rather, for some
higher truth, if it shall reasonably appear that their work is done, and
that if we retain them longer they will change their character, and
become no longer true but false. "David having served his own generation
by the will of God, fell asleep, and was gathered unto his fathers, and
saw corruption; but He whom God raised again saw no corruption." This is
the difference between positive ordinances and moral: the first serve
their appointed number of generations by the will of God, and then are
gathered to their fathers, and perish; the latter are by the right hand
of God exalted, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

"We know," said the Jews, "that God spake to Moses; but for this fellow,
we know not from whence he is." There was a time when their fathers had
held almost the very same language to Moses: "they refused him, saying
Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" But now they knew that God
had spoken to Moses, but were refusing Him who was sent unto them after
Moses. God had spoken unto Moses, it was most true: he had spoken to him
and given him commandments which were to last for ever; and which
Christ, so far from undoing, was sent to confirm and to perfect; he had
spoken to him other things, which were not to last for ever, but yet
which were not to be cast away with dishonour; but having, in the
fulness of time, done their work, were then, like David, to fall asleep.
All that was required of the Jews, was not to reject as blasphemy a
doctrine which should distinguish between these two sorts of truths:
which in no way requires to believe that God had not spoken to
Moses,--which, on the contrary, maintained that he had so spoken,--but
only contended that he has also, in these last days, spoken unto us by
his Son; and that his Son, bearing the full image of Divine authority,
might well be believed if he spoke of some parts of Moses's law as
having now fulfilled their work, seeing that they were such parts only
as, by their very nature, were not eternal: they had not been from the
beginning, and therefore they would not live on to the end.

The practical conclusion is, that, whilst we hold fast, with an
undoubting and unwavering faith, all truths which, by their very nature,
are eternal, and to deny which is no other than to speak against the
Holy Ghost, we should listen patiently to, and pass no harsh judgment
on, those who question other truths not necessarily eternal, while they
declar