T, I B II A R Y 
 
 FRinfCETOIV, X. J. 
 
 DONATION OF 
 
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ETERNAL LIFE: 
 
 REVELATION OF THE BOOK OF MOSES. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE: 
 
 REVELATION OF THE BOOK OP MOSES. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JAMES' ELLICE, A.M., 
 
 EECTOE OF CLOTHALL, HEETS. 
 
 TO WniCII IS NOW PREFIXED, 
 
 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL: 
 
 IX AlfSWEE TO 
 
 THE REV. F. D. MAURICE 
 
 ON THE WOED 'ETEENAL' AND THE PUNISHMENT 
 OF THE WICKED. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHAED BENTLET, NEW BUELINaTON STEEET. 
 
 1854. 
 
TO THE 
 
 LOED BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 THESE SERMONS 
 
 ABE 
 
 BY PEBMISSION INSCRIBED, 
 
 BY HIS lordship's 
 
 MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOB, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 Luke x. 25-29. 
 
 PAnp, 
 
 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted 
 him, saying, Master, -what shall I do to inherit 
 eternal life ? He said unto him, What is written 
 in the law ? how readest thou ? And he answer- 
 ing said. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou 
 hast answered right : this do, and thou shalt live. 1 
 
 Notes to Sermon T. . . . . . .39 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 Luke xvi. 29. 
 
 Abraham saith unto him. They have Moses and the 
 
 prophets, let them hear them . . . .45 
 Notes to Sermon II 87 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON III. 
 Luke xvi. '29. 
 
 TAG3 
 
 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the 
 prophets, let them hear them . . .95 
 
 Notes to Sermon III 144 
 
 Notes A, B, C, Appendix 202 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 Paradox is a most dangerous weapon, even in 
 religious hands, when used in the cause of 
 religion. These Sermons were elicited hy the 
 assertion in Lord Byron's preface to Cain : 
 *' The reader will please to bear in mind, what 
 few choose to recollect, that there is no allu- 
 sion to a future state in the Books of Moses, 
 nor indeed in the Old Testament ; " and 
 Bishop Warburton was quoted as the writer's 
 authority. 
 
 Several years have elapsed since these Ser- 
 mons were preached before a Christian Society 
 abroad, in order to counteract the influence of 
 some demoralizing freethinkers, who had dis- 
 seminated their false and mischievous opinions 
 amongst the younger members, with practical 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 and fatal effect. By the express desire of the 
 congregation, a few copies were printed, but 
 without the Author's name, in consequence of 
 some diffidence on his part as to the sound- 
 ness of the opinions he had advanced, and the 
 extent of the views he had entertained. Time 
 and reflection, and, above all, the continued 
 study of the Bible, have more and more con- 
 vinced him that those views are correct, and 
 he now publishes the Sermons as they then ap- 
 peared ; but with additional evidence, and 
 under the correction, he humbly trusts, of a 
 maturer judgment. It is one thing, however, 
 to perceive, broadly and plainly, a distant light 
 oneself, and another to be enabled to cause 
 those around to observe and acknowledge the 
 same clear perception. If the writer fails in 
 this, which, considering the strength of the 
 evidence adduced, is scarcely possible, an abler 
 hand, following a similar course, may still 
 draw aside the veil which shrouds the beams 
 of the Sun of Righteousness, and negative the 
 improbable assertion, that God ever concealed 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 from his people the awful realities of a future 
 state. Looking to the myriads of immortal 
 beings, gone to their account before the birth 
 of Christ and the promulgation of his Gospel ; 
 how could the mercy and justice of the Al- 
 mighty be ever vindicated but on the convic- 
 tion that life eternal was revealed at the 
 Creation, and (in various and innumerable in- 
 stances) from the period of the Fall of Man ? 
 To each and all the warning of eternity was, 
 and is, given. The promise made unto the 
 Fathers was unquestionably life eternal, al- 
 though that promise was the shadow of things 
 to come, the body of which was, and is, 
 Christ \ 
 
 When these Sermons were undertaken, the 
 Author clearly observed, that the New Testa- 
 ment, examined carefully through every pas- 
 sage, does not contain the first revelation of 
 life and death eternal. This doctrine is 
 perpetually referred to Moses and the Pro- 
 phets, by the writers of the New Testament ; 
 
 ' Epistle to the Colossians, ii. 17. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 and again, by the writers of the Prophetic 
 Books, to Moses, whose doctrines they all 
 taught, and whose Law they all enforced. 
 Thence arose the idea of tracing up the stream 
 of revelation, if possible, to its uttermost 
 known source, in its earliest records. The in- 
 vestigation has been patiently pursued; the 
 whole argument has been, both in the Sermons 
 and in the Notes, expressed in popular lan- 
 guage, in order to make the inquiry interest- 
 ing and intelligible to all, as the eternal 
 interests of all, as well as the attributes of 
 our common Father, are involved in the ques- 
 tion. By revelation, the Author understands 
 the first statement of anv Divine doctrine, no 
 matter how short and simple that statement is. 
 Brevity and simplicity are the attributes of 
 the Law of God, and are as essential to its 
 general utility as they are to its inherent sub- 
 limity. 
 
 It is confessed that different opinions are 
 conscientiously held as to the precise period of 
 the revelation of life eternal ; but the writer's 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 conviction abounds more and more as he reads 
 the Bible, that it was made at the Creation 
 and Fall of Man, and that it was never after- 
 wards obscured but by man's own wilful negli- 
 gence. Perhaps this difference of opinion 
 exists because many confound the revelation of 
 life eternal with the actual redemption, and 
 refer both to the €ame period. The revelation 
 was made at the Creation and Fall of Man ; the 
 redemption came only when, in the fulness of 
 time, Christ was born, and died, and rose 
 again. The great end, life eternal, was pro- 
 claimed from the first. The time, and the one 
 special means, were unfolded slowly through 
 the immense period, and through all the ob- 
 scuring changes of four thousand years. Yet 
 the only difference is, that believers of old 
 looked forward with earnest expectation to the 
 redemption (or actual fulfilment of God*s 
 Word), while they had the revelation ; we, 
 more blessed, looking back on both, carry our 
 eyes onward to the full and perfect accom- 
 plishment of all the prophecies, and of the 
 
Xll TREFACE. 
 
 whole Word (until the times of restitution of 
 all things'), in the person of Jesus the Re- 
 deemer. Christ is the means, and the time, 
 and the end ; the revelation and the redemp- 
 tion ; the alpha and omega of the law of life, 
 promulgated indeed by Moses, but previously 
 existing, in all its necessary moral and sacrifi- 
 cial statutes, through the times of Abraham 
 and Noah, even from the very Fall of Man. 
 
 The investigation has been made by seeking 
 in the Bible its own exposition, such as one 
 part of sacred Scripture furnishes for another, 
 thus causing the Word, if we may use the ex- 
 pression, to be its own interpreter. There is 
 no safer guide, there is no surer commentary, 
 there is no more unerring revelation. The 
 doctrine is not attempted to be deduced from 
 one text alone, but from the internal evidence 
 of the universal Word ; from a vast variety of 
 texts, and words, and expressions, and ex- 
 amples, as well as from all the varied em- 
 blems, laws, and doctrines which are embraced 
 
 » Acts iii. 21. 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 under the one comprehensive head of Life Eter- 
 nal. A single text, one word or expression, 
 the separate exposition of any doctrine, may 
 here and there seem to he wanting in proof j 
 but it is on the whole train of circumstantial 
 evidence, throughout the entire Bible, that the 
 Author relies, believing such evidence to be 
 much more convincing to the inquiring mind 
 (because beyond all suspicion) than any direct 
 word or solitary text, or isolated doctrine. To 
 the internal circumstantial evidence thus ob- 
 tained, the proof is confidently trusted. "Wise 
 in his own conceit," ' no well-instructed reader 
 in the Word can ever be ; and where he merely 
 examines, step by step, the doctrines of Jesus 
 and his Apostles, he can scarcely venture too 
 far, or be accused of pretension and novelty, 
 in these his sincere researches after truth. 
 When, therefore, we observe, amongst many 
 other similar facts, that St. Peter twice quotes 
 the word Hades (or Sheol) in the second chap- 
 ter of the Acts of the Apostles, in exactly the 
 
 * Proverbs xxvi. 12. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 same sense in which the Psalmist used it, 
 nearly eleven centuries before ; when we per- 
 ceive St. Paul repeating the very terms, with a 
 slight change, which Hosea (as translated by 
 the LXX) proclaimed to Israel eight centuries 
 before the Gospel, as the authority for that 
 magnificent description of the general resur- 
 rection in Christ, which he gives in the 
 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Co- 
 rinthians ; when we hear our Saviour himself 
 employing the very words of Isaiah, delivered 
 700 years before (and using them in the same 
 sense), " the worm that dieth not, and the fire 
 that is not quenched," ^ to warn his hearers of 
 the torments which await the wicked in Ge- 
 henna ; — well may we be surprised by an as- 
 sertion, that the Jews were unacquainted with 
 a future state of rewards and punishments. 
 When we observe, also, our Saviour charging 
 the Jews (who rejected Him and his preach- 
 ing) to search the Scriptures (clearly not his 
 
 ^ Compare the LXX Version of Isaiah Ixvi. 24, with the 
 Greek of St. Mark's Gospel, ix. 44. 46. 48. 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 Gospel, but the writings of Moses and the Pro- 
 phets) on the very ground that they believed 
 that these Scriptures contained the promise of 
 eternal life ; we may be indeed astonished 
 that some writers in later days, who acknow- 
 ledge implicit obedience to this teaching, have 
 yet, overlooking all these facts, asserted that 
 the Jewish nation did not believe in life 
 eternal. 
 
 The Word of God declares that Christ is 
 life eternal, and eternal life is Christ. The 
 only sects seemingly interested in the assertion, 
 that a future state is not revealed in the 
 Books of Moses and the Prophets, are those 
 who, looking to something else beyond and in- 
 dependent of Christ for life eternal, deny his 
 divinity and atonement. Too much vantage 
 ground has been conceded to deistical writers, 
 in allowing, contrary to the Article of our 
 Church, and to the internal circumstantial evi- 
 dence of the whole Bible, that eternal life is 
 not declared in the Pentateuch ; for, if it be 
 not, neither is Christ nor his atonement there- 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 in revealed. The variety of schismatic opi- 
 nions that are drawn from that one source, the 
 Word of God, do indeed deeply astonish every 
 reflecting mind, while they point out how vain 
 and erring mere mortal wisdom is when aban- 
 doned to its own teaching and guidance. It 
 is the vanity, it is the pride of the human 
 heart, confident in its own talents and powers 
 and resources, which is the great stumbling- 
 block of man's salvation. Man will not listen, 
 he will not be taught, as a little child ; and 
 thus the kinodom of heaven is closed aoainst 
 him. Our unwillintrness to admit the doctrine 
 of the corruption of human nature, our confi- 
 dence in our own innate powers and righteous- 
 ness, tempt us too often to deny the Lord our 
 righteousness '. No one comes to Christ but 
 he who feels his want of knowledge, of virtue, 
 (that is, of power to do the will of God), and 
 of atonement for his frequent lamentable 
 failures. All these wants are centered in 
 Christ, as is life eternal. The manifestation 
 
 ' Jeremiah xxiii. 6. 
 
THE ETBENAL GOSPEL. 
 
 It is worse than idle to complain of contradic- 
 tions where the subject is Sin, and the object is 
 Holiness. All is contradiction and enmity be- 
 tween fallen, unregenerate, and erring Man, and 
 his God. Therefore contradictions must abound 
 where men still, in their subtlety, attempt to 
 serve Sin, in some one or other of the lusts 
 thereof, and God. It is worse than idle to object 
 against Religion, the various parties which have 
 arisen and will arise in the Chm'ches on this 
 earth. From the beginning, earthly Churches 
 have had their divisions, schisms, and heresies, 
 and will have these while this world continues, 
 and while the free-will, the craftiness, the am- 
 bitions, and the passions of men exist. Religion 
 
 A 2 
 
4 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 looks down iu anger or in pity, but cannot pre- 
 vent these offences, " for it must needs be that 
 offences will come ^ ; but woe to that man by whom 
 the offence cometh!" Yet Religion, strong in 
 the faith of Jesus, will without ceasing affirm, as 
 will every true Christian, with the Apostle, "Yea, 
 let God be true, and every man a liar'^." 
 
 The Eternal Gospel was " preached, not with 
 the enticing words of man's wisdom," but with 
 simplicity and sincerity. " We speak not," writes 
 St. Paul again to the Corinthians, " in the words 
 which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
 Holy Ghost teacheth^." To that teaching and 
 that power, even in all the vanity of his mind 
 and all the pride of his heart, man must submit. 
 
 Wc are plainly and repeatedly warned by its 
 Eternal Author, that the spirit in which we are 
 to embrace His Eternal Gospel must be that of 
 "little children." The craftiness of the wise 
 and the subtleties of their own learning, when 
 trusted in, are positive impediments. Why? 
 
 ' Matthew xviii. 7 ; Luke xrii. 1. - Eomans iii. 4. 
 ^ 1 Cormtliians ii. 4, 13. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 5 
 
 The Gospel is not a science ; it is, strictly, reve- 
 lation. The simplicity of the Gospel requires 
 that we embrace it with the confiding trust of 
 little children in " their Father which is in 
 heaven." The Apostle warns us that "faith is 
 the evidence of things not seen^;" and that "we 
 walk by faith, not by sight '^;" for "the things 
 which are seen are temporal, but the things 
 which are not seen are eternal^ [ala)vtat)." 
 
 It was foretold by the Prophets also, that the 
 Gospel of Christ would be a thorough stumbling- 
 block to the pride and vanity of human reason ; 
 for it is written, " I will destroy the wisdom of 
 the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding 
 of the prudent*," Again, " Woe unto them that 
 are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their 
 own sight^!" Nothing can be more absurd than 
 to pretend to measure and weigh out the deep 
 and hidden things of God by the subtleties or 
 craft of human sciences. " How unsearchable " 
 (exclaims St. Paul to the Romans, then one of 
 
 ' Hebrews xi. 1. ^2 Cor. v. 7. ^2 Cor. iv. 18. 
 ^ 1 Cor. i. 19. * Isaiah xx. 11. 
 
6 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 the most learned nations) " are His judgments, 
 and his ways past finding out ! Who hath known 
 the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His 
 counsellor^?" Thus the Apostle again teaches 
 the most philosophic nation of antiquity, the 
 Greeks, accustomed to, and educated in, the 
 wisdom of their sages : the finite cannot com- 
 prehend the infinite, nor can the utmost exer- 
 tions of the human mind or imagination grasp 
 the idea of the Eternal. The Gospel of Christ 
 was, and is, and will be "to the Greeks fool- 
 ishness." All this St. Paul openly taught that 
 most subtle, most civilized, most learned, yet 
 most corrupt nation. They gloried in vanity and 
 blindness of heart, in the wisdom of Plato, of 
 Socrates, and of Aristotle; but he told them 
 that the light of the Eternal Gospel extinguished 
 these all-insufficient eff'orts of human reason. 
 " Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe ? 
 Where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not 
 God made foolish the wisdom of this world^?" 
 Yet in the nineteenth century of this Gospel 
 
 ' Komans xi. 33. ^ ]_ Cor. i. 20. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 7 
 
 we have men still measuring their life and mind, 
 " wliich is even as a vapour/' and their wisdom 
 and learning, which " are vanity and vexation 
 of spirit," with the counsels of Omnipotence, 
 and with the eternal knowledge of Omniscience. 
 The scene is one of pitiable folly and blindness 
 of hearth The Eternal Gospel foresaw all this, 
 and records the sole antidote : " Let no man de- 
 ceive himself: if any man among you seemeth 
 to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, 
 that he may be wise; for the wisdom of this 
 world is foolishness with God ; for it is written. 
 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And 
 again. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the 
 wise, that they are vain^ (jidracoi)." 
 
 Yet here have we, in our Church and nation, 
 professors of divinity making the glad yet tre- 
 mendous revelations of the Gospel depend, like 
 mere crafty lawyers, on the splitting or meaning 
 of a word. Wiser than all the Apostles, they tell 
 us alcovLos does not mean eternal ; and on this 
 miserable chicanery are the exploded heresies of 
 ' Eph. iv. 18. -^ 1 Cor. iii. 18, 19, 20. 
 
8 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 Origen again revived. Trusting in his own, by 
 no means despicable, energies and labour, but 
 becoming by these " puffed up," Origen, in the 
 vanity of human pride, and the vexations of mere 
 human learning, was suffered to fall into various 
 heresies ; probably to mark the absolute necessity 
 of bowing our reason, in its utmost activity and 
 cultivation, under the yoke of the Eternal Gospel 
 always, even at the very threshold of the Temple 
 of God. We must enter that Temple with the 
 faith and hope of childi'en. 
 
 Origen and Tertidlian, Bacon, Butler, and 
 Jeremy Taylor, who are quoted, as well as 
 others, were all mere men ; the Apostolic Age, 
 with its extraordinary influences, had long 
 ceased, even to the two first-named ; and they 
 were condemned for heresies, and both justly ^ 
 The writings of the Fathers are only so far 
 valuable as they agree, in all points, with Sacred 
 Scripture. When our own writers (as Jeremy 
 Taylor), following only the conceits of the 
 'Fathers, venture beyond that which is written 
 
 ' Echard's Ecclesiastical History : Thii'd Centurj-. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 9 
 
 in the Word, their teaching is utterly vain. 
 Thus the passage quoted from Taylor falls utterly 
 void, where he writes, " I observe that the primi- 
 tive doctors were very willing to believe that the 
 mercy of God would find out a period to the 
 torment of accursed souls, etc. etc.^" If so, the 
 answer is, " These doctors were wise above that 
 which is written in the Eternal Gospel." The 
 duty of the priest is, not to consult the too fre- 
 quently erring and even fantastic works of the 
 Fathers for positive doctrine, but to apply all his 
 mind, for these only and solely, to the Eternal 
 Word, in faith, nothing doubting. 
 
 Our translators have rendered the word alwvios 
 eternal and everlastingy believing these words 
 synonyms; but no sincere, upright, and expe- 
 rienced mind will evcr'^ depend solely on the 
 ever-changing meaning and value of one word, 
 which may always be the prey of the " disputer 
 of this world^." As too the ideas of infinity and 
 eternity are utterly beyond human reason, so all 
 
 ' Mr. Maurice's notes. 
 
 ^ This is pointed out in tlie clcventli and twelfth pages of 
 my first Preface. ^ 1 Cor. i. 20. 
 
 A 3 
 
10 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 human words and language must necessarily fail 
 in rendering their meaning, in extent or duration. 
 The sixth chapter of the Romans gives us how- 
 ever the opinion and judgment of our transla- 
 tors, in two consecutive verses, where the word 
 in question is twice used. " But now being made 
 free from sin, and become the servants of God, 
 ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end 
 everlasting {alwviov) life; for the wages of sin 
 is death, but the gift of God is Eternal {alwviov) 
 life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here the 
 same word is rendered Everlasting and Eternal. 
 
 On this one word the Professor would make 
 the glad tidings and the tremendous warnings of 
 the Gospel depend. Well may such men (and 
 all their followers) go and learn wisdom from 
 children ! The atmosphere of our courts of law 
 and the present extraordinary corruption of our 
 laws, covering iniquity by subtleties of words, 
 seem to have deceived and misled the mind of 
 the priest, until the heresies of Origen a})pear, to 
 its obscured judgment, truths. Are these to be 
 taught to youth in all the rising powers and 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 11 
 
 temptations of the human passions? Or are 
 these to encourage the aged in iniquity, by the 
 terribly false and Satanic deceit^ of final impu- 
 nity and non-eternal punishment ? 
 
 To prevent, and not to be suspected of, pre- 
 judice, I give the heresies of Origen, and where 
 they may be found, from the popular work of a 
 Roman Catholic author : — 
 
 " Malgre son zele pour la religion, Origene est 
 reste entache d'heresie. II enseignait une doc- 
 trine mystique, qui se rapprochait de celle des 
 Gnostiques : il croyait, 
 
 1. "A la preexistence des ames dans une re- 
 gion superieure, d'oii elles etaient venues animer 
 les corps terrestres. 
 
 2. " Que I'ame de I'homme a peche meme 
 avant d'etre unie au corps. 
 
 3. "II soutenait encore que les ames pouvaient 
 pendant la vie se purifier, et s'elever a la felicite 
 supreme par la communication avec Dieu. 
 
 4. "Que les peines de I'enfer ne sont pas 
 etern elles. 
 
 ' Revelation xii. 9 ; xiii. 14 ; xx. 3. 8, 10. 
 
12 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 5. " Et que Jesus Christ n'est pas Fils de Dieu 
 que par adoption." 
 
 "C'est surtout dans le livre des Principes, 
 traduit en Latin par Rufin^ que se trouvent les 
 erreurs d'Origene." 
 
 Mr. Maurice brings forward texts of St. John, 
 obscuring them by mystic meanings, as on such 
 as, "This is hfe eternal, that they might know 
 Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 
 Thou hast sent^." Here he seems to me to 
 suggest the third of Origen's errors, or why did 
 he not quote other texts of this Apostle, such as 
 " Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, 
 hath Eternal Life ; and I will raise him up at the 
 last day^"? The simple truth is, St. John, in 
 the spirit of prophecy, writes of things future as 
 of things present; of things to be, as already 
 done, — mingling the beginnings with the final 
 
 ' As Mr. Maurice says, " Origen's heresies are only to be 
 found translated into indiflfcrent Latin," I must add tliat Ty- 
 rannius or Torauius llufiuus was long the intimate friend of St. 
 Jerome, who rendered the Bible into Latin in that acknow- 
 ledged translation, the Vulgate ; therefore Eufinus was pro- 
 bably as well skilled in the Latin language as his friend Jerome. 
 
 ' John xvii. 3. •' John vi. 54-58. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 13 
 
 fruition of Eternal Life in his meaning. No doubt 
 tbe seed of eternal life is sown in this life, 
 under the Gospel ; and must spring up in the 
 soul, in this life ; but the harvest is most cer- 
 tainly in eternity. 
 
 Mr. Maui'ice urges that the "conscience of 
 iniquity and sin is the worst punishment that 
 man can endure, as it separates him from God." 
 Why, the known language of the wicked has 
 always been, " They say unto God, Depart from 
 us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy 
 ways^" Then, as to conscience, does he forget 
 what the sole teacher, and indeed existence^, of 
 
 ' Job xxi. 14 ; xxii. 17. 
 - Acts xxiv. 14, 15, 16 : — 
 
 14. " But this I confess, that after the way which they call 
 heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, beheving all 
 things, which are written in the law, and in the prophets. 
 
 15. " And have hope towards God, which they also allow, 
 that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the 
 just, and of the unjust. 
 
 16. " And herein do I exercise myself, to have ahoai/s a 
 conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men." 
 
 Conscience is created by, and depends solely on law : where 
 the law is corrupt, conscience is null, or sold to iniquity, A 
 good conscience must be maintained also, by constant exer- 
 cise. 
 
14 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 conscience is, — namely, the responsibility of man 
 to the Law of God? "I had not known sin 
 but by the law^" Take away law and its pu- 
 nishments, and the "conscience" of man, as 
 even our own Shakspeare writes, will become 
 " wide as hell," admitting freely every crime. 
 The law is the only real empire, the only true 
 governmeut,^the law, T assert, of God ; to prate 
 of self-government by man, is outer deception. 
 His conscience can only be awakened, formed, 
 and governed by law and the punishments of 
 law; for without law and the penalties of the 
 law, man has no conscience. Cain, when he slew 
 his brother, only feared the law demanding death 
 for death. Does not Mr. Maurice know that 
 men, even under the Gospel, holding the truth in 
 unrighteousness, "have their conscience seared (by 
 themselves) even as with a hot iron^" ? How then 
 is mere conscience a punishment ? We know it 
 is none with the vast majority of mankind, and 
 therefore man must be awakened by the terror 
 of God's wrath in future punishments. As to 
 
 •^ ' Romans vii. 7. * 1 Tim. iv. 2. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 15 
 
 " virtue being in this world its own reward," 
 that also is an idle dream, — holiness being too 
 often rewarded by deaths of torture, as St. 
 Paul proves (from the very beginning) in the 
 eleventh chapter to the Hebrews. Nay, in one 
 sense, Christianity is always a state of suffering', 
 during our whole mortal life to us all. From 
 our very birth, to our last hour, we engage " to 
 fight manfully against the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil." These three are enemies not to be 
 treated with scorn, with negligence, or with watch- 
 less indifference ; for we find " in our members 
 a law, warring against the law of our mind, 
 and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin, 
 which is in om* members^." Is this a real state 
 of happiness? Why, then, does St. Paul ex- 
 claim, " Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this death .^" With 
 an inward enemy always ready to betray, the 
 Christian must yet daily fight three most in- 
 sidious enemies, through probably a long life, in 
 a never-ceasing warfare — "fighting the good 
 
 ' 2 Peter ii. 21 ; Acts xiv. 22. * Romans vii. 23. 
 
16 TUE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 fight ^" if SO be that he "fiuisheth his course 
 with joy," To the natural man this is no state 
 of enjoyment, or peace, or happiness : and man 
 must look steadily to a future state in a second 
 life ; if happily he does not fail in finishing his 
 course with victory. The perils of the righteous 
 even to his last horn*, as well as the mercies pro- 
 mised to the wicked to his last hour, are most 
 powerfully portrayed to the prophet Ezekiel^. 
 The promise is thus repeatedly held forth in 
 the Apocalypse " to him that overcometh^ ." On 
 this earth, which is to be destroyed, nothing is 
 sure : there is no stability ; and the wase prayer 
 of our Church therefore is, " Suffer us not at our 
 last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from 
 thee'*!" On this earth there is a perpetual, daily, 
 never-ceasing combat : and thus it can be no 
 state of " happiness " as the natural man under- 
 stands that word. Mr. Maurice may well and 
 truly assert that " sin is death and misery: " but 
 "misery" the enjoyments of sin, we all know, 
 
 ' 2 Tim. iv. 7. * Ezekiel xxxiii. 2-20. 
 
 3 Eevelatiou ii. 7, 11, 17; iii. 5, 12, 21; xxi. 7. 
 ■• The Burial Service. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 17 
 
 are not to the natural man. Therefore, in fact 
 and iY\x\\\^ future rewards and punishments were, 
 from the birth of the first man, necessary to the 
 economy and the rule of the Gospel. Earthly 
 rewards and punishments are not omitted by the 
 word, although it warns all that these perish : 
 but " the eternal purpose," or Gospel, always in 
 every age held out, in the most striking types, 
 figures, and language, /^^^^^re rewards and punish- 
 ments as the inducements, incentives, aim and 
 purpose to man, to obey daily, through this 
 mortal life, " his Father which is in heaven," in 
 order to attain to an immortal birthright and 
 sure happiness. And that immortal birthright 
 man was always born to, and can never, either 
 in woe or happiness, put ojff or lose. " Such are 
 the conditions of the battle ^" I affirm most 
 distinctly that the sanctions of future rewards and 
 punishments were attached, and by the declara- 
 tion of the Gospel to Eve, from the Fall, to the 
 Law of God, and throughout both the Mosaic 
 and Christian Covenants. 
 
 • 2 Esdras vii. 57. 
 
18 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 It may not be irrelevant, in these times, to 
 observe, that the dread and hate of earthly war, 
 now exhibited by some, is another deception of 
 Satan, who suggests " Peace, peace, where there 
 is no peaces" The worst, the most guilty spe- 
 cies of war, is that surreptitious war which as- 
 sumes the garb and language of peace and love, 
 yet lives on its neighbour by robberies and thefts 
 practised on his credulity, through the aid of 
 perverted and corrupted law; — the '' siirrepti- 
 tioiis war" of lies and frauds ; murdering by 
 ruin, and famine, and the slow tortures of bro- 
 ken health and broken hearts. Against that 
 peace "the Lamb judgeth and maJceth loar'^." 
 He, even Jesus Christ, warned us all solemnly 
 while on earth : " And ye shall hear of wars and 
 rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled, 
 for all these things must come to pass," — Set yap 
 trama yev^aOai^. The Apocalypse thus warns us 
 that Jesus, " the Prince" and God " of Peace," 
 "judgeth and mahetli war ;" real and earthly war, 
 
 » Jeremiah v. 26, 27,31; viii. 8, 9; vi. 14, 15 ; Daniel viii. 25. 
 * Eevelation xix. 11, 13. ^ Matthew xxiv. 6. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 19 
 
 "with garments rolled in bloody" against the 
 evil in this world, " because men will not repent 
 of their thefts ^ " and lies : and that His domi- 
 nion and empire must be finally so established in 
 the great battle of Armageddon, so powerfully 
 described in this the last book of the Gospel. 
 Dreams of lasting peace in this world are mere 
 deceptions of evil, vainly covering its frauds^ in 
 the garments of salvation. During the last great 
 war, Bishop Horsley ably pointed out this great 
 battle and final victory of the " Lamb of God," 
 proving plainly from the Gospel that war must 
 be, and that war loill he the close and punish- 
 ment of all this earthly iniquity. Let those of 
 our countrymen, therefore, who go out to battle 
 in a righteous cause, to fulfil the treaties of their 
 country and to combat the oppressor, " gird up 
 their loins and be strong, quitting themselves 
 
 * Isaiah ix. 5. ^ Revelation ix. 21; xxi. 8, 27; xxii. 15. 
 ' Even tlie Heathen doomed Fraud to HeU, when nnre- 
 pented of: — 
 
 " Castigatque auditque dolos, subigitque fateri 
 Qua; quis apud superos,yM/'/o Istatus iaani, 
 Distulit in seram, commissa piaciJa, mortem." 
 
 ViBGiL, .35ueid vi. 
 
20 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 like men" nothing doubting, but trusting in the 
 God of battles. St. Paul, let them reflect, enu- 
 merates amongst the saved to the Hebrews those 
 " who waxed valiant in fight, turning to flight 
 the armies^ of the aliens" who sought to oppress 
 and conquer the countries of their neighbours. 
 Such is the iniquity in this world, that war must 
 be, — Set yap yevdaOav. 
 
 Of Mr. Maurice's teaching as to the non-eternal 
 punishment of evil and wickedness, there seems to 
 be no doubt. The last heresy of all is the object 
 and crowning consequence of the others : — As no 
 eternal punishment exists, so there was no need of 
 the eternal sacrifice for sin. This heresy, which 
 appeared in the first century, was continued 
 perpetually, under various heresiarchs, down to 
 Arius and Socinus, and exists in our day under 
 the denomination of Unitarian, which " darkeneth 
 counsel by words without knowledge^." Such 
 seems to be indeed the end of taking Origen's, 
 and such doctrines, as guides. It is well known, 
 as Echard^ also points out, that Origen was de- 
 
 ' Hebrews xi. 34. '^ Job xx^fviii. 2. 
 
 ^ EcharcVs Ecclesiastical History : Third Century. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 21 
 
 ceived into heres}^ by his strong attachment to 
 the writings of Plato and the Greek philosophers, 
 and purposed in his vanity to graft these on the 
 stern sinaplicity and sincerity of the Gospel. 
 The Gnostic heresy, of which this purpose was 
 the cause, arose, as I have said, even in the 
 Apostolic Age ; and then, and now, the end of 
 all this subtle mysticism is to deny the divinity 
 and atonement of Jesus Christ as the Eternal 
 Sou of God. 
 
 But Mr. Maurice seems to rest on the Epistles 
 and Gospel of St. John, as the Apostle of love, 
 preaching the religion of love. Is he a professor 
 of religion, and yet teaches not that the Eternal 
 governs liis immortal creatm-e man, by not one, 
 but by two, great motives, — love and fear ? How 
 is the corruption of human nature, in all its 
 eternal consequences of sin, pollution, and ini- 
 quity {dvofila) to be otherwise controlled, re- 
 strained, and governed ? Not such is the teach- 
 ing of our Bible. Erom the Fall, the blessing and 
 the curse ^ were laid before man, to compel obe- 
 
 ' Dcut. xi. 26, 27, 28 ; xxx. 1. 
 
22 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 dience even in those saved by the fear, as well as 
 the love, of God. The Eternal Gospel declared 
 to Eve, and set forth in the sacrifice of Abel, pre- 
 figuring the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
 the world, was committed to Noah, and then 
 "preached' to Abraham;" and thus descended 
 through Moses and the Prophets unto Christ, 
 vrho is man's only everlasting hope and refuge. 
 That fear of God the Apostles all taught : "know- 
 ing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men," 
 preached St. Paul to the Corinthians. Again, to 
 the Ephesians : " Let no man deceive you with 
 vain words, for because of these things cometh 
 the wrath of God upon the children of disobe- 
 dience^." Again, to the Hebrews : " It is a 
 fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living 
 God^." This motive St. Jude, in his one chap- 
 ter, overlooked not : " And others save with fear, 
 pulling them out of the fire." There is no vari- 
 ableness, neither shadow of turning, throughout 
 the whole written Word. 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 4-8 ; Acts iii. 25-28 ; Heb. vi. 13-20. 
 
