face life and death, and things present and things to come, and height and depth, and yet to know, that not these, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord? Because Christ has said, that none shall have power to pluck his sheep out of his hand, and he believes it, because God has spoken it. But if the promises to Abraham mean something else-if the promises to Israel mean something else, how can we be sure that our Lord's promises are to be taken literally? How can we take as our strong staff to lean on, the blessed motto-THUS saith the Lord?

Turn with me to the 7th chapter of Acts, where the lion-hearted Stephen thus recounts, to his blood-thirsty persecutors, the Lord's dealings to their fathers.

Then came he (Abraham) out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Charran; and from thence, when his father was dead, HE removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. And HE gave him NONE INHERITANCE in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT ON yet, HE PROMISED that HE WOULD GIVE IT TO HIM FOR A POSSESSION, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. (Acts vii. 4, 5.) Can words be more unequivocal than these? But scripture is as copious as unequivocal.

In the noble cloud of witnesses enumerated by St. Paul in the 11th of Hebrews, after naming Abel and Enoch and Noah, the apostle, in the 8th verse, thus speaks of Abraham: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should AFTER RECEIVE FOR AN INHERITANCE, obeyed; and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the LAND OF PROMISE, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles

with Isaac and Jacob, the HEIRS WITH HIM of the SAME PROMISE. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (The same city of which we read in Rev. xxi. 2. And I, John, saw the holy city New Jerusalem, COMING DOWN from God (not going up to God), out of (not into) heaven.)

St Paul next mentions Sara, v. 11. Through faith Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged HIM FAITHFUL WHO PROMISED. And, in verse 13, These all died in faith, NOT HAVING RECEIVED THE PROMISES, but having seen them AFAR OFF; and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed TO BE CALLED THEIR GOD; for he hath prepared for them a city. Again, let us turn to the 21st of Revelations, where we shall see the city that is to come down from heaven further described: verse 3. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, AND BE THEIR GOD.

Turning back to the 11th of Hebrews, we will pass over the remainder of the catalogue of the faithful: and in the 39th and 40th verses we read, And these all having obtained a good report through faith, RECEIved not THE PROMISES: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

They without us shall not be made perfect, and we shall not prevent or go before them (1 Thess. iv. 14.) For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent (or go before) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God (ἐν φωνῆ ἀρχαγγέλε, καὶ εν σάλπιγγι Θε8-with archangelic voice and trump of God): and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Aye! every tenant of Machpelah!

Let us now turn to Paul's speech to king Agrippa, Acts xxvi. 6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the PROMISE MADE of God Unto our fathers. And from the mention of this promise made to the fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, he at once exclaims, in verse 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? Agrippa was expert in all customs and questions which are amongst the Jews (ver. 3), therefore Agrippa knew well what were the promises made to the fathers. Agrippa was not a Sadducee, and therefore Paul referred not to the " resurrection of the dead," but "from the dead."

There is an incidental allusion to the resurrection in the book of Job, which I must here notice.

seven sons

In the first chapter we read that Job had " and three daughters;" his substance also was

7,000 sheep

3,000 camels

500 yoke of oxen

500 she-asses. (Job i. 2, 3.)

In the last chapter we read that the Lord gave Job TWICE as much as he had before, (Job xlii. 10.) and the numbers are afterwards given, viz.

14,000 sheep

6,000 camels

1,000 yoke of oxen

1,000 she-asses.

He had also seven sons and three daughters. (xlii. 13.)

The animals, which were indeed lost to him, were given him in double numbers; but not so his sons and daughters, for the other ten were "not lost, but gone before."

I must conclude this letter with the apologies I have previously made, for writing in a style which may appear dogmatic. But I cannot, I dare not speak with hesitation on a subject on which my head and my heart, my reason and my feelings, are so strongly and so firmly convinced,

If this be presumption, may the Lord forgive his unworthy servant, and may he open both our hearts to receive the whole truth as it is in Jesus, ever remembering that, even should it please him to bestow upon us all knowledge, and to enable us to understand all mysteries, yet without love it would profit us nothing.

Ever your sincere friend,

L. H. J. T.

In

LETTER THE FOURTH.

MY DEAR FRIend,

October 22, 1840.

IN my first letter to you, I endeavoured to shew that many of our Lord's parables, which have been commonly referred to the general judgment, should undoubtedly, from internal evidence, be applied to the day when the Lord will come to establish his kingdom upon earth. my second letter I proved-forgive the apparent presumption of the word, but I must use it-I proved, by long and connected quotations, from almost every prophetic book in the Old Testament, that a period of universal blessedness on this habitable globe was unequivocally foretold as an event in the womb of futurity; and from the New Testament I proved that this glorious period cannot precede our Lord's coming; because the time of His coming is to be one of great and widelyspread iniquity; and because tares are to grow up with the wheat, i. e. bad men are to be mixed with the good, till the harvest, when the Son of man comes to judgment.

In my last letter, I confined myself to the consideration of the mode of expression adopted by the evange lists and apostles, in alluding to Resurrection, and I observed that two terms were to be found ;"Resurrection of the dead," or the abstract doctrine of dead bodies rising again and living; and "Resurrection from the dead," or the rising of a certain number of dead out