The above-mentioned general purpose the Scriptures may be supposed to be adequate to fulfil, whether as expressed in the Hebrew tongue, or in that of the Septuagint, or as translated in the English version, notwithstanding that, as must be admitted, faults of transcription, or translation, or interpretation have given rise to many verbal errors. But the difficulties produced by these imperfections are of slight importance in comparison with the great difficulty of discovering how and on what principles to interpret the Scriptures so as to derive from them the particular doctrines they are designed to teach. Amid the great diversity of views that exists relative to modes of interpretation, it may safely be maintained that the foremost and chief requisite for making true deductions from the Scriptures is to have _confidence_ in them as being depositions of Divine wisdom. Men of science, in their endeavours to discover the secrets of Nature, are baffled again and again, and yet by little and { 8} little they obtain accessions to knowledge just because they never doubt but that Nature, if rightly interrogated, will give them true answers. It seems, therefore, reasonable to expect that the words of God, handled on principles analogous to those which have been successfully applied in acquiring knowledge of His works, might be found capable of answering the hard questions which are now, more, perhaps, than in past times, agitating men's minds. This philosophy, having a surer basis than that of any mere human intellectual system, might be expected to succeed where these have failed. The bearing of these remarks on the main subject of the essay will be seen as we go on.
Commencing now, after the foregoing preliminaries, the general argument, I remark, in the first place, that since, as matter of fact, all men die, they cannot partake of immortality unless they are restored to life after death. We have, therefore, to inquire both as to what the Scriptures say concerning _death_, and what they reveal concerning _resurrection_. Again, it may be taken for granted that as in the natural world, so in the spiritual world, the Creator of all things effects His purposes by operating according to _laws_. On this principle St. Paul in Rom. viii. 2 speaks of "the law of sin and death," meaning that sin and death are invariably related to each other as antecedent and consequent. By an irrevocable law { 9} death is ordained to be "the wages of sin" (Rom. vi. 23). Of ourselves we can judge that it does not consist with the power and wisdom of an omnipotent and omniscient Creator that the sinful should live for ever. But if this be so, it must evidently be true also that immortality, being exemption from death, is the _consequence_ of freedom from sin, that is, of perfect righteousness. This is as necessary a law as the other.