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titude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him. They are gone down, they lie uncircumcised:" (See Ezek. xxxii. 18. to the end.) Nine times, within the compass of those few verses, are the uncircumcised described, (meaning the unregenerate) as going down into hell, with their weapons of war; "their swords upon their heads, and their iniquities upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which were slain by the sword; they shall be with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit." And the Son of God hath given his decision to the same; when in his gospel, he speaks of their awful state, under the character of the "worm that dieth not, and the fire never to be quenched." (Mark ix. 44-48.)

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

"And Abraham communed with them saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of the field, for as much money as it is worth: he shall give it me for a possession of a burying place amongst you.

"And Ephron, the Hittite, answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying,

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'Nay my lord! hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee; bury thy dead.

"And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.

"And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me. I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.

"And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? Bury therefore thy dead. "And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron, and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

"And the field of Ephron, which was in Macḥpelah, the field and the cave; and the trees in the field in all the borders thereof were made sure unto Abraham, for a possession." (Gen. xxiii. 8-18.)

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

In this portion of the conference between Abraham and the sons of Heth, we enter upon an interesting part of Scripture history. This is the first record in the annals of mankind of the purchase of land. And it is the more striking and singular, in that the transaction took place between the Lord's people, and strangers. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein," (Psalm xxiv. 1.) As such, it might have been supposed that what was the Lord's became by right, and without purchase, his people's. But no! By the fall of man, the Lord's people had justly forfeited their inheritance; that is, as far as their inheritance became alienable; mortgaged it might be; but sold it could not. But the Lord had made reserve for the restitution, in what Paul, under the Holy Ghost, calls, the "redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." (Eph. i. 14.) And hence the law in after ages, enjoined, that if one of the children of Israel became poor, and had sold away some of his possession," the next of kin should redeem that which his brother had sold." (Levit. xxv. 25.) Here therefore, opened that most blessed subject by type and figure of Christ, our nearest of kin, redeeming our

mortgaged inheritance, to whom by relationship the right of redemption belonged. And hence, Abraham, with whom the blessing was deposited, here makes purchase of the forfeited inheritance, and takes possession in the first footing it by death. This becomes an apt figure of Him, who by death abolished death, and secured the possession of the everlasting tovenant to all his members. And no less the very significant manner of this transaction. For as the Patriarch weighed out in this purchase, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant; so our Lord Jesus Christ paid down the full equivalent for the redemption of his people, and their possession in him of their inheritance, not indeed by bags of gold, but by his own most precious blood, which satisfied both law and justice; and in what might well be called the current coin of hea

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I do very earnestly intreat the reader to remark with me, the very geat blessedness contained in this representation of the church's first possession of our earthly Canaan by death; as becomes the pledge and earnest for the future possession in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, of the heavenly Canaan by life. For as the Holy Ghost most graciously speaks by his servant the apostle; "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ both died and rose. and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." (Rom. xiv. 8, 9.)

A few leading points will make this doctrine abundantly clear; and, to the spiritual and scriptural apprehension of the child of God, will become a most delightful testimony to this momentous doctrine.

And first: The possession of Canaan by purchase, and by death; in the instance of the great father of the

faithful, Abraham, and his beloved Sarah, form not only the truest pledge to all the succeeding generations of the church, as typical of the heavenly Canaan; but shadowed forth the outlines of him, and his great salvation, who, both by purchase and by death, hath secured the everlasting inheritance of his people, in a kingdom which cannot be moved. "

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Second: The possession which the remains of our great mother might be said to take of the promised land, manifests that the covenant of grace is the same with the Lord's people, as truly in death as in life. "All things are your's, (saith an apostle to the church) whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your's and, ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. iii. 21. &c.)

Thirdly:-This possession of Canaan in the dust, by the dust of this great mother in Israel, until the morning of the resurrection, shadowed forth what the Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of his flesh, told the Sadducees, in answer to their question concerning the resurrection of the dead. "Have ye not read, (said, our Lord,) that which was spoken unto you by God,. saying; I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but the living." (Matt. xxii. 31, 32.) These patriarchs had been buried in the same sepulchre at Machpelah, as Abraham was then purchasing from the sons of Heth; for her burying place. But though many hundred years had passed between: God was as much their God in death, as in life. Nothing could arise to. do away that covenant which was "ordered in all things and sure. And the same proclamation is in effect said. now, to all the spiritual seed of Abraham. "To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ. And hence it is ad

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ded: If ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii. 16— 29.)

Fourthly:-The Son of God gave yet an additional testimony to the whole, when in his conversation with Martha at the death of Lazarus he graciously pointed out how the resurrection of the just would be effected at the last day : namely, in and by himself. "I am (said Christ,) the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die!" (John xi. 25, 26.) And the Holy Ghost most blessedly confirmed the same, when by his servant the apostle Paul, he said; "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Rom. viii. 4.) The dead in Christ are not separated from the Spirit; for in their death as much as in their life, that Almighty God is with them, "and abideth with them for ever." (John xiv. 16. 1 Cor. vi. 19.)

One word more, before we take leave of this part of the subject: The dust of the saints is as precious in the sight of God, and the persons of the Lord's people as dear to the glorious Head of the church, when their comeliness is turned into corruption, as when animated in the body. Hence the Holy Ghost declared : "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." (Psalm cxvi. 15.) And though their ashes mingle, as in the instance of Sarah, "with them that go down to the grave uncircumcised, (as the prophet describes them, Ezek. xxxii. 18. &c.) with their iniquities upon their bones;" yet in that glorious morn of the resurrection, when the Lord Jesus shall come to raise his dead, (not by the naked word of his power as the unregenerate will arise) but by

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