 2 Eph. V. 6. 3 Heb. xi. 31. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 23 
 
 But are the Gospel and Epistles of St. Johu 
 his only inspired writings ? or does the Apostle 
 of love, preaching the religion of love, forget the 
 true affection of that principle, in not forewarning 
 of evil ? The Apocalypse required Mr. Maurice's 
 deep research before he decided on the meaning 
 of the word " eternal," and the duration of the 
 punishment of the wicked. More than all the 
 others, the Apostle of Love warns with predic- 
 tions of terror to the wicked, as a truly loving 
 spirit would do, where his fellow-men are rush- 
 ing on eternal destruction. He gives us eternal 
 memorials of the indignation, the anger, and 
 the wrath of God, on all men who "will not 
 repent of pollutions and iniquities, of lies and 
 ofthefts^" 
 
 There is no " vacillation," no " contradiction," 
 in the Eternal Gospel : it is " the same yesterday, 
 and today, and for ever." It is " the savour of 
 death unto death" only to those who wrest the 
 counsel of God, and will not embrace it as re- 
 vealed in the whole Word ; or who garble it, in 
 
 * Revelation ix. 21. 
 
24 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 the spirit of chicanery and Gnostic mysticism, to 
 flatter the passions and gain the praise of men ; 
 or who pervert it into grosser iniquity. 
 
 Beyond the affirmation of the Evayyekiov 
 alwviov (or, as St. Paul elsewhere calls it, the 
 eternal purpose ^ TrpoOea-is alwvcov), St. John uses, 
 as if to meet this subtle objection on the w^ord 
 "eternal," the words elsrovs alwvas twv alwvwv thir- 
 teen times in the Apocalypse. All these instances 
 I will give as shortly as possible from this book, 
 that our proof may be complete : yet any man 
 might have seen the meaning of the word thus 
 affixed to the Gospel. 
 
 This book is the last seal set by the Almighty 
 to His eternal word until the second advent of 
 Christ, and therefore requires peculiar search and 
 consideration, not only for its prophecies, which 
 we pass over now, but also for its doctrines : 
 " Blessed is he that readcth, and they that hear 
 the words of this prophecy, and keep these 
 things which are written therein : for the time is at 
 hand'^;" is the opening promise of the Revelation. 
 
 * Ephesians iii. 11. - Eevelation i. 3. 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 25 
 
 The mandate to the Seven Churches of Asia, 
 falHble and erring as they all were, and requiring 
 earnest warning, opens with the affirmation of 
 the Divinity and atonement of Jesus Christ, in 
 the fifth and eighth verses : " Unto Him that loved 
 us, and washed us from our sins in His own 
 blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto 
 God and His Father, to whom be glory and 
 dominion ew tovs aiwvas Tcov aiwvwv. Examine 
 also the seventh and eighth verses. Again are 
 the divinity and atonement of the Eternal Jesus 
 re-affirmed in the eighteenth verse, with greater 
 emphasis -. " I am He that liveth, and was dead, 
 and behold I am alive els tovs alwvas rwv alcovcov, 
 Amen, and have the keys of death and hell." The 
 eternity of the Saviour, as well as that of His 
 omnipotent power, is here predicated. In the 
 fourth chapter is the vision of the throne of the 
 Eternal ; and in the eighth verse it is written, 
 " And they rest not day or night, saying, Holy, 
 holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and 
 is, and is to come!" and in the ninth verse 
 the same words are affirmed of Him wlio sat 
 
 B 
 
26 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 on the throne, "who liveth els rovs alwvas twv 
 
 aLwvfOV. 
 
 Now, if these same words, which predicate the 
 eternity of the Father and of the Son, are predi- 
 cated also of the rest of the blessed, and of the 
 punishment of the wicked, there can be no more 
 doubt as to the meaning of the word " eternal." 
 Let us examine, earnest in faith. In the fifth 
 chapter, where " the lion of the tribe of Juda, the 
 root of David," alone can open the book with the 
 seven seals, the same words are again used in 
 the thirteenth verse : " Blessing, and honour, and 
 glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the 
 throne, and unto the Lamb, els rovs alcovas rcov 
 alwvwv." In the seventh, and twelfth verse, the 
 same expression (distinguishing the Eternal) els 
 rovs alwvas rwv alwvcov is again solemnly predi- 
 cated ; and then, immediately after, follows the 
 vision of the eternal rest of the saved in Christ : 
 " These are they which came out of great tribu- 
 lation, and have washed their robes and made 
 them white — how ? — in the blood of the Lamb. 
 Therefore are they before the thi'one of God, and 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 27 
 
 serve Him day and night in His temple : and He 
 that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among 
 them ; they s^hall hunger no more, neither thirst 
 any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, 
 nor any heat ; for the Lamb which is in the midst 
 of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
 unto living fountains of water, and God shall 
 wipe all tears from their eyes" (14, 15, 16, 17 v.). 
 In the tenth chapter is the vision of the angel 
 who " sware by Him who livetli els tovs alwvas 
 Tc5i/ atwj^coy," who created heaven and earth and 
 aU things. In the eleventh chapter the same 
 words again mark the eternal reign of Christ ; 
 where it is affirmed by the seventh angel, " The 
 kingdom is to our God and his Christ, who shall 
 reign eis tovs aiwvas raiv atcovoov. 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter, after the vision, " I 
 saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven 
 having {EvayyeXiov alwvtov) the everlasting gospel, 
 to preach to them who dwell on the earth, and 
 to every nation, and tongue, and people, saying 
 with a loud voice, Pear God, and give glory to 
 Him " (6, 7 V.) ; then comes the first declaration. 
 
b THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 after this preaching of the Gospel, of tlie eternal 
 doom of the impenitent and wicked. This is pe- 
 culiarly marked as individual as well as national 
 doom ; and the worship and service of the beast, 
 by the several contexts in this and other chapters, 
 appears to be awfully general. " If any man (et 
 Tty) worship the beast and his image, the same 
 {avTos is used, marking individual doom) shall 
 drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is 
 poured out without mixture into the cup of His 
 indignation ; and he shall be tormented with fire 
 and brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels 
 and in the presence of the Lamb : and the smoke 
 of their torments ascendeth up els tovs alwva^ rwv 
 cuwvaiv : and they have no rest day or night, who 
 worship the beast and his image, and whosoever 
 {el Tis is again written) receiveth the mark of his 
 name." This is the first declaration of doom. 
 Again, the eternal rest of the saved immediately 
 follows this doom in the 12th and 13th verses: 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." 
 
 In the fifteenth chapter, seventh verse, is the 
 vision of the seven angels with the seven golden 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 29 
 
 vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth els tovs 
 alwvas ro)v alwvwv. In the twentieth chapter, 
 tenth verse, the eternal doom of the Devil (who, 
 St. Paul elsewhere tells us, " had the power of 
 deaths" bringing both the first and second death 
 on man), of the beast and the false prophet, is 
 declared to be " the lake of fire and brimstone, 
 where they shall be tormented els tovs alwvas 
 rcov alcovcov. This doom shall be as eternal, mark, 
 as the existence of the Eternal. After this second 
 assertion of the eternity of punishment, follows 
 the awful description of the general resurrection 
 and judgment (not only of nations, as Mr. Mau- 
 rice glosses, on the twenty-fifth chapter of Mat- 
 thew, but) of every soul born into this world. In 
 the eleventh verse the throne "of judgment" is 
 set ; and the twelfth verse proceeds : " I saw the 
 dead, great and small, stand before God ; and the 
 books were opened: and another book was opened, 
 which was the Book of Life : and the dead were 
 judged out of those things which were written in 
 the books. And the sea gave up the dead which 
 
 ' Hebrews ii. 14. 
 
 B 2 
 
30 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 were in it ; and death and hell gave up the dead 
 which were in them: and they were judged every 
 man (e/cao-Tos') according to their works: and death 
 and hell were cast into the lake of fire: and who- 
 soever (66 TLs) was not found in the Book of Life 
 was cast into the lake of lire." This is exactly 
 the description of St. Matthew: the wicked are 
 to be cast into the fire prepared for the devil and 
 his angels. The " lake of fire" and " the second 
 death" are varied terms of the same doom; and 
 it is not a fire which consumes, as Mr. Maurice 
 glosses; for "the smoke of torment going up for 
 ever and ever," predicates continued existence : 
 otherwise torment would end. It is to be " day 
 and night els rovs aiwvas rcov alcovcov." 
 
 The twenty-first chapter commences with the 
 vision of the Eternal City, the New Jerusalem, the 
 Rest of the saved, wherein "all tears shall be wiped 
 from their eyes." Then is repeated the third 
 time the eternal doom of the wicked as servants 
 of Satan : no warning of eternal punishment is 
 omitted, nor is any invitation to repentance in 
 the long-sufiFering of eternal love : " the fearful 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 31 
 
 and unlDelieving, and the abominable, and mur- 
 derers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and ido- 
 laters, and all liars, shall have their part in the 
 lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which 
 is the second death." 
 
 The twenty-second and last chapter opens with 
 man's re-admission to the tree of life, from which 
 Adam and Eve had been driven forth ; and the 
 merciful declaration to the saved, there " shall be 
 no more curse:" for the salvation shall be els tovs 
 alwvas rwv alcovoov (5 v.) This was, is, and will be 
 the Eternal Gospel of the Lamb " slain from the 
 foundation of the world," prefigured in the sacri- 
 fice of Abel. But no one can enter into the Eter- 
 nal City, to the waters and tree of life, but " they 
 who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." A 
 last warning is given to the impenitent in the 
 eleventh and fifteenth verses, and for the third 
 time the liar is specified : " Whosoever loveth and 
 maketli a lie." The eternity of punishment is, 
 then, most certain, for it is repeatedly predicated 
 in the very same words in which the Eternal 
 predicates His own government and very Being. 
 
33 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 Yet, even here, in the last extremity, eternal 
 love still calls the wicked to repentance: "Turn 
 ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" For it is 
 written, " The Spirit and the bride say. Come ; 
 and let him that heareth say. Come ; and let him 
 that is athirst. Come ; and whosoever will, let 
 him take of the water of life freely." (17 v.) 
 
 As these reasoners dwell on the power of con- 
 science, we ought well to mark the rule of Provi- 
 dential government over that inward monitor. 
 When men forsake the law of God, he leaves 
 them to their own devices : " Ephraim is joined 
 to idols : let Mm alone^^ "Ephraim is a mer- 
 chant ; the balances of deceit are in his hands ; 
 he loveth to deceive^." " Because Ephraim hath 
 made many altars to sin, altars shall be to him 
 a sin. I have written to him the great things 
 of my law : but they were counted as a strange 
 thing^." Thus, immediately before the all- 
 merciful invitation to " whosoever loilV,' there is 
 again a special warning, marking the power of 
 
 ' Hosea iv. 17. ^ Hosea r\i. 7, mdrgin. * Hosea rii. 11, 13. 
 "• Revelation xxii. 11, 12. 
 
THE ETEUNAL GOSPEL. 33 
 
 habits, good and evil, over the conscience of every 
 man that breathes ; man being left to the exercise 
 of his own free-will, to choose the blessing or the 
 curse. The word here pronounces, " He that is 
 unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which 
 is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is 
 righteous, let him be righteous still : and he that 
 is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I 
 come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to 
 give to every {eKaartp) man according as his work 
 shall be." The word warns every man here, 
 that habit is more powerful than conscience. Let 
 us, then, beware of sin. 
 
 This book (the last seal placed by the Almighty 
 on His universal word) then closes with this most 
 awful admonition : " If any man shall add unto 
 these things, God shall add unto him the plagues 
 that are written in this book ; and if any man 
 shall take away from the word of the book of 
 this prophecy, God shall take away his part out 
 of the book of life, and out of the holy city, 
 and from the things which are written in this 
 book." 
 
34 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 With this judgment before our eyes, we must 
 consider that not only is alwviov appUed to the 
 Gospel, but the very same words predicated by 
 the Eternal to mark His own being, are positively 
 predicated of the punishment of the wicked, and 
 of the rest of the saved : to add more would be 
 superfluous. 
 
 Such teachers are, then, most manifestly erring 
 from " the truth as it is in Jesus ;" and theii' doc- 
 trine involves the most fearful consequences, in 
 deceiving human nature, corrupt as it is, into sin, 
 by the hope of non-eternal punishment. Let the 
 young beware, in the first ebullitions of the pas- 
 sions, of these philosophical sophistries; for the hu- 
 man conscience is too soon and too easily " seared 
 even as with a hot iron." But more especially 
 let the aged beware, who have gone on in the 
 subtleties of an evil worldly jm-isprudence, loving 
 and making lies for the base purposes of thefts. 
 Men have dared in our age to set up a (so-called) 
 law of this world, in actual enmity to the law of 
 God, which they daily despise, violate, and dese- 
 crate ; — to what purpose ? That law is the sole 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 35 
 
 empire over man, and its violation most assuredly 
 incurs eternal punishment. The word for iniquity 
 is dvofila, and these men daily commit iniquity ; 
 while, one thousand years before Christ, man was 
 told, " He that turneth away his ear from hearing 
 the law, even his prayer shall be abomination^" 
 The moral, then, cannot be repudiated from the 
 civil, commercial, and political law of nations, 
 without really repudiating God : it is practical 
 atheism, as " the Alpha and Omega" of the word 
 proves. 
 
 The warning of St. Paul to the Colossians is 
 at this moment peculiarly needed: " Beware, lest 
 any man spoil {(rvkaywycov ^) you, through philo- 
 sophy or vain deceit, after the manner of men, 
 after the rudiments of the world, and not after 
 Christ." Our religion is a religion of love, and 
 St. John was the apostle of love; but God hateth 
 sin, and therefore this Apostle shunned not more 
 than Moses and the Prophets to place "the bless- 
 
 ^ Proverbs xxviii. 9. 
 
 2 2v\ayoDy(a>, prccdas ago et abduco ; from ffvXr}, prcedcu, et 
 &y(D, ago ; driving the prey. 
 
36 THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 
 
 ing and the ciu'se," like a faithful witness, before 
 us sinners. Why ? To point to us all and each, 
 as the only refuge and sanctuary, 
 
 To Evayye\iov acwviov, — 
 
 the same eternal Gospel which St. Paul so- 
 lemnly declared to all men, and to the Ephcsians, 
 when "they were to see his face no more. Where- 
 fore, I take you to record this day, that I am pure 
 from the blood of all men : for I have not shunned 
 to declare unto you all the counsel of God^" 
 We must all sing " the song of Moses," as well 
 as "of Christ" (thus fully acknowledging our 
 obedience is due to the moral law) — " Great and 
 glorious are thy works. Lord God Almighty ! Just 
 and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints !" 
 
 ' Acts XX. 26, 27. 
 
 There is so m\ieli of confusion, contradiction, and mysticism 
 in Mr. Maurice's pamplilet, that it is excessively difficult to 
 comprehend his meanings. But this is a plain case of Scrip- 
 tural teaching, to be entered on and discussed shortly in the 
 
THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. 37 
 
 plain words of Sacred Scripture. Those few words, T hope, 
 are enough in answer. 
 
 Until a friend, to whom I had sent my book, wrote me to- 
 wards the close of last year, of the re-appearance of these very 
 ancient errors, I had never heard that they had been again 
 lately promulgated. Forty years back, taught by Alexander 
 Cruden's simple but excellent Concordance, I remarked the 
 varied uses of the words " Everlasting" and " Eternal" in the 
 translation of our Bible : and to that simple and honest work 
 I recommend every unlearned, unphUosophical reader. As 
 Origen wished and strove to mingle Plato, so our modern 
 professors seem to wish to mix the AristoteUan, or the same 
 Greek philosophy, with the totally incompatible revelations 
 of the Gospel. Revelation, always remember, never was, and 
 never can be, a science. Behold the justice and mercy of God : 
 — here, all men are equal. But I do by no means deny or de- 
 nounce the utility of the philosophy of Greece and Rome, in 
 their proper sphere and place. Forty-five years back I also 
 read Aristotle and Cicero at Oxford, and I freely acknowledge 
 they are admirable proofs and exercises of reasoning, well 
 adapted to animate, to train, and imfold fhe intellects and the 
 mind of youth. But in no case can they be grafted on the 
 revelation of the eternal Gospel, which was infinitely "past 
 their finding out^." All this philosophy is "foolishness" to 
 the revelation of the Gospel. 
 
 J. E. 
 
 February 3, 1854. 
 
 ^ Romans xi. 38. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE, 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 Luke s. 25—20, 
 
 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, 
 saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? He 
 said unto him. What is written in the law ? how readest 
 thou ? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and Avith 
 all thy strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour 
 as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered 
 right : this do, and thou shalt live. 
 
 Amongst the expedients which have been em- 
 ployed by the enemies of the cross of Christ 
 to weaken the faith of the wavering and un- 
 stable in the Word, none perhaps have been 
 adopted with greater success than the unfair 
 
 B 
 
H SERMON I. 
 
 production of seeming contradictions as argu- 
 ments of its inconsistency. They advance such 
 apparent differences as so many proofs, that 
 sacred Scripture is at variance with itself, and 
 has at several periods promulgated doctrines 
 either decisively different, or, at least, founded 
 upon different principles. They contrast the 
 exterminations^ ordained by the God of Israel 
 with the all-merciful precepts of our Saviour ; 
 and will not see that the same lonfj-suffering- 
 justice (guided, doubtless, by the wisdom and 
 foreknowledge of the Deity), and the same 
 eternal hatred to sin (as destructive of man's 
 every hope of happiness), breathe equally 
 throughout these separate dispensations. Pur- 
 suing the same insidious plan, they assert, 
 that (although the moral law is to a word 
 the same in both) the sanctions of the Law of 
 Moses, and those of Christian morality, are 
 totally distinct J the one being enforced only 
 by temporal, and the other by the far more 
 awful consequences of eternal rewards and 
 
 ^ See Arclideacon Paley's Sermon on Joshua x. 40. 
 
SERMON I. 3 
 
 punishments. From this seeming discrepancy 
 they would argue the falsehood of both revela- 
 tions (for they must stand or fall with each 
 other) ; that they might free themselves, on 
 either hand, from the fear of an avenging God, 
 in giving a full loose to the gratifications of 
 their lawless desires, and in committing all 
 iniquity with greediness unchecked and un- 
 controlled. Hating righteousness, and loving 
 iniquity, these are the consequences which 
 those who live in known sin, and whose in- 
 terest therefore it is to number themselves 
 with the brutes that perish, would willingly 
 deduce. Abhorring the light, because their 
 deeds are evil, and therefore closing their eyes 
 and hearts against its admittance, — conscious, 
 moreover, of their evil passions, yet unwilling 
 to be freed from their bondage, — they would, 
 in all the meanness and infatuation of their 
 grovelling nature, cast behind them, as a 
 worthless thing, the glorious hope of immor- 
 tality. They assert, then, that neither the 
 Law nor the Prophets revealed the fact of a 
 
 B 2 
 
4 SERMON I. 
 
 future state, and consequently, that the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus first promulgated this doctrine ; 
 thereby insinuating that the sacred Scripture 
 is at variance with itself. Let us turn, how- 
 ever, from these deluded persons to the Word 
 of God. Let us search these holy records in 
 humble confidence, and throughout them, even 
 from the beoinninfj to the end, shall we find 
 plainly delineated the revelation, not of a 
 perishing, but of an eternal life. 
 
 From many circumstantial proofs scattered 
 throughout the New Testament, which, when 
 collected together, form a train of evidence 
 that cannot be gainsaid, it appears, that the 
 doctrines of a resurrection, and of a future 
 state, were held nationally by the Jews, before 
 our Saviour preached ; and that they were 
 referred by the Jews, by our Saviour himself, 
 and by the Apostles, to the earlier revelations 
 of the Word of God. To this point my pre- 
 sent discourse must be confined, as these 
 proofs are numerous; and I trust that I shall 
 be enabled to make such a selection that the 
 
SERMON I. 5 
 
 most conclusive evidences may be submitted to 
 your attention. 
 
 Our text first demands our examination. 
 Reverting, tben, to it, we find that a certain 
 lawyer (or person skilled in the exposition of 
 the Law of Moses), tempting our Saviour, put 
 to Him this question, " Master, what shall I 
 do to inherit eternal life?" The strength of 
 this question rests upon the words, " what 
 shall I do;" 'what means shall I take to 
 attain the acknowledged end, which we all 
 aim at, even eternal life ; we all confess and 
 teach, according to our Law, that there is a 
 life beyond the grave; for although^ we are 
 born that we may die, yet we die that Ave may 
 live.' Doubtless, he expected that our Saviour 
 would have answered, in asserting the abso- 
 lute necessity of a belief in Himself as the 
 Messiah, that seed of Abraham, through faith 
 in whom alone life eternal was promised ; but 
 penetrating his design, Jesus retorted by the 
 
 ' Aphorism of a Jewish rabbin, quoted by Roland on Jose- 
 plius on the Jewish war. 
 
6. SERMON I. 
 
 question, " What is written in the law ? how 
 readest thou?" Here, then, is a direct refer- 
 ence to the Mosaic Scriptures, as laying down 
 the means by which the scribe might acquire 
 the great reward therein promised. These 
 means, the lawyer (proudly confiding in his 
 own righteousness, and overlooking the neces- 
 sity of atonement) but partly understood j yet 
 we find him giving this ready answer from the 
 Law of Moses : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 strength, and with all thy mindj and thy 
 neighbour as thyself.'* To this our Saviour 
 rejoins, "Thou hast answ^ered right j this do," 
 (plainly proving that the question related to 
 the means,) "and thou shalt live." Foiled in 
 his traitorous object, by the acknowledged 
 propriety of this exposition, the scribe at- 
 tempts to justify himself by a further question, 
 which is answered by the beautiful parable of 
 the good Samaritan, with which our Saviour 
 dismisses his latent enemy, utterly abashed 
 and confounded. 
 
SERMON I. 7 
 
 The meaning of this whole narration is too 
 plain to admit of misconstruction j hut our 
 attention should he particularly turned to the 
 last words of our Saviour's answer, " this do, 
 and thou shalt live." Jesus does not say, live 
 eternally, although the question related exclu- 
 sively to eternal life. What more conclusive 
 proof can we desire of the exact meaning and 
 weight, given in this age, not only hy the Son 
 of God, but even by his bitterest enemies, to 
 this in the Mosaic Law so common expression ? 
 In precisely the same spirit, we find, that al- 
 most always, in speaking of a future state (or 
 of eternal life), our Saviour refers his hearers 
 to the Law and the Prophets j and in no one 
 portion of the Gospel can be said to have 
 brought this forward Himself, as a new and 
 unheard-of doctrine. In this same Gospel, 
 accordingly \ we find a certain ruler (plainly 
 a different instance) making the common in- 
 quiry, "Good Master, what shall I do to in- 
 herit eternal life ?" And this man, so far from 
 
 > Ch. XYiii. 18. 
 
8 SERMON I. 
 
 being willing to become a disciple of Jesus, 
 leaves Him, sorrowful indeed, but by no means 
 intending to yield obedience to his precepts. 
 The same instance is recorded in the Gospels 
 of Matthew \ and Mark^; in the former, the 
 answer to the inquiry is again given in the 
 same remarkable words, "if thou wilt enter 
 into life " (again our Saviour does not express 
 eternal, although it is clearly understood), 
 "keep the commandments." 
 
 With the perfect ignorance of their own 
 hearts and nature, revealed as these were to 
 them, in the Word — with the self-sufficient 
 pride by which the Jews and their teachers 
 were induced to rest solely on obedience, to 
 the exclusion of faith — with their partial blind- 
 ness, in thus accepting one part of the Law 
 while they rejected the other — forgetting the 
 continual burnt-offering, the blood of the atone- 
 ment, and that even Aaron, the saint of the 
 Lord, was not admitted into the earthly sanc- 
 tuary of their God^ without shedding of blood 
 
 ' Ch. xix. IG. 2 ch. X. 17, » Pleb. ix. 22. 
 
SERMON I. 9 
 
 — -wc have now nothing to do; although we 
 must not here pass these facts altogether un- 
 noticed. But it was, in our Saviour's age, 
 universally felt and acknowledged that Moses, 
 in using the word life, meant not the promise 
 of the life that now is only, but of that also 
 which was to come. Referring to our Sa- 
 viour's earliest discourses, nay, to those of his 
 forerunner, John the Baptist, we shall every- 
 where discover that the doctrine of a future 
 state (and that of rewards and punishments) 
 was well known and previously established. 
 The Law was given through Moses, by the 
 Almighty, to serve until the coming of Christ, 
 through whom alone came grace and truth ; 
 but through the promise and the Law — con- 
 tained, as they are, in the same Scriptures, of 
 which, if I may so express myself, they form 
 the universally-breathing spirit — through faith 
 and obedience there was life eternal \ until the 
 appearance of a Mediator "of a better cove- 
 nant, which was established upon better pro- 
 
 ' " In him was life." — St. John i. 4. 
 
10 SERMON I. 
 
 raises."' "O! generation of vipers," ex- 
 claimed the Baptist to the Pharisees, " who 
 hath warned you to flee from the wrath to 
 come?"^ Then pointing out that this wrath 
 was future to the present life, and moreover, 
 what the vengeance was, he added, "Every 
 tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is 
 hewn down, and cast into the firej" whilst he 
 forewarned them that this fire was unquench- 
 able. The people and their teachers knew 
 that this punishment awaited the wicked be- 
 yond the grave, and are represented, there- 
 fore, as anxiously questioning the Baptist, 
 "What shall we do to avoid this awful fate? 
 The Baptist received not these doctrines from 
 the Saviour, but preached them before the 
 mission of Christ commenced, before *' Jesus 
 came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be 
 baptized of him." The Redeemer proclaimed 
 not the Gospel until after John was cast into 
 his fatal prison j wdien, departing from Galilee, 
 He came and dwelt at Capernaum. From 
 
 ' Heb. viii. C. ^ Compare Matt, and Luke. 
 
SERMON I. 11 
 
 that time Jesus began to preach \ The dis- 
 ciples of John, nay, his general hearers, were 
 well informed, then, before Christ preached, 
 that after death came the judgment. Turn- 
 ing, next, to our Saviour's Sermon on the 
 Mount, we shall find the same remarkable 
 evidence of this fact everywhere disclosed. 
 Therein, we discover that rewards and trea- 
 sures in heaven are held out to the emulation 
 of the believing and obedient, whilst the 
 punishments and fires of hell are denounced 
 against infidels and transgressors. Farther 
 on, in the same Gospel, the way which leadeth 
 to destruction, and the path that leadeth unto 
 life, are enlarged upon, with the day of judg- 
 ment, and the world to come, before all his 
 hearers (amongst whom were often the Scribes 
 and Pharisees), who never in one solitary in- 
 stance are recorded as objecting a single word 
 to his attributing these doctrines (we may say 
 sanctions) to their Law. He came, in fact, 
 as He always asserted, " not to destroy the 
 
 ' Matt. iv. 12, 13. 17. 
 
12 SERMON I. 
 
 law and the prophets, but to fulfil them ;" and 
 in every page throughout the four Gospels, 
 wheresoever a future state is insisted upon, it 
 is so, generally speaking, on the authority of 
 previous revelations. It is needless to multi- 
 ply proofs ; even in the fifth of St. John, where 
 the Saviour so plainly asserts, " The hour is 
 coming, in the which all that are in the graves 
 shall hear his voice, and shall come forth : 
 they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
 tion of life ; and they that have done evil unto 
 the resurrection of damnation ;" even this pas- 
 sage bears chieflv on the revelation of Him- 
 self, as the Promised Seed, the Almighty Re- 
 deemer. Looking forward in the same chap- 
 ter, we find Him charging his enemies to 
 *' Search the scriptures, for in them ye think 
 ye have " — What ? even " eternal life : and 
 they are they," He adds, " which testify of 
 me," through whom alone they promise life 
 everlasting. 
 
 In reality, the Sadducees were the only por- 
 tion of the Jews who disbelieved in a future 
 
SERMON I. 13 
 
 state ; and we have only to remark the man- 
 ner in which Jesus rebuked them and confuted 
 their errors, to collect further proofs of the 
 truth which has been advanced. In the three 
 Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and Mark, the 
 same answer to an insidious question by this 
 sect is recorded, with very little variation, 
 even of words. In the latter Gospel these are : 
 *'As touching the dead, that they rise, have 
 ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the 
 bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the 
 God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and 
 the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the 
 dead, but of the living ; ye therefore do greatly 
 err," Nothino- can be more direct than this 
 reference to Moses, as revealing and asserting 
 life eternal. The Scribes, the Pharisees, and 
 the Herodians seem, from the context, to have 
 been in the Temple about the time when this 
 question was agitated, and yet we find no ob- 
 jection recorded against our Saviour's clear 
 interpretation of this constantly-recurring pas- 
 sage in the Mosaic Scriptures. On the con- 
 
14 SERMON I. 
 
 trary, we discover decisive marks of the ap- 
 probation with which it was received': "One 
 of the scribes came, and having heard them 
 reasoning together, and perceiving that he had 
 answered them (the Sadducees) well, asked 
 him, which is the first commandment of all ? " • 
 To this our Saviom' replies, and dismisses this 
 man with the declaration, " Thou art not 
 far from the kingdom of God." These very 
 words, the kingdom of heaven, or of God, 
 were terms in use among themselves, referring 
 to a (I.) future state. They formed, we find, 
 the chief incentive of all the Baptist's and our 
 Saviour's calls to repentance ; and in the 14th 
 of Luke, Avhere Jesus is described as sitting at 
 meat with one of the chief Pharisees, and as 
 charging them to call the poor, the maimed, 
 the lame, the blind, to their feasts, for thus 
 they should be blessed in being recompensed at 
 the resurrection of the just, no surprise is 
 elicited by this doctrine ; on the contrary, it is 
 
 ' Luke XX. 39. "Then certain of the scribes answering 
 said, Master, thou hast well said." 
 
SERMON I. 15 
 
 received as well known — " One of them that 
 sat at meat with him, said unto him, Blessed 
 is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of 
 God." They, then, did look for an existence 
 with their God, in the resurrection to life 
 eternal. Nay, even Herod himself, living as 
 he did the slave of lust, and interested as he 
 therefore was to deny this truth, could not 
 conceal his belief in the resurrection, but gave 
 public proofs of his assent to this doctrine. 
 In the sixth chapter of Mark, this fact is twice 
 repeated, which is again noticed in the Gospel 
 of Matthew : — Herod, hearing of the mighty 
 works which Jesus wrought, "said. It is John, 
 whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead." 
 The national faith of the Jews in a future 
 state, together with the fact that they founded 
 their belief on the Mosaic and Prophetic Scrip- 
 tures, is again most distinctly marked in the 
 Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul, we are here 
 taught, grounded his defence before the chief 
 priests and the elders and all their council at 
 Jerusalem, and, subsequently, before Felix at 
 
16 SERMON I. 
 
 Csesarea, upon the universal reception of this 
 point of religious faith. *' I confess unto thee," 
 said he to Felix, "that after the way which 
 they call heresy, so worship I the God of my 
 fathers, believing all things which are written 
 in the law and in the prophets ; and have hope 
 toward God, which they themselves also allow, 
 that there shall he a resurrection of the 
 dead, both of the just and unjust." Being left 
 bound by Felix, he is again forced to defend 
 himself before his successor Festus, and King 
 Agrippa, and does so upon this self-same plea. 
 In the opening of this third defence, Paul 
 congratulates himself that he speaks before 
 Agrippa, and why? "Because I know thee 
 to be expert in all customs and questions 
 amongst the Jews." Thus Agrippa was not 
 likely to be deceived by any false representa- 
 tion, nor to allow any but public and notorious 
 facts to be advanced uncontradicted. Paul 
 then proceeds, as he had done in his two 
 former trials, to defend himself upon the same 
 grounds. "Now I stand and am judged for 
 
SERjMON I. 
 
 17 
 
 the hope of the promise^ made of God unto 
 our fathers : unto which promise our twelve 
 trihes (that is, our whole nation), instantly 
 serving God day and night, hope to come." 
 " Why," he adds, pointing out what that pro- 
 mise and what that hope w^as, " why should 
 it be thought a thing incredible with you, that 
 God should raise the dead?" Turning to the 
 third chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, 
 we find that he refers, in common with his na- 
 tion, this promise to the Pentateuch, asserting 
 that it was made unto Abraham and to his 
 seed. His enemies, then, referred their hope 
 of life eternal to this very promise, it being 
 the essential foundation of the Mosaic Law, 
 being shown forth in continual sacrifice, which 
 they yet blindly rejected in the person of the 
 Messiah. Nothing can be more satisfactory 
 or more conclusive than this evidence. 
 
 It will be well, however, to contrast these 
 repeated declarations of St. Paul with an ex- 
 
 ' 1 Epistle of John, ii. 25 : " And this is the promise that 
 he hath promised to us, even eternal life."' 
 
