament."

And now let us notice that the first will was wholly conditional, and that the inheritance bequeathed under it was perfectly distinct from the inheritance bequeathed unconditionally (as far as man is concerned) under the second will upon the "heirs of God." This is a point much lost sight of, and which has been a fruitful cause of confusion-the confusion, too, in a great measure, arising from a misconception of the words, "soul," and "life," and "death," as used in the Old Testament, which are generally taken to mean the immortal soul, eternal life in heaven, and eternal death in hell. A little examination may help to guide us to the real force of these expressions. When God had moulded man out of the dust of the earth, “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." This expression, "soul," is constantly used afterwards in the Old Testament Scriptures to signify the vital principle. The taking for granted that it usually signifies the immortal spirit (which I believe it never once means, from Genesis to Malachi) has been the cause of endless misunderstanding. One expression, three times repeated, may serve to show what the word soul does mean, and also to illustrate what was the inheritance under the Old Testament covenant, and the terms on which it was enjoyed: "If I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast, though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness" (Ezek. xiv. 19, 20). Now, it cannot be pretended that Noah, Daniel, and Job, delivered their own souls from eternal death, and became heirs of eternal glory, by their own righteousness, for "our righteousnesses are but filthy rags;' there is none right eous, no, not one." But this triumvirate is brought forward as furnishing notable instances of men who prospered in this world, and whose lives were miraculously prolonged on account of the public manner in which they honoured God and made their righteousness conspicuous before men; hence, they were not only in a marked and miraculous manner delivered from the most imminent peril, but we may almost say they were allowed to have two lives each.

Noah was a preacher of righteousness in the midst of a world full of men who had broken out into open rebellion. When the earth was thus flooded with sin, that had burst all bounds, Noah stood alone and

What

reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. wonderful courage! what wonderful grace! And what was his reward? His life was preserved when the world of sinners was drowned. He came out of the ark at the age of 600 years, and lived three centuries and a half after he came forth from the ark. So Noah saved his soul alive by his righteousness.

Then consider Daniel. He likewise testified nobly and boldly for God in a land where he stood almost alone as a worshipper of Jehovah. His righteousness was most conspicuous. Witness the testimony borne by his enemies: "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." And how wonderfully his life was preserved! "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths. ... forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me, and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." Thus, on account of his conspicuous public honouring of God, his soul was preserved from the lions, and he came forth, as Noah did out of the ark, to begin life anew; for, after he was delivered from the lions, being then ninety years of age, when most men would have sunk into a second childhood, Daniel continued to act as president of the largest kingdom in the world, and this for a lengthened period; "for he prospered," we are told, "not only in the reign of Darius, but in the reign of his successor, Cyrus the Persian." Thus Daniel saved his soul alive by his righteousness.

Lastly, consider the case of Job, the most remarkable of all. He, too, was eminently conspicuous for his righteousness, more so even than Noah or Daniel; for it was God's testimony concerning him—a testimony which Satan himself could not gainsay-" that there was none like him upon earth, a perfect and an upright man, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil;" and, if Job's righteousness exceeded even that of Noah, or of Daniel, his danger and his deliverance were proportionably more remarkable. Noah, indeed, saw the windows of heaven opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up; but the flood-gates of hell were opened upon Job. Daniel was cast to hungry lions; but Job was handed over to the jaws of that "roaring lion who goeth about seeking whom he may devour." But, when the enemy of souls came in like a flood upon Job, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard against him, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." And God, who muzzled the lions for Daniel's preservation, put a chain round Satan's neck before he delivered Job over to him, saying, Behold, he is in thy hand, but save his life;" and the devil, ravening as he was for Job's destruction, could not go beyond the length of his tether, and the soul of Job was saved alive. He, likewise, began life anew. The once "greatest of all the men of the East," the happy father of a prosperous household, began life again when far advanced in years, childless and a beggar; but he reared up another family, and amassed another fortune, which exactly doubled his former one,* and it is added that, after this, the accumulation of his second fortune, "Job lived an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations." When, therefore, we consider the

* Compare Job i. 3, and xlii. 12.

