LECT. force of his words, he faid plainly, La

I.

zarus is dead. When he spake of the

deadness of the mind, a state, which, however real, must always be invifible, because the mind itself is fo; he expreffed it under the fame term with the death of the body; let the dead bury their dead: of which expreffion no fenfe can be made by those who are not aware, that the scripture speaks to us by things instead of words. Admit this principle, and then all is clear and confiftent. It is as if Chrift had faid, "let those who are dead in their fpirits, (with refpect to the new life of the gospel) employ themfelves in burying those who are dead in body; for they are fit for nothing else: but by following me and preaching the gospel, thou shalt raife men from the death of fin unto the life of righteousness,"

In the writings of the prophets, the spiritual bleffings of the gofpel are fo conftantly described under fome allufion to nature, that their expreffions are not true till they are figuratively interpreted, Let

1.

Let us take an example from the prophet LECT. Ifaiah: Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked fhall be made ftrait, and the rough places plain. Who ever heard that this was literally fulfilled? In what part of the world were all the mountains levelled; the vallies filled up; the crooked and rough places made ftrait and plain? But in the figurative fense all these things were to be brought to pass in the minds of men at the publication of the gospel, when all flesh fhould fee the falvation of God*. Then fhould the high and mighty of this world be confounded and brought low; the humble fhould be exalted, the meek encouraged, the crooked ways of men rectified, their wild and rugged tempers foftened and civilized.

The bible has farther difficulties arifing from another principle. For it pleased

God, for wife ends, to exercise the faith and devotion of his people with a system of forms and ceremonies, which had no value but from their fignification. I men

Luke iii. 6.

tion

LECT. tion no particulars here, because they will

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occur to us abundantly hereafter; but the fact is undoubted from that general affertion of St. Paul, that the law had a shadow of good things to come*: and again, that the instituted meats and drinks, the holy days, new moons and fabbaths, of the law, are a fhadow of things to come, having their substance in the doctrines and mysteries of chriftianity; or, as the apoftle speaks, whose body is of Christ. And therefore in the gofpel things are still defcribed to us in the terms of the law; the substance itself taking the language of the shadow, that the defign of both may be understood : as where the apostle faith, Christ our Passover is facrificed for us, &c. from the application of which term to the perfon of Chrift, we are taught under this one word of the passover, that he is to us a lamb in meeknefs and innocence of manners; pure and [potless from every stain of fin; slain (and that without the breaking of his bones) for the redemption of his people from the wrath of the de

*Heb. x. I.

† Col. ii. 17.

stroyer;

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ftroyer; and feeding with his body thofe LECT. who put away all leaven from their hearts.

But now, befide this firft difficulty, which we are under, of comprehending the matter of the fcripture from the peculiar manner in which it is delivered, we are under a fecond difficulty as to the receiving of it; without which our understanding of it will be very imperfect, if any at all. For the force of men's minds is generally found to be according to their affections; for which reafon the difaffection of the Jew is attended with a very confpicuous weakness of the understanding. We may lay it down as a certain truth, confirmed by the experience of all men, that when any object is admitted into the mind, it must find a faculty there which corresponds with its own peculiar nature. When there is no appetite, the sweetest meat is of no value, and even the fight and favour of it may be difagreeable. When there is neither ear nor fkill inmufic, heavenly founds give no delight; and with the blind the beams of the fun

LECT. give no beauty to the richest prospect

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It is thus in every other cafe of the kind. The mathematician and logician apply to the intuitive faculty of reafon; the poet to the imagination or mirror of the mind; the orator to the fenfibility of the affections; the musician to the mufical ear.

The mathematician demonftrates nothing but to patient and attentive reafon to the imagination which is dull the poet is a trifler; on the hard and unfeeling heart the orator makes no impreffion; and the sweetest mufic is referred to the clafs of noises, where there is no sense of harmony. Thus when God speaks of things which are above nature, his meaning must be received by a faculty which is not the gift of nature, but fuperadded to nature by the gift of God himself. For fpiritual truth there must be a spiritual fense; and the scripture calls this sense by the name of faith: which word fometimes fignifies the act of believing; fometimes the matter which is believed; but in many paffages it is used for that sense or capacity in the intellect, by which the invisible.