%B SERMON I. 
 
 pression which occurs in the Second Epistle to 
 Timoth}', where he asserts that Jesus Christ 
 " hath abolished death, and hath (II.) brought 
 life and immortality to light through the 
 gospel." It does appear that too particular 
 a signification has been attached by some 
 writers to these words. From what has 
 been advanced, it is clear that life and im- 
 mortality had been previously revealed, and 
 that our Saviour, the Apostles, and Paul, 
 generally asserted that it had been so before 
 ever the Gospel (as far as it concerned that 
 age) had been preached. Is there any con- 
 tradiction here? By no means. By the details, 
 by the particulars, by the comparisons and 
 illustrations which our Saviour has given to us 
 of the state after death, darkly shadowed as 
 they now even are, yet far more extended than 
 those of any previous revelation. He may, 
 indeed, be said to have so cleared up and 
 sanctioned the promise made unto the fathers 
 of the Jews, as to have rendered it, as far as 
 possible, comprehensible to man's finite and 
 
SERMON I. 19 
 
 limited understanding. But beyond all these 
 lights, He was that seed of Abraham in and 
 through whom alone that promise was made; 
 and to whom all the ages of progressive pro- 
 phecy had exclusively pointed as the one only 
 Redeemer. He, too, had in his own person 
 abolished death ; for He was peculiarly the 
 first fruits from the dead, in whom all were to 
 be made alive ^: the first and only being of mor- 
 tal mould, who having been, beyond all con- 
 tradiction, subjected to a public death, arose 
 from the grave never again to submit to the 
 power of death, but leading captivity captive. 
 He affbrded the first living evidence given to 
 the light of day of the resurrection of the 
 body, together with man's subsequent ascen- 
 
 * " But now is Christ risen from th.e dead, and become the 
 first fruits of them that slept." — 1 Cor. xv. Acts xsvi. 22 : 
 " Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this 
 day, witnessing both to small and great, none other things 
 than those which the prophets and Moses did say should 
 come." 23 ver. : " That Christ should suffer, and that he should 
 be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew 
 light unto the people, and the Gentiles." Revelation i. 5 ; 
 "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the 
 first begotten of the dead," &c., &c. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 SERMON I. 
 
 sion to life and immortality. He first showed 
 himself alive after his passion by many infal- 
 lible proofs, being seen of his Apostles and 
 followers forty days, and ffiyinfr therein, and 
 by his subsequent ascension, to mortal senses, 
 full perception of a future immortality. Such 
 proof, in fact, as enabled St. John to assert, in 
 confirmation of these words of St. Paul, " That 
 which was from the beginning, which we haye 
 heard, which v/e have seen with our eyes, which 
 we have looked upon, and our hands have 
 handled, of the word of life ; (for the life was 
 manifested, and we have seen it, and bear wit- 
 ness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which 
 was with the Father, and was manifested unto 
 us ;) that which we have seen and heard de- 
 clare we unto you, that ye also may have fel- 
 lowship with us : and truly our fellowship is 
 with the Father, and with his Son Jesus 
 Christ."^ If Christ be not risen (as St. Paul 
 justly said to the Gentile Corinthians), then 
 indeed is our faith vain in Him, as man's 
 
 ' 1 John i. 1, 2, 3. 
 
SERMON I. 21 
 
 Redeemer, and as the Son of God ; but before 
 his resurrection there were proofs (less dis- 
 tinct, it is true, but undoubted, ones) of a 
 future state, amongst that chosen people, to 
 whom were committed the oracles of God. 
 God hath indeed given assurance (as he also 
 said to the Athenians) of a day of judgment, 
 in that He hath raised Him from the dead ^ ; 
 but it is one last sealino- assurance to a regular 
 series of proofs, added in mercy to man's un- 
 belief, as a consummation to many previous 
 revelations. 
 
 St. Paul never could have intended to ad- 
 vance, in contradiction thus to himself — in 
 contradiction to his Saviour — that the resur- 
 rection to judgment and everlasting life were 
 only revealed, at first, by the Gospel of Jesus. 
 He knew, in fact, that the Gospel had been 
 the same, and founded upon the same eternal 
 principles, even from the Fall of Man, even 
 from the foundation of the world ; that the 
 same promise which had been made to the first 
 
 ' Acts xvii. 
 
22 SERMON I. 
 
 parents and again unto Noah, and through suc- 
 cessive ages unto the Fathers, was still pre- 
 sented, only in clearer view, by the Gospel of 
 Jesus unto the Jews, and not only unto them, 
 hut also unto all mankind. He believed, 
 moreover, with those Jews, as he publicly 
 asserted, that the Mosaic Law, rightly under- 
 stood, held forth that promise and assured that 
 hope. 
 
 If there existed, as is I think proved from 
 this internal evidence (which is beyond all 
 suspicion), revelations of a future state, as 
 depending upon the promise long previous to 
 those made by our Saviour, and that of rewards 
 and punishments as necessarily consequent 
 upon obedience or disobedience to the Law of 
 God, it is difficult to conceive how it could 
 ever have been denied that this Law was not 
 sanctioned by eternal consequences. In one 
 most striking passage of the Gospel it appears 
 that our Saviour actually asserts this to be 
 the case. Let us examine the parable of the 
 rich man and Lazarus, spoken as it also was 
 
SERMON I. 23 
 
 before the Pharisees, with whose preconceived 
 and popular ideas of a future state it seems 
 to have perfectly agreed, as far as relates to 
 the existence of retributive justice beyond the 
 grave. There we find the rich man (a Sad- 
 ducee, probably) attending alone to self and 
 selfish pleasures, and conducting his life upon 
 the principle which distinguished that sect : 
 "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die." This was his hope, this was his belief; 
 and the poor wretch at his door, with whose 
 pining misery and utter want of the common 
 necessaries of life he must have been ac- 
 quainted, together with his utter helplessness, 
 and therefore the impossibility of his acquiring 
 these things for himself, is treated by him 
 with the same careless contempt as the very 
 " dogs that came and licked his sores." Even 
 those dogs "did eat of the crumbs which fell 
 from their master's table," with which this 
 poor person desired in the agonies of hunger 
 to be fed, but desired in vain. No pitying 
 hand was extended to his succour; and, he 
 
24 SERMON I. 
 
 perished. Reason should assure us, that such 
 a scene could not be viewed by the Righteous 
 Being, whose providence governs the earth, 
 with indifference ; but that there must be 
 some place of retribution. Revelation teaches 
 us that this is the case ; *' the beggar died, 
 and was carried by angels into Abraham's 
 bosom." The rich man dies also, and is 
 awakened to the utter folly of all his previous 
 hopes and belief in the region of everlasting 
 horrors (HI.) — " in hell he lifted up his eyes, 
 being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, 
 and Lazarus in his bosom." 
 
 But could that Righteous Being, who go- 
 verns the world, plunge a poor and frail and 
 erring creature unwarned into the horrible pit 
 of the everlasting burnings ? 
 
 Again, let us look to the Word of God, 
 for there we shall find, always, in all things, 
 his ways justified. In vain does the rich man 
 seek relief from Abraham, the father of his 
 nation, to whom also the promise vvas made, 
 and who, believing, had entered into that rest. 
 
SERMON I. 25 
 
 All access to mercy was closed for ever; the 
 rich man had chosen his portion, then he 
 reaped the fruits of his choice. Finding his 
 own fate unalterable, some remains of natural 
 affection induces him to urge the following re- 
 quest : " I pray thee, therefore, father, that 
 thou wouldest send Lazarus to my father's 
 house, for I have five brethren, that he may 
 testify unto them, lest they come into this place 
 of torment." What answer does our Redeemer 
 himself place in the mouth of Abraham? 
 Does he say, " The times of this ignorance 
 God winked at, so that at a certain revolution 
 of things, thou even mayest hope to be re- 
 leased, but now life and immortality are 
 brought to light, and they are inexcusable 
 who cannot gather these truths from the 
 preaching of the Son of Man ? " No, to the 
 Law^ and to the testimony, is again the answer; 
 " Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses 
 and the prophets, let them hear them." 
 " Moses and the prophets, as you well know^, 
 
 ' Isaiah viii. 20. 
 
26 SERMON I. 
 
 warned you, and still warn these your brethren, 
 that there is a state after death : they are, 
 therefore, without excuse, if they do not gather 
 this fact from their writings alone, and if they 
 do not, by obedience to the Law, having faith 
 in the promises of God, avoid this place of 
 torment." Again, he urges, not daring, ob- 
 serve, even for a moment, to contradict this 
 palpable truth: "Nay, father Abraham, but 
 if one went unto them from the dead they 
 will repent!" The same just and inflexible 
 answer is again returned : *' If they hear not 
 Moses and the prophets, neither will they be 
 persuaded though one rose from the dead." 
 
 If there is any meaning in words so plain, 
 that it cannot be wrested, surely it is here; 
 and as surely this passage does attribute the 
 certain consequences of future rewards and 
 punishments, as confirming the revealed pre- 
 cepts of the Law and of the Prophets. The 
 mild, the more than merciful, the tender 
 character of our Saviour, preclude the pos- 
 sibility of his having passed this decisive judg- 
 
SERMON I. 27 
 
 ment but on the surest and most indubitable 
 grounds. From the varied internal evidence 
 adduced (which might be yet greatly extended), 
 it is altogether undeniable that the Jews clearly 
 understood that Moses spoke of an eternal life, 
 and that they, moreover, wtII knew that the 
 keeping or transgressing of the Law of God 
 was to be followed by far more than tem- 
 poral consequences. Nor is the evidence par- 
 tial; the whole of the writers of the New Tes- 
 tament, the rulers, the high priests, the 
 teachers, the scribes, and nation of the Jews, 
 with the exception of one sect, did under- 
 stand and explain Moses as conveying the 
 promise of an eternal life ; and if so, it is 
 scarcely necessary to add that eternal conse- 
 quences must have been attached, as we see 
 they were, in their own unbiassed opinions, 
 unto their Law. Their great and fatal error 
 was, that they trusted solely in themselves ; 
 that they looked no farther than to their own 
 sinful and imperfect obedience, vainly fancying 
 in their presumption that they could do and 
 
28 SERMON I. 
 
 live; "being ignorant of God's righteousness, 
 and going about to establish their own right- 
 eousness, they did not submit themselves 
 to the righteousness of God,"^ overlooking 
 the promise, and the constant and daily ne- 
 cessity of atonement by sacrifice, they re- 
 garded not all the warnings of their God, as 
 " He spake by the mouths of his holy pro- 
 phets which have been since the world began, 
 that the just" (that is, the obedient to their 
 God) " shall live by faith." 
 
 But was this any novel doctrine, artfully 
 introduced in later ages by their rulers ? Re- 
 velation clearly proves that it was not ; and 
 even reason and experience would equally 
 answer in the negative. Is it probable, is it 
 possible, that the peculiar people to whom were 
 committed the oracles of God, should ever have 
 been nationally ignorant of a truth which uni- 
 versal humanity has received, as if by accla- 
 mation, and which cannot be traced to any one 
 orio'inal mortal teacher, which, in fact, de- 
 
 ' Bom. s. 3. 
 
SERMON I. 29 
 
 scendcd equally to all nations from the first 
 parents of mankind, to whom, as the word of 
 life, it was doubtless revealed by the Almighty ? 
 However obscured tlie doctrine of a future 
 state may be by fable and superstition, it has 
 yet, amongst the wrecks of true religion (com- 
 mitted to all mankind originally), been always 
 providentially preserved in the mind of man ; 
 his conscience bearing witness with his spirit to 
 its reality. Nor could such a thought have 
 ever entered therein, untaught by a superior 
 intelligence. 
 
 Had these doctrines been innovations more- 
 over, unsupported by the prophets and Moses, 
 it is literally impossible that the Jews would 
 ever have embraced them without a struggle, 
 which would have been remarked in their 
 history, ready at all times, as they were, to die 
 for their Law, and proving by their very con- 
 tempt of death, throughout all the ages of their 
 existence as a nation, their thorough belief in 
 a future immortality. No writer, sacred or 
 profane, mentions the rise of this doctrine 
 
30 SERMON I. 
 
 amongst them, -which, from this singular silence 
 even, we may fairly suppose was never disputed 
 till the appearance of the Sadducees (IV.), 
 In fact, Josephus, the Jewish historian, clearly 
 refers it, as does the Gospel, to no less ancient 
 revelations than those of Moses. " Every good 
 man (saith he, in the 11th B. against Apion) 
 has his own conscience hearing witness to him- 
 self ; and by virtue of our lawgiver's prophetic 
 spirit, and of the firm security God himself 
 affords to such an one, he believes that God 
 hath made this grant to those who observe 
 these laws, even although they be obliged 
 readily to die for them ; that they shall come 
 into being again j and, at a certain revolution 
 of things, shall receive a better life than they 
 had enjoyed before ; nor would I venture to 
 write this at this time, were it not well known 
 to all (V.) by our actions, that many of our 
 people have at many times bravely resolved 
 to endure any sufferings, rather than to speak 
 one word against our Law." While, elsewhere, 
 he as plainly asserts, that " those who live vi- 
 
SERMON I. 31 
 
 ciously in this life are to be detained in an ever- 
 lasting prison ;" ^ and again, are to be received 
 by the darkest place in Hades ^ It might be 
 urged, that mankind do not readily heap pe- 
 nalties and wrath upon themselves, but are 
 notoriously anxious rather to free themselves 
 fi'om the evil consequences attendant on their 
 sins, and even to conceal these, if possible, 
 from themselves, than willingly to embrace, 
 uncontrolled by Divine truth, a belief in 
 threatenings, which, besides punishment on 
 earth, include the tremendous penalties of no 
 less than Almighty indignation and vengeance ; 
 and that for no shorter period than an eter- 
 nity of tribulation, and anguish, and woe. 
 
 How is it, then, that it ever has been as- 
 serted that the Jews knew not always that 
 there was a future existence of rewards and 
 punishments? How is it, that we, who live 
 in a far distant age and country, and whom 
 the revolution of customs, and manners, and 
 languages, and centuries, contributes to blind, 
 ' Antiq. xyiii. c. 3. ^ Jewish War, b. 3, c. viii. 
 
32 SERMON I. 
 
 pretend to know the meaning of their Law and 
 their Prophets better than the nation did, even 
 in our Saviour's age? If these their views 
 had been utterly erroneous, we might, indeed, 
 have sought for arguments to overturn false- 
 hood, and give evidence to the truth ; but 
 their views were deficient, solely as to the 
 means, and assuredly not as to the end unto 
 which those means pointed. Eternal life was, 
 and is, and will be, the great end to which the 
 descendants of Abraham have ever directed 
 their vainly-exerted labours. When, then, they 
 attributed the same eternal consequences which 
 Jesus does to the Mosaic Law (until it was 
 fulfilled and annulled), shall we, as Christians, 
 gainsay Christ ? They looked not only, it is 
 true, for a spiritual Messiah, but it is indubi- 
 tably proved that they waited for the kingdom 
 of God, a spiritual existence of everlasting 
 bliss beyond the grave. They falsely trusted, 
 it is true, in works, instead of faith ; but the 
 same faith was proposed to them in the Law, 
 as is now held forth unto us in the Gospel; even 
 
SERMON I. 33 
 
 in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world, in whom alone is that life everlasting 
 which was and is equally the promise of the 
 old and new covenants. We trust in no other 
 promise but that made unto Abraham and his 
 seed ; we believe in no other Saviour but Him 
 who is foretold by Moses and all the Prophets. 
 Yet, although it cannot be denied that in this 
 age the Jewish nation did assert that Moses 
 preached the doctrines of eternal life, it is 
 contended, in contradiction to evident traces 
 scattered throughout the Old Testament, that 
 the Israelites were not always thus well in- 
 formed on this striking, this awful, this mo- 
 mentous truth. As if they could have been 
 more enlightened on the fact in this the dark- 
 est period of their history (for such it was 
 until the Baptist and our Saviour appeared), 
 than they were when the light and glory of the 
 prophetic spirit dwelt amongst them! It is 
 not credible. 
 
 We are referred, then, by our Saviour him- 
 self to Moses and the Prophets for the revela- 
 
34 SERMON I. 
 
 tion of a future state, but our inquiry cannot 
 be further prosecuted at present. In conclu- 
 sion, let it not be supposed that this subject is 
 merely speculative, for the inquiry is one which 
 is by no means alien to our own cases j on the 
 contrary, it actually bears a near and intimate 
 connection with the practice and conversation 
 of our every day. The awful scene which we 
 have been reviewing in the parable of the rich 
 man and Lazarus is one in which each indivi- 
 dual now around me must, ere long, bear his 
 part J and the thoughts, and words, and ac- 
 tions, which appear in and which guide our 
 daily conduct, will as assuredly determine our 
 fate as they did the separate destinies of the 
 beings before us. Do we bear these facts in 
 our minds? No. Death and the judgment 
 are for ever repelled from our thoughts, till 
 they are forced upon the shrinking spirit by 
 the near and certain approach of the king of 
 terrors. That heart of deceit, which we all 
 inherit, whispers continually to us, there is 
 ' time enough to think of these things j let 
 
SERMON I. 35 
 
 US enjoy ourselves for the present, and let not 
 our happiness be perpetually damped and con- 
 trolled by such tremendous subjects." But 
 will they appear less terrible to you in the 
 hour of trial and of death ; or is not he the 
 prudent and wise soldier, who warily watches 
 his enemy, who even sleeps not, but with his 
 arms around him, when he is hourly expecting 
 the combat, and knows that it must be fouorht 
 (and that often at a moment's warning), in 
 which, if he fails of victory, he had far better 
 never have existed ? Such are each of you, in 
 the figurative language of sacred Scripture ; 
 you are soldiers who must fight the good fight, 
 who must^ overcome, or perish everlastingly. 
 Knowing these things, does it become you, is 
 it common sense, to banish the reflection of 
 your own certain fate, which must overtake 
 you in a few short years, always, systematically, 
 from your thoughts ? On the contrary, ought 
 not your daily duty to your Creator, your daily 
 intercourse with your fellow men, to be at all 
 
 ' See the Revelation of St. John, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SERMON I. 
 
 times accurately examined, as aiFording that 
 peculiar evidence which must, in the day of 
 judgment, acquit or condemn you before Him 
 who is your judge, and before whom all the 
 past and present actions of your lives are had 
 in never-dying remembrance? Why will we 
 thus deceive ourselves ? The hour of devotion, 
 or of utter and forgetful levity ; the hour of 
 Christian charity, or of worldly and selfish 
 meanness ; the hour of purity or of pollution ; 
 the hour of forgiveness and forbearance, or of 
 malice and revenge ; the hour of open, and 
 kind, and Christian sincerity, and simplicity 
 of conduct, or of secret cabal and dark whis- 
 perings, and of well-concealed injustice ; all 
 these, and each of these, pass not for ever. 
 They shall be placed in living colours before 
 every soul of mankind, before our joyful or our 
 shrinking and appalled eyes, in the day of the 
 Lord's vengeance. Knowing these things, 
 should the subject we are now considering ever 
 be absent from our minds ? Should not the 
 realized idea of heaven and hell, as the al- 
 
SERMON I. 37 
 
 ternative presented to guide the every hour of 
 your life in obedience and righteousness, be 
 "laid up^ in your heart and in your soul, and 
 be bound for a sign upon your hand, and be as 
 frontlets between your eyes?" Should you 
 not teach them to your children, "speaking* 
 of them when thou sittest in thine house, and 
 when thou walkest by the way, when thou 
 liest down, and when thou risest up?" "Be 
 ye not fools, but wise ; redeeming the time, 
 because the days are evil :" no inconsideration, 
 no forgetfulness, no wilful infidelity, will long 
 blind the human spirit to the awful reality. 
 Meditate, then, upon these things j realize 
 them to your mind as your own certain, and 
 peculiar, and individual fate, till you are 
 taufjht to flee from the wrath to come unto the 
 sure and sheltering mercies of your Redeemer. 
 Behold, "the^ Lord is not slack concerning 
 his promise, as some men count slackness; but 
 is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to 
 
 ' Deut. vi. 7. 2 j)e^t^ ^i g. s 2 Peter iii. 9, 10. 
 
38 SERMON I. 
 
 repentance. But the day of the Lord wi 
 come as a thief in the night ; in the which the 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, 
 and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
 the earth also, and the works that are therein, 
 shall be burned up. Seeing then all these things 
 shall be dissolved, what manner of persons 
 ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and 
 godliness?" "Besober^ then, be vigilant; be- 
 cause your adversary the devil, as a roaring 
 lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may de- 
 vour : whom resist, stedfast in the faith, know- 
 ing that the same afflictions are accomplished 
 in your brethren which are in the world. But 
 the God of all grace, who hath called us unto 
 his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that 
 ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, sta- 
 blish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory 
 for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 ' 1 Pet. V. 8, 9, 10. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 FIRST SERMON. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Kingdom of God, Sec. p. ] 4. 
 
 "The Jews had two worlds, as we translate it, 
 vuv aim, xai h fxiXhrn atuv ; the present world, and 
 the world to come. The Kingdom of God (as they 
 called it), or the time of the Messiah, they called 
 /xbxxuv aluv, the world to come : which, they be- 
 lieved, was to put an end to this w^orld; and tha 
 then, the just should be raised from the dead, to 
 enjoy in that new world a happy eternity, with those 
 of the Jewish nation, who should be then living." — 
 See The Reasonahleness of Christianity, by John 
 Locke: in Bp. Watson's Tracts, p. 60. — In confir- 
 mation of Mr. Locke's assertion, one of the very 
 
40 NOTES. 
 
 numerous allusions to this subject in the New Testa- 
 ment may be adduced: — Our Saviour, in speaking 
 of the sin against the Holy Ghost, declares to the 
 Pharisees, in terms that were well understood by 
 them all, that this sin should not be forgiven, oI/'te ev 
 rouTu ru atuvi, oinz Iv tw fx.sXXovTi. Matt. xii. 32. 
 
 II. 
 
 Jesus Christ brought life and iinmortality to light 
 through the Gospel, kc. p. 18. 
 
 The word contained in this passage of the original, 
 (puTi^co, strictly means, to enlighten, or to bring to 
 the hght, a subject already revealed ; not, to reveal a 
 subject hitherto unknown. To reveal is rendered by 
 .ctTrocaXvTrru, or av cx.Ka'Kv'n Toi, both by the LXX and by 
 the Evangelists. It may be requisite to give a few 
 instances of the use of these different words. Thus, 
 in Psalm xix. 8. 'H ivToxh Ku^iou TYiXauyrig (pcoTL^oua-a 
 6(p6aX(xoiii. Thus, in Isaiah liii. 1, Ka» o ^^ax^cov 
 Kuf/oy, Tivi a7r£HccXv(pByi. Thus St. Paul himself 
 elsewhere uses both words in their distinct meanings, 
 enlightening and revealing, in the same passage' to 
 the Ephesians. The general meaning of the word 
 ^arl^u cannot perhaps be better defined than by 
 an expression employed by St. Paul in the same 
 
 » Ephes. i. 17, IS. 
 
NOTES. 41 
 
 Epistle'; "Trav ya^ to ^avs^ovfisvov, (pug laTi. The Re- 
 deemer, the Mediator, brought life and immortality 
 to light in a much deeper and more extended sense 
 than by the mere revelation of eternal life ; that is, 
 in his own person; for He was the GospeP. Hence, 
 to preach Jesus is, throughout the New Testament, 
 synonymous with preaching the GospeP. As well 
 might it be argued that the Gospel abolished death 
 as that it brought life and immortality to light; the 
 Gospel did neither, but Jesus did both. The Gospel 
 is the instrument pointing to the way, but the way 
 is Jesus*. The Gospel is not the light, Jesus is Him- 
 self the light of the worlds The mystery hidden 
 from ages and from Generations was not the revela- 
 tion of eternal life, but the way, even Christ". The 
 old covenant was the revelation of eternal life, the 
 promise, through the seed of the woman : and those 
 who lived under that covenant, believing, knew the 
 promise^, but knew not the truth; they knew the 
 promise, but knew not the life*. They knew that 
 there was to be a resurrection to a second life, but 
 knew not the resurrection **. The old covenant was 
 the revelation, but the new covenant was the pal- 
 pable manifestation of the promise; life eternal, in 
 
 ' Ephes V. 13. 2 isa. yji. 14 ; jx. 6, 7 ; Luke ii. 10 ; Gal. iii. 8. 
 
 ^ Acts viii. 35 ; xvi. 31. * John xiv. 6. 
 
 • John i. 9; viii. 12. « Colossians i. 26, 27. 
 
 ' Acts xxvi. 6, 7. 8 John xiv. 6. 
 
 « John xi. 25. 
 
42 NOTES. 
 
 very person. Narrow and confined views never do 
 justice to the Word of God, and greatly endanger 
 our dishonouring the cross of Christ. Eternal life is 
 contained neither in the Scriptures' of the Old Testa- 
 ment, nor in the writings of the New Testament. 
 *' But these are written that ye might believe that 
 Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and, that 
 believing, ye might have life through his name." — 
 Eternal life is in Christ alone. 
 
 III. 
 
 In hell, he lifted up his eyes, &c. p. 24. 
 
 Hades is the word which the Evangelist puts in 
 the mouth of our Saviour in this parable for hell. 
 Again, in that Almighty promise which gives us 
 never-failing confidence in the eternal indestructibi- 
 lity of the Church of Christ, and where heaven and 
 hell are contrasted, Hades is the word given to our 
 Saviour by St. Matthew*. Nothing can be more 
 convincing as to the real force and meaning of the 
 term Hades, in the age of our Redeemer; when it 
 unquestionably signified a future state, and that of 
 punishment. It is worthy of remark also, that Jose- 
 phus, in his " Antiquities," mentions the expression 
 " Abraham's bosom," as a well-known mode of speech 
 amongst the Jews, signifying Paradise. 
 
 ' John V. 39; xx. 31. * Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 
 
NOTES. 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Saclducees, &c. p. 30. 
 
 The Talmuclists assert, that Sadoc, the first pro- 
 pagator of these impious doctrines, caused such ex- 
 citement by their pubHcation in Jerusalem, that he 
 was forced to fly from the vengeance of his country- 
 men, and took refuge in Samaria. Sadoc is beheved 
 to have lived a.m. 3740, or about 264 years before 
 the birth of Christ. The Jews consider the Saddu- 
 cees, or persons who now hold these doctrines, as 
 decided heretics. 
 
 V. 
 
 JVere it not well known to all hy our actions, &c. 
 p. 30. 
 
 "Animasque prselio, aut suppliciis peremptorum, 
 aeternas putant: hinc generandi amor, et raoriendi 
 contemptus." — Tacit. Hist. 1. v. s. 5. 
 
 "The Jews look, also, on the souls of those that 
 die in battle, or are put to death for their crimes, as 
 eternal ; hence arises their love of posterity and thei 
 contempt of death." 
 
 The learned and philosophic Tacitus thus fully 
 bears out the assertions of Josephus ; and both these 
 
44 NOTES. 
 
 celebrated historians are in exact accordance, not 
 only as to their testimony of the national faith of the 
 Jews in eternal life, but also of the universally 
 known proof which they displayed of that faith in 
 all their disasters ; this trait in their character being 
 again singularly marked throughout the whole of the 
 Old Testament. Nor should another remarkable 
 fact in this evidence be passed over unnoticed. Both 
 these historians assert, that criminals were to be 
 included in this eternal life, thus precisely coin 
 ciding with St. Paul's public testimony before Felix 
 at Csesarea; where, in the face of his accusing 
 nation, he avers, uncontradicted by any, " they them- 
 selves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of 
 the dead, both of the just and of the unjust," Can 
 any candid or upright mind, seeking sincerely the 
 truth, imagine proof more satisfactory than the 
 concurrent testimony of these three learned and cele- 
 brated men, amongst whom, too, collusion was im- 
 possible, as to the faith of the Jewish nation, in their 
 age, in life eternal ? Such evidence as this is alto- 
 gether conclusive and irrefragable. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 Luke xvi. 29. 
 
 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets ; 
 let them hear them. 
 
 In quitting the Gospel of the Saviour, and the 
 age in which it was promulgated, the first 
 difficulty that presents itself is the period of 
 ahout four centuries, which intervenes between 
 the ministry of Jesus and that of the last of 
 the prophets. In an inquiry like the present, 
 this period should not be passed by in silence; 
 and we must therefore consult, for information 
 on the subject, the writings generally attri- 
 buted to those times, which are to be found in 
 the books of the Apocrypha. We confess, 
 also, that in entering on the sacred Scriptures 
 of the prophets and Moses, we quit the full 
 radiance of the Sun of Righteousness, and enter 
 
46 SERMON II. 
 
 upon regions illuminated indeed, but yet less 
 strongly, by the lights and glories of revela- 
 tion. These lights, however, may be distinctly 
 traced by those who, with a becoming disposi- 
 tion, receive the Old Testament in humble 
 reverence, not as the word of men, but, as it 
 is in truth, the Word of God. Infidels, even, 
 must allow that the same great plan is ap- 
 parent throughout j and the same great prin- 
 ciples of human conduct are insisted on 
 through the whole tenor of both these dispen- 
 sations. The moral law remains unchanged ; 
 while the same splendid hopes, or awful fears, 
 to incite men to obey their Creator, or, on the 
 other hand, to deter them from sin and pollu- 
 tion, everywhere arrest the attention of the 
 anxious and considering, because believing, 
 mind. A superficial search of the writings of 
 the Pentateuch alone might, perhaps, lead 
 some readers to suppose that the Mosaic Law 
 promised only temporal, to the exclusion of 
 eternal, benefits ; but if guided by the Pro- 
 phetic Scriptures, and the other less con- 
 
SERMON II. 47 
 
 elusive, but yet most useful, evidence that may 
 be elsewhere collected, they consider the books 
 of Moses with the earnestness which they so 
 deeply merit, they will discover innumerable 
 traces, clear, decided, and incontrovertible, 
 that the Jews always had light enough, amidst 
 all the types and shadows of their Law, had 
 they chosen to use it, to guide every humble 
 and believing spirit to the knowledge of life 
 eternal. It has been argued, indeed, that 
 such a revelation was not necessary, the Pre- 
 sent Deity being always awfully conspicuous 
 amongst their nation j and that the immediate 
 rewards and punishments which Almighty 
 "Wisdom dispensed, were sufficient to compel 
 all but the most hardened and iniquitous to 
 choose good, and life. It has been argued, 
 that those who braved the visible presence 
 of their Creator, and who forgot all his bene- 
 fits poured upon them, deserved no less than 
 infinite punishment. Yet does it appear far 
 more consistent with the mercy of Providence, 
 and the warnings which were perpetually laid 
 
48 SERMON II. 
 
 before the Israelites, in, beyond all comparison, 
 lesser evils, that the transgressors should have 
 been always aware of the full penalties of their 
 almost incredible rebellions ; more especially 
 as both their temporal and eternal welfare was 
 always the acknowledged object of their Al- 
 mighty Father. We may be well assured that 
 death and the judgment, heaven and hell, 
 were never concealed from mankind, but by 
 their own wilful blindness. Whether they 
 were displayed, however, to the Jews as clearly 
 as they now are to us, is not material. If they 
 had evidence that man was immortal — that is, 
 that a state awaited him beyond the grave — it 
 was sufficient. Then we have no advantage 
 over them. They saw enough of the arm of 
 the Deity, of the signs and wonders around 
 them, and of the constant and appalling judg- 
 ments which overtook transgressors amongst 
 them, to be well aware how terrible must be 
 the penalty of Almighty vengeance, through 
 an eternal existence ; and these peculiar and 
 awful visitations were, perhaps, far more 
 
SERMON II. 49 
 
 striking, and more tremendous, than all the 
 detailed warnings of the Gospel. 
 
 To return to our text. We are therein re- 
 ferred, by our Saviour himself, for the revela- 
 tion of heaven and hell, of a state of future 
 rewards and punishments that is, unto Moses 
 and the Prophets. 
 
 It has been already pointed out that the 
 Jewish historian Josephus refers this doctrine 
 to the authority of Moses. But the writings 
 which are attributed to the four centuries 
 which elapsed between the prophecy of Ma- 
 lachi and the appearance of our Saviour, also 
 demand and deserve our examination. Al- 
 though we can only allow the books of the 
 Apocrypha the value of a commentary upon 
 the Scriptures, yet, as such, they bear a 
 reference to an inquiry like the present too 
 strong and too plain either to be overlooked 
 or despised. Beginning, then, with the latest 
 of these, we find in the most authentic history 
 of the Maccabsean princes, one direct proof in 
 the story of the Seven Brethren. The last of 
 
 E 
 
60 SERMON II. 
 
 these sufferers is represented as defying ^ An- 
 tiochus Epiplianes on this very ground, that 
 the Mosaic Law held forth the promise of life 
 eternal. *' Our brethren" (said he), " which 
 have now suffered a short pain, are dead under 
 God's covenant of everlasting life ; but thou, 
 through the just judgment of God, shalt re" 
 ceive just punishment for thy pride." Death 
 is here contemned, as a short pain, from the 
 perfect faith the believing had in a future 
 state. In the prayer of Manasses, again, we 
 find him, after expressing a deep sense of 
 all his sins, praying, " be not angry with me 
 for ever, by reserving evil for me, neither con- 
 demn me into the lower parts of the earth." 
 Comparing this with the same expression 
 which occurs frequently in the Prophetic 
 Scriptures, there is no doubt that it alludes to 
 punishment after death. The song of the 
 Three Children also holds forth life eternal : 
 " O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless 
 
 ^ This persecution of the Jews took place about 163 years 
 before Christ. 
 
