thy mercy in delivering them to us will be lost upon us, and we shall die in our sins.

I. The first thing I am to do, is briefly to open to you what is here affirmed by our Lord, that the great design of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, was to testify of Him as the Restorer of life to lost mankind. "Search the Scriptures," says he; "for in them ye think" (and think truly)" ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me;" as the sole Fountain, Author, and Giver of the life which all want, and for which we must search the Scriptures, if we know the use and intent of them. I say, the Scriptures of the Old Testament; the Jews, to whom these words were spoken, having no other. And this is the point here to be opened, viz. that the Scriptures of the Old Testament do so testify of Him. Which will appear plain to you at once, if you consider what is said of St. Paul, Acts, xvii. 2, 3, "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them," (the Jews in their synagogue,)" and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." Observe; it was his manner, the method he constantly used, to reason with the Jews out of their own Scriptures, and to prove to them from thence, that Jesus was the Christ, the Redeemer they expected. And, therefore, certainly he was revealed in them as such, or else the ground of all the apostle's reasoning would have been false. Again, it is said of Apollos, Acts, xviii. 24, 25, that "being mighty in the Scriptures, he was instructed in the way of the Lord." This was the fruit of his knowledge and study of the Scriptures of the Old Testament (for he had no other), that he found Christ in them. And to put

this matter out of all doubt, I need only mention to you farther what we read, Luke, xxiv. 45-47, "Then opened he" (Jesus) "their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer," (viz. because it was so written) " and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations." So that according to Christ's own knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, salvation by him was therein opened and revealed. And I shall now show you very briefly in what parts of it more especially he was so revealed.

When our first parents had broken the covenant of life which God made with them, by transgressing his command, their forfeiture, supposing him to be just and true, was unavoidable. And accordingly death entered into the world by sin; they had lost their title to life and immortality, and without restoration from the unhappy condition into which they had brought themselves, both they and all their posterity must have perished eternally. This they could not do for themselves; they could do nothing to recover their original state, and restore themselves to the divine favour; and therefore God, at the same time that he pronounced their sentence, had in mercy provided a remedy, which he declared to them, for their trust and comfort, in these remarkable words: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," Gen. iii. 15; i. e. one of their posterity, peculiarly so called because he was to be made of a woman, should by himself undo the effect of their sin, and deliver them from the curse they had brought upon themselves, by yielding to the temptation of the devil in the form of a serpent. Here, I say, is a promise of deliverance from the curse of the fall, and of the great Redeemer, Jesus Christ;

which we may suppose was more fully explained to them, and would be carefully explained by them to their children. So that all mankind from the beginning were instructed in this promise; and all who looked for redemption walked with God, and performed all their acts of worship in the faith of it, as the great foundation of their hope.

The next instance I shall mention, is the renewal of this promise to Abraham, that " in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed;" Gen. xii. 3. xxii. 18. And for the confirmation of his faith, and the faith of others, he was commanded to slay his son, and had a ram substituted in his stead, when he was upon the point of doing it that in this transaction he might behold, as it were, with his eyes, the very manner of our deliverance by the sacrifice of Christ. For so our Lord himself tells us, "He saw his day, and was glad," John, viii. 56. And thus, as Isaac, whose name signifies laughter, or spiritual joy, had the promise of a Redeemer settled upon him, so of his two sons, it was settled and entailed upon Jacob; and again, of all his sons, only upon Judah; and again, of his tribe, upon the person and family of David. Not that the rest of them, or any others, were hereby excluded from the benefit of the Redeemer; but it was done by way of solemn renewal and repetition of the great promise, and to mark out the line by which it was to be conveyed to the rest of mankind. Another very express testimony of which we have delivered to us by Moses, Deut. xviii. 15. "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; unto him. shall ye hearken :" Him, who in the days of his flesh was declared by a voice from heaven to be the Son of God, and the very Prophet whom all should hear. And that the Jews might want no information in this great article of faith, on which the salvation of mankind turned, they had a great number of sacrifices and ceremonies appointed,

to bring the promised seed to their remembrance in every part of their worship; and the high priest in particular was ordained for a figure or standing memorial of the great High Priest of our profession, and was Christ himself, as it were, continually present with them: Aaron, and every high priest after him, bearing the names of the children of Israel in the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart, as Jesus Christ, our Advocate, bears the names of his people continually upon his heart before God. To these, and many other testimonies which might be mentioned, if we add that of the Psalms and prophecies, which speak so largely and plainly of the Redeemer, his person, character, and offices, the time of his coming, birth, sufferings, and death; we shall perceive that St. Paul knew very well what he said, and had good warrant for these words, Rom. xv. 4. "whatsoever things were written aforetime," (meaning chiefly, if not solely, in the Old Testament,) "were written for our learning; that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." My brethren, the blessed hope of peace and reconciliation with God, of restoration to life, of happiness and salvation, through him who is the hope of all the ends of the earth, and who alone could do this great thing for us, Jesus Christ the righteous. For " to him give all the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins;" Acts, x. 43. That mankind might have hope towards God, notwithstanding their corruption and death by the fall, this promise was given to them from the beginning. They all set out with it at first, and might have kept it; and when it was in danger of being lost or obscured, it was repeated and renewed in the several ages of the world. For there is but one Saviour, and one salvation for all men. There never was "any other name under heaven given unto men whereby we must be

saved," Acts, iv. 12. And those who lived before the coming of Christ, and continued steadfast in the belief of the promised seed, had their faith imputed to them for righteousness, and were equally entitled to the benefit of redemption by Christ with those who lived after his appearance in the flesh. It was in the strength of this faith, that the worthies we read of, Heb. xi. were such shining examples of courage, patience, self-denial, and all kinds of holiness. They lived and died in the same common faith, looked for acceptance with God, and life only in virtue of the promise, despised every thing else in comparison of their great and glorious hope, and the eternal inheritance in heaven which it ensured to them, and for the sake of it willingly exposed themselves to all manner of persecution and suffering from an unbelieving world,

What I have suggested under this head will not be in vain, if it puts any lover of Scripture upon tracing out the evidence of this point in its full extent.

II. Let us now consider what farther use we are to make of the words of the text: "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." And what I have to say under this head, shall be delivered to you in the following observations.

1. St. Paul says, "the Lord Jesus Christ is our hope;" 1 Tim. i. 1. He means our only hope; for if there had been any other for sinful lost mankind, he would certainly have told us by commandment from God what it is. You have heard how the promise of a Redeemer from sin and death was declared from the beginning, embraced and trusted in by those who had only the Scriptures of the Old Testament to be the foundation of their faith and hope, Now what cause have we of thankfulness to