peculiar nature of the history of these three patriarchs, we can appreciate the force of the words, "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should save but their own souls alive by their own righteousness," and can hardly fail to see that, having in a very especial manner fulfilled the conditions of the Old Testament, or original will, they likewise, in an especial manner, inherited its promises. Taking this view as the key to this text, we may conclude it is the key to all those other passages in the Old Testament, and which abound especially in the prophet Ezekiel, which speak of the saving of the soul as the reward of obedience. God threatened His chosen people with various temporal calamities, on account of their idolatry and other sins. He declared He would bring His "four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast." But He also declared that those who turned from their outward acts of rebellion should not perish by these judgments, saying to them, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive." These are evidently clauses out of the old will; they have nothing to do with eternal death in hell or eternal life in heaven. There is nothing said here of the atonement, of the forgiveness of sins, of the blood of Christ, of the Just dying for the unjust; and yet how constantly are these very clauses brought forward as if they were part of the message of preachers of the Gospel. I conclude, therefore, that the Old Testament was wholly one of conditions, conditional on man's obedience, and that the inheritance, dependent on fulfilling these conditions, was a temporal and earthly, and not an eternal and heavenly inheritance; to which it must be added that, although God was very indulgent, and was wont to attach the promised blessings to an imperfect and outside obedience, in consideration of man's frailty, yet that even thus the Old Testament was a failure, for the Israelites refused to yield even the limited amount of obedience which God exacted, and the promised land was forfeited. From many expressions, which are evidently clauses in the old will, it would appear that, had it been possible for any of the fallen sons of Adam to have yielded a perfect obedience to the law of God, his life would have been prolonged on earth, in health and prosperity, as long as such obedience was yielded; for it is said, speaking of the laws of God, "Which if a man do he shall even live in them". -a declaration often repeated in a slightly altered form. And this is all that can be understood of our Saviour's answer to those who asked Him what they should do to inherit eternal life; when, after referring them to the commandments, He said, "This do, and thou shalt live," because no human obedience, however perfect, could entitle a creature to share the glories of the Creator.

Man

Having thus seen what were the conditions and rewards of the old covenant, and also how the conditions were unfulfilled, and the rewards consequently forfeited, we now come to consider the new covenant. was shown his impotence by the law. It was made evident he had neither the requisite knowledge, nor will, nor power, to render a perfect obedience; it became evident that nothing but the perfections of Godhead could satisfy the requirements of the Godhead. Therefore "what

the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Then, again, as levitical sacrifices could not keep pace even with outward transgression, much less atone for heart sins; therefore Jesus, "the Mediator of the better covenant," came to the rescue with the declaration, "In burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin thou hadst no pleasure; then said I, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God;" and by this declaration, as the Apostle points out, "He took away the first covenant, that He might establish the second." We have spoken of the second will as being unconditional, as far as man is concerned; but really it imposes far more rigorous conditions than the first, demanding nothing less than a perfect obedience, and a holiness equal to the holiness of God Himself. These conditions the Son of God perfectly fulfilled, and became "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;" for attached to this obedience is "the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," reserved in heaven for those who are "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." As far as the heirs of this inheritance is concerned, it is bestowed upon them wholly unconditionally, as a free, unmerited, and, in the first instance, unsolicited grace; but, as they were given to Christ before the foundation of the world-their names written in the Lamb's book of life-they are all made willing in the day of God's power, and are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. They are acquitted of the guilt of sin by the blood of Christ; they are entitled to the highest reward of righteousness, which is nothing short of oneness with God, through eternity, as the equivalent for the priceless value of the obedience of God's beloved Son. Thus "mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other." But it is objected, and not without some show of reason, that, if eternal life is thus secure and unconditional for the heirs, under the new will, what is to hinder them from violating with impunity all God's holy laws which run counter to their unholy natures? The objection was foreseen, forestalled, and met by divine wisdom; for the will was not made without the insertion of a saving clause, to prevent its gracious nature being abused. The Apostle (Hebrews viii.), after speaking of Jesus as "the Mediator of the better covenant," and after assuring us that, if the first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been found for the second, quotes the following words from Old Testament Scriptures, referring to the new will: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." See, then, how the grand objection which always has been brought against the doctrines of free grace has been anticipated and answered by God Himself. The Sinaitic laws were graven on stones, but the stones were broken before Moses reached the foot of the mountain; but it is the peculiar glory of the new covenant that God's laws are no longer graven on stones, but in "the fleshy tables of the heart." So, also, we read, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and