SERMON II. 61 
 
 ye the Lord, praise and exalt him for ever." 
 The Book of Wisdom is literally full of the 
 most striking evidences, from which we need 
 only select some of the passages appointed to 
 be read by our Church, on All Saints day. 
 "The souls of the righteous are in the hand 
 of the Lord, and there shall no torment touch 
 them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed 
 to die, and their departure is taken for misery, 
 and their going from us to be utter destruc- 
 tion, but they are in peace. For though they 
 be punished in the sight of men, yet is their 
 hope full of immortality; and, having been a 
 little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded ; 
 for God proved them, and found them worthy 
 for himself." ^ Farther on, the writer pro- 
 ceeds, " but the ungodly shall be punished" (as 
 we gather from the previous context, by tor- 
 ment), " for horrible is the end of the unrighte- 
 ous generation." *' The vengeance" (saith Ec- 
 clesiasticus) "of the ungodly is fire and worms.""^ 
 
 * " I am thy sMeld, and exceeding great reward." — Gen, sv. 1. 
 
 * Ch. Yu. 7. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SERMON II. 
 
 "The Lord God will take vengeance of them 
 (it is written in the Book of Judith) in the 
 day of judgment, in putting fire and worms in 
 their flesh, and they shall weep for ever." ' In 
 chap. xiv. of the Second Book of Esdras, 
 where he is represented as sent unto the 
 people : " Hear these words, O Israel j Our 
 fathers at the beginning were strangers in 
 Egypt, from whence they were delivered, and 
 received the law of life, which they kept not, 
 and which ye also have transgressed after 
 them. Therefore, (he adds, after pointing out 
 this as the cause of all their past and present 
 misfortunes,) if so be that ye will subdue your 
 own understanding, and reform your hearts, 
 ye shall be kept alive, and after death shall 
 obtain mercy ; for after death shall the judg- 
 ment come, when we shall live again." Still 
 stronger in chap, vii., where Esdras is repre- 
 sented as supposing that man had better not 
 have been, he is made to urge, "for what 
 profit is it unto us, if there be promised an 
 « Ch. xvi. 17. 
 
SERMON II. 53 
 
 immortal time, whereas we have done the 
 works that bring death ? For while we lived 
 and committed iniquity, we considered not 
 that we should begin to suffer for it after 
 death. Then, answered he me, and said, 
 This is the condition of the battle, which man 
 that is born on earth shall fight ; that, if he 
 be overcome, he shall suffer, as thou hast 
 said ; but if he get the victory, he shall re- 
 ceive the thing that I say. For this is the 
 life whereof Moses spake unto the people 
 while he lived, saying, Choose thee life that 
 thou mayest live." 
 
 All these quotations declare evidently the 
 same doctrine, in exact accordance with the 
 spirit of the New Testament. When the 
 whole of these books were written it is impos- 
 sible to ascertain, but it is sufficient for our 
 purpose to be assured, that many of them 
 were extant long before the birth of our 
 Saviour (VI.). 
 
 We now turn to the sacred Scriptures : 
 " Search ye out of the book of the Lord and 
 
54 SERMON II. 
 
 read." ^ Throughout the Gospel age, and 
 during the centuries which occupied the inter- 
 mediate time to the ministry of Malachi, the 
 doctrine of a future state was held as no new 
 communication j and it appears from the very 
 numerous allusions which will be brought for- 
 ward, that these views of the life spoken of by 
 Moses, were always the same amongst the be- 
 lieving in the Jewish nation, even from the 
 first written revelation. We shall, then, rather 
 find these doctrines alluded to and insisted on 
 in general partially (as would be the case, if 
 no doubt had existed that Moses ought always 
 to be understood as revealing them), than held 
 forth or introduced with all the solemnity 
 that usually distinguished every new revela- 
 tion from the Deity, by the mouths of his 
 prophets. Nor should it be overlooked, that 
 those holy men invariably assert their own 
 title to credit only and solely on the grounds 
 that they are sent by the same God who 
 
 ' Isaiah xxiv. 16. 
 
SERMON II. 55 
 
 through Moses, promulgated his Law, and that 
 the chief view and object of all their missions 
 was to turn the people back again to that Law 
 which they had transgressed and forsaken. 
 The last words of Malachi prove this : " Re- 
 member ye the law of Moses my servant, 
 which I commanded unto him in Horeb for 
 all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." 
 It should be also stated, that the peculiar 
 objects and application of the prophecies is 
 not now our inquiry, further than as they 
 affect the doctrine of life eternal. Wherever 
 the promised seed is referred to, that promise, 
 of necessity, implies a future state ; nor were 
 the people of God ignorant that this was to be 
 looked for more than any temporal redeemer, 
 Simeon and Anna, when past all hope, be- 
 lieved in hope even of eternal life, praying to 
 depart in peace, since they had seen the salva- 
 tion of God, through whom his people should 
 be redeemed, with themselves, even from the 
 power of death. Nor were they alone in this 
 faith, for they "spake of Jesus to all them that 
 
56 SERMON II. 
 
 looked for redemption in Jerusalem." ' After 
 the crucifixion of the Lord, also, when all hope 
 seemed to many to have perished, Joseph of 
 Arimathea displayed a courage and a faith in 
 demanding before all his enemies the body of 
 Jesus, which could only have arisen from his 
 firm belief in the spirituality of Christ's king- 
 dom (VII.). But, beyond all this, they were 
 clearly inexcusable who could not gather from 
 the simple words of the prophets, unconnected 
 with their hidden meaning, the certainty of a 
 future state, and that, moreover, of rewards 
 and punishments. 
 
 Following the same argument, and answer- 
 ing the objections in the same manner as had 
 been done by other prophetic writers, we find 
 Malachi thus stating the fact of a future life 
 in a clear and decisive manner : "Ye say it is 
 in vain to serve the Lord j and what profit is 
 it that we have kept his ordinance, and that 
 we have walked mournfully before the Lord of 
 Hosts ? And now we call the proud happy j 
 
 ' Luke ii. 38. 
 
SERMON II. 57 
 
 yea, they that work wickedness are set up ; 
 yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. 
 Then they that feared the Lord spake often 
 one to another ; and the Lord hearkened and 
 heard it, and a book of remembrance was 
 written before him for them that feared and 
 thought upon his name. And they shall be 
 mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day 
 when I make up my jewels ; and I will spare 
 them as a man spareth his own son that 
 serveth him. Then shall ye " (said the Lord 
 by the prophet to these righteous mourners of 
 that day) *' return, and discern between the 
 righteous and the wicked, between him that 
 serveth God and him that serveth him not. 
 For, behold the day cometh, that shall burn as 
 an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all that 
 do wickedly, shall be stubble ; and the day 
 that cometh shall burn them up, saith the 
 Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither 
 root nor branch. But unto you " (this positive 
 personality of the prophetic promises is always 
 to be observed) " that fear my name shall the 
 
68 SERMON II. 
 
 Sim of Righteousness arise with healing in his 
 wings ; and ye shall grow up like calves of the 
 stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked, 
 for they shall be ashes under the soles of your 
 feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the 
 Lord of Hosts." 
 
 The prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, 
 whose missions related chiefly to the rebuild- 
 ing of the Temple, are yet full of dark allu- 
 sions to the day of judgment and the new 
 Jerusalem ; which, to those who had the light 
 of the former prophets, were still plain, and 
 the earthly and heavenly kingdom of Christ 
 the Lord are undeniably held forth. They 
 also warn the Israelites not to rest only on 
 their Law, or rather on their own imperfect 
 obedience, but to look unto " the blood of the 
 covenant;'" comparing even their high priest 
 Joshua to " a brand plucked out of the fire,'* 
 from whom the Lord alone could " make his 
 iniquity to pass."^ The next six prophets 
 may almost be considered as contemporaries, 
 
 1 Heb. xiii. 20. ^ Zech. iii. 4; is. 11. 
 
SERMON II. 59 
 
 as a period of scarcely more than forty years 
 is supposed to embrace the commencement of 
 all then- ministries (VIII.). Nor had the life 
 of Daniel closed above a few years when 
 the missions of Haggai and Zechariah com- 
 menced. A doctrine which was known to 
 and preached by any one of these must have 
 been familiar unto all, even although different 
 parts of the East -were their spheres of action, 
 as they were always chiefly employed amongst 
 God's peculiar people ; and one of them at 
 least, Daniel, was as a city built upon a hill, 
 as a light placed upon a candlestick which 
 could not be hid. Gifted, too, as they all 
 were, with the Spirit of the Most High, whose 
 people they laboured to save, they must always 
 have laid before their nation all his counsel. 
 Their writings accordingly yield most trium- 
 phant proof, when contrasted together, of the 
 mercy of the Deity in always warning man to 
 consider his latter end. The Book of Obadiah 
 consists only of one single chapter, which is 
 confined almost to foretelling the destruction 
 
60 SERMON II. 
 
 of the Edomites, but which glances also darkly 
 in its close at the day when the "kingdom 
 shall be the Lord's." The next is that of 
 Ezekiel. One of the most remarkable and 
 striking proofs is that which is contained 
 in the 37th chapter ; in that powerful alle- 
 gory of the resurrection in the valley of 
 dry^ bones. Applied, as this may be, partly 
 to temporal meanings, it shows how well 
 known this doctrine was at that period, and 
 most decisively assures the Israelites of a 
 future state. " Thus saith the Lord, Behold, 
 O my people, I will open your graves, and 
 cause you to come up out of your graves." 
 Contrast this, however, with other previous 
 passages, and this interpretation, clear as it 
 is, will be still more readily allowed. In 
 the 32nd chapter Pharaoh, king of Egypt, 
 with his multitude, are threatened with far 
 more than temporal punishment : " The king 
 of Babylon shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, 
 and all the multitude thereof shall be de- 
 ' Isaiah Ixvi. 14 : " Your bones shall flourish like an herb." 
 
SERMON II. 61 
 
 stroyed." Is the threat confined to this 
 destruction ? No. *' They," continues the 
 prophet, " shall be cast down unto the nether 
 parts of the earth with them that go down 
 into the pit. There," it is added, " the strong 
 among the mighty shall speak to him " (observe 
 the living^ attribute of speech given here and 
 in Isaiah to the dead) " out of the midst of 
 hell, whose iniquities shall be upon their 
 bones, although they were the terror of the 
 mighty in the land of the living." In no less 
 than seven distinct instances, Hades, or the 
 pit, is mentioned as the appointed place of 
 punishment to all those who shall bear their 
 shame. This marked description of the pro- 
 phet, however, is no new revelation ; it is but 
 
 * Isaiah xiv. 9, &c. : Hades {Shed) from beneath, is moved 
 because of thee, to meet thee at thy coming : 
 
 He rouseth for thee the mighty dead, all the great chiefs 
 {iTCivres ol yiyavrei, LXX) of the earth : 
 
 He maketh to rise up from their thrones, all the kings of 
 the nations : 
 
 All of them shall accost thee, and shall say unto thee, 
 
 Art thou, even thou, become weak as we ? Art thou made 
 like unto us ? &c., &c. — Bishop Lowth's Isaiah. 
 
62 SERMON II. 
 
 the application of a well-known doctrine to 
 these particular cases. Immediately subse- 
 quent, in the next chapter, after this decisive 
 assertion of a future state, awful in its very 
 darkness, are those beautiful justifications of 
 the mercy and justice of the Creator towards 
 man. " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have 
 no pleasure in the death of the wicked, 
 but that the wicked turn from his way and 
 live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; 
 for why will ye die, O house of Israel ?" AVhat 
 death could the prophet here mean ? Temporal 
 death only, to the exclusion of that which he 
 had previously so powerfully described ? — it 
 is impossible. Both the wicked and the 
 righteous must bow down into the grave ; 
 mere temporal death, then, both the pro- 
 phets could not mean, when Ezekiel saith, 
 " The Lord hath no pleasure in the death of 
 the wicked j " and when the Psalmist de- 
 clareth, " Precious in the sight of the Lord 
 is the death of his saints.'" "What less do 
 ' Psalm cxvi. 15. 
 
SERMON II. 63 
 
 these passages prove to the considering mind, 
 than that the prophets preached the covenant 
 and the Law promulgated by Moses, as pro- 
 mising or threatening in general life or death 
 eternal ? And if they thus preached the Law of 
 God, none but the stiff-necked, who would not 
 bow the ear to hear, in Israel, could ever have 
 been taken unawares. The warning is again 
 rung in the 31st chapter — the warning, 
 which all the prophets of God had previously 
 sounded. Behold, saith the Lord of the As- 
 syrian, because " his heart is lifted up in his 
 height " to contemn his Maker, *' I cast him 
 down to (IX.) hell with them that descend into 
 the pit j" there shall he " be comforted" (mark 
 the scornful strength of this expression) " in 
 the nether parts of the earth." No ; the 
 watchmen have always blown the trumpet, 
 and warned the people, for their blood was re- 
 quired at the watchmen's hands ; and he that 
 hath taken the warning hath, in all times, de- 
 livered his soul, for an eternal existence was 
 always therein revealed. Nor could less be 
 
64 SERMON II. 
 
 understood from the prophet's words in the 
 18th chapter, unless the Israelites closed 
 their eyes upon these facts : "Ye say the way 
 of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house 
 of Israel; Is not my way equal ? are not your 
 ways unequal ? When a rig-hteous man turn- 
 eth away from his righteousness, and com- 
 mitteth iniquity, and dieth in them " (that is, 
 undergoes temporal death), " for his iniquity 
 that he hath done shall he die. Again, when 
 the wicked man turneth away from his wicked- 
 ness that he hath committed, and doeth that 
 which is lawful and right, he shall save his 
 soul alive." 
 
 The internal evidence of the Book of Daniel 
 is as strong, and perhaps somewhat more di- 
 rect; in fact, the resurrection and the judg- 
 ment are there laid down in so many express 
 terms : " And at that time shall Michael 
 stand up, the great prince which standeth for 
 the children of thy people: and there shall be 
 a time of trouble such as never was since there 
 was a nation, even to that same time : and at 
 
SERMON II. 65 
 
 that time thy people shall be delivered, every 
 one that shall be found written in the book. 
 And many of them that sleep in the dust of 
 the earth shall awake" (death is here again 
 called sleep), " some to everlasting life, and 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt. 
 And they that be wise shall shine as the 
 brightness of the firmament ; and they that 
 turn many to righteousness as the stars for 
 ever and ever."^ Who can assert that this 
 was a temporal Messiah ; this a perishing de- 
 liverance, or this the " life that is even a va- 
 pour, that appeareth for a little time and then 
 vanisheth away,"^ which Daniel recorded as 
 the hope of Israel ? In the awful vision, too, 
 described in chap, vii., the great judgment is 
 plainly proclaimed : there, too, the "everlasting 
 dominion, which shall not pass away," over all 
 people, nations, and languages, of the Son of 
 Man, is revealed, while the saints of the Most 
 High are to take the kingdom, and possess the 
 kingdom, even for ever and ever. 
 
 » Chap.^xii. 1-3.] " James iv. 14, 
 
 F 
 
66 SERMON II. 
 
 Nor should the example of his own perfect 
 faith in this his doctrine of life eternal, as 
 evidenced in his defying the punishment of 
 being cast unto the lions ; nor that of Sha- 
 drach, Meshach, and Abednego, to whom, 
 with Daniel, " God gave knowledge and skill 
 in all learning and wisdom," be passed over in 
 silence. They, by their own confession, were 
 by no means assured that they should be de- 
 livered from that appalling fate, when they 
 were cast into the burning fiery furnace, before 
 the vast multitude of all the tributary States 
 of the Babylonian Empire ; but simply be- 
 lieved in God who was able to raise them from 
 the dead : and the Almighty thus gave to 
 assembled nations a mercifully-ordained proof 
 of faith in life eternal. 
 
 The prophecy of Habakkuk commences 
 with lamenting that the law was slackened, 
 and judgment doth never go forth : for the 
 wicked compass about the righteous ; I " cry" 
 (saith the prophet) "out unto thee of violence, 
 and thou wilt not save." Yet how triumph- 
 
SERMON II. 67 
 
 antly does he afterwards justify the ways of 
 God upon this very ground ! " Art thou not 
 from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy 
 One ? We " (clearly meaning himself and the 
 righteous of his people) "shall not die. O 
 Lord, thou hast ordained them^" (that is the 
 wicked) " for judgment ; and, O mighty God, 
 thou hast established them for correction."* 
 "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom" (saith 
 he elsewhere, confiding, doubtless, in this truth), 
 "neither shall fruit be in the vines j the labour 
 of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield 
 no meat ; the flock shall be cut off^ from the 
 fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls : 
 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in 
 the God of my salvation."^ The prophecy of 
 Zephaniah breathes, like all the rest, the most 
 terrible threatenings mingled with the most 
 tender promises ; and in describing the day of 
 the Lord, clearly implies far more than any 
 temporal deliverance : " Wait ye, saith the 
 Lord" (to his faithful), "upon me until the day 
 
 • Chap. i. 12. 2 Chap. iii. 17, 18. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 SERMON II. 
 
 that I rise up to the prey : for my deter- 
 mination is to gather the nations, that I may 
 assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them 
 mine indignation, even all my fierce anger : 
 for all the earth shall be devoured with the 
 fire of my jealousy."' Throughout the Book 
 of Jeremiah there are many indirect allusions. 
 In chap, xvii., after quoting the words of 
 Moses, " The fire is kindled in mine anser 
 which shall burn for ever," he points out the 
 safe and everlastinof refuoe of the faithful : "A 
 glorious high throne from the beginning is the 
 place of our sanctuary. O Lord, the hope of 
 Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, 
 and they that depart from me shall be written 
 in the earth " (to be destroyed clearly by the 
 same fate), " because they have forsaken the 
 Lord, the fountain of living waters." Then, 
 pointing out to the people the utter insufli- 
 ciency of all personal righteousness, he prays, 
 " Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed ; 
 save me, and I shall be saved : for thou art 
 
 * Chap. iii. 
 
SERMON II. 69 
 
 my praise. Thou art my hope in the day of 
 evil." Nor are public examples in this faith 
 wanting in these records ; witness that of the 
 house of the Rechabites mentioned in the 
 35 th chapter : *' They said, We will drink 
 no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab our 
 father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink 
 no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever : 
 Neither shall ye build house, nor plant vine- 
 yard, nor have any : but all your days ye shall 
 dwell in tents ; that ye may live many days in 
 the land where ve be stranpers." It miofht be 
 urged that the Rechabites were not of the 
 blood of Israel, but descended from the father- 
 in-law of Moses\ for from that eai'ly period 
 they had dwelt amongst the people : but it 
 appears undoubted that Jehonadab, illustrious 
 as he was in his zeal ^ for his God, took these 
 means, strong as they were, to teach his 
 descendants that here they had no continuing 
 city J fully understanding from the Law of 
 
 ^ Judges i. 16, and 1 Chron. ii. 55. 
 2 2 Kings X. 15. 
 
70 SERMON II. 
 
 Moses, that ** they were strangers and pilgrims 
 upon the earth." 
 
 The prophecy of Nahum (X.), not the least 
 sublime amongst these sacred writings, as well 
 as that of Jonah, the most ancient of the 
 whole, is directed chiefly against the city of 
 Nineveh ; nor need the type ^ of Jonah, from 
 which the Jews mifjht have o^athered faith in 
 the power and will of their God, to raise 
 his people from the grave, he now insisted 
 on. Micah seems to have been contemporary 
 throughout his ministry with Isaiah in the 
 same country ; and he. also asserts the day of 
 the Lord and the Redeemer's everlasting 
 kingdom ; when we (saith the prophet to his 
 people) " will walk in the name of the Lord 
 our God for ever and ever. In that day, saith 
 the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, 
 and I will gather her that is driven out, and 
 her that I have afflicted ; and I will make her 
 that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far 
 off a strong nation : and the Lord shall reign 
 ' LXX. e/c Koi\las "ASou. Jonah ii. 32. 
 
SERMON II. 71 
 
 over them in mount Zion from henceforth, 
 even for ever."^ " Thou" (saith he in the close 
 of his book, alluding, doubtless, to the promise 
 of life eternal) "Thou wilt perform the truth 
 to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which 
 thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the 
 days of old." In indignation at the incorrigi- 
 ble disobedience of the people, Amos pro- 
 claims, " Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel ;" 
 while he plainly teaches that the hope of the 
 hypocrite shall perish ; " Though they dig into 
 helP, thence shall mine hand take them; 
 though they climb to heaven, thence will I 
 bring them down : though they be hid from 
 my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will 
 I command the serpent, and he shall bite 
 them." Hosea is still stronger in asserting 
 these doctrines beyond all dispute -, " Come" 
 (saith he in the sixth chapter) " and let us 
 return unto the Lord : for he hath torn, and 
 he will heal us ; he hath smitten, and he 
 will bind us up. After two days will he re- 
 
 1 Chap. iv. 5, &c. 2 Hades, LXX. 
 
72 SERMON II. 
 
 vive us : in the third day he will raise us up." 
 The particular object of this prophecy is well 
 known ; but it also conveys a direct promise of 
 a revival and resurrection to the Lord's faith- 
 ful people : there is also a singular seeming 
 connection with the type of Jonah, which had 
 occurred many years before, and to which the 
 prophet may have here alluded. Again the 
 promise is reiterated in the 13th chapter in 
 the most clear and decisive terms ; " I will 
 ransom them" (saith the Lord of his faithful) 
 " from the power of the grave ^ ; I will redeem 
 them from death : O death, I will be thy 
 plagues ; O grave ^, I will be thy destruction !" 
 Was this an earthly or a perishing redemp- 
 tion which Hosea preached to the Israelites ? 
 
 Of all the prophets, however, Isaiah has 
 left in his writings the most full and decided 
 evidence of a future life ; and when the length 
 of his ministry, which endured through nearly 
 sixty years, and his repute, both with King 
 Hezekiah and his nation, are considered, it is 
 ' Hades, LXX. 
 
SERMON II. 73 
 
 literally impossible that any should have been 
 ignorant, in his age, that there was a state of 
 future rewards and punishments. The allu- 
 sions are so numerous that half of them can 
 scarcely be brought forward. One single pas- 
 sage would be sufficient to show that Isaiah, 
 insisting upon no other Law but that of Moses, 
 preached life eternal : " Lift up your eyes ^ to 
 the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath : 
 for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, 
 and the earth shall wax old like a garment, 
 and they that dwell therein shall die in like 
 manner : but my salvation shall be for ever, 
 and my righteousness shall not be abolished." 
 AVhat salvation does the prophet here mean ? 
 " Israel'* (saith he in a previous chapter^), 
 " Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an ever- 
 lasting salvation ; ye " (saith he to his faithful 
 contemporaries) '*ye shall not be ashamed nor 
 confounded, world without end." "The right- 
 eous" (he again proclaims ^) "perisheth, and no 
 man layeth it to heart : and merciful men are 
 1 Ch. li. 6. 2 (;ii_ xlv. 17. 3 ch. Ivii. 1. 
 
74 SERMON II. 
 
 taken away, none considering that the right- 
 eous is taken away from the evil to come. 
 He shall enter into peace." ^ Does the prophet 
 here allude only to the peace of death ? " The 
 mountains " (declared he previously) " shall 
 depart, and the hills shall he removed, but my 
 kindness shall not depart, neither shall the 
 covenant of my peace be removed, saith the 
 Lord, that hath mercy on thee."^ Can any- 
 thing be more conclusive, or more consolatory 
 than this assurance ? Yes, " the redeemed of 
 the Lord," redeemed even from death, " shall 
 return unto Zion ;" but no earthly, no perish- 
 ing Zion this : " everlasting joy shall be upon 
 their heads ; they shall obtain joy and glad- 
 ness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee 
 away!"^ "Incline your ear, and come unto 
 me : hear, and your soul shall live j and I will 
 make an everlasting covenant with you, even 
 
 ' Ch. xxvi. 3, 4. " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
 whose mind is stayed on thee ; because he trusteth in thee. 
 Trust ye in the Lord for ever ; for in the Lord Jehovah is ever- 
 lasting strength." 
 
 2 Ch. liv. 10. » CL XXXV. 10. 
 
SERMON II. 75 
 
 the sure mercies of David ! " ^ *' The earth 
 shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and 
 shall be removed like a cottage ; and it shall 
 fall, and not rise again." "^ But " He will 
 swallow up death in victory ; and the Lord 
 will wipe away tears from all faces." "* " Thy 
 dead men shall live, together with my dead 
 body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye 
 that dwell in dust : for thy dew is as the dew 
 of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the 
 dead." * " Behold, I create new heavens and 
 a new earth : and the former shall not be 
 remembered, nor come into mind. But be 
 ye" (saith the Lord to his faithful) "be ye 
 glad and rejoice for ever in that which I 
 create : for, behold, I create Jerusalem a re- 
 joicing, and her people a joy. And I will 
 rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people ; 
 and the voice of weeping shall no more be 
 heard in her, nor the voice of crying."^ 
 
 Thus did Isaiah ratify and confirm the Law 
 
 » Ch. Iv. 3. =* Ch. xxiv. 20. ^ c}j, ^xv. 8. 
 
 ^ Ch. xxvi. 19. 5 Ch. Ixv. 17-19. 
 
76 SERMON II. 
 
 of Moses, thus did he comfort the Lord's peo- 
 ple; but was there no warning to the wicked? 
 Yes'; their peculiar destiny was not less plainly 
 preached, I cannot say revealed', nor in lan- 
 guage less persuasive, in all its dark terrors. 
 ** The Lord God of hosts did call to weeping, 
 and to mourning, and to baldness, and to gird- 
 ing with sackcloth : And behold joy and glad- 
 ness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating 
 flesh and drinking wine : let us eat and drink ; 
 for to morrow we die."^ Such was, in the pro- 
 phet's time, such was, in the rich man of the 
 Gospel's time, such is, in our day, also, the 
 general answer to all the calls unto repentance. 
 The cry of mercy has never been silent, " Let 
 the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 
 man his thoughts : and let him return unto the 
 Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; and 
 to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." ^ 
 Moses, the Prophets, and the Gospel, proclaim 
 this ; yet, in the words of Isaiah, *' AVho hath 
 
 ' See Solomon, David, Moses, Job. ^ Ch. xxii. 12, 13. 
 
 ^ Ch. Iv. 7. 
 
SERMON II. 77 
 
 believed our report?" "I will shake the 
 heavens," saith the Lord; " and the earth shall 
 remove out of her place in the wrath of the 
 Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce 
 anger." ' " Come near, ye nations, to hear ; and 
 hearken, ye people : let the earth hear, and 
 all that is therein ; the world, and all things 
 that come forth of it. For the indignation of 
 the Lord is upon all nations ^ And all the 
 host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the 
 heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll : 
 and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf 
 falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig 
 from the fig tree. For my sword shall be 
 bathed in heaven : behold, it shall come down 
 upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, 
 to judgment. And the streams thereof shall 
 be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into 
 brimstone, and the land thereof shall become 
 burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night 
 nor day ; the smoke thereof shall go up for 
 ever : from generation to generation it shall 
 
 ' Ch. xiii. 13. 2 ^g-tt. xxv. 32. 
 
78 SERMON II. 
 
 lie waste ; none shall pass through it for ever 
 and ever."^ Everlasting joy shall indeed he 
 upon the righteous, but " there is no peace, 
 saith my God, to the wicked.'"^ Twice is this 
 sentence solemnly repeated ; whilst they are 
 elsewhere warned, " Your (XI.) covenant 
 with death shall be disannulled, and your agree- 
 ment with hell ^ shall not stand."* "For To- 
 phet is ordained of old ; yea, for the king it is 
 prepared ; he hath made it deep and large : 
 the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the 
 breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, 
 doth kindle it."^ Well might such general 
 and tremendous threatenings appal the hearts 
 of the rebellious J nor was it otherwise : " The 
 sinners in Zion," saith Isaiah, "are afraid; 
 fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who 
 among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? 
 who among us shall dwell with everlasting 
 burnings ? "" " Behold, my servants shall sing 
 
 ^ Ch, sxxiv. 1-10. s Ch. Ivii. 21 ; xlviii. 22. 
 
 3 Hades, LXX. •* Ch. xxviii. 18. 
 
 « Ch. XXX. 33. 6 Ch. xxxiii. 14. 
 
SERMON II. 79 
 
 for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of 
 heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit ; and 
 ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my 
 chosen." ^ They, my redeemed, shall be glad 
 and rejoice in *'the new heavens and new 
 earth^ which I will make. And they shall go 
 forth, and look upon the carcases of the men 
 that have transgressed against me : for their 
 worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be 
 quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring 
 unto all flesh."' 
 
 Figurative as some of these expressions may 
 be, and applied to temporal as well as eternal 
 meanings, is there not here enough to persuade 
 all but the most hardened in unbelief? Pre- 
 cisely in the same manner does our Saviour 
 mingle temporal and eternal threatenings in 
 foretelling the fall of Jerusalem, and his own 
 
 ' Ch. Ixv. 14, 15. 
 
 2 2 Peter iii. 13. " Nevertheless we, according to his i^ro- 
 taise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." This promise is to be taken then literally, 
 and not figuratively. See also the Revelations. 
 
 3 Ch. Ixvi. 24. 
 
80 SERMON II. 
 
 advent to judgment. Precisely in the sam 
 manner does St. Peter bid us, " accordino- to 
 his promise look for new heavens and a new 
 earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Pre- 
 cisely in the same manner does St. John de- 
 scribe the passing away of the heavens and 
 earth that now are, the new creation, the hea- 
 venly city, and the blessedness of the faithful 
 who have "washed their robes and made them 
 white in the blood of the Lamb."^ Be it ob- 
 served, also, that scarcely one of the innume- 
 rable allusions to the Redeemer scattered 
 throughout all these Scriptures has been 
 brought forward. How then, you will urge, 
 w^as it possible that the Jews should have so 
 pertinaciously adhered to their opinions of a 
 temporal Messiah, and of an earthly deliver- 
 ance? Look around you, and gather your 
 answer from self-evident facts ; from your own 
 every day's experience of the world, and of 
 man's fallen and corrupted nature. With far 
 greater light, is the case now widely altered ? 
 ' Rev. vii. 14. 
 
SERMON II. 81 
 
 One general sentiment pervades, as it ever has 
 pervaded, mankind ; a determination to follow 
 their own will in decided preference to that of 
 their great Creator. What blessings are we 
 chiefly looking for, what motives now actuate 
 our exertions, to what end are we now mainly 
 labouring, what liberty do we most earnestly 
 desire, what deliverance are all the energies of 
 our souls bent upon securing ? Are they not 
 all perishing, tempoi*al, and earthly, to the 
 almost entire exclusion of the one thing need- 
 ful? What are nations, what are individuals, 
 in the Christian world (for the duty of man, 
 whether nationally or individually, must and 
 shall be, at his eternal peril, guided by the 
 selfsame rule and principle), what are they 
 most strenuously occupied in ? The heart of 
 man is the same throughout all the gradations 
 of society; "where," then, "are their hearts ? — 
 for there are their treasures also." ' No earth- 
 ly duty should, it is true, be neglected or de- 
 spised. Whether we have one or ten talents, 
 
 ' Matt. vi. 21. 
 
 O 
 
82 SERMON II. 
 
 we must occupy therewith till the Lord come. 
 No station should be superstitiously deserted, 
 nor should we shrink from the exercise of en- 
 larged powers to perform the will of our 
 Maker. Let every man wherein he is called, 
 (and he may be called from the sheepfold to 
 the throne,) therein abide, but let him abide 
 with God^ that is, let his motive be, in all his 
 actions, to do his will. The blessing of Pro- 
 vidence is still most undeniably bestowed upon 
 the mind and hand of labour ; and the servant 
 who is diligent will be advanced in his master's 
 service, whether, at our own peril, we seek 
 chiefly a perishing or an imperishable reward. 
 No station, no circumstance, no diligence, need 
 preclude the one right motive, or our fixing 
 our main hope upon the one right end — even 
 on the promises of our God : and nations, as 
 well as individuals, are subject to the fiat of 
 the Almighty j their policy, and the conduct 
 of the meanest individual, are to be equally 
 guided on the principle of love to God and 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vii. 20. 
 
SERMON II. 83 
 
 man. Whatever the station of man may be, 
 be he king or peasant, he must direct his daily 
 labour by one only principle, the love of God, 
 and to the end of seeking a country^ wherein 
 alone his Creator hath promised to bless him 
 with eternal life, with an imperishable inherit- 
 ance, and with everlasting bliss. Look around 
 you and say, Are our hearts elevated to these 
 pursuits, do we labour here on earth to this 
 end ? No ; temporal good sways us ; fame, 
 or power, or wealth, or some other perishing 
 idol, is our motive and our end. To these the 
 Redeemer and his will are postponed, and 
 earth, however we may deny the fact, still pre- 
 vails and triumphs over heaven, to our own 
 eternal destruction. 
 
 Let us not condemn the Israelites, for in so 
 doing, we condemn ourselves ; let us only be 
 wise enough to take example from their fate. 
 He whom they rejected, because He brought 
 not temporal deliverance and earthly glories, 
 because He taught his followers to look far be- 
 
 ' Heb. xi. 16. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SERMON II. 
 
 yond all these things for their happiness, may 
 still be made unto each of us '* wisdom, and 
 righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- 
 tion."^ *' The earth, and all therein," as the 
 universal word proclaims, "shall be removed, 
 and the nations shall be chased as the chaff of 
 the mountains before the wind, and as the 
 thistle down before the whirlwind."^ In that 
 tremendous hour, for each individual now 
 around me must live to see it for himself, and 
 his eyes shall behold and not another's, where 
 will be your refuge ? Whither will you flee 
 from the wrath to come? In Christ, and 
 Christ alone, can we be saved. This, you ex- 
 claim, we believe ; yet who amongst us " sets 
 his affections on things above, where Christ 
 sitteth on the right hand of God " ? ^ Who 
 amongst us flies in earnest repentance towards 
 God, and in faith toward the Lord Jesus, to 
 the sheltering mercies of that Almighty Re- 
 deemer, who will in no wise cast out him that 
 
 » 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Isaiah xvii. 13. 
 
