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CHAPTER VIII. 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 



[Part of the present chapter is reproduced from the article by 

 the present writer, on "Christ's Use of Scripture," in the 

 Expositor of August 1882.] 



" THE letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Few 

 more significant words than these have ever been 

 written ; and when they were first written by Saint 

 Paul they were absolutely new in expression, 

 although the contrast between the spirit and the 

 letter was implied by Jeremiah, when he foretold 

 that God would make a new covenant with His 

 people and write His laws in their heart; 1 and 

 by Christ, when He began to fulfil that prophecy by 

 dealing, as one having authority, with the laws of 

 Moses ; enlarging their scope, and proclaiming a dis- 

 pensation of the Spirit, in which God required His 

 people to serve Him not only in the life but in the 

 heart, abstaining not only from sins of deed but 

 from sins of thought. 2 



1 Jer. xxxi. 33. 2 Matt. v. 21 et seg. 



