all times and nations (compare Gen. xvii. 1-8, with Rom. iv. 11, 16, 17). And all this elect seed receive, in common with their spiritual father, the gift of righteousness through faith—are saved by faith; so that the doctrine that faith is the means whereby the elect are made meet for immortality, which was inferred from the history of Abel, is exemplified in a more comprehensive manner by what is recorded of Abraham.

We have argued above that the patriarchs Noah {28} and Abraham testified their belief and acceptance of the covenant of life by sacrifice. But in the patriarchal times the only surety for the fulfilment of the promise was the direct word of God. With the exception of what is said of Melchisedek, who typified a High Priest to come, no mention is made of the mediation of priests till the priesthood of Aaron was regularly constituted. From that time the priest was mediator between God and the people, and in virtue of his office gave assurance of the fulfilment of the covenant to those who, by offering clean animals for sacrifice, signified their acceptance of its conditions. The priest gave such assurance by mediatorially receiving the offerings, and representing, by sprinkling the blood of the slain animals, the purifying effect of the suffering of death. After the ordinances of the law had been instituted, Moses said to the people, "I have set before you life and death: choose life" (Deut. xxx. 19). Seeing that no one can escape the death which is the termination of the present life, this choice between life and death necessarily refers to the covenanted life, the fulfilment of the conditions of which secures from death in the world to come. The author of the Apocryphal Book 2 Esdras, who was wiser, I think, than the author of "The Divine Legation of Moses," has shown that he so understood the passage; for after saying (vii. 48, 44), "The day of doom shall be the end of this time, and the {29} beginning of the immortality for to come, wherein corruption is past, intemperance is at an end, infidelity is cut off, righteousness is grown, and truth is sprung up," he adds (in v. 59) with reference to this description of the life to come, "This is the life whereof Moses spake unto the people while he lived, saying, Choose thee life, that thou mayest live."

Sacrifice remained the chief symbol of religious faith up to the time of that great sacrifice of the Son of God, the acceptance of which by the Father sealed the covenant of everlasting life, and made all other sureties sure. The ground of assurance lies in the fact that Jesus Christ in his life and death went through all the experience whereby our spirits are formed for immortality. "He learned obedience by the things that he suffered" (Heb. v. 8). He was made perfect "through sufferings" (Heb. ii. 10). "He made him to be sin (hamartian; compare Gal. iii. 13) for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. v. 21). Joining with these passages that remarkable one in which Christ is spoken of as "a priest who is made according to the power of an indissoluble (akatalytou) life" (Heb. vii. 16), it is evident that our community with him in suffering, in death, and, as we have reason to hope, in resurrection, is ample surety to us for the fulfilment of the covenant of immortality. For as death is the dissolution of life, indissoluble {30} life means exemption from death, and is, therefore, identical with immortality.

That suffering in the flesh is efficacious, as is argued in the foregoing doctrine, towards doing away with sin, may be maintained on the authority both of St. Paul and St. Peter, the former apostle having said, "He that is dead has been justified from sin" (Rom. vi. 7), and the other, "He that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin" (1 Peter iv. 1). But here it is particularly to be noted that this effect is not produced upon all who suffer in the flesh. These apostles are speaking of such as have faith; and it is only when suffering is accompanied by a faith which apprehends the covenant of life, and especially lays hold of the surety for its fulfilment given by the suffering and death of the Son of God, that it avails to free from sin. The elect, who through the grace of God have such faith, are drawn by the perfect love, and the sympathy in its strictest sense, which were manifested by the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ, to follow the example of his obedience, and thereby to attain to righteousness. By this reasoning it is shown, but only so far as regards the elect, that "the many are made righteous by the obedience of Christ." It will in the sequel be argued that the death of Christ has another aspect and a wider effect.

As there was no more occasion for signifying acceptance of the covenant by sacrifice after the sacrifice {31} of Jesus Christ, that form of religious worship came to an end. Thenceforth faith in the covenant was to be expressed by means of symbols which pointed to the sacrifice made once and for all time on the cross. The ordained symbols are bread and wine, taken in the Lord's Supper. The minister of the Gospel has succeeded to the Jewish priest in respect to giving surety officially for the fulfilment of the covenant, and on that account may with propriety be called a priest. There is no longer an altar, because the acceptance of the covenant is not, as in the Jewish worship, indicated by sacrifice, but by partaking of food in the forms of bread and wine at "the table of the Lord." The Christian minister, in delivering these symbols to the worshippers, gives, in virtue of his mediating office, sureties for the fulfilment of the covenant of eternal life; the worshipper who partakes of them in faith receives them as such sureties, and looks for the fulfilment of the covenant. No doubt this office should be discharged by a good and wise minister, who has been regularly appointed thereto; but for the efficacy of the ordinance the chief requisite is faith on the part of the recipient—an intelligent faith such as that which has just been mentioned.

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is justly regarded as the central ordinance of the Christian religion, and, therefore, of necessity has relation to the means whereby immortality is secured. In fact, {32} in each of the four records of its institution given in Scripture, the word "testament" (diathêkê) occurs: in St. Matthew and St. Mark we have, "This is my blood of the New Testament," and in St. Luke and 1 Cor. xi., "This cup is the New Testament in my blood." What is the meaning of "testament" in these passages, and how is the testament related to the "blood" of Jesus Christ? It is worthy of notice that these questions have received no special consideration in the recent controversies respecting the Lord's Supper, although in order to arrive at the full signification of that ordinance it is clearly necessary to be able to give answers to them. As far as regards the general meaning of the testament, or covenant, its relation to our immortality, and the surety for its fulfilment given by the blood (i.e. the death) of Jesus Christ, enough, I think, has been said in the foregoing arguments; it remains to inquire, for more complete understanding of the doctrine of the Sacrament, what relations the symbols bread and wine have to the Body and Blood of Christ.

"Bread strengthens man's heart," and "wine makes it glad" (Ps. civ. 15). To strengthen the heart is to produce confidence. Now, it may be asserted that confidence and joy, being incorporeal entities, are the same in essence under whatever external conditions they are generated. They are the same whether experienced in consequence of taking {33} bread and wine, or in consequence of understanding and accepting the covenant of life made sure by the body and blood of Christ. Although physical science