 ' Col. iii. 1, 2. 
 
SERMON II. 85 
 
 Cometh unto Him '? Who amongst us proves, 
 by his steady and undeviating daily labour 
 in the Lord's vineyard, that he knows he can- 
 not serve two masters ? Why do we put all 
 such reflections from our minds, and judge 
 ourselves unworthy of everlasting life ^ ? Our 
 day of trial is not yet closed, let us then wisely 
 exert all our powers to " lay hold of the blessed 
 hope that is set before us, and we shall reap if we 
 faint not," and are "not weary in well-doing." 
 Let us watch and pray always, resting, in sin- 
 gleness of heart and hope, upon the blood and 
 merits of our Redeemer. " Let us go forth, 
 therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing 
 his reproach. For here have we no continuing 
 city, but we seek one to come." ^ Let us " ap- 
 prove things that are excellent, that we may 
 be sincere, and without offence, till the day of 
 Christ ; being filled with the fruits of right- 
 eousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the 
 glory and praise of God."* Yet not so will it 
 
 ' John vi, 37. ^ Acts xiii. 46. 
 
 3 Heb. xiii. 13, 14. * PhUippians i. 10, 11. 
 
86 SERMON II. 
 
 be with many ; they will not hear all these 
 warnings, they will not labour to enter into 
 this rest, they will not watch, they will not 
 pray, they will not consider their latter end. 
 Behold, the Son of God hath foretold us how 
 it shall be with an unbelieving world, in the 
 day of which Isaiah speaks unto us all. " As 
 it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also 
 in the days of the Son of Man. They did 
 eat, they drank, they married wives, they were 
 given in marriage, until the day that Noah 
 entered into the ark, and the flood came, and 
 destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was 
 in the days of Lot ; they did eat, they drank, 
 they bought, they sold, they planted, they 
 builded ; but the same day that Lot went out 
 of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from 
 heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus 
 shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is 
 revealed." ^ 
 
 • Luke xvii. 26-30. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 SECOND SERMON. 
 
 VI. 
 
 JTie Apocrypha, kc. p. 53. 
 
 The history of the Maccabees is allowed on all 
 sides to be authentic; and the accounts which it 
 renders of the Jews freely sacrificing their lives, 
 rather than sin against God's covenant of ever- 
 lasting life (for such it was then considered), under 
 the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, is too marked 
 and too diffuse to permit denial. Nearly two cen- 
 turies before Christ, then, eternal life was evidently 
 revealed : but so, also, of course, was eternal death. 
 The Book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, is supposed 
 to have been written during the high priesthood of 
 Onias II., or about two hundred and fifty years 
 before Christ; and that of Judith is considered to be 
 still more ancient. But the reader's attention should 
 
88 NOTES. 
 
 be directed to the verses given from these books, 
 representing the vengeance of the ungodly in a future 
 state under the imagery of fire and worms. The Greek 
 copy of Ecclesiasticus runs thus, chap. vii. ver. 19: 
 TaTnivuaov aipo^pa rviv •^vx,'nv <tou' Mvjicr^uTt otj df yr ov 
 X^oviti. "Otj tKdi}iy]cng ccaz^uv^ "^^^t *^' o-kuXy]^. That 
 of Judith xvi. 17: Ki/^iog HavTOH^aTO)^ EH^inriasi ounovq 
 £V yjfxe^oi x^laeug, ^oZvai ttZ^ xai a-ficc\Yixag Big cd^xag 
 awTwv, xai x>.av<JO'i'ra\. kv ala-QricrEi lug aluvog. Now there 
 is an exact and unquestionable coincidence in this 
 description, not only with our Saviour's threatenings 
 in the ninth chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, but also 
 with Isaiah Ivi. 24 ; and there can be no doubt that 
 the writers of these Books of Judith and Ecclesias- 
 ticus must have taken their information, with regard 
 to the punishment of a future state, from the prophet. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The spirituality of Chrisfs kingdom, Sec. p. 56. 
 
 " It is not agreeable to reason, or to the analogy 
 of Scripture, to suppose that the Jews before our 
 Saviour's time could have a clear and distinct under- 
 standing of the full meaning even of the express 
 prophecies (regarding the Saviour), much less of 
 those which were more obscure and indirect, &c. 
 But thus much is evident, that the Jews, both before 
 and in our Saviour's time, had from these prophecies 
 
NOTES. 89 
 
 a general expectation of a Messiah; and that this 
 Messiah was to be not merely a temporal deliverer, 
 but Pater futuri seculi, ' The Head of the Future 
 State,' as well as of the present. Nor does it at all 
 appear that our Lord's disciples, when they (Luke 
 xxiv. 21) 'thought he would have redeemed Israel;' 
 or when they (Acts i. 6) ' asked, if he would at this 
 time restore again the kingdom of Israel;' I say, 
 it does not appear, that they expected merely a 
 temporal kingdom, but their error was in expecting 
 a present kingdom : " &:c. — Evidences of Natural and 
 Revealed Religion, hy Dr. 8. Clarke ; Bishop Wat- 
 soti's Tracts, vol. iv. p. 269. 
 
 This persuasion was by no means confined to the 
 disciples of our Lord ; it was the general belief of 
 the Jewish nation and their teachers, who erred 
 chiefly in preferring the hope of a temporal to that 
 of spiritual redemption. They doubted only as to the 
 time and means of this redemption, not of the re- 
 demption itself. Thus we find the Pharisees, the 
 chief teachers of the people, asking the very same 
 question as to the time of this second or future state : 
 — " And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, 
 when the kingdom of God should come," ' &c. St. 
 Peter very expressly asserts, that the Prophets never 
 doubted of a second life, and of "the salvation of 
 souls:" that was not the subject of their inquiry; 
 but they searched anxiously when and at what man- 
 
 ' Luke xiii. 20. 
 
00 NOTES. 
 
 iier of time Christ the Saviour should suffer' for 
 man's transgressions ; until which event, life eternal 
 was only promised ; then, in the language of faith, 
 the promise was fulfilled; "for as in Adam all die, 
 even so in Christ shall all be made alive." ^ 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Prophets, kc. p. 59. 
 
 It is necessary, in an investigation like the present, 
 to observe the chronological order : a simple table, 
 therefore, is subjoined, of the period at which the 
 Prophets commenced their ministry, and during which 
 they exercised it, as far as the latter can be ascer- 
 tained : — 
 
 Malachi commenced, before Christ, 400 
 
 Zechariah ,, „ 
 
 620 
 
 Haggai „ „ 
 
 520 
 
 Obadiah ,, „ 
 
 585 
 
 Ezekiel „ „ 
 
 598 
 
 (Continued 21 years.) 
 
 
 Habakkuk ,, „ 
 
 605 
 
 Daniel „ „ 
 
 606 
 
 (Continued 70 years.) 
 
 
 Jeremiah „ „ 
 
 628 
 
 (Continued 41 years.) 
 
 
 Zephaniah „ ,, 
 
 630 
 
 Bp. Prettyman's Christian Theology. 
 » 1 Peter i. 9, 10, 11. ' 1 Corinth, xv. 22. 
 
NOTES. 91 
 
 IX. 
 
 In hell, kc. p. 63. 
 The Septuagint (LXX) generally render the 
 Hebrew word Sheol, by the Greek word Hades. 
 This translation (of the Hebrew sacred Scriptures 
 into the Greek) was made by Hebrews, learned in 
 both languages, by the order of Ptolemy Philadel- 
 phus, 277 years before the birth of Christ. It then 
 gives the correct meaning in that age of the Old 
 Testament, untouched and unwarped by any Chris- 
 tian prejudice or judgment. The highest stamp of 
 truth has been affixed to this translation by frequent 
 quotations being made from it in the New Testament. 
 So highly, too, was the Septuagint version esteemed 
 by the Jews, that Philo asserts that it was made by 
 inspired writers. 
 
 De Vita Mosis; L. ii. p. 659, 660. 
 
 
 X. 
 
 The Prophets, &c. p. 70. 
 
 Nahum commenced, before Christ, 715 
 
 Micah „ „ 750 
 
 Isaiah „ „ 758 
 
 (Continued 61 years.) 
 
 Hosea 
 
 „ (Continued 60 years 
 
 Joel 
 
 800 
 
 Amos 
 
 ^ )) >> 
 
 Bp. Prettyman's Christian Theology. 
 
92 NOTES. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Your agreement with hell, &c. p. 78. 
 
 The word Sheol or Hades occurs in no less than 
 ten places in tlie Book of Isaiah. Vitringa on Isaiah 
 states, that " Sheol amongst the Jews, Hades amongst 
 the Greeks, and Inferi amongst the Latins, signified 
 equally the region of departed spirits." Windet (" De 
 Vita Functorum Statu," pp. 242-244) asserts, that 
 " The Jews held Gehenna, or the place of perdition, to 
 be the lowest place of Sheol; as the Greeks make 
 Tartarus the lowest place of Hades ; and the Latins, 
 Infernum ihe lowest place of Inferi. The general 
 term Sheol, which the LXX translate Hades, is that 
 which is used in the Hebrew Scriptures ; although 
 the Chaldaic paraphrase often renders the word Ge- 
 henna. In the Gospels, and throughout the New 
 Testament, Hades and Gehenna are both remarked ; 
 but not more frequently than the general word Sheol 
 occurs in the Old Testament. In St. Matthew, for 
 instance, the direct word occurs nine times; in St. 
 Mark, three times ; and in St. Luke, three times ; but 
 not once in the Gospel of St. John. Gehenna (an 
 Hebraism) is the word chiefly used by St. Matthew; 
 and the term Tartarus occurs but once in the New 
 Testament, 2 Peter ii. 4. 
 
 The most detailed description of Hades, which is 
 to be found in sacred Scripture, is certainly that 
 
NOTES. 93 
 
 given by Ezekiel'. In imagery it resembles, but 
 scarcely equals, the shorter description of Isaiah ; 
 yet it affords more detailed representations of the 
 mighty of the nations descending into Hades, in the 
 pomp of war, clothed in arms, and laying the swords 
 with which they had wasted the earth, under their 
 heads. In Isaiah^ these ancient kings are repre- 
 sented as rising from their thrones, and addressing the 
 spirit of the king of Babylon entering into the region 
 of souls in haughty language, in all the insolence of 
 pride, scarcely subdued by the shame and contempt" 
 to which they themselves are reduced. In Ezekiel 
 the same taunts are described; and thus in both 
 prophets the feeHngs and passions of living beings 
 are evidently and powerfully portrayed. But, beyond 
 these circumstances, Ezekiel adds a species of cata- 
 logue of the kings and nations who inhabit the dark 
 and unseen region of Hades. "Asshur is there, and 
 all his company : there is Elam and all his multitude : 
 there is Mesech and Tubal, and all their multitude : 
 there is Edom, her kings, and all her princes: there 
 be the princes of the north, all of them; and all the 
 Zidonians : Pharaoh " (that is, his disembodied spirit) 
 *' shall see them." Thus the prophets both represent 
 separate instances of kings descending after temporal 
 death in perfect consciousness into the region of 
 departed souls, and therein being gathered to the 
 peoples and nations who had before quitted this 
 
 ' Ezekiel xxxi. xxxii. = Isaiah xiv. ^ Daniel xii. 2. 
 
94 NOTES. 
 
 mortal existence. There is so singular a resemblance 
 between this description and that of Homer, that 
 Calmet (overlooking the fact that the Greek poet 
 lived 150 years before Isaiah, and three centuries 
 before Ezekiel) imagines he must have had cogni- 
 zance of the Scriptures of the Hebrew Prophets. All 
 these circumstances, however, bear out the argument, 
 that the knowledge of a future state was revealed 
 from the very Fall of Man. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 Luke xvi. 29. 
 
 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets^ 
 let them hear them. 
 
 The expressed sanctions of the Law of Moses 
 are chiefly temporal; but it is equally unde- 
 niable, that everlasting results are also evi- 
 dently implied and expressed, and that, this 
 being the Law of the Eternal, it could never 
 have wanted the ratifications consequent upon 
 the assurance therein made of a future ex- 
 istence. That the expressed sanctions should 
 refer chiefly to this life was absolutely neces- 
 sary, as it is in every law intended to guide 
 and control man in civil society, even unto this 
 day. To the promise of the restoration of life 
 eternal through a Redeemer, made to the first 
 parents, and again to Abraham, the Law was of 
 
96 SERMON m. 
 
 necessity "added, because of transgressions."^ 
 Our full assurance of a future state would be 
 of little avail to restrain us, unless temporal 
 sanctions were added ; " because sentence 
 against an evil work is not executed speedily, 
 therefore the hearts of the sons of men are 
 fully set in them to do evil." ^ Nor, of his 
 own authority, could any mortal legislator pre- 
 tend to sanction his law by future rewards and 
 punishments, the very existence of which can 
 alone be known by revelation. To the Deity 
 alone belong such ratifications, and He alone 
 can thus enforce the observance of his own 
 Law ; nor can this be otherwise done than by 
 revealing these consequences of his conduct in 
 this his state of probation unto man. If, then, 
 it can be collected, as our Saviour, the Pro- 
 phets, and the Jewish nation affirmed, that 
 eternal life was revealed in the Law of Moses, 
 no matter how darkly ; and if there be proof 
 ample, sufficient, and incontrovertible, that 
 this self-same Law was given unto the Israelites 
 1 Gal. iii. 19. ' Eccles. viii. 11. 
 
SERMON III. 97 
 
 by that awful Being who inhabiteth eternity^ 
 it is nothing less than a necessary conclusion, 
 that such statutes were enforced even by eter- 
 nal sanctions, In these circumstances, it is 
 self-evident that, in entering upon the un- 
 known region beyond the grave, we cannot 
 withdraw ourselves from the power or super- 
 intendence of our King and Law-giver, He 
 being also " the King of Eternity." Our obe- 
 dience to such a law, given to us by such a 
 Being, who reveals therein (through a Re- 
 deemer) a future state, cannot but involve 
 eternal life and blessing. And, on the other 
 hand, our transgressions (when beyond the 
 pale of atonement) could not but render us 
 obnoxious to eternal misery, when threatened 
 with death and cursing. Here revelation bears 
 the force of sanction, in the same measure as 
 it does with us even now, that is, decidedly 
 influencing the conduct, inducing to obe- 
 dience, and deterring from transgression. 
 It is not contended, however, that life eter- 
 
 ' Isaiah Ivii. 15. 
 
 H 
 
98 SERMON III. 
 
 nal v;as by the Law, or rather by the works of 
 the Law. It was not by the Law\ but by the 
 promise ; yet that promise was inseparably 
 attached to the Law, and that Law to the 
 promise, for obedience was essential to the 
 attainment of life. Were w^e to rest on works 
 instead of faith, we should commit the same 
 fatal error ; for we are not saved by obe- 
 dience, but by faith, and faith alone, although 
 from this faith obedience springs as necessarily 
 as the water from the fountain, and as the 
 fruit from the tree, or it is no faith unto life ^ 
 The Word is eternal and unchancjeable ; in it 
 there is no variableness, neither shadow of 
 turning. Unto us, also, the same sentence is 
 
 ^ Rom. ix. 31, 32. " Israel, wliich followed after the law of 
 righteousness, hath not attaiued unto the law of righteousness. 
 Wherefore 1 Because they sought it not by faith, but as it 
 were by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that 
 stumbling stone." 
 
 " Gal. iii. 21, 22. " Is the law then against the promises of 
 God 1 God forbid ! for if there had been a law that could 
 have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the 
 law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that 
 the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them 
 that believe." 
 
SERMON III. 99 
 
 proclaimed ; " the wages of sin is death," even 
 death eternal ; *' but the gift of God is ever- 
 lasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."^ 
 What, then, is sin ? Sin is the transgression of 
 the Law^ even of the Moral Law of the Al- 
 mighty, promulgated by Moses, and ratified 
 by our Saviour. This same Law exists through- 
 out both the Mosaic and the Christian dispen- 
 sations, and is binding upon us. And by 
 it, in its spiritual extent, do the most pure 
 and innocent amongst us know and are con- 
 vinced of our sin, and of the necessity of a 
 Redeemer. Man ought never to have rested, 
 and can never rest, in either dispensation, upon 
 obedience, but upon faith only, for life eternal. 
 Obedience to this Law, in its spiritual extent, 
 was, and is, impossible ; for, like its Author, it 
 is all-pure and all-holy, a perfect standard held 
 up to discipline man for a perfect state of 
 holiness and peace. Through the one only 
 atonement, then (shown forth until the coming 
 of Christ under the type of blood in sacrifice, 
 
 J Rom. vi. 23. 2 joj^^ j^j 4^ 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SERMON III. 
 
 to prevent the Israelites from falsely trusting 
 in their own righteousness), conferring perfec- 
 tion upon a sincere, but altogether imperfect, 
 and therefore insufficient, obedience, the faith- 
 ful are, throughout, assured of grace and life 
 after death, through all the endless ages of 
 eternity. 
 
 Nor is it by any means asserted that every 
 crime which was punished by temporal death 
 under the Mosaic dispensation, underwent 
 also the far more awful penalty of the second 
 death. The peculiar severity ^ of the Mosaic 
 Law was undoubtedly mercy to the trans- 
 gressors, in its early prevention of all sin, as 
 
 * Our modern philanthropy is too often nothing but misan- 
 thropy. The testimony of the philosophic Tacitus as to the 
 " use and mercy " of severity is very valuable ; as it is that of 
 a heathen unenlightened by the Word of God, yet perceiving 
 this great truth by the light and law of nature. 
 
 The words are from a passage relating to the celebrated 
 Roman General Corbulo ; and with regard to the discipline 
 maintained by him in his army: "Remedium severitate quaesi- 
 tum est. Nee enim, ut in aliis exercitibus, primum, alterum- 
 que delictum, venia prosequebatur : sed qui signa reliquerat, 
 statim capite poenas luebat. Idque usu salubre et misericordia 
 melius adparuit. Quippe, pauciores ilia castra deseruere, quam 
 ea, in quibus ignoscebatur." — (Tacit. Ann. L. xiii. sec. 35.) 
 
SERMON III. 101 
 
 well as a most necessary and salutary example 
 to the survivors ; for it was, remember, ad- 
 ministered by no mortal, and therefore fallible, 
 justice, but by Omniscient Equity, even by 
 the Present Deity. One sin alone is recorded 
 in the Word of God, which shall not be for- 
 given, neither in this world, neither in the 
 world to come ^ ; through repentance towards 
 God, and faith in his promise, all else shall be 
 forgiven. In cases, then, of crime, even 
 under aggravated circumstances, sincere con- 
 trition, through the sure mercies of the Re- 
 deemer, may have saved (as we trust they do 
 now save) the oflPender from the second death. 
 In almost all cases the punishments inflicted 
 may have been limited to temporal sufferings ; 
 for after that chastisement, through the Great 
 Atonement they also might be justified from 
 all things from which they could not be justi- 
 fied by the Law of Moses ^ 
 
 From the varied scattered notices of life 
 eternal which we find throughout both the 
 
 * Matt. xii. 32. ' Acts xiii. 39. 
 
102 SERMON III. 
 
 Prophetic and Mosaic Scriptures (casually 
 interspersed as tliey are with other matters), 
 it might be fairly supposed that no doubt was 
 ever entertained in Israel of this doctrine 
 until the cessation of the prophetic spirit 
 amonofst them o-ave rise to schisms and dis- 
 putes which that authority would have over- 
 ruled f and from thence, in all human proba- 
 bility, the obscurity of which some complain 
 does actually arise. In fact, so far from 
 havino' less light than the residue of mankind 
 upon this momentous subject, the Jews (XII.) 
 were the only nation of antiquity who could 
 attain to any certain knowledge of a future 
 state. All the other nations rested solely on 
 tradition, obscured by innumerable fables and 
 superstitions, while they alone had written re- 
 cords of the fact. Nor could the truth of 
 these records be doubted, for that was proved 
 to their every sense by the extraordinary Provi- 
 dence which attended the administration of 
 their Law, and by the visible government of 
 the Deity, exercised amongst them from gene- 
 
SERMON III. 103 
 
 ration to generation, in signs and wonders 
 and prophecies, even until the appointed time 
 when the law and the sceptre were to depart 
 from Jndah', and the Prophet whom Jacob, 
 and Balaam, and Moses foretold, arose as a 
 teacher unto Israel. 
 
 To return to our inquiry : the . period be- 
 tween the writings of Jonah and Solomon is 
 filled by the historical details contained in the 
 Books of the Kings and Chronicles, which 
 are supposed to have been compiled from the 
 records written by some of the contemporary 
 prophets. Of these Elisha seems to have 
 lived amongst the Jewish nation, through the 
 long period of nearly sixty years, until about 
 the age of Jonah's mission to Nineveh. Signs 
 and testimonies of Almighty power, through- 
 out Elisha's pilgrimage on earth, accompanied 
 his ministry j and amongst others, it is re- 
 lated that power was communicated to him to 
 raise the son of the Shunammite from the dead. 
 Even after his own death the same signal 
 
 1 Gen. xlix. 10. 
 
104 SERMON III. 
 
 miracle was publicly wrought, in warning, at 
 his grave : " It came to pass, as they were 
 burying a man, behold, they spied a band of 
 men ; and they cast the man into the sepul- 
 chre of Elisha : and when the man was let 
 down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he 
 revived, and stood on his feet." ^ To his 
 predecessor Elijah, it is recorded, the same 
 power was given in a similar instance, and 
 doubtless for the same merciful purpose to- 
 wards the Lord's people : " He cried unto 
 the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray 
 thee, let this child's soul come into him again. 
 And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah ; and 
 the soul of the child came into him a^jain, and 
 he revived."'^ Here, beyond instances of 
 the resurrection of the body to this life, we 
 have the immortality of the soul, beyond all 
 contradiction, implied and affirmed. Nor is 
 this all that may be gathered from these 
 records. After a ministry of more than ten 
 years, during which signs and miracles were 
 
 » 2 Kings xiii. 21. ^ 1 Kings xvii. 21, 22. 
 
SERMON III. 105 
 
 rejected by Israel, which we might have 
 thought (did we not know the heart of man, 
 now and always the same) would have ter- 
 rified the most hardened into faith and obe- 
 dience, the Lord took up Elijah into heaven : 
 *' It came to pass, as they still went on, and 
 talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot 
 of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them 
 both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
 wind into heaven." ^ What else can we gather 
 from this fact, than that the faithful were to 
 triumph over death — that this mortal body 
 was to put on immortality through the mer- 
 cies of the Redeemer? An example, re- 
 corded in their history (and that not the first), 
 was thus given to the nation of this great 
 truth, for it would have been folly to urge 
 that this affected Elijah alone, unless they 
 were prepared to gainsay the whole tenor of 
 the Divine Law, by denying the very attri- 
 butes therein ascribed unto their God. Every 
 page of their Law described the Deity as an 
 
 > 2 Kings ii. 11. 
 
106 SERMON III. 
 
 eternal being, of infinite mercy, and justice 
 and truth ; and it therefore could never be 
 believed that Elisha and Jeremiah, and all 
 those holy servants of the Lord, who endured 
 too often lives of wretchedness and deaths of 
 torment, would have been allowed to sink for 
 ever, unrewarded, in the dust from whence 
 they came. The sufferings, the extreme 
 misery of their wandering lives, through the 
 persecution of the wicked, is everywhere 
 attested. Even this highly favoured of the 
 Lord, Elijah, requested for himself, worn out 
 with affliction, that he might die \ In com- 
 mon reason, why was it that the greater part 
 of the prophets bore this, their fate, in pa- 
 tience, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, 
 wandering in deserts and mountains, and in 
 dens and caves of the earth, being stoned, 
 being sawn asunder, being tortured, not ac- 
 cepting deliverance^ : but that they well knew, 
 
 1 1 Kings xix. 
 
 * Heb. xi. 35. 38. This most remarkable chapter is nothing 
 less than one general summary and chronological stream of 
 proofs of faith in eternal life, from the very Fall of Man even 
 
SERMON III. 107 
 
 both by precept and example, that there was a 
 life eternal? And, in this case, could the 
 nation ever have been ignorant, during their 
 ministries, of this first doctrine of revela- 
 tion ? 
 
 From these signal proofs, which occupy 
 nearly the whole of the intermediate period, we 
 proceed to the writings of Solomon and David; 
 and here we discover the same doctrine con- 
 stantly alluded to in almost innumerable in- 
 stances, and in some cases plainly preached. 
 The close of the Book of Ecclesiastes pro- 
 claims the future judgment, and in positive 
 terms asserts the immortality of the soul : 
 " Man goeth to his long home and the 
 mourners go about the streets : Or ever the 
 silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be 
 broken, or the pitcher be broken at the foun- 
 tain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then 
 shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; 
 and the spirit unto God that gave it." The 
 
 unto the days of St. Paul. With this Scripture befoie us every 
 doubt is annihilated. 
 
108 SERMON III. 
 
 spirit of man perisheth not as the body. " Let 
 us hear," then, " the conclusion of the whole 
 matter : Fear God, and keep his command- 
 ments, for this is the whole duty of man. For 
 God shall bring every work into judgment 
 with every secret thing " (that has escaped 
 man's notice in this life), " whether it be good 
 or whether it be evil." " Hell ' and destruc- 
 tion" (saith the same writer in the Proverbs) 
 " are before the Lord, how much more then the 
 hearts of the children of men ?"^ " Her house" 
 (saith he of the harlot) " is the way to hell ^ 
 going down to the chambers of death ; the 
 dead are there and her guests are in the 
 depths of heir ; none that go unto her 
 return again, neither take they hold of the 
 paths of life ;" so difficult is it to return 
 from lust to purity. Again, urging the 
 sore travail, the extreme difficulty of repent- 
 ance, he saith, " The man that wandereth out 
 of the way of understanding shall remain in 
 the congregation of the (XHL) dead. My 
 ' Hades, LXX. » xxiii. 13. 
 
SERMON III. 109 
 
 son, keep sound wisdom and discretion, so shall 
 they be life unto thy soul. The spirit of the 
 beast goeth downward to the earth," but the 
 spirit of man goeth upward. *' The labour of 
 the righteous tendeth unto life. The fruit of 
 the righteous is a tree (XIV.) of life, " 
 (conferring, that is, immortality) " and he 
 that winneth souls is wise." ^ " In the way 
 of righteousness is life, and in the pathway 
 thereof there is no death ;" '^ " for righteous- 
 ness delivereth from death." ^ " The wicked 
 is driven away in his wickedness, but the 
 righteous hath hope in his death." ^ Again, 
 " the way of life is above to the wise, that he 
 may depart from hell ^ beneath." '^ 
 
 Precisely the same spirit breathes through 
 the instructions of the Psalmist. "The 
 wicked shall be turned into hell \ and all the 
 nations that forget God." ^ But, reasons he, 
 " I have set the Lord always before me ; be- 
 
 ' xi. 30. « xii. 28. 
 
 ' X. 2. * xiv. 32. 
 
 * Hades, LXX, « xr. 24. 
 
 ' ix. 17. 
 
110 SERMON III. 
 
 cause he is at my right hand I shall not be 
 moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my 
 glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in 
 hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in 
 heir, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One 
 to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path 
 of life ; in thy presence is fulness of joy, and 
 at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever- 
 more.*'^ Life and death eternal are here in- 
 disputably preached, as are they again in these 
 words. "Like sheep" (saith he of the wicked) 
 " they are laid in the grave ^ ; death shall 
 (XV. } feed on them ; and the upright shall 
 have dominion over them in the morning ; 
 and their beauty shall consume away in their 
 dwelling. But God" (saith he, contrasting 
 the fate of the righteous,) " will redeem my 
 soul from the power of the grave \ He 
 shall receive me."^ Teaching Israel thus to 
 look bevond all earthly redemption, he pro- 
 claims the destruction of the earth, and bids 
 
 » Hades, LXX. « xvi. 8-11. 
 
 3 xlix. 14, 15. 
 
SERMON III. Ill 
 
 them fix their hope upon the Rock of Ages : 
 " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the 
 earth, and the heavens are the works of thy 
 hands. They shalt perish, but thou shalt 
 endure, yea, all of them shall wax old as a 
 garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, 
 and they shall be changed."^ " But thou 
 art the same, and thy years shall have no 
 end. We will not fear" (triumphantly ex- 
 claims he elsewhere to his people) " though 
 the earth be removed, and though the moun- 
 tains be carried into the midst of the sea," ^ 
 "for the Lord of hosts is with us, the God 
 of Jacob is our refuge." Complaining to his 
 God of the happiness of the wicked in this 
 world, of the adversity of the righteous, and 
 of the misery which they were called upon'to 
 endure, notwithstanding their obedience to his 
 Law, he justifies, in these conclusions, the 
 ways of Providence : "How are they brouo-ht 
 into desolation in a moment ! they are utterly 
 consumed Avith terrors. Nevertheless I am 
 
 1 Pi3. xcvi. 13. 2 Ps. xlvi. 2. 
 
112 SERMON III. 
 
 continually with thee : thou hast holden me 
 by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with 
 thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to 
 glory ! " ^ One other instance, directly affirm- 
 ing the revelation of life eternal, may be 
 selected. Comparing, in the 133rd Psalm, 
 the unity of brethren to the ointment that 
 was poured on Aaron's head, and to the dews 
 on Hermon ^ and on Zion, he saith, " It is 
 as the dew that descended on the mountains 
 of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the 
 blessinof, even life for evermore.'* 
 
 We must not overlook three several exam- 
 
 " Ixxiii. 19, &c. 
 
 ' Deut. iv. 44. " And this is the law which Moses set before 
 the children of Israel. 
 
 "45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the 
 judgments, which Moses spake unto the children of Israel 
 after they came forth out of Egypt. 
 
 "46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Beth- 
 peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at 
 Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after 
 they were come forth out of Egypt. 
 
 *' 47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king 
 of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side 
 Jordan towards the sun-rising. 
 
 I " 48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, 
 even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon." 
 
SERMON III. 113 
 
 pies of belief in a future state, differently ex- 
 pressed indeed, but each confirming the fact, 
 which occur casually in the Books of Samuel. 
 In the 12th chapter of II. Samuel, we perceive 
 David, in the midst of his grief for the loss 
 of his child, comforting himself with the con- 
 viction of a future state of existence : "I shall 
 go to him, but he shall not return to me ! " ' 
 In the 14th chapter of II. Samuel we find the 
 woman of Tekoah, whom Joab had suborned 
 to obtain the recall of Absalom, thus asserting 
 the doctrine as well known and generally un- 
 derstood before David : *' We must needs die, 
 and are as water spilt upon the ground, which 
 cannot be gathered up again ; neither doth 
 God respect any person : yet doth he devise 
 means that his banished " (that is, those who 
 have undergone the universal decree of na- 
 
 ' The Rabbins always understood the expression used by 
 Abigail to David, 1 Samuel sxv. 29, " The soul of my lord 
 shall be bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy 
 God ;" as a declaration of life eternal. Mr. Campbell, in his 
 " Letters from Algiers," bears witness that this passage is con- 
 stantly engraved on the tombs in all the Jewish cemeteries. 
 
114 SERMON III. 
 
 tural death) "be not expelled from him." 
 The third is where Saul, after the death of 
 the prophet, confiding thoroughly in the im- 
 mortality of the soul, causes the spirit of 
 Samuel to be called up to foretell his own and 
 his sons' fate. The simple fact that Saul did 
 take these means (forbidden as they expressly 
 were in the Law of Moses) to procure in- 
 formation of his destiny, and the existence of 
 necromancers in Israel, prove the reception of 
 this doctrine by the unbelieving and trans- 
 gressors, as well as by the faithful. One other 
 instance may be selected from the commence- 
 ment of the Books of Samuel, where Hannah, 
 the mother of the prophet, thus expresses her- 
 self nearly in the words of Moses : *' The 
 Lord killeth (XVL) and maketh alive : he 
 bringeth down to the grave ^ and bringeth 
 up ;" here the latter clause is but the expla- 
 nation of the former, and most clearly refers 
 to .a future resurrection. 
 
 Throughout all the Prophets, then, from 
 1 Hades, LXX. 
 
SERMON III. 115 
 
 Malachi even unto Samuel', the doctrine of 
 life eternal evidently existed. Where is the 
 fountain head ? From whence has this mass 
 of varied evidence, proving the knowledge of 
 this momentous fact, descended ? The mighty 
 scheme of man's redemption was indeed un- 
 folded slowly and by degree?, but the obscu- 
 rity which did prevail seems to have prevailed 
 more as to the great means and time, than as 
 to the end which was to be accomplished. By 
 the imagination of man's heart, that end had 
 been indeed perverted with singular infatua- 
 tion, considering the light yielded by all the 
 prophetic writings, to mere temporal deliver- 
 ance ; but the knowledge of a future state, 
 we see, did exist throughout, and unto their 
 God the Jews did look for a resurrection from 
 the dead. The path of revelation was ap- 
 pointed to shine more and more unto that per- 
 fect day, when the Sun of Righteousness was 
 to arise, chasing back the shadow and dark- 
 ness of death from the nations; but a life after 
 
 ^ Appendix, Note A. 
 
