Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 216 William St., N. Y. PRINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 97 Cliff Street. THE present work has its origin in a course of lectures on that mighty phrase adopted as its title, in the solemn passage of God's word in Hebrews, 6: 4, 5, 6-and have tasted the good Word of God, and the POWERS OF THE WORLD TO COME. It is, in fact, a practical survey of what is termed in some quarters the Eschatology of the Scriptures; the realities which according to Divine Revelation we are to meet beyond the grave. We are wholly dependent on Divine Revelation for the least knowledge of them; and yet that Revelation has so long rendered them familiar, that they seem possessions of our intuitive experience, or gifts of our Natural Theology. Thousands walk beneath their light without thinking of them, and act by their light, without any acknowledgment of the source from whence it flows, as men walk beneath the stars without lifting up their faces to the heavens, and pursue their avocations by the conclusions of astronomy, without any study of the heavenly bodies. To know Divine Truth, the object of the soul's pursuit and affections must be the Divine Author of it. This is distinctly declared in that striking passage in Hosea, "Then shall we KNOW,-if we follow on TO KNOW THE LORD." Correspondent with this is that grand passage in the thirty-sixth Psalm, "With thee is the fountain of life; IN THY LIGHT SHALL WE SEE LIGHT. And correspondent with both these passages, and illustrative of them, is the great declaration of Christ," He that followeth ME, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have THE LIGHT Of Life. All true, all living knowledge, derives its life, its power from this personal, experimental, heart-knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. In proportion as communion with God increases, so will increase the knowledge of his Word; while without that communion, though the world were filled with Lexicons, Grammars, and learned expository helps of every kind, and philosophical and theological speculations ever so acute and erudite, the Word would remain a sealed Book, a dead letter. The Word is written for believing hearts as in sympathetic ink; communion with, God by the Spirit is that hidden sympathetic fire that makes the letter burn, and reveals its meaning. Therefore, according to Cowper's sweet picture, |