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"Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath, throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant." Exod. xxxi. 16. Keeping the sabbath to observe the sabbath, is a phrase of a very singular contexture. Is not keeping the sabbath observing it, and vice versa? I again remark, that no ordinary reader could discover that the sabbatism which St. Paul mentions, as remaining for the people of God, is expressly taught here. We now turn to mark the perspicuity which the original exhibits. "And the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, in order to attain, throughout their generations, to the sabbath of the covenant of the future age." The observance of the first sabbath is appointed by Jehovah, as elementary and promissive of the second. Here Maimonides has made some wonderful observations, and worthy of attention. He says that the law points at a twofold perfection, the first of the body and the second of the soul. The last is the most noble, and to which there is no arriving, but through the channel of the first perfection. "Therefore the Lord hath commanded us to do all these statutes, that we may fear the Lord our God, that it may be well with us all our days, and preserve us in life as at this day." He then produces the sense given to this passage by some preceding Rabbins; "that it may be well with thee in that world

which is wholly good, and prolong thy days in that world which is wholly long, which is a subsistance perpetual and eternal." These observations are solid and acute, and justified by all the preceding instances. The first evidently is preparative, and leads the way to the second. In this very way Christ acted while he was upon earth. He exhibited specimens of the first perfection, working cures upon the bodies of men, and so leading them gradually to the second, or a removal of the defects of the soul.

Therefore say, "behold I give him (Phineas) my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." Numb. xxv. 12, 13. Now in contradistinction to the priests of the Aaronic line, we are told that it is Messiah only who abideth continually, because he hath an unchangeable, priesthood; yet here is Phineas, one of the moveable priests, vested, as it would seem, with the sole and appropriate character of Messiahan everlasting priesthood. The difficulty vanishes by having recourse to the original: it shall be to him for the covenant of the priesthood of the future age, i. e. after death, he shall be one of those priests who serve God in his temple day and night. "They shall walk with me in white, says Christ, for they are worthy." Rev. 34.

Every sabbath he shall set it before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Is

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rael by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron's and his sons, for it is most holy unto him of the offering of the Lord by fire, by a perpetual statute." Literally, " on the day of the sabbath, on the day of the sabbath, he shall set it in order before the Lord continually: this is the

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covenant of the hidden period. And it shall be to Aaron and to his sons, and they shall eat it in the holy place, for it is most holy to him of the offering of the Lord made by fire: this is the model of that world." Lev. xxiv. 8, 9. The expressions, "by an everlasting covenant; by a perpetual statute," ought not to be read in the oblique case, as there is nothing corresponding to by in the original, but are to be considered as in exact apposition with what went before.

In that passage (2 Sam. xxiii. 5.) where David says, "although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant; "there is not the smallest suspicion excited in the mind of the reader, that this is any thing more than some personal transaction between God and his servant David; whereas, the sense that the original presents, is a retrospect to that long-standing and well known covenant made with Abraham, and to which every pious Israelite constantly directed the eye. It is not he hath made with me, but he hath " applied to me (sam-li) the covenant of the hidden period" that is, hath given me an interest in this covenant; hath brought me within

within the verge of it. This, as being commen

surate to his wishes, he says, is all his salvation. and all his desire, although it was not made visible to the mortal eye.

In a passage of Jeremiah, many nations are represented as seeking to cleave unto the Lord; and in order to shew that in their cleaving unto him, they were in quest of something existing beyond death, and grounded upon this covenant: they say, "let us cleave unto the Lord, the covenant of the future age will not be forgotten."

These perpetual references in the Mosaic code, to the things of the unseen world, St. Paul terms shadows; and the things to which they point,

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things of the future age, and that body that is of Christ;" i. e. their real essences existing in that world. "Let no man," says he, "judge you meats or in drinks, in festivals, in new moons, or in sabbaths, which are all a shadow of the things of the future age:" an observation evidently aris

* So the verb jatzmiah, in the Hiphil, may be understood to signify (which is one of its ordinary acceptations) to cause, like the heavenly bodies, to emerge to the sight.

↑ Jer. 1. 5. This mode of rendering is more close to the Hebrew: it divides the sentence into two distinct parts, which render quite unnecessary the particles supplied in our version, in and that.

Colos. ii. 16, 17. Ta mellonta, not simply things to come, but things of the future age, or Olam, being formed from the word in the Septuagint, Mellon aiôn. Isa, ix. 6.

ing, from seeing that to every mention of these there was invariably appended (hukath-Olam) to the model of that world.

Secondly, we may consider the title God of the future age, or hidden period, as promissive of discrimination, of judgment and reward.

Abraham received full intimation of this, in an answer to a request which he made to God; Gen 158 How shall I know that I shall inherit it?" (the land of Canaan.) By the vision which he had, and by the horror of darkness which fell upon him, he saw that before he could come to the possession of that land, he must pass through the darkness of death. "Thou shalt go to thy fathers into peace, and be buried in a good old age." He heard of a discrimination and a future account to be given, intimated in these words; "the sins of 76. the Amorites are not yet full." He saw here, a pe

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riod growing and ripening for judgment- he saw that the characters of men were by no means a matter of indifference to the Deity: and he expresses -8.25 his expectation of this, when he says, " shall not the judge of all the earth do right? wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?" Christ himself removes every doubt on this head, when he says, J. 8. 56“ Abraham saw my day, and was glad." Now as Messiah's days chiefly regard the intermediate state, where the most perfect discrimination takes place, we may view the joy of Abraham as aris