 T 2 
 
116 SERMON III. 
 
 death was generally known ; nor is our evi- 
 dence of this fact drawn solely from the dark 
 sayings of progressive prophecy, for circum- 
 stantial proofs, casually introduced, and derived 
 from friends and foes of the truth, are found 
 to bear it witness. If we are allowed to carry 
 upward the explanation derived from the Pro- 
 phets, or those, even, which may be gleaned 
 from the Psalmist and Solomon, there cannot be 
 a doubt, that where Moses spake of life, the 
 word eternal was positively understood. In 
 fact, in all human probability, the doctrines of 
 the immortality of the soul, and of a future 
 life, were in that early age so generally known 
 and confessed, that the words live and life, as 
 depending upon an Eternal Being of almighty 
 power, were considered in no other light, but 
 as holding forth eternal blessing to those who 
 rested in humble faith upon the promise of 
 their God. 
 
 In the solemn protest which is recorded in 
 the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, the prophet 
 thus proclaims the Word of God : " I call 
 
SERMON III. 117" 
 
 heaven and earth to record this day against 
 you, that I have set before you life and death, 
 blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, 
 that both thou and thy seed may live." Is 
 not this the blessing, even life for evermore, 
 alluded to by the Psalmist ? *' That thou," 
 continues Moses, "mayest love the Lord thy 
 God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, for 
 he," mark this assertion, " he is thy life, and 
 the length of thy days : that thou mayest dwell 
 in the land which the Lord sware unto thy 
 fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, 
 to give them." Both in this passage, and in a 
 similar charge with which the prophet closes 
 the sono' which he was commanded to teach all 
 Israel, life and length of days are promised ; 
 and elsewhere we find the expression "of all the 
 days that ye live upon (XVII.) the earth j" 
 while in one singular passage, these, as re- 
 gards the faithful, are compared in length with 
 " the days of heaven." ^ But what is the life 
 above mentioned ? He, the Lord God, who 
 
 ' Deut. xi. 21. 
 
118 SERMON III. 
 
 saith unto thee " I live for ever,"' " I kill, and I 
 make alive," ^ He is tliy life. Can such strong 
 terms allude, then, only to the life which we 
 share with the brutes that perish ? or are they 
 not to be understood, as we now understand 
 this and multitudes'' of similar passages in the 
 Gospel, He is " the way, and the truth, and the 
 life"? Again, in the song (to use the words of 
 Hosea, promising the same blessing to the 
 Gentiles), Moses plainly calls them *' the sons 
 of the living God."* " Of the Rock that begat 
 
 CD O 
 
 thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten 
 God that formed thee. Do ye thus requite 
 the Lord, O foolish people and unwise ? is not 
 (XVIII.) he thy father that hath bought thee? 
 hath he not made thee, and established thee?"'^ 
 The subsequent beautiful simile breathes also 
 the same parental tenderness: "He," the Lord, 
 found Jacob his people *' in a desert land, in the 
 waste howling wilderness ; he led him about, 
 
 xxxii. 40. 2 V. 39. 
 
 3 Gal. ii. 20 ; Col. iii. 2-4 ; John xx. 31, &c., &c., &c. 
 * Hosea i. 10. » Deut. xxxii. 18. 6. 
 
SERMON III. 119 
 
 he instructed him, he kept him as the apple 
 of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
 fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad 
 her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her 
 wings ; so the Lord alone did lead him! " Turn 
 again to the words in the prophet's last bless- 
 ing, " The eternal God," O Israel, " is thy 
 refuge, and underneath are the everlasting 
 arms," ^ and say. Are these promises, or is this 
 a care, adapted to a few short years of labour 
 and of sorrow, or do they not self-evidently 
 point far beyond ? Is it not plain, that Moses 
 must have pointed beyond this life, beyond the 
 sleeping dust of the dissolved body, in these 
 and in the following sentences : *' O that there 
 was such an heart in them, that they would 
 fear me, and keep my commandments always, 
 that it might be well with them, and with 
 their children for ever! "^ And again, after the 
 allusion in the song to the destruction of the 
 earth, and to the existence of hell or Hades ; 
 
 1 Deut. xxxiii. 27. ' Peut. v. 29. 
 
120 SERMON III. 
 
 *' O that they were wise, that they understood 
 this, that they would consider their latter 
 end ! " 
 
 It is contended, however, that the earthly 
 Canaan was all the Israelites looked for ; that 
 the blessings they coveted, and had alone in 
 view, were altogether temporal. To me, this 
 is incredible. They were a turbulent, a stiff- 
 necked, and rebellious people ; in the very face 
 of miraculous punishments, rising against their 
 ruler : and it is much more difficult to believe 
 that they would have undergone the sore bur- 
 den and the heavy yoke of their ceremonial 
 Law, unless they well understood, as did their 
 forefathers the patriarchs, that the earthly 
 shadowed forth no less than an heavenly Ca- 
 naan. Nor is it to be imagined that they sup- 
 posed a rest was reserved for them, which 
 their far more righteous progenitors had been 
 promised in vain. This appears more strongly, 
 ijvhen we consider the tenure under which (as 
 they were previously warned before they took 
 
SERMON III. 121 
 
 possession) they were to hold the promised 
 land: "The land' shall not be sold for ever, 
 for the land is mine; and ye are strangers and 
 sojourners before me." Their possession was 
 to be of the same unsettled nature as that of 
 mere tillers of the soil. Could the Israelites 
 have, indeed, been ignorant of the meaning 
 couched in these words ; or was not their per- 
 fect submission to their Law, and to these 
 terms, a proof that they knew, as well as the 
 Psalmist did in after ages, that they were 
 ** strangers upon the earth " ? ' Or was that 
 meaning, indeed, entirely hid from the de- 
 scendants of that Jacob who is recorded in 
 these very writings to have said unto Pharaoh, 
 " The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 
 an hundred and thirty years : few and evil 
 have the days of the years of my life been, 
 and have not attained unto the days of the 
 years of the life of my fathers in their pil- 
 grimage" ? 
 
 It cannot be doubted that Moses alluded to 
 
 • Lev. XXV. 23., 2 Ps. cxix. 
 
122 SERMON III. 
 
 the destruction of the promised land with the 
 earth itself (the annihilation of which all the 
 Prophets likewise insist on), in those remark- 
 able words of the song, " A fire is kindled in 
 mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest 
 hell, and shall consume the earth with her in- 
 crease, and set on fire the foundations of the 
 mountains." At all events there exists here 
 a direct allusion to SheoP, or Hades, which 
 proves that the Israelites knew the existence 
 of a state beyond the grave. Their very Law 
 publicly affirmed this fact to every individual 
 in the nation. The prohibitory statutes, which 
 we find in Deuteronomy, against necroman- 
 cers, whose real or pretended art was exercised 
 in raising and consulting the spirits of the 
 dead, clearly show how well known the doc- 
 trine of life eternal then was, not only in 
 Israel, but amongst the surrounding nations ^ 
 Turning to the recorded fate of Korah, Da- 
 than, and Abiram, we again find Sheol or 
 (XIX.) Hades^ twice mentioned; the word 
 
 ' LXX, Hades. » Deut. xviii. 10. ^ Nmn, xvi. 
 
SERMON III. 123 
 
 translated "pit" in our Bible bearing tbis force 
 in the original : " If the Lord " (saith Moses) 
 " make a new thing, and the earth open her 
 mouth and swallow them up, and all that ap- 
 pertain unto them, and they go down alive into 
 the pit, then shall ye know that these men 
 have provoked the Lord." 
 
 The words of the call of Moses, when " the 
 Lord spake unto him from the midst of the 
 bush," plainly, as our Saviour pointed out 
 to the Sadducees, asserted that the departed 
 Patriarchs were still in being ; and these as- 
 surances were solemnly repeated, in the very 
 same expressions, in the commencement of all 
 the prophet's public missions unto Israel. The 
 ladder in the vision of Jacob (shadowing 
 forth the communications between earth and 
 heaven') repeats the same facts : "The Lord 
 stood above it, and said, I am the God of 
 Abraham thv father, and the God of Isaac.'* 
 
 ' Gen. xxviii. 17. "And he was afraid, and said, How dread- 
 ful is this place ! this is none other but the house of God, and 
 this is the gate of heaven." 
 
124 SERMON III. 
 
 No less than four times is the word Sheol, or 
 Hades, placed in the mouth of Israel himself 
 by Moses ; and the patriarch is made to 
 assume almost the very language of David, 
 while he expresses the very same idea in 
 mourning over the supposed death of his son 
 Joseph ; " I will go down to Sheol to my son." 
 Seven times is Sheol', or Hades, mentioned by 
 Moses ; and it is a singular fact that in the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew alone is the direct 
 word as often registered. Observe next the 
 triumphant exclamation of Jacob when he 
 blessed his sons, even upon his death-bed, " I 
 have waited for thy salvation, O Lord ! " 
 Was there salvation in the very hour of death, 
 then ? Yes, strong in faith the patriarch gave 
 this memorial to his children, that " The 
 angel which redeemed* him from all evil," 
 
 ' Gen. xxxvii. 35 ; xlii. 38 ; xliv. 29. 31. Num. xvi. 30. 33. 
 Deut. xxxii. 22. In all these instances the Hebrew word is 
 Shedl, which the LXX translate Hades ; and the Chaldaic 
 Paraphrase, the Samaritan Text, and Version, and the Syriac 
 Version all agree in this interpretation. 
 
 * There can be no doubt that the Redeemer is in this passage 
 pointed out by the dying patriarch as the one Mediator to his 
 
SERMON III. 125 
 
 would redeem him and all those who were 
 faithful to their God, " from the power of that 
 Sheol," ^ of which he had previously spoken 
 to them all- What, too, was the sin of Esau, 
 which caused his rejection, but that, in despis- 
 ing his birthright, he derided the promised 
 eternity ? That promise of the Lord unto 
 Abraham, " In thy seed shall all the families 
 of the earth be blessed," extended as it is to 
 every soul of mankind, can only be construed 
 as disclosing life eternal. Death and the 
 curse had fallen upon man ; he was to accom- 
 plish as an hireling his day of labour and of 
 sorrow ; nor has this curse ever been revoked 
 but in two signal instances : whence or how, 
 then, were not only the Israelites, but all the 
 families of the earth, to be blessed, unless life 
 eternal, through the means which God had 
 devised, was here always understood ? " Fear 
 
 eons and grandsons, in blessing whom this One Great Giver of 
 eternal life is invoked. The LXX use precisely the same word 
 for the Redeemer in Isaiah xlix. 20. " And the Redeemer shall 
 come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in 
 Jacob, saith the Lord." 
 ' Supplement, B. 
 
126 SERMON III. 
 
 not" (said the Lord again unto Abraham), " I 
 am thy (XX.) shield and thy exceeding 
 great reward." Mark well these words. Moses 
 herein describes the Eternal and Almight y 
 Creator as affirming this of Himself. Is this 
 shield, then, less than Almighty ? Is this ex- 
 ceeding great reward less than eternal ? The 
 same strong expression is used, as I have 
 shown, generally and individually, in the Law, 
 to all the patriarch's descendants, and it never 
 required more than common faith and trust in 
 God to believe, from these extraordinary 
 terms, in life eternal. The offering of Isaac, 
 by his father, also, was a circumstance from 
 which the Israelites could not but gather (as 
 the Jewish ^ historian Josephus did) a firm 
 faith in a future existence. Examine next the 
 prophecy of Balaam, foretelling the advent of 
 Christ : " I shall see him, but not now: I shall 
 behold him, but not nigh :" and say whether 
 
 ' Antiq. Book I. c. xiii. s. 9 : "I suppose he thinks thee 
 T.'crthy to get clear of this workl," &c. This is the reasoning 
 of St. Paul: "of whom the world was not worthy:" Hebrews 
 xi. 38. 
 
SERMON III. 127 
 
 the prophet does not express his conviction of 
 being a personal witness of events that were 
 to take place long after his mortal life in the 
 body was ended? How, too, were the words 
 of Balaam to be understood: "Let me die 
 the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
 be like his"? If the righteous and the 
 wicked alike sank eternally to the dust, where 
 was the difference? if theirs was the same 
 doom, or if the wicked had nothing more to 
 fear beyond the grave, from whence arose this 
 soul-breathed wish of the unrighteous pro- 
 phet? The pang of the departing spirit is 
 the same to all, and Balaam and the Israelites 
 knew that the righteous too often suffered in 
 this life, and perished even hj violent deaths. 
 The prophet therefore implied, and the Is- 
 raelites could not have been ignorant, that the 
 Almighty should be unto his faithful their 
 exceeding great reward, even through eter- 
 nity ; and that to them, " to die was gain." '^ 
 Was there no notorious instance of this fact 
 
 ' PhiliD. i. 21. 
 
128 SERMON III. 
 
 given in this Law upon which the faithful 
 might rest his sure and undoubted trust? 
 Unquestionably there was. By the command 
 of God Moses assured his people that 
 (XXI.) Enoch \ the immediate forefather of 
 Noah, had been redeemed by his Saviour 
 from death and the grave, as a sure witness 
 of his truth, and mercy, and righteousness to 
 all his servants. It is impossible to draw any 
 other conclusion from this fact than that they 
 all, continuing in obedience, should live by 
 faith through all eternity. " Know there- 
 fore " (saith Moses) " that the Lord thy God, 
 he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth 
 covenant and mercy with them that love him 
 and keep his commandments to a thousand 
 generations." ^ Again, '* He is the God of 
 
 ' Jude 14. " And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, pro- 
 phesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten 
 thousand of his saints. 15 To execute judgment upon all, 
 and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their 
 ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all 
 their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against 
 him." 
 
 2 Deut. vii. 9. 
 
SERMON III. 129 
 
 truth, and without iniquity, just and right is 
 he, all his ways are judgment." ^ *' Will God, 
 the faithful God, cast away the perfect ? " * 
 Was the murdered Abel, the righteous Noah, 
 Abraham the friend of God, the miracu- 
 lously born Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, were 
 any or all of these to perish for ever, after the 
 few and evil years of a laborious pilgrimage, 
 in which they earned their bread by the sweat 
 of their brow ; or was the everlasting cove- 
 nant (XXII.) made with Abraham and his 
 seed for ever to fail, as regarded the friend of 
 God, with the patriarch's failing life ? On 
 the contrary, is there not proof enough in the 
 translation of Enoch, without one other in- 
 stance (contrasting this fact with the attri- 
 butes of the Deity), to assure us that the 
 Israelites must have known that (after a life 
 of obedience and faith on earth) the servants 
 of their God were to be (in the, probably at 
 the time it was written, well-understood 
 spiritual meaning of that often -repeatel ex- 
 
 ' Dcut. xxxii. 4. - Job. 
 
 K 
 
130 SERMON III. 
 
 pression) *' gathered unto their fathers in 
 peace " ? ^ 
 
 Nor should the striking fact be omitted 
 that man, though forbidden to eat of the tree 
 of knowledge, was not restrained from the 
 tree of life until after his Fall ; having, as the 
 prophet describes, positive permission to eat 
 tlicreof in common with the rest of the fruits 
 cf Eden. From this circumstance we cannot 
 i:ut believe that Moses asserted that our first 
 parents were created to be immortal (in the 
 words of the Book of Wisdom), and to be an 
 image of God's own eternity (XXIIL). 
 Contrast this fact with the circumstances of 
 
 ' "Procopius, the sophist of Gaza, understood the rov fi'X- 
 Xovra alai/a (as the Jews called it) to he the world of souls, 
 on the text, Genesis xxv. 8 ; where it is affirmed of Abraham's 
 death, Koi irpoa-eTeBrj irpos tov \a6v avrov, and he was gathered 
 to his people ; observing also, that the same is asserted by 
 Isaac, Genesis xxsv. 29, k<u irpocreTed-q npbs to ykvos avrov , 
 and he was gathered unto his people. Ka^' eKarepa (jiaiperaL 
 (saith he) ore Mcovcr^s olbe MA'AISTA tov fieXKovra aiStpa' 
 ovdeis yap, irpoa-TideTai to'is nfj ovaiv. From both these pas- 
 sages it is manifest that Moses well knew the futui-e state: 
 because no one can be said to be gathered to those who are not 
 in existence." — (Windct, De Vita Functorum Statu, p. 12.) 
 
SERMON III. 131 
 
 he Fall, the proraised seed, and the conse- 
 quent institution of atonement by sacrifice, 
 which Adam probably made by the command 
 of the Deity before the birth of Abel (for it 
 is recorded that he was clothed with the skins 
 of beasts, forbidden at that period for food, 
 and slain, therefore, only for sacrifice) ; and 
 the collected evidence that the first parents 
 were assured of a future redeemed immor- 
 tality is too strong to be doubted. The insti- 
 tution at the Fall of a constant memorial by 
 sacrifice, of the great atonement, could have 
 been for no other purpose than to show forth 
 the future recovery of the newly-lost birth- 
 right through the Redeemer. Temporal death 
 had irrevocably passed upon mankind, and 
 temporal miseries and earthly punishments, 
 which were to endure through man's earthly 
 existence, had been felt in consequence of the 
 Fall, before the natural birth of the second 
 man ; in multiplied sorrows had the first 
 mother brought forth her first-born, and 
 Adam had surely witnessed death in sacrifice, 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SERMON III. 
 
 and had previously felt the effects of the sen- 
 tence of the Deity, which existed even in the 
 promised land, and which exist unto this very 
 hour over the whole earth : *' cursed be the 
 ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat 
 of it all the days of thy life." 
 
 Could the Israelites have indeed been blind 
 to all these clear evidences of a future state, 
 which must engage the attention and belief of 
 every considering mind, were there no other 
 sacred Scriptures but the Pentateuch ? Or 
 did he who carried this people as " a nursing 
 father beareth the suckling child in his 
 bosom," ^ — who, in his lowly meekness ex- 
 claimed, " Would God that all the Lord's peo- 
 ple were prophets, and that the Lord would 
 put his spirit upon them ;" "^ — who prayed, in 
 love strong as death towards them, " yet now, 
 if thou wilt, forgive their sin, and if not, blot 
 me, I pray, out of (XXI V".) thy book ! " — did 
 he record these evidences with no view of use 
 
 ' Num. xi. 12. 2 jjuoj^ ^i 29 
 
SERMON III. 133 
 
 to his own kindred, his own people, — he, who 
 in every passage where the patriarchs of his 
 nation are mentioned, himself speaks of them 
 as still existing in a blessed eternity with their 
 Almighty Father? 
 
 It is useless to multiply proofs (XXV."), nor 
 should the writings of Moses' contemporary, 
 Job, be left unconsulted. There are many 
 beautiful and deeply interesting traces to be 
 found throughout sacred Scripture, of the 
 mercy of the Creator unto man, in not leaving 
 Himself without witness amongst the nations, 
 but in proclaiming to them all his will; and 
 that to Him belonged vengeance, and recom- 
 pense infinite and eternal. The true faith 
 was by no means confined to Abraham (as we 
 find in the Book of Genesis), or to his de- 
 scendants. Melchisedec, the king of Salem, 
 and his people, were recorded in Abraham's 
 age amongst the faithful, and even the uncir- 
 cumcised Philistines had not yet learned to 
 defy the living God ; on the contrary, Abime- 
 lech, the king of Gerar, and his people, are 
 
134 SERMON III. 
 
 borne witness to as "a righteous nation."^ Noah, 
 the common father of all, had preached right- 
 eousness, that is, the everlasting word, and the 
 Law of God"^, to all his descendants. From 
 him, too, the knowledge of Enoch's translation^ 
 (the probable origin of the custom of deifying- 
 heroes amongst the Gentiles) had been spread 
 amongst the nations, and the warning of a 
 future state had thus been widely dissemi- 
 nated, and is doubtless from this very origin 
 now universally retained throughout the earth. 
 The Almighty, we may be convinced, has 
 never been wanting unto men, to whose own 
 (XXVI.) wilful withdrawal from the light of 
 revelation the darkness and shadow of death, 
 which now overspread the nations, will be one 
 day too surely traced. Thus, again, we find 
 
 ■ Gen. XX. 4. 2 Appendix, Note C. 
 
 ' The considering mind will perceive, with increased faith 
 in the Bible, that three several instances and positive proofs of 
 eternal life are given in the Mosaic, the Prophetic, and the 
 Christian Dispensations, Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus Christ. The 
 last is the greatest, most complete, by resurrection, as was 
 requisite to the gradually -increasing light of the Sun of Right- 
 eousness. 
 
SERMON JlII. 135 
 
 that (XXVII.) Job, and his friends also, the 
 leaders probably of other tribes and nations, 
 were fully aware of man's future fate. In 
 this book the final destruction of the world is 
 alluded to ; the Redeemer is preached, and 
 resurrection through Him is proclaimed : " As 
 the waters fail from the sea, and the flood de- 
 cayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and 
 riseth not. Till the heavens be no more they 
 shall not awake nor be raised out of their 
 sleep (XXVIII.). O that thou wouldest hide 
 me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me 
 secret until thy wrath be past : that thou 
 wouldest appoint me a set time and remember 
 me. If a man die " (he adds) " shall he live 
 again ? all the days of my appointed time will 
 I wait till my change come. Thou shalt call, 
 and I will answer thee : thou wilt have a de- 
 sire unto the work of thine hands ! " Here 
 we find death represented, as it is throughout 
 the Old Testament, as a sleep, from which 
 man shall awake when his change cometh, 
 though that shall not be until the heavens be 
 
136 SERMON III. 
 
 no more. Again, the patriarch saith (XXIX.), 
 " I know that my redeemer liveth, and that 
 he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 
 and though after my skin worms destroy this 
 body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom 
 I shall see for myself, and not another." The 
 redemption of the body from the grave, 
 through the great spiritual Redeemer, is here 
 proclaimed, as it has been proclaimed from 
 the first institution of sacrifice, even unto this 
 very hour. It has been asserted that the in- 
 troduction of this remarkable passage distin- 
 guishes it as a direct revelation : " OHhat my 
 words were now written ! O that they were 
 printed in a book! That they were graven 
 with an iron pen, and lead, in the rock for 
 ever ! " But the revelation of the Redeemer 
 was even from of old ; it had been previously 
 made, not only to our first parents, but also 
 unto Abraham, and the words of Job may 
 mournfully point to the rebellious ingratitude 
 (for such was the sin of Cain in his sacrifice) 
 > Job xiv. 11. 15. 
 
SERMON III. 137 
 
 or the wilful ignorance and forgetfulness with 
 which man hath always received, even from 
 the Fall, the knowledge of the same facts, to 
 his own eternal destruction : " Ephraim is 
 joined unto idols ; let him alone." ^ Foreseeing 
 the future darkness as to this awful and essen- 
 tial truth, Job here solemnly breathes, through 
 the Spirit, the wish, that the appearance of the 
 Redeemer in the latter day, in all his blessed 
 attributes, might be indelibly recorded to be 
 a perpetual warning to his kindred and peo- 
 ple, and an eternal witness of the mercy and 
 justice of the Almighty. He sees his Re- 
 deemer's day, and is glad^ rejoicing in it, 
 even amidst all the melancholy details of his 
 own deep misery. Glorying in the firm faith 
 of his own future immortality, through the 
 means of his blessed Saviour, he triumphs 
 over all these adversities, which he knows are 
 but for a moment, and anchors his soul in 
 hope and patience upon his God. 
 
 So may it be with each of you, my beloved 
 ' Hosea iv. 17. 2 Jq^u viii. 56. 
 
138 SERMON III. 
 
 brethren ; may no temptation, no trial, no 
 misfortune, ever " separate you from the love of 
 God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ^ 
 May you, through joy and misery, through 
 good report and evil report, through life and 
 death, cleave steadfastly, resisting, if ye be 
 called upon, even unto blood ^ to the cross 
 and faith of your Redeemer. *' He who 
 loseth his life for my sake,"^ saith our Sa- 
 viour, " shall find it," for He is your life, who 
 created, who died for you, who liveth to cause 
 you to triumph over death and the grave, and 
 to reward you with eternal blessings conferred 
 by no less than Almighty Power. The time 
 is short 5 watch, and pray, " for ye know not 
 at what hour your Lord cometh,"^ that your 
 lamps may be trimmed, and your lights burn- 
 ing ; so shall ye also be numbered amongst 
 those blessed ones, who love his appearing^, 
 expecting earnestly to be redeemed for ever 
 from sin, and death, and misery. 
 
 ' Rom. viii. 35. 39. = Heb. xii. 4. ^ IMatt. x. 39. 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 42. « 2 Tim. iv. 8. 
 
SERMON III. 139 
 
 And thou, who darest to stand in rebellion, 
 worm as thou art, against the Almighty, and 
 the word of his truth ; " Thinkest thou, 
 O man, that thou shalt escape the judgment 
 of God ? Or despisest thou the riches of 
 his goodness and forbearance and long suffer- 
 ing ; not knowing that the goodness of God 
 leadeth thee to repentance ? " Darest thou, 
 " after thy hardness and impenitent heart, to 
 treasure up unto thyself wrath against the day 
 of wrath and revelation of the righteous judg- 
 ment of God? who will render to every 
 man according to his deeds : to them that by 
 patient continuance in well doing seek for 
 glory and honour and immortality, eternal 
 life. But unto them that are contentious, and 
 obey not the truth, but obey unrighteous- 
 ness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and 
 anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth 
 evil."' Behold, in the words of the same 
 Apostle, " Now we are ambassadors for Christ, 
 as though God did beseech you by us : we pray 
 
 ' Rom. ii. 3-9. 
 
140 SERMON III. 
 
 you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto 
 God." ^ Heaven and earth are called to wit- 
 ness that the Almighty hath laid before thee 
 life and death, blessing and cursing ; choose 
 thee life, then, that thou mayest live ^. Turn 
 thee, turn thee, for why wilt thou die ^ ? 
 
 In vain, however, are all the calls of mercy 
 reiterated. They will not come unto Christ 
 that they might have life. Blinded by the god 
 of this world*, they justify themselves in their 
 sins and pollutions by the idle doubts of their 
 shallow minds, preferring these to all the 
 truths of Omniscient Wisdom. Did they but, 
 in an honest and good heart ^ apply them- 
 selves to the Word, all these would soon be 
 rolled back like mists before the rising bright- 
 ness of the day-spring from on high^ But 
 when they search the Scriptures only in order, 
 to doubt and to scoff, is it possible that they 
 can reap less than death ? *' Let but one 
 of these wonders," (they cry,) "one single 
 
 • 2 Cor. V. 20. ^ Deut. xxx. ^ Ezek. xviii. 31. 
 
 * 2 Cor. iv. 4. * Luke viii. 15. • Luke i. 78. 
 
SERMON III. 141 
 
 miracle be vouchsafed to us, and we will 
 believe and embrace the Gospel, and bow our 
 hearts in perfect obedience to all its pre- 
 cepts." Such is, as it always hath been, the 
 lying spirit in the mouths of the corrupted 
 and rebellious ; such is, as it always hath 
 been, the pretext oflfered by the desperate, the 
 natural hypocrisy of the human heart, to 
 justify itself in sin and disobedience. Me- 
 ditate only upon the long series of signs and 
 wonders wrought, through a period of cen- 
 turies, amongst the descendants of Abraham. 
 Perpetual miracles were displayed before them, 
 in vengeance and in recompense. Their 
 whole history is one of awful and tremen- 
 dous and supernatural occurrences, even from 
 its beginning unto its end. What were the 
 effects of these miraculous dispensations ? Did 
 they not even still more harden the uncircum- 
 cised heart, till that very people amongst 
 whom the Lord had always borne witness 
 to his truth by signs and wonders, and a 
 stretched-out arm, were driven forth as unbe- 
 
142 SERMON III. 
 
 lieving outcasts from before Him, and became, 
 as they are unto this day, an hissing and an 
 astonishment unto the earth ? 
 
 So would it be with these men ; they would 
 refuse to be ashamed. Possess ye, then, your 
 souls in patience ; let them scoff on their 
 little day, in all their virulent impotence. 
 They may be spared in this life, or they may 
 be made, in vengeance, signal examples of 
 Almighty wrath, even before they descend by 
 decav of nature to that state, of which thev 
 but pretend to doubt ; for they cannot shut 
 the ear to their own conscience, nor to the 
 concurrent testimony of all nations and of all 
 ages. The wonders which they, in the dis- 
 simulation of their hearts, require to be 
 wrought, have been, we see, through the cor- 
 ruption of our evil nature, altogether ineffec- 
 tual for swaying the belief of the many. The 
 collected evidences of miraculous powers ex- 
 ercised before a people whose descendants are 
 amongst us to this day, and who are ^ living 
 
 ' See Leslie's Short Method with the Deist. This excellent 
 
SERMON III. 143 
 
 witnesses of their truth, exercised through a 
 period of many revolving centuries, are in 
 their hand. " They have Moses and the pro- 
 phets, let them hear them." Let not these 
 douhters he deceived j God is not mocked : 
 Omniscient Wisdom and All-suffering Mercy 
 has given them their last warning ; "if they 
 hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
 they he persuaded though one rose from the 
 dead." 
 
 and original little work, is published by tbe Society for Pro- 
 moting Christian Knowledge. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 THIRD SERMON. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Jews were the only nation, &c. p. 1 02. 
 
 Dr. Prideaux, in his " Connections," &c., states, 
 that the Persian lawgiver Zoroaster, b.c. 560, is 
 asserted to have been a pupil of Daniel, or of one of 
 the Jewish prophets, from whom he received the 
 doctrine of the immortality of the soul ; and that 
 from Zoroaster, the Greeks, through Pythagoras, 
 B.C. 530, received the same doctrine, debased, how- 
 ever, by the absurd addition of the transmigration of 
 souls, which formed no part of Zoroaster's creed. 
 But the belief in a future state existed, long before 
 the age of these philosophers, amongst the Greeks. 
 Nevertheless, Pythagoras is known to have visited 
 
NOTES. l-io 
 
 Egypt and Chaldsea, and may well therefore have 
 conferred with Zoroaster on the doctrine of life 
 eternal, as the Magi^ undoubtedly held the faith of a 
 second life. Indeed, it is a certain fact that the 
 revealed Law of God, existing before* in essentials, 
 but written first by Moses, has served as a fountain 
 of light and truth for all the nations of the East; 
 although they denied its authority, and, with the 
 vanity of human nature, concealed the source of 
 their knowledge, giving the names of their own 
 legislators to laws founded on these principles of 
 eternal truth, yet infinitely deteriorated by their o\\ n 
 innumerable added superstitions. Even in our own 
 days a fraud by no means dissimilar is continually 
 committed. Men who reject the Gospel and the 
 Saviour, and who, in the pride of that talent which 
 they receive from Providence, would affect to deifv 
 themselves, do yet derive every pure, and noble, and 
 generous, and upright sentiment and principle, which 
 appear in their writings, from that very Word of God 
 which they at the same time pretend to despise. 
 Thus does man still, in the madness of his folly, 
 trample upon, yet endeavour to arrogate to himself 
 the knowledge of the Most High. 
 
 ' De Magis, dicit Theopompus, apud Laertium, dva^iaaecrBai, 
 Kara tovs Mayovy, tovs avOpairovs. — In Proem. 
 ^ Gen, xxvii. 5 ; Job. xxii. 22. 
 
146 NOTES. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The congregation of the dead. p. 108. 
 
 'Ev avvay!)iyri yiyavTcov LXX. — Literally, " in the 
 congregation of the giants." The Hebrew word is 
 Rephaim, which the LXX translate TlyavTeg. Now, 
 the giants are represented elsewhere in the Word of 
 God, as by Isaiah xlv. 9; by Ezekiel repeatedly, 
 xxxii ; and, by Job ; — to be living in a future state of 
 punishment, and to be using the living attribute of 
 speech. The passage from Job xxvi. 5, has been 
 erroneously translated in our Bible. Calmet trans- 
 lates it thus, " Gigantes (Rephaim) gemuntsub aquis, 
 et qui habitant cum eis," &c. Archbishop Magee 
 renders the passage thus : 
 
 " 5. The souls of the dead tremble : 
 
 (The places) below the waters, and their in- 
 habitants. 
 
 " 6. The seat of the spirits is naked before Him : 
 And the region of destruction hath no cover- 
 ing." ^ 
 
 The chief point to be remarked is, the positive 
 evidence which this expression yields of a future 
 state. There is a concordance of representation from 
 four sacred writers here, which enforces especial con- 
 sideration, and which gives accumulated circumstan- 
 tial proof. Another passage of the Book of Eccle- 
 
NOTES. 147 
 
 siasticus, from the 16th chapter, may be added also 
 to this evidence : 
 
 " . In the congregation of the ungodly shall a 
 fire be kindled ; and, in a rebeUious nation, 
 wrath is set on fire. 
 " 7. He was not pacified toward the ancient 
 giants, (tte^i t&Jv apx^iuv Tiyavrcov,) who 
 resisted in the strength of tlieir foolish- 
 ness." 
 The word Hades occurs no less than nine times 
 in the LXX version of the Proverbs of Solomon. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Is a tree of life, &c. p. 109. 
 
 To svKQv TYJi 'Zm^. — the tree of life. 
 
