grace, by promise through Isaac-was also the hope of the righteous, namely, Heavenly Glory, being given 430 years before the law, could not make the promise of God of none effect; but God gave this promise by grace, through Isaac, the promised seed: that through the hand of one mediator, Jesus Christ, a Jew, the promise should be fulfilled upon the Jew, that the inheritance (of the Land, and the Glory, or Glorious Shechinah) be not of the law, but of promise, God giving it to Abrahm through the righteousness of faith by promise. (See Gal. iii. 17, 18, 20.)

This doctrine as to place is in no wise to hold a separate and distinct position from state and condition on the one hand, neither on the other is state and condition to hold a separate and distinct position, as if the one had nothing to do with the other; no, verily, for place is and was intended to contain, and be a recipient for, state; this world is now fallen place, and contains fallen and corrupt bodies.

In the next dispenation and order of things— that is, "in the dispensation of the fulness of times," when he shall "gather together all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth" (Eph. i. 10),-place will be redeemed-matter will be redeemed-bodies will be redeemed-and spirits will be redeemed; and evil spirits, and evil corrupt fallen bodies, will be for

ever excluded from the new heavens and new earth.

This, Abraham and all the ancient Saints and Worthies saw by faith; and they also saw where their inheritance and treasure was, and where they were to possess the redeemed kingdom and city; and this is the reason they all "looked for that city, whose maker and builder is God;" and this is the reason they left all, and went to mount Zion and Jerusalem; and this is the reason it is called the Land of Promise; for Paul (Heb. xi. 13, 14) says, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises”—and certainly, if they went to heaven, they received the promises,-"but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." Therefore not having received the promises, but still seeking a country and kingdom to be manifested on this earth where they will reign as kings and priests, where they were afflicted, and where they suffered; this they well knew, and therefore where their treasure was, there was their heart also; but they received not their treasure on this earth, but persecution, fire, sword, and torture; and this is the reason Abraham, and all the worthies, went out into a place, Jerusalem, "which he should after receive as an inheritance;"

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and he went out, not knowing whither he went, for God had "prepared for them a city." (Heb. xi. 16.) "For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country." (Heb. xi. 14.) For truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had an opportunity to have returned. (ver. 16.) 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."

Now is there any rational, intelligent mind that will say a sane person will do an act, unless he is prepared first in mind and state to put in practice that act? If there is, why do our courts of justice punish a criminal for committing an act? And this is the reason the saints and worthies were most certainly in a prepared or preparatory state before they left that country from whence they came out; for if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. So we see the true Gospel is the same precisely in spirit and practice in every age and generation.

An objection has arisen in the minds of many in confining the place of resurrection to mount Zion and Jerusalem, from these words of the Apostle Paul, 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17: "For the Lord

himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Now most certainly there is not one word said of the place where the resurrection or deliverance will take place, it is only the what that is declared shall take place-but not one word said about the place where. Obadiah and Joel have told us where (upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem) shall be deliverance-here the place where is clearly asserted; and if our Blessed Lord is at his second coming to stand with "his feet in that day upon the mount of Olives," (see Zech. xiv. 4,) and if we are to be caught up to meet him in the clouds, it ends all difficulty as to the place where; for it must take place where he is, if we are to meet him. Other difficulties often arise in the mind of the honest inquirer for want of considering, that, during nearly a century,* the Mother Church at Jerusalem continued to consist of converted Jews, and not less than fifteen circumcised prelates, including St. James, occupied the episcopal chair and the first converts to Christianity were all Jews-for the Saviour strictly com

* See John Oxlee's Letter to the Bishop of Canterbury.

manded his disciples to "begin at Jerusalem," and 66 not to go in the way of the Gentiles." Marcus* was the first uncircumcised bishop; and Ælia was erected as a centre of union upon the ruins of the Holy City; and the church immediately underwent a change, assimilating herself to the forms and construction of other Eastern churches; and the spurious canon of the Old Testament then began to be received by the church, and new difficulties were thrown in the way of the Jewish convert. We can now see the impropriety of applying what was said only to Jewish converts; for to them belonged the priority and pre-eminence in the Christian dispensation; and most certainly if they who first embraced it continued faithful from the first, they must continue in a state of advance beyond all who should afterward set out; because the path of a Christian is one of continual progression; therefore those who commence a Christian walk centuries before others, must continue in advance (if faithful). I mention these facts, because I find many Christians even at this day claiming the priority and pre-eminence over all the first Jewish converts or church. This might be received as claiming some degree of truth, if there were none of the first Jewish converts who proved faithful; but as there were some as faithful as ever have

* See Euseb. Eccles. Hist. Lib. xiv. chap. 6.