 The reader will also remark the 18th verse of the 
 3rd chapter of the Proverbs, where Solomon, de- 
 scribing divine wisdom, or religion, affirms, ^vKqv 
 ^uHi EO-Ti TToiai To7g avTBxo/^svoig aurrji. LXX, '' She is 
 a tree of life unto all who lay hold upon her." Of 
 the meaning of this term there can be no doubt ; as 
 Moses, from whose writings it is taken, defines it, 
 Genesis iii. 22, to be the symbol of life eternal, or of 
 living for ever. Solomon, following Moses as his 
 teacher and guide, asserts, that the fruit of the 
 righteous, or righteousness, will (but only, as the whole 
 Law declares, with atonement) confer life eternal. 
 Again, he affirms that divine wisdom, or religion, 
 conducts to everlasting happiness. The admirable 
 
 L 2 
 
148 NOTES. 
 
 unity of purpose, the perfect coincidence of view, as 
 to life eternal {Svxov ^avg, are the words attributed to 
 Moses by the LXX) not only between the inspired 
 writers of the Old Testament amongst themselves, 
 but between them and the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment, is everywhere most striking and apparent. 
 Turning to the Revelation of St. John, we accord- 
 ingly find the very same words, Su>.ov ^coH^, re- 
 peatedly occurring throughout that sacred book; and 
 thus, observe, that the first and last books of sacred 
 Scripture offer a perfect identity of view, and repre- 
 sent life eternal under one and the self-same image. 
 Is it objected that the tree of life is an allegorical, or 
 rather an emblematical, representation? This may 
 or may not be so ; but Divine things must often be 
 revealed, even by material representations, that they 
 may be, in a measure, levelled to, and thus compre- 
 hended by, human understanding. These represen- 
 tations, emblematical as they are, or may be, give as 
 it were tangible proof of reality to every mind which 
 receives them by faith, in an humble and teachable 
 spirit, as the word, not of man, but of God. To the 
 believing mind, these coincidences, and comparisons, 
 and representations, allegorical or material, are full, 
 sufficient, and most satisfactory evidence. There is 
 no given word, or form of words, especially where 
 the subject regards the unseen things of eternity, 
 which wilful spirits do not divest of all meaning, by 
 perverse reasonings to justify themselves, were it pos- 
 sible, in unbelief. 
 
NOTES. 149 
 
 XV. 
 
 Death shall feed on them, 8cc. p. 110. 
 
 The full force of this verse has not been compre- 
 hended, as Hammond justly observes, by the trans 
 lator in the EngHsh copy of the Psalms. "The 
 Septuagint translate it 'O ^avaros Trot/jtaveT ainoix; ; and 
 the Hebrew text signifies watching over and pas- 
 turing sheep, as a shepherd." This is awful and 
 terrible imagery; pointing out the existence of the 
 wicked, departed from this life, under tremendous 
 guard. The King of Terrors is thus represented as 
 the shepherd of the ungodly ; even as our Saviour 
 is elsewhere described as the Good Shepherd of the 
 faithful : " He shall gather the lambs with his arm, 
 and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead 
 those that are with young." ^ The word Hades oc- 
 curs in no less than twelve instances in the LXX 
 Version of the Psalms; and is quoted from the 
 Psalms by St. Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles. 
 Death and Hades are also personified by Isaiah^, by 
 Hosea""*, and in the Revelation of St. John*. 
 
 • Isaiah xl. 11. ^ 2 Isaiah xiv. 9. 
 
 3 Hosea xiii. 14. * Rev. xx. 13. 
 
150 NOTES. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Tlie Lord killeth and maketh alive, 8cc. p. 114. 
 
 See the Schemoneh Ezra, or Eighteen Prayers, of 
 the Jewish Church. These prayers are attributed to 
 Ezra, and are, at all events, of great antiquity, as the 
 Mishna makes mention of them as old settled 
 forms. They are given by Dr. Prideaux in his 
 " Connections," &;c.. Part i. p. 447. There is a 
 letter also now before the writer from a member of 
 one of the first Jewish congregations in Europe, 
 stating that " These prayers were drawn from ob- 
 livion by Ezra, at the time of the rebuilding of the 
 Temple : and ever since that period they have been 
 in use, up to this day, in all Jewish congregations 
 where divine service is held." 
 
 Prayer II. 
 
 " Thou, O Lord ! art powerful for ever ! Thou 
 raisest the dead to life, and art mighty to save ! 
 Thou sendest down the dew, stillest the winds, and 
 makest the rain to come down upon the earth, and 
 sustainest with thy beneficence all that live therein, 
 and of thy abundant mercy makest the dead to live 
 again ! Thou helpest up those that fall, Thou curest 
 the sick, Thou loosest them that are bound, and 
 makest good thy Word of Truth to those that sleep 
 in the dust ! Who is to be compared to Thee, O 
 
NOTES. 151 
 
 thou Lord of might? And who is like unto Thee, 
 O our King ? who killest and makest ahve, and 
 makest salvation to spring up as the herb out of the 
 field ; Thou art faithful to make the dead to rise 
 again to life ! Blessed art Thou, O Lord ! who 
 raisest the dead again to life ! " 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how a nation using this 
 prayer, through revolving centuries too, can ever have 
 been said to have been ignorant of the second life. 
 The expressions are too strong and clear to be mis- 
 taken or explained away ; and the faith of the 
 Jewish nation was never left to be proved by the 
 books of their Law, and their Prophets only, so long 
 as this, one of their ancient national forms of prayer, 
 existed. The whole of this prayer is a comment 
 upon the words of the song of Moses, " I kill and I 
 make ahve," ^ answering to Psalm Ixvi. 20, *' unto 
 God the Lord belong the issues from death ;" but 
 still more pointedly to the passage to which the 
 prayer and this note are attached ; " The Lord kill- 
 eth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to Hades 
 and bringeth up :" while this may again be fairly 
 contrasted with the Revelation, i. 18, to obtain the 
 full meaning ; " I am he that liveth and was dead ; 
 
 ' The LXX render this passage, and the Samaritan Text and 
 Syriac Version, as well as the Chaldaic Paraphrase, all agree in 
 this translation, in a more marked manner; Eyco aTro/creiVw, koI 
 ^fjv TTOLTjcra), implying, as 'we see the Jews affirmed, a promise of 
 a future life. 
 
152 NOTES. 
 
 and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and 
 have the keys of Hades and of death." 
 
 But examine the internal evidence of the prayer 
 itself. Observe only the particular words and 
 phrases. *' Thou raisest the dead to life" (no one 
 single instance, no partial raising this; for the dead 
 are spoken of generally: and this is the general 
 
 resurrection). "Thou sustainest with thy 
 
 beneficence all that live " in the earth (supporting 
 daily the present life in all), " and of thy abundant 
 mercy raakest the dead to live again ! " The dead to 
 live again ; makest the dead to live again ? This can 
 mean nothing else but the second life. " Thou 
 curest the sick, Thou loosest them that are bound. 
 Thou makest good thy Word of Truth " (the promise, 
 life eternal) "to those that sleep in the dust." Com- 
 pare this phrase nvith the perpetually-recurring ex- 
 pression, " slept with his fathers," in the Old Testa- 
 ment. Then follow the words of the Song of Moses, 
 " Who is like unto thee, O our King ! who killest 
 and makest alive " (this positively proves their belief 
 of the promise of a second life, in these words), 
 " and makest salvation to spring up as the herb of 
 the field ! " This is the very comparison of Isaiah, 
 " Your bones shall flourish or spring up as an herb ;" 
 and is precisely similar to the illustration of the 
 resurrection given by St. Paul from the grain com- 
 mitted to the earth. Afterwards the prayer con- 
 cludes, "Thou art faithful" (to thy promise) "to 
 
NOTES. 153 
 
 make the dead to rise again to " (the second) " hfe I 
 Blessed art Thou, O Lord ! who raisest the dead " 
 (the general resurrection) " again to " (the second) 
 " life ! " 
 
 These acknowledgments of the general resurrec- 
 tion and of the second life are so repeated, so full, 
 and so incontrovertible, that they leave no room for 
 doubt or contradiction. Recollect, then, the antiquity 
 of this prayer, probably of the age of Ezra (b.c. 457), 
 and its constant use ; then, contrasting it with the 
 opinions held in our Saviour's age, as proved by the 
 internal evidences of the Gospel, say whether the 
 believing Jews, believing only in the Books of Moses 
 and their Prophets, ever ought to have been, during- 
 the use of this prayer, ignorant of the great doc- 
 trine of life eternal ? Well might our Saviour urge 
 the judgment, " If ye hear not Moses and the pro- 
 phets, neither will ye be persuaded though one rose 
 from the dead." 
 
 What of Gospel truth is sacrificed in conceding 
 these unquestionable facts? Not one jot or tittle, 
 for Christ is all. He brought (as the Redeemer) 
 man's life and immortality to light ; and He is man's 
 only life and immortality. On the other side, by 
 attempting to deny these facts we actually impugn 
 the mercy and justice of God, in not warning his 
 own people of the second life. Any one given word, 
 whether it be the Sheol or Gehenna of the Hebrews, 
 or the Hades or Tartarus of the Greeks, may be, by 
 
154 NOTES. 
 
 wilful unbelievers, divested of its meaning. But 
 various circumstantial warnings are given, by types, 
 by emblems, by promises, and by covenants, as well 
 as in positive words, that the Saviour may be justi- 
 fied in his judgment, and that man may be left self- 
 convicted. He who in his mercy named Himself the 
 Father of Israel, thus revealed to the nation their 
 high destiny. Nor was a future state ever concealed 
 even as far as punishment therein was concerned. 
 Thus Moses warned Israel, that in Sheol, or Hades, 
 " a fire was kindled in the anger of the Lord." ^ 
 Isaiah thus proclaimed "the everlasting burnings,"* 
 (which the Chaldaic paraphrase renders "the Ge- 
 henna of everlasting fire,") and that, " Tophet is 
 ordained of old." Thus David asserts that " the 
 wicked shall be turned into hell." ^ 
 
 If any doubt ever existed generally, amongst 
 the Jews, as to the fact of the second life, it 
 has arisen from their rejection and denial of Him 
 who alone is " the resurrection and the life ;" 
 and it has arisen since his appearance in the 
 flesh. The Almighty has never left Himself without 
 witness, as the Books of the Law and the Pro- 
 phets most amply testify. Moreover, the whole Law 
 of Moses invariably teaches, that without shedding 
 of blood there is no remission; and the universal 
 Word proclaims and proves that the blood thus shed 
 
 ' Deut. xxxii. 22. - Isa. xxxiii. 14 ; xxx. 33. 
 
 3 Ps. ix. 17. 
 
NOTES. 1 55 
 
 for ages in sacrifice shadowed forth the blood of 
 Christ, the spiritual Redeemer. Examine the Epistle 
 of St. Paul to the Hebrews, and it will be observed 
 that he speaks of the promise of entering into God's 
 rest, as revealed and well known to all his country- 
 men of old ; chiefly insisting upon the only door (to 
 use St. John's expression) to " enter into life," which 
 door is Christ. 
 
 How was it, then, that the majority of the Jewish 
 nation looked for a temporal rather than a spiritual 
 Saviour ? For the selfsame reasons that the human 
 heart, now and always the same, will yet tamper 
 between earth and heaven. They gave not all the 
 heart, the chief place in their affections, to their 
 God : with souls wedded to things seen, coveting 
 chiefly earthly honours and possessions, they con- 
 sidered not first the spirituality of their faith and 
 their eternal life. But there is a very wide distinc- 
 tion between the indulgence of this spirit (too com- 
 mon amongst Christians), and their denying the old 
 covenant of everlasting life, made with their fore- 
 father Abraham and with themselves. On the con- 
 traiy, every varied evidence proves their constant 
 perpetual belief in life eternal (with the exception of 
 one sect), although indubitable testimony also exists 
 of their preference of earth to heaven, and of their 
 consequent, yet long-delayed, punishment. 
 
 A short notice of the antiquity of the Mishna, or 
 
 ' John X. 1, 2. 
 
156 NOTES. 
 
 Misna (AEUTEpaa-t^, or repetition of the Law), may be 
 subjoined. St. Jerome, on Isaiah viii., states that 
 the Jews attribute the Mishna to Hillel and Sammai'; 
 and Josephus, in his Antiquities, Ixiv. 17, and Ixv. 
 1, speaks of Sameas, or Sammai, in the reign of 
 Herod the Great. Calmet asserts that the Mishna 
 was first pubhshed by the celebrated Rabbin Judah 
 Hakkedosh, about the year of our Lord 180. 
 
 xvn. 
 
 All the days that ye live, &c. p. 117. 
 
 " Maimonides, conscious that the Mosaic promises 
 of temporal reward were figurative of future recom- 
 pense, gives this traditionary explanation of the 
 sanction in Deut. iv. 40: — 'Ut bene sit tibi, in 
 saeculo, quod totum est bonum. Et prolonges dies, 
 in saecuhmi quod totum est longum.' " — Bishop Gray. 
 
 xvin. 
 
 Is not he thy Father, &c. p. 118. 
 
 H T'todea-ia. — The adoption. 
 
 There is scarcely any fact in all Revelation that 
 strikes us with greater force, or more exclusively 
 fixes our attention, than the adoption by the Deity 
 of the posterity of Abraham as sons and daugh- 
 
NOTES. 1 5 
 
 ters. Abraham was himself called " the friend, 
 the beloved,"^ of God; but every one of his de- 
 scendants bore a higher and more effectual, because 
 a more affectionate title, that of " child of God." 
 This pledge was added to that of the everlasting 
 covenant, as if to give the Hebrews, while living in 
 obedience to the Divine Law, unquestionable as- 
 surance of eternal life ; for every human being to 
 whom the Lord had thus given a right to the name 
 of son or daughter, must have been conscious of 
 their claim to an eternal inheritance. Hence we 
 find the Redeemer styling his countrymen as de- 
 scendants of Abraham, not mere inheritors of the 
 land of Canaan, but, in language well known to them 
 all, "children^ of the kingdom of heaven." The 
 adoption is proved throughout the whole of sacred 
 Scripture, although the forfeiture of this right, and 
 the consequent disinheritance of the Jews, is also 
 unequivocally asserted in the Gospel of Jesus. The 
 Psalms, the Prophets, and the whole of the new 
 Covenant, recognise the fact ; but the revelation * 
 eminently appertains to the Books of Moses. In the 
 Gospel of St. John, where the Jews are represented 
 as reasoning with our Saviour on their high privi- 
 leges, they make this one their chief boast, and 
 assert not only " we have Abraham for our father," 
 
 ^ 'O fjyaTrrjuevos. LXX. 
 
 2 Matt. viii. 11,12; Luke xiii. 28, 29. 
 
 3 Deut. xxxiii. 5, 6. 18, 19, 20. 43 ; Exodus iv. 22. 
 
158 NOTES. 
 
 but also, " we have one father ^ even God." In his 
 Epistle to the Romans St. Paul enumerates this 
 acknowledged right, placing it first amongst the 
 peculiar endowments belonging to his kinsmen the 
 Jews, " the Israelites to whom pertaineth the * adop- 
 tion." In short, this high privilege is recorded 
 throughout both the old and new Covenants, and it 
 has been especially confirmed in the last by our 
 Redeemer's prayer, and by his solemn declaration, 
 " whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is 
 my brother,^ and my sister, and my mother." 
 
 What is there that a father will not grant to a ge- 
 nerally obedient although at times erring child? 
 Nothing, surely, for his good always, within the 
 whole compass of his power. Any human being who 
 is, or, above all, who has been, a parent, will at once 
 feel and enter into the full force of this argument. 
 Could a father allow his child to sleep for ever unre- 
 membered in the dust, while he had the power of 
 raising him from the dead ? The answer is self-evi- 
 dent — in the words of Job, the more favoured Is- 
 raelite might express his firm faith; " Thou shaltcall, 
 and I will answer thee ; thou wilt have a desire unto 
 the work of thy hands;"* or he might even reason 
 according to the strong affection of the father for his 
 
 * John viii. 41, 
 
 ^ 'lo-paT^Xtrai, U)V 17 Yto^ecrta. Rom. ix. 4. 
 3 Mark iii. 35. 
 
 * Job xiv. 15. 
 
« NOTES. 159 
 
 obedient son, in the parable of the prodigal, " Son ^, 
 thou art ever with me, and all that I have is tliine." 
 This is not to be received as the uncertain adoption 
 of man, but (as it is in truth) as the adoption of God. 
 It is, therefore, the evident promise of the imperish- 
 able attachment of eternal love. The prophet Isaiah 
 proclaimed it as such, in expressions full of energy 
 and of the most confident faith : " Doubtless thou 
 art pur Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, 
 and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art 
 our Father^, our redeemer from everlasting is thy 
 name." Not without reason, then, did the Jews, 
 trusting in this privilege also, believe that they were 
 to be redeemed from the grave, and were to be inhe- 
 ritors, or children, of the kingdom. Taught by their 
 Scriptures, they combined this adoption with the ever- 
 lasting Covenant, and claimed justly to be children 
 both of Abraham and of God. They believed in 
 these promises for eternal life, and rightly so believed 
 in them, had they not rejected the Lord's Christ^ 
 their righteousness *. It is recorded that they relied 
 on no other promises to be saved from the wrath to 
 come*, and from the unquenchable fires in that 
 future existence for which they unquestionably looked. 
 Thus we find the Baptist warning them that their 
 
 ' Luke XV. 31. 2 ig^. ixiii. 16. 
 
 3 Luke ii. 26. * Jer. xxiii. 6. 
 
 * ano TTjs ixfWoi/a-r]s opyrjs, answering to, 6 fjLeXXcuu atcov; see 
 Note I. 
 
160 NOTES. • 
 
 trust in this birthright of the adoption would never 
 protect them from the future fate of the wicked, 
 unless they brought forth fruits meet for repentance. 
 " Think not " (said he) " to say within yourselves, we 
 have Abraham for our father, for I say unto you, 
 that God is able of these stones to raise up children 
 unto Abraham."^ 
 
 Nor is this reasoning on the adoption the language 
 of inference or of imagination ; it is the open, posi- 
 tive assertion of revelation. Well nigh the whole of 
 the eighth chapter to the Romans enforces the simple 
 truth that this privilege is a plain promise of eternal 
 life. " We know" (no dark fact this) " that the whole 
 creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
 now ; and not only they, but we ourselves also, which 
 have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
 groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
 wit, the redemption of our body," from the grave 
 and death. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Korah, Dathan, and Ahiram, &c. p. 122. 
 
 The plain allusion to this miracle, in the 55th 
 Psalm : " Let death seize upon them, and let them 
 go down alive into hell " {KaTa^rnuaav ug "A^ou 
 {wvrtg' LXX) " for wickedness is in their dwellings;" 
 
 ' Matt. ix. 12. 
 
NOTES. 161 
 
 as well as the very circumstantial description of 
 Moses, must persuade us that this was a recorded in- 
 stance of punishment in a future state. The Chaldaic 
 jDaraphrase renders " the pit of destruction," men- 
 tioned in continuation of his argument by David, 
 in the 24th verse of the Psalm, by the word 
 " Gehenna." 
 
 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against 
 their Lawgiver and King, the Lord, wnth an high 
 hand; scoffing, with most pertinacious and deter- 
 mined stubbornness, at his servants, Moses and 
 Aaron. The most awful and studious preparation is 
 made for the memorable display of this miracle of 
 God's wrath. The vengeance was not immediate • 
 space was given for repentance to these sinners, not 
 against their own lives only, but also against their 
 own souls ; to-morrow was the time named ; and 
 all Israel was summoned to witness with their own 
 eyes the justice of their King. Before the whole 
 assembled nation they descended, as the prophet 
 expressly threatened, alive into Sheol. From the 
 whole narration, from the word Sheol, or Hades 
 (LXX), twice used by Moses, from the express de- 
 claration that these sinners should die no common 
 death, from the quotation made by David in the 
 above-mentioned Psalm (the words are precisely the 
 same in the LXX copy of the Book of Numbers 
 and in the Psalms), we draw this conclLi-ion, and we 
 can draw no other, that this is a record of punishment 
 
 M 
 
162 NOTES. 
 
 in a future state, darkened in all its unknown terrors 
 by the awful silence as to any detail ; except that 
 the prophet elsewhere warns his nation, " that 
 a fire is kindled in the anger of the Lord which shall 
 burn unto the lowest Sheol." The Vulgate, the Sep- 
 tuagint, the Chaldaic paraphrase, the Samaritan text, 
 and Syriac version, all express the same meaning, 
 signifying that they descended alive into a future 
 state \ 
 
 XX. 
 
 I am thy shield, Sec. p. 126. 
 
 WitsiuSy De (Economicl Foederum, Lib. iii. c. ii. 
 Sect. V. p. 262. 
 
 When God declares Himself a God to any, it in- 
 cludes eternal life: for when God, from his free 
 grace, gives Himself to man, He gives him every- 
 thing, as, in Himself, He is everything. Man, there- 
 fore, finds in Him a shield against all evil, and an 
 exceeding great reward (according to the promise to 
 Abraham, Gen. xv, 1). What more can he desire, to 
 secure full and perfect happiness, which includes 
 eternity? For this reason the Apostle joins these 
 two, Hebrews xi. 16: " Noav, God is not ashamed 
 to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them 
 
 a city." 
 
 ' Jade 11. 
 
NOTES. 1G3 
 
 This opinion, which the writer discovered after he 
 had preached these Sermons, is chiefly remarkable, as 
 breathing the very spirit of all our Saviour's expla- 
 nations of the whole covenant : " God is not the God 
 of the dead, but of the living." If men will not, in 
 all singleness of heart, have faith in the promises of 
 God, eternal life can have no reality to them; even 
 although every expression which human language 
 can furnish be used, until all be exhausted. All will 
 be in vain, because these things can only be seen by 
 the eye of faith, which faith is expressly defined by 
 the Word of God itself to be " the evidence of 
 things not seen." Hebrews xi. 1. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Moses assured his people that EnocJt, &c, p. 128. 
 
 Another very striking proof of the perpetual know- 
 ledge of this doctrine is the fact, that each of the 
 three dispensations has its separate and distinct ex- 
 ample of eternal life. The Mosaic dispensation has 
 that of Enoch ; the Prophetic dispensation has that 
 of Elijah; but neither of these holy men were sub- 
 mitted previously to death. This last seal was re- 
 served for the Gospel dispensation, and the final and 
 crowning example of Jesus Christ; who, having sub- 
 mitted to death, is therefore termed emphatically by 
 
 M 2 
 
164 NOTES. 
 
 St. Paul and St. John^, o TrpccroTOKCi ek tuv vsnpZv, "the 
 firstborn from the dead." It was, indeed, the resur- 
 rection of Christ which brought that life and immor- 
 tality, already revealed from of old, to such light, 
 that hands handled that light in the person of Jesus, 
 the Redeemer: " Reach hither thy finger, and behold 
 my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
 into my side ; and be not faithless, but believing." ^ 
 Jesus is Himself the Gospel, the Resurrection, and the 
 Life. The simple fact of this distinct example to 
 each of the three dispensations proves, beyond a 
 shadow of doubt, an especial providence to main- 
 tain from the beginning, and to perpetuate the reality 
 of life eternal. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 'H AiaS^xn aiuviog. 
 
 The everlasting covenant, p. 129. 
 
 The covenant with Abraham, which is the renewal 
 of ihat with Noah, demands particular investigation, 
 as it refers to life eternal. It is by no means the mere 
 declaration of the existence of the Deity to the pa- 
 triarch ; it is of much deeper signification, connecting 
 God himself with a favoured mortal, and with his 
 descendants. The very brevity with which it is ex- 
 
 • ' Col. i. 18 ; Rev. i. 5. ^ j^^^ ^x. 27. 
 
NOTES. 165 
 
 pressed is in exact accordance with the sublimity of 
 sacred Scripture, and marks its solemn meaning; 
 while the pledge therein given to fix man's faith, is, 
 self-evidently, eternal. The covenant is thus written: 
 " I will establish my covenant between me and thee 
 and thy seed after thee in their generations for an 
 everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to 
 thy seed after thee."^ In the same deep meaning, the 
 Almighty had previously affirmed, " I am thy exceed- 
 ing great reward," nevertheless, warning Abraham, 
 " thou shalt be buried in a good old age, thou shalt 
 go to thy fathers in peace." ^ Contrast the separate 
 declarations, and then ask how the Eternal is a God 
 unto Abraham, if, being Almighty, He permits his 
 friend to perish for ever in death ? Is it credible 
 that this was the everlasting covenant, or that this 
 was the exceeding great reward ? Is it not manifest, 
 that the annihilation of the patriarch, after these 
 promises, would be the most bitter mockery, which 
 is utterly repugnant to the God of truth ? The ever- 
 lasting covenant conveyed openly, then, as God doth 
 not mock, eternal life. It was the positive and mani- 
 fest promise of a restoration to life, or rather of an 
 everlasting life, broken or discontinued, in appear- 
 ance only, by temporal death. This truth is self- 
 evident ; " because I Uve " (saith Christ) " ye shall 
 live also ;" ^ and He who proclaims " I live for ever," 
 plainly promises eternal life to Abraham and his pos- 
 
 ' Gen. xvii. 7. ^ Qqt^. xy. 15. ^ John xiv. 19. 
 
16G NOTES. 
 
 terity, in declaring, " I will be a God unto thee, and 
 thy seed after thee, in their generations." In open 
 proof of this truth, we find that always, after Abra- 
 ham's death, the Deity solemnly proclaims, " I am 
 the God of Abraham," continually affirming that the 
 patriarch is in existence. Our Saviour so explains 
 this covenant to the assenting Scribes^ and Pharisees; 
 St. Paul thus asserts it to the Hebrews^; and there 
 is not a shadow of doubt that the teachers and na- 
 tion of the Jews, who refused the Gospel, looked to 
 this covenant as the promise of a resurrection, and of 
 a second life. This faith in the covenant has never 
 changed. David, as a descendant of Abraham, thus 
 expresses himself in his last words : " God hath 
 made an everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all 
 things, and sure : for this is all my salvation, and all 
 my desire, although he make it not to grow." ^ Here, 
 as in the case of Jacob'', faith is triumphant in the 
 hour of death, although the last clause of the verse 
 bespeaks that humble diffidence which David's trans- 
 gressions would naturally give rise to in his own 
 conscience. Isaiah, again, foretelling the new cove- 
 nant, uses the very words employed by Moses and 
 David : " I will make an everlasting covenant with 
 you, even the sure mercies of David." ^ At a 
 
 1 Luke XX. 37. 39. 
 
 - " Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God," 
 &c.— Heb. xi. 16. 
 
 * 2 Sam. xxiii. 1. 5. * Gen. xlix. 18. ' Isaiah Iv. 3. 
 
NOTES. 167 
 
 later period, Daniel, resting on the old covenant, 
 openly alleges everlasting life \ In short, taking the 
 Septuagint as our guide, there is no variation of 
 words throughout the Old and New Testaments; 
 through every age, and through every change, the 
 covenant was the manifest promise of eternal life. 
 In proof of this we find the Evangelists use no other 
 term than that employed by Moses and the Prophets, 
 the Aiadrixy, (Covenant), or Zm (Life) Ain'NIOS^* 
 (Eternal). 
 
 Some writers contend that only the fathers of the 
 Jews were acquainted with this life eternal, of which 
 the mass of the nation were entirely ignorant. This 
 appears impossible, as no man would conceal eternity 
 from his offspring, to each of whom the promise was 
 made. It is true that many, like Esau, will shut 
 their eyes to the light, and the sins of the father de- 
 scend upon the children, in extending the darkness 
 and shadow of death. But the promise remained 
 always open to all, in the Books of Moses, and it 
 was enforced on the attention of every soul, by cir- 
 cumcision and sacrifice. Eternal life was always the 
 plainly-revealed birthright of every son of Abraham. 
 
 ' Dan. xii. 2. See the Septuagint. 
 
 '^ The word alavios, and its answering term in the Hebrew, 
 are used both as "perpetual" and "eternal;" but here it 
 manifestly signifies " eternal," as God himself is the pledge of 
 the covenant. Where the word refers to the first life, it may be 
 rendered " perpetual ;" where it regards the second life, it must 
 be rendered "eternal." 
 
168 NOTES. 
 
 Jesus recognises the privileges conveyed by the ever- 
 lasting covenant to the Hebrews, nationally, where 
 He declares, " I am not sent but to the lost sheep of 
 the house of" Israel;"* and individually, as when He 
 healed " the woman, which had a spirit of infirmity, 
 she being a daughter of Abraham;'"^ and when He 
 called Zaccheus, asserting, " This day is salvation 
 come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of 
 Abraham."^ We ourselves inherit only through 
 tliis everlasting covenant, and that as the adopted 
 children of Abraham ; for " salvation is," essentially, 
 " of the Jews."* The Saviour brings us into the 
 covenant''; yet we are admitted only as the adopted 
 sons and daughters of Abraham, who is the father 
 of all them that believe. Thus, " Abraham is the 
 father of us all;"" "as it is written, I have made thee 
 a father of many nations."^ This covenant, then, 
 was the revealed assurance of eternal life, through 
 obedience to the Law of God, and in the observance 
 of circumcision and sacrifice, until the coming of 
 Christ. 
 
 ^ Matt. XV. 24. - Luke xiii. 16. ^ Luke xix. 9. 
 
 * John iv. 22. s Gal. iii. 14. 
 
 « Rom. iv. 2-e ; GaL iii. 7-29. ? Rom. iv. 16. 
 
NOTES. 169 
 
 XXIII. 
 An image of God's own eternity, p. 130. 
 
 The more minutely the narration of the Creation 
 and Fall of man in the Book of Genesis is examined, 
 the more certain and unquestionable does it appear, 
 that Moses declares man to be created to be im- 
 mortal, and an image of God's own eternity. Whe- 
 ther the narration be allegorical or not, matters 
 nothing ; the facts and truth which this emblematic 
 description, if such it be, conveys, and the manner in 
 which these affect ourselves and our own eternal 
 interests, are the one thing needful in our research. 
 
 One of the most luminous and judicious writers of 
 our Church, Bishop Horsley, argues the immortality 
 of Adam^ from the fact that it is recorded of man 
 alone, in all creation, that " the Lord God breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life;" and that the 
 prophet describes the effect of this calling into 
 existence, in the last clause of the verse, by the very 
 marked and significant declaration, "And man be- 
 came a living soul." The learned Bishop's works 
 should be referred to for his reasoning on this pas- 
 sage, vol. iii. p. 184. The breath of the Eternal God 
 could confer nothing less than eternal life, as it im- 
 parted the essence of an Eternal Being. 
 
 The celebrated Mr. Locke, in his exceedingly in- 
 
170 NOTES. 
 
 teresting treatise on tlie " Reasonableness of Chris- 
 tianity," asserts, that it is evident that man is de- 
 scribed in Genesis as created to be immortal, because 
 Adam was made in the image and likeness of God, 
 and of course inherited in that image and likeness 
 immortality, remarking, in confirmation of this, that 
 Adam is especially entitled the Son of God in sacred 
 Scripture, Luke iii. 28. There is, too, as Mr. Locke 
 observes, assuredly a very decided distinction esta- 
 blished, by the writer of Genesis, between the state 
 in which Adam was created and that state in which 
 his offspring were subsequently born. This distinc- 
 tion is laid down in the fifth chapter, verses 1 and 3 : 
 ^' In the day that God created man, in the likeness of 
 God created he him ;" that is, as God, immortal and 
 eternal. Then it is immediately afterwards added, 
 doubtless to mark the fatal and essential change 
 effected by the Fall, that Adam begat Seth *'in his own 
 likeness, after his own image;" that is, no longer in 
 the likeness of an eternal being, but as he himself 
 had now become, mortal, and subject to death. 
 
 The proof arising from the institution of sacrifice 
 after the Fall, and from the doctrine of atonement, 
 has been most ably treated by Archbishop Magee, 
 whose volumes upon this point of faith are well 
 worth the perusal of every Christian. The distinc- 
 tion which that author draws between the sacrifice of 
 Cain and that of Abel, is decidedly the right and 
 true distinction. The Deity had commanded the 
 
NOTES. 171 
 
 sacrifice of an animal (the lamb) in acknowledgment 
 of sin, and to witness its just punishment, death ; 
 but, above all, as the memorial of the Lord's death, 
 until He should offer Himself up for all mankind. In 
 the rebuke of the Almighty to Cain, the word sin is 
 clearly put (as is often the case, not only in the 
 ancient but also in the modern languages, by the well- 
 known figure called synecdoche) for sin-offering ; the 
 term "lieth" in the sentence proving this fact, as it un- 
 questionably signifies the lying down of an animaP. 
 The whole sentence stands thus : " If thou hadst done 
 well, wouldest thou not have been accepted ? but 
 even if thou hadst not done well, sin" (that is, a sin- 
 offering) " lieth at thy door."^ In his pride, Cain 
 thought himself righteous, and that he had no need 
 to sacrifice blood, as a confession of sin; therefore 
 was his offering rejected : yet not, be it observed, 
 without a parental admonition, teaching him to repair 
 his error, and to confess his sin, by offering the re- 
 vealed and appointed sacrifice. The remonstrance of 
 
 ' Samaritan Text — Walton's Translations : 
 
 Nonne, si benefeceris recipies ? si autem non feceris 
 bene, ad portam peccatum cubat. 
 S^/riac Version : 
 
 Ecce, si benefeceris, recipies : et nisi benefeceris, ad 
 januam peccatam cubat ; tu converteris, ad illud. 
 Persian Text : 
 
 Nonne si benefeceris erit remissio 1 si vero, nou bene- 
 feceris, peccatum ad ostia Cubans est. 
 =^ Gen. iy. 7. 
 
1 72 NOTES. 
 
 the Almighty evidently urges, " This is not difficult 
 to do, nor is it far from thee, for it lieth at thy very 
 door; if thou hadst offered, as thy brother Abel did^, 
 wouldst thou not have been accepted also ?" That 
 Adam was commanded to witness one part of the 
 penalty of sin, in offering sacrifice, there can be 
 little doubt. The Jewish rabbins affirm that the 
 skins in which our first parents were clothed were 
 the produce of the first sacrifice ; arguing, that ani- 
 mals were then forbidden for food, and that their 
 skins, when the animals died a natural death, were 
 considered altogether improper for use, because un- 
 clean, by the immemorial tradition of the Fathers, as 
 well as by the Law of Moses, 
 
 There are other very striking proofs to be collected 
 from the narration of the Creation and Fall, which 
 point out the fact, if possible, in a still stronger 
 light, leaving absolutely no room for contradiction. 
 
 (1.) When the Law of God is given to Adam, its 
 one sole sanction is death ; life is not even mentioned 
 — it is not written for Adam, "This do, and thou shalt 
 live." Why is this ? Evidently because life eternal 
 was his birthright and inheritance, as son of God. 
 For him alone, of all mankind (or for our first 
 parents alone), the Law of God bore but one awful 
 sanction to deter him from evil, and to tiy him : " In 
 the day that thou eatest of the forbidden tree, thou 
 shalt surely die." Why was no reward, as in the 
 
 ' Lev. xiii. 8 ; Exodus xii. 13. 
 
NOTES. 173 
 
 Old and in the New Testament, proposed, as well as 
 punishment ? No reward could be proposed ; eter- 
 nal life and eternal happiness being already man's 
 inheritance. Man was tried under a dispensation of 
 boundless reward, as far as fitted his being. Was 
 the contrary, then, only temporal death ? In all the 
 copies the words are very singular : " dying, thou shalt 
 die;" or, "thou shalt die in death:"' as if a second, 
 eternal death were positively denounced. This was, 
 we know, the case. Nor is this the teaching of the 
 Gospel only, as we find the Son of Sirach using this 
 very language in the opposite sense, long before the 
 birth of Christ : " Blessed are they " (saith he, in 
 celebrating the praises of Elijah), " who saw thee, 
 and slept in peace; yet we also shall live in life." 
 No sentence could more expressly affirm the second 
 life. 
 
 (2.) Moses expressly declares, that man might 
 freely take of the tree of life; "of every" (mark the 
 word) " tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," 
 save and except of the forbidden tree alone. What 
 attribute does the Word of God ascribe to that tree, of 
 which man had thus plenary permission at any time 
 
 ' Mr. Locke observes, in "The Reasonableness of Chris- 
 tianity," that the fjjtrerai eiy rbv alStva, of Gen. iii. 22, exactly 
 corresponds with the ov fir] dnoddvr] els top alcova, of John xi. 
 26. In like manner, the GAN'ATQ aTrodtve'icrde, of Gen. iii. 17, 
 is precisely explained by the koi yap fjixe'is ZQH^ ^TjaofxeBa, of 
 Ecclesiasticus xlviii. 11. This book was translated into the 
 Greek language 136 years before Christ. 
 
174 NOTES. 
 
 to eat? This same word answers the question. 
 After the Fall, and the passing of the sentence of 
 death, " the Lord God sent man forth out of Eden," 
 giving this reason : " Lest he put forth his hand and 
 take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for 
 ever." This is the declaration of the Eteraal to man- 
 kind, and it can bear but one interpretation. Life 
 eternal (for the tree of life bears this one meaning 
 throughout sacred Scripture) was man's by creation 
 and adoption. His heavenly Father created him to 
 live for ever, and he would have lived for ever had 
 he not rushed into sin\ Such is the plain, evident 
 meaning of this description. 
 
 (3.) Indisputable as these proofs are, there is yet a 
 stronger. " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
 shalt surely die." Such was, observe and consider, 
 the Law of the Creator to his creature ; such was 
 the solemn declaration of the God of Truth. Was 
 this denunciation fulfilled ? No, not in the sense in 
 which we choose to construe death. Adam did not 
 die in that day ; on the contrary, he lived centuries 
 after that fatal transgression. This singular inconsis- 
 tency demands examination ; and, like all the seem- 
 ing inconsistencies of that Word which is truth, 
 it vanishes on investigation. What did Moses mean 
 in this passage by the word "day" ? His meaning is 
 precisely defined in this same narration. Turn only 
 
 ' " In the way of righteousness is life ; and in the pathway 
 thereof there is no death." — Prov. xii. 28. 
 
NOTES. 175 
 
 to the address of the serpent : "Ye shall not surely 
 die :" (nor did they, in the one sense, in the day 
 of their trangression,) " for God doth know, that in 
 the day" (here is the term of which we require the 
 meaning) " ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be 
 opened, and ye shall become as gods, knowing good 
 and evil." Then follows the decisive proof: "and the 
 eyes of them both were opened," Of the two predic- 
 tions of the father of lies, is the one to be, in one 
 sense, lyingly fulfilled, and the other to be woefully 
 accomplished in the very day ; and is the Almighty 
 to represent in his Word his truth as utterly failing, 
 without any reason assigned? This is not within 
 the range of possibility ; this can never be. Such 
 never could have been the meaning of the prophet in 
 detailing this great event and its consequences, for 
 the instruction and warning of mankind. There is 
 but one meaning to this narration, one interpretation 
 to this Scripture. Moses represents man as falling 
 in that day, in the day that he did eat thereof, from 
 a state of eternal life into a state of far more than 
 temporal death. Moses thus actually reveals life and 
 death eternal. 
 
 One other singular circumstance in this narration 
 requires remark. Before our first parents were ex- 
 pelled from Eden, but immediately after the Fall, the 
 sentence of death, and the promise, Adam named his 
 wife, for a reason as yet absolutely unknown, save by 
 that curse, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and 
 
176 NOTES. 
 
 thy conception, in sorrow slialt thou bring forth 
 children." The sentence of death had passed forth, 
 yet Adam "called his wife's name Eve, because she 
 was the mother of all living." Now, no living being 
 of their kind as yet existed. How, then, the mother 
 of all living, when death must have been in all their 
 thoughts under the awful penalty which they had 
 just incurred ? How, when all hope had seemingly 
 perished, give the name Eve (in the Hebrew, Hevah, 
 living, or Zwii, life, as the LXX translate Hevah,) to 
 the mother of beings, not one of whom yet existed, 
 but who, one and all, when born, were devoted to 
 certain death? There is but one rational solution to 
 this seeming inconsistency. Eve was so named as 
 a perpetual memorial of the promise, that is, of the 
 redemption of that life from which they had just 
 fallen, but which was to be redeemed for all living in 
 after ages by the seed of the woman, through the 
 blood of the everlasting covenant. Thus was the 
 woman, in a twofold sense, rightly named Eve, be- 
 cause she was in truth the mother of all living. 
 Thus the universal Word proclaims, that each man 
 born into the world bears a twofold existence — that 
 which he must pass in this scene of trial, and that in 
 which he must hereafter enjoy everlasting life, or en- 
 dure everlasting shame and contempt. 
 
 It is impossible to close the eyes of the under- 
 standing against all the varied evidence of the Bible. 
 No man that believes in God, or in the word and 
 
NOTES. 177 
 
 truth of the Almighty, can reject all these proofs, 
 which are utterly irrefragable. No man who believes 
 in Christ, and with Him that the Law of Moses was 
 the Law of God, can gainsay the whole tenor of 
 sacred Scripture. With the whole testimony of the 
 Books of Moses before us, and with the interpretation 
 of the New Testament fully bearing out that testi- 
 timony, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion, that 
 the words live and life, in the Mosaic Law, bore, as 
 the Jews asserted, not only the promise of the life 
 that now is, but of life eternal. Thus, amidst innu- 
 merable instances, St. Paul, speaking of this very 
 Law, expresses not, but convey sin its full force the 
 word eternal, when he says, " The commandment 
 which was ordained to life, I found to be unto^ 
 death." 
 
 The Word of God contemplates the life of man, in 
 fact, as one period, broken although that period is, by 
 his own transgression and Fall. This broken period has, 
 however, given rise to a twofold meaning ; and hence 
 the expressions of life and life eternal: of the second 
 life, and of the second death. The Mosaic Law was 
 undeniably formed for this twofold existence. It is 
 difficult, if not impossible, so intimately are the pro- 
 visions for each blended, to point out the separate 
 statutes which refer to each separate life. The rite of 
 
 ' '■' But if the ministration of death " (clearly eternal is 
 here again understood), " written and engraven in stones, was 
 glorious," &c. — 2 Cor. iii. 7. 
 
 N 
 
178 NOTES. 
 
 circumcision, and the law of tlie Ten Commandments, 
 borne through to its full obedience by the atonement 
 (prefigured by the continual morning and evening 
 sacrifice of the lamb without spot ) ; provided, it 
 may be asserted, for life eternal. " This do," (makino- 
 up for thy sincere but entirely imperfect obedience, 
 by offering continually the memorial of " the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world," until " the 
 Lamb of God" appears and completes his sacrifice,) 
 " and thou shalt live," the life eternal. The multi- 
 farious statutes otherwise ordained may be said to 
 refer chiefly to this life. These were doubtless in- 
 tended to meet the habits of society in that early age, 
 amidst surrounding nations, whose superstitious and 
 idolatrous absurdities, as well as most abounding 
 wickedness, were to be guarded against, considering 
 the corruption of the human heart with the utmost 
 preventing care and vigilance, and with the most 
 anxious severity. The meaning and necessity of each 
 and of all these statutes cannot now be understood 
 or ascertained ; because all these nations have long- 
 ceased to exist, and, with them, their manners, habits, 
 customs, and superstitions (against which many of 
 these statutes were framed), have for the most part 
 perished. Nay, we have the Word that taught them, 
 but where now are the ten tribes of Israel? Often, 
 however, the modern Christian traveller observes, 
 with delight and astonishment, in the East traces of 
 manners, habits, and laws, detailed in the Bible : yet 
 
NOTES. 179 
 
 these are generally the pure and shnple customs of 
 the earliest society, proving that Providence, in rooting 
 out and destroying the evil, has carefully supported 
 the good. 
 
 The sanctions ofthe Mosaic Law are evidently twofold, 
 and must, from their first promulgation, have always 
 been thus considered in Israel. When we perceive 
 life and length of days promised, and remember that 
 life eternal is revealed, such passages bear a twofold 
 meaning. Again, when Hfe and death, blessing and 
 cursing, good and evil, are expressed ; these, as the 
 prophet addresses the nation of the adoption, the 
 adopted sons and daughters of the eternal God, are 
 extended beyond the first, even unto the second life. 
 The first jirinciple of all law is, to provide against 
 transgression. This state of trial, then, this life, was 
 first to be considered by the legislator ; and here the 
 provision against sin was evidently chiefly to be made ; 
 it might be urged to be altogether made, as, if trans- 
 gression was in this life obviated, the promise of life 
 eternal was also secured. On the other hand, the re- 
 vealed existence ofthe second life amply proved, to the 
 most obtuse understanding, the positive inevitability 
 of future rewards and punishments. We have most 
 authentic proof that the Jews sacrificed their lives on 
 this very reasoning, and in this firm persuasion, nearly 
 two centuries before the birth of our Saviour. E/ ya.^ 
 
 Hat ETTl TOW TTCCpOVTOiy kieXOUf^ai TYIV E^ avdpdlTTUV Tl/J.(i}plaV, 
 
 aXAa rag rou Havron^ccropoi; x,^7pag, outs ^uv, 04/t£ a7ro9avuv 
 
 N 2 
 
180 NOTES. 
 
 k)i<ptv^ofjt,ai. " For though for the present time I 
 should be delivered from the punishment of men, 
 yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty, 
 neither alive nor dead."* If men so reasoned and 
 acted in that age, on this self-evident principle of 
 eternal truth, is it possible or credible that they saw 
 less clearly, and acted less justly, under the long- 
 continued teaching of the spirit of prophecy, under 
 the long-continued visible government of their Al- 
 mighty Father^? All that was required of the Israel- 
 ites, and this is still required of every Christian, was 
 faith in the promises and threatenings of the Eternal. 
 So self-evident were the sanctions of future rewards 
 and punishments, under such circumstances, that the 
 prophet scarcely alludes to their open and visible 
 certainty. The real reason why these sanctions were 
 seemingly omitted- in the Law of Moses was un- 
 doubtedly the simple revelation of life and death 
 eternal. That revelation was the positive guarantee 
 of these sanctions, and this simplicity of announce- 
 ment accords well with the subhmity of the Law of 
 God. Longinus observed that the most sublime sen- 
 tence in any language is that of the Jewish legislator, 
 
 ' 2 Maccab. vi. 26. 
 
 ' In fact, this is none other than the reasoning of our 
 Saviour himself, Luke xii. 4, 5 : " Be not afraid of them that 
 kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 
 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear : Fear him, which 
 after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell ; yea, I say 
 unto you, Fear him." 
 
NOTES. 181 
 
 " God said, Let there be light, and there was light." 
 The simple revelation of eternal life, the simple use of 
 the words life and death, in any law of the eternal 
 God, is as it were parallel to this in divine legislation : 
 as sanctions, these expressions, in the mouth of the 
 Almighty, are boundless in their force, and infinite 
 in their consequences. 
 
 In short, the Word of God generally contemplates 
 the life of man as one not unbroken period. The 
 most striking proof of this is, the thorough singleness 
 of mind and simplicity of view, with which one and 
 all of the writers of the New Testament use the words 
 "live" or "life," and "die" or "death," from the Books 
 of Moses, more often without adding the words " eter- 
 nally" or "eternal," than with that addition; leaving 
 thus the irresistible conviction on the understanding of 
 their reader, that no doubt even ever existed upon the 
 minds of the Evangelists, as to this being, in their age, 
 in the opinion of their own nation, and, above all, in the 
 judgment of their Master, the right construction and 
 the open positive meaning of the Law of Moses; 
 which was always considered by themselves, and by 
 all their countrymen (the Sadducees alone excepted), 
 as God's covenant of everlastino- life\ A veil was 
 indeed spread over the Law of Moses, yet not as to 
 this fact, but as to the time and means of the re- 
 demption ; which veil, therefore, was done away in 
 Christ^ 
 
 ' 2 Maccab. vii. 36. * 2 Cor. iii. 14, 
 
182 NOTES. 
 
 But what, now, is the Law of Moses? Utterly 
 extinct in its essential religious ordinances, it serves 
 now only as a record of the mercy, the truth, and the 
 justice of God ; to all other intents it has virtually 
 perished. Repealed by the prophet of whom Moses 
 wrote ^, annulled by " the Word made flesh," ^ it has 
 perished ; but another code of rehgion has arisen 
 from its ashes, strong in its primeval similarity, 
 but extended in' Omniscient wisdom and increased 
 in Almighty efiicacy. Two sacraments (so to speak) 
 belonged to the Jewish church : sacrifice, which 
 arose after the Fall ; and circumcision, which was 
 established with Abraham: to these, in process of 
 time, Moses, by the command of God, added the 
 Ten Commandments. All these essential ordinances 
 of the earliest worship belong, at this hour, in their 
 primeval simplicity, to the Protestant Church of 
 Christ : two sacraments still subsist ; baptism in the 
 place of circumcision; and sacrifice, inichanged by 
 Moses and unchangeable by Christ '*; to which 
 were added the Ten Commandments. To the 
 Christian alone now appertains the covenant. For 
 many centuries " the daily sacrifice " ^ of the Jewish 
 Church hath ceased to be offered, proving the Law of 
 
 ' Deut. xviii. 15. 18. * John i. 14. 
 
 ^ The reader -will be amply repaid, if he consults, in the 
 development of this subject, Mr. Soame Jenjns' " Internal 
 Evidences," &c. 
 
 4 Matt. xxvi. 39. 42. 44. 
 
 5 Dan. xi. 31 ; xii. 11. Matt. xxiv. 15. Mark xiii. 14, 
 
NOTES. 183 
 
 Moses to be extinct in all its efficacy ; for " without 
 shedding of blood there is no remission." ^ The 
 Christian alone now daily offers, before the altar of 
 grace, " that blood which speaketh better things 
 than the blood of Abel ;" ^ that " blood of the Lamb 
 of God which cleanseth from all sin;"^ and by 
 which " he may be justified from all things from 
 which he could not be justified by the law of 
 Moses."* "The blood of the everlasting cove- 
 nant,^' ' as a well springing up unto everlasting life, 
 is still daily offered (as the morning and evening- 
 sacrifice of the lamb), with the Christian's prayer to 
 his " Father which is in heaven." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy hook, kc. p. 132. 
 
 To Biphiov TJJj Zajyji, — The book of life. 
 
 Another revelation of life eternal, another image 
 under which this fact is plainly revealed, here again 
 arrests our awakened attention. The prophet Moses, 
 speaking as of a known fact, only refers to the book 
 of the eternal God, a record in which the names of 
 his faithful servants, those Avho keep his covenant, 
 and are destined to abide with Him, are written ; this 
 
 ' Heb. ix. 22. " Heb. xii. 24. ^ 1 John i. 7. 
 
 * Acts xiii. 39. ^ jjeb. xiii. 20. 
 
1 84 NOTES. 
 
 record being described as a book, to suit mortal 
 senses and comprehension. It is already noticed 
 that a similar image and revelation exists in the tree 
 of life; but this book is evidently a distinct, and 
 therefore accumulative evidence. It is very remark- 
 able, also, that mankind are indebted for both these 
 written revelations to the Books of Moses ; although 
 the original knowledge was probably of the Fathers. 
 Searching the Scriptures, we find the existence of 
 this book or record not only thus solemnly declared 
 by Moses, but again by David in four several in- 
 stances ^ ; again by Isaiah, in speaking evidently of 
 times long future to his own life ^, and that of his 
 contemporaries ; again by Daniel ^ in two instances ; 
 and again by Malachi, the last of the Prophets * : 
 while to strengthen this evidence by a marked con- 
 trast, Jeremiah compares the fate of the wicked 
 with that of the righteous (whose names were written 
 amongst the living, or in the Book of Life), by very 
 emphatically declaring that the former " were writ- 
 ten in the earth " to suffer in the same everlast- 
 ing fires. This view can neither be partial nor in- 
 correct, because St. Paul and St. John both use the 
 term " Book of Life," as merely referring to a well- 
 known and long-established point of faith, entering 
 into no explanation, as if none were necessary, on so 
 notorious a fact, but simply repeating, as it were, the 
 
 ' Psalms xl. 40 ; Ivi. 8 ; Ixix. 28 ; cxxxix. 16. 
 ■■« Isa. iv. 3. » Dan. vii. 10 ; xii. 1. * Mai. iii. 16. 
 
NOTES. 185 
 
 words of the former Prophets : see Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, xii. 23, where the fact is alluded to ; but 
 especially the Epistle to the Philippians, iv. 3, " with 
 Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, 
 whose names are in the book of life." St. John 
 uses the very same words, and with most marked 
 frequency, throughout the Revelation. It will be 
 sufficient to give one or two quotations, and these 
 scarcely more from this Book than from that of the 
 prophet Daniel, existing six centuries before, see 
 XX. 12, " and the books were opened, and another 
 book was opened, which was the Book of life;" 
 again, ver. 15, " And whosoever was not found 
 written in the book of life was cast into the lake of 
 fire." Nor must it be overlooked that our Saviour 
 himself is represented, Luke x. 20, as referring to 
 this as a well-known point of doctrine in teaching 
 his disciples. 
 
 The first written revelation of the Book of Life is 
 given by Moses in a very marked and circuiiistantial 
 manner, in Exodus xxxii. 
 
 " 32 Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin ; — and 
 if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book. 
 
 " 33 And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever 
 hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my 
 book." 
 
 One reflection arises from this description, namely, 
 that every man's name, in covenant with his God, is 
 written in that book ; and that his name alone is 
 erased who sins unpardonably against the Lord. 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 As far as the writer has read and studied the Word 
 of God, now for many years, and has been enabled 
 to understand it, he confesses that he knows not 
 where the revelation of life eternal is to be found, if 
 all this accumulated evidence from the Pentateuch be 
 not that revelation. To his mind it is not only satis- 
 factory, not only convincing, but literally overwhelm- 
 ing. It must be especially remarked that this revela- 
 tion is not left to words alone, such as "life" and 
 " death," " heaven " and " Sheol ;" but it is conveyed 
 to prevent that doubt and obscurity which arises only 
 from the perpetually shrinking faith of man by every 
 variety of description in the Books of Moses ; by the 
 creation of man ; by Eden ; by the tree of life ; by the 
 Fall ; by the promise ; by sacrifice ; by the everlast- 
 ing covenants; by the adoption; by the book of 
 God, in which the names of his faithful were 
 written ; and by the Law itself. If all this be not the 
 revelation of life eternal, there can be no such virtue 
 as faith upon earth, for all this is scarcely the evidence 
 of things not seen. These were not " the hidden 
 thino-s " {toc HpvTna, LXX) " which belonged unto 
 the Lord their God," but " the revealed things " (ra 
 (pavEpa) " which belonged unto the Israelites and to 
 their children." 
 
 But this is not all — add the adherence of all the 
 Prophets, add the concordance of all the apostolic 
 Evangelists to this interpretation of the Law of 
 Moses, not forgetting the assent of Christ himself 
 in always coinciding with the Scribes and Doctors, 
 
NOTES. 187 
 
 acknowledging and asseverating that their construc- 
 tion, in attributing hfe eternal to this Law, was per- 
 fectly and substantially correct. Yet, be it always 
 remembered that Moses spake of Christ by type, or 
 openly, wherever he spake of eternal life; as our 
 Saviour and his Apostles invariably assert, " Search 
 the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal 
 life ; and they are they " (our Saviour expressly 
 teaches) " which testify of me," as the one only 
 means of that life. And ye will not come to me " 
 (through whom alone that life ever has been pro- 
 mised) "that ye might have hfe eternal. Do not 
 think " (added He in continued reproach and sorrow) 
 " that I will accuse you to the Father ; there is one 
 that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust : 
 for had ye believed in Moses, ye Avould have believed 
 in me, for he wrote of me." ^ In every way it is 
 proved, then, that eternal life was by this Law of God, 
 until the Promise himself in person, and in the ful- 
 ness of time, abrogated that Law; by his Gospel 
 and in his atonement, when, bowing his head upon 
 the cross. He said, " It is finished." 
 
 One momentous, one awful reflection arises from 
 the whole inquiry. For six thousand years now, 
 nearly, ever since the Fall, sacrifice has remained un- 
 changed and unchangeable; and no argument so 
 enforces its absolute and primary necessity on the 
 mind, as this one stupendous consideration. The co- 
 
 1 John V. 46. 
 
188 NOTES. 
 
 venant between God and man has never changed ; 
 tlie everlasting covenant is still the covenant of blood; 
 to mark the exceeding sinfulness of sin, to crush the 
 false pride of man, and, above all, to enforce the ne- 
 cessity of holiness, which no mortal can pretend to, 
 unless he hath " made his garments white in the 
 blood of the Lamb."^ The Almighty has made this 
 institution as immutable to man, as is his own eternal 
 existence. Observe and weigh well, then, the re- 
 sponsibility which those sects incur, who resist and 
 reject this ordinance of God, in the very face of all 
 revelation. Moses, and the Prophets, and Christ 
 himself, all proclaim the inevitable necessity of this 
 sacrament. Will inability to understand, will the 
 arrogance of human reason, be sufficient excuse in 
 the day of judgment, for having counted the blood 
 of the covenant as an unclean thing, instituted, nay, 
 even shed, as it was, by Him who will be their judge? 
 The modern Jew pleads in prayer to his God the im- 
 possibility in these days of offering the due and usual 
 sacrifice of his fathers. There is humility here ; and 
 " God giveth grace unto the humble." Shall not the 
 Jew rise in the judgment against these sects ? Is not 
 theirs rightly called a most unhappy faith ? The 
 mind of man is an enigma, or it seems impossible 
 that talented individuals, with their Bible before 
 them, submitting their understanding to the teaching 
 of Jesus and his Apostles, should fail to perceive the 
 
 ' Rev. vii. 14. 
 
NOTES. 189 
 
 doctrine of the atonement, emblazoned, as it is, upon 
 every page. The mind of man is an enigma, or how 
 is it that men of common sense will risk an eternity 
 of happiness and misery for the poor satisfaction of 
 indulging their own opinion, in contradiction to the 
 one revealed way of God, for the short span of human 
 existence? The Bible may be, and is, a sealed book, 
 to the proud and wilful, but not to the sincere, and 
 humble, and upright mind, seeking " the truth, as it 
 is in Jesus."* 
 
 The whole inquiry forces Jesus Christ inevitably 
 upon the conviction and conscience of him who reads 
 the Word of God. There is no hope, no salvation, 
 no life elsewhere. In vain, enlightened by that Word, 
 do we cast the eyes of the understanding around ; 
 no shield, no refuge, no rock appears, but the Re- 
 deemer, to whom we must flee, trusting in the sacri- 
 fice of his death, or perish. The universal Word of 
 God proclaims this plain, simple (and although we 
 may not understand all the reasons), evident faith ; 
 the more we search that Word, the more firmly are 
 we persuaded of this immutable fact, and the more 
 is our natural pride abased ; until, bending in awe 
 before his cross, we, with thanksgiving, and grati- 
 tude, and love, accept the Lord our righteousness. 
 " He was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
 bruised for our iniquities."^ "He is our peace."' 
 " Christ is our life."'' 
 
 Eph. iv. 21. " Isa. liii. 9. » Eph. ii. 14. Col. iii. 2. 
 
190 NOTES. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 It is useless to multiply proofs, kc. p. 133. 
 
 Beyond the sacred Scriptures there are several 
 ancient Hebrew testimonies, which may well be 
 bi'ought forward, as they corroborate the doctrine 
 laid down by the second of the Shemoneh Ezreh. 
 That prayer indicates that the second life was not at 
 first revealed by our Saviour in the Gospel during his 
 earthly mission. Indeed, Dean Prideaux observes 
 that Jesus, in all human probability, used, while on 
 earth, that form of prayer, in common with his na- 
 tion, in the Jewish synagogues. 
 
 The Hebrew language has, like everything earthly, 
 underoone considerable chano;es. The most ancient 
 character, now called the Samaritan, became obso- 
 lete ; the Hebrew language itself was known only by 
 the learned and the better orders ; and that which 
 was understood of the common people was the Chal- 
 dsean, to which they had been accustomed during the 
 long captivity in the Babylonian Empire. Hence 
 arose the necessity of teaching the people in the 
 latter tongue on their return to Judaea ; and the 
 Chaldaic Paraphrases were in process of time writ- 
 ten for the use of their synagogues. One verse ^ of 
 the Hebrew text was first read, and then the corre- 
 
 ' Prideaux's Con. vol. iv. p. 684. 
 
NOTES. 191 
 
 spending verse of the Chaldaic Paraphrase, that each 
 and all might understand the Word of God. Dr. 
 Prideaux enumerates some facts to prove that our 
 Saviour was not unacquainted with one, at least, of 
 these Paraphrases \ In the dying exclamation, also, 
 which Christ uttered in his agony on the cross, the 
 word " sabacthani " is recorded, and this word is not 
 to be found in the Hebrew, but only in the Chaldaean 
 language. 
 
 There are three different Targums, or Chaldaic Pa- 
 raphrases, which are all published in Walton's " Poly- 
 glott Bible." The " Jerusalem Targum," of an un- 
 known date, and by an unknown author, but written 
 in the Jerusalem dialect, or that which was spoken 
 by the Jews after their return from Babylon, makes 
 express mention of the second death. The "Targum 
 of Jonathan Ben Uziel," on the same text, asserts 
 the very same doctrine. Again, the " Targum, or 
 Chaldaic Paraphrase of Onkelos," which is as an- 
 cient as our Saviour's age, if not more ancient, and 
 which is acknowledged by all, both Jews and Chris- 
 tians, to be of undoubted authority in the interpreta- 
 tion of the Pentateuch, thus paraphrases the same 
 passage : " Let Reuben live, in life eternal ; let him 
 not die, in the second death." ^ 
 
 Such was the hatred of the Jews towards the 
 Christians during the first century, that it is quite 
 incredible that they would have borrowed these doc- 
 
 ' Prideaux's Con. vol. iv. pp. 700. 704. ^ pgut. xxiii. 6. 
 
192 NOTES. 
 
 trines from Christ and his Apostles ; and such were, 
 after the apostolic age, the perpetual contests for the 
 truth, that neither Jew nor Christian could have 
 adopted any revelation from the other party, claiming 
 it as exclusively that of his own faith, without the 
 fact being noticed by many writers of the time. Now, 
 all the apostolic writers refer these doctrines to 
 Moses ; and it is very clear that the above-cited pas- 
 sage of the prophet's dying blessing must be taken 
 in the extended sense of the Eternal Word ; nor can 
 the whole of this blessing be studied without leaving 
 on the mind the conviction that the Hebrews well 
 knew that they were promised an eternal existence. 
 " Happy art thou, O Israel ! who is like unto thee, 
 O people ! saved of the Lord !"^ How saved of the 
 Lord, if, after a life of "days few and evil,"^ they 
 were to perish for ever ? The second of the She- 
 moneh Ezreh, and these three separate Targums, 
 each and all prove that the sanctions of the Law of 
 Moses were always considered by the Jews them- 
 selves to be eternal ; that the Word of the Eternal, in 
 proclaiming life and death to his people, openly de- 
 clared the eternity of these sanctions. They were, 
 too, assuredly right in this interpretation, as Jesus 
 and his Apostles witness. 
 
 It may be observed that the word " Gehenna " is 
 of frequent occurrence in these paraphrases. Now 
 this word is sanctioned, in the same meaning, by 
 
 ' Deut. xxxiii. 29. ^ Gen. xlvii. 9. 
 
NOTES. 193 
 
 most certain warrants of holy Scripture; as it occurs 
 seven times in the Gospel of Matthew, three times 
 in the Gospel of Mark, and once in the Gospel of 
 Luke. 
 
 Another ancient testimony of the national belief 
 of the Hebrews in eternal life exists in the so- 
 lemn Anathema published by the Jewish Church 
 against the Samaritans. It is said that Zerubbabel 
 and Joshua were the authors of this curse, and that 
 it was denounced on account of the opposition which 
 the Samaritans offered to the rebuilding of the Tem- 
 ple. At all events, we know certainly that the Jews 
 had no dealings with the Samaritans^ for some years 
 before the destruction of the second Temple, which 
 was glorified by the presence of the Lord^. After 
 denouncing all manner of evils, declaring all that 
 the Samaritans possessed unclean, forbidding all 
 communication with them, and even rejecting them 
 as proselytes, the Anathema proceeds, in all the 
 impotence of an evil enthusiasm, to exclude this 
 whole people from having any part in the resurrec- 
 tion from the dead to eternal life^. 
 
 But the Samaritans are themselves a living proof 
 that Moses revealed life eternal, and that the Penta- 
 teuch was thus always to be understood. They re- 
 jected all traditions; they even refused to receive 
 any other sacred writer save Moses alone, and ad- 
 
 ' John iv. 9. " Malachi iii. 1. 
 
 3 Prideaus's Cou. vol. ii. p. 553. 
 
 O 
 
194 NOTES. 
 
 hered exclusively to the five books of the Law. For 
 upwards of two and twenty centuries they have pos- 
 sessed this Law, written in that ancient character 
 which is known to be the original writing of the 
 Hebrew language; and besides this text, they have 
 also a version of it in their own vernacular tong-ue. 
 They had no other lights, for they acknowledged no 
 other authority; yet, from these five books they 
 gathered a perfect faith in the resurrection from the 
 dead\ Thus we find Jesus reasoning with the 
 woman of Samaria of everlasting life^, as of a sub- 
 ject by no means unknown to her countrymen, who 
 also understood that life eternal was through Christ 
 the Saviour of the world'. The very existence of 
 the above-mentioned Anathema is a plain proof of 
 the fact. It is evidently so worded as to shock all 
 the religious feelings and tenets of the Samaritans ; 
 and had they not believed in a future state, from the 
 Scriptures of Moses, the Jews would never have 
 extended this curse to exclusion from life eternal. 
 
 Agreeing with the Sadducees, in rejecting all tra- 
 ditions, and in adhering solely to the Pentateuch, the 
 Samaritans were too upright to deduce from these 
 Scriptures the evidently false and sensual conclusion, 
 that there was no resurrection to the second life. 
 The repeated and indignant rebuke of the Redeemer 
 to the Sadducees was, we may be assured, abun- 
 
 ' Prideaux's Con. vol. ii. pp. 555-562. 
 
 » John iv. 14. 36. ' John iv. 25. 29. 42. 
 
NOTES. 195 
 
 dantly merited. These rebukes are strongly marked. 
 "Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the 
 Scriptures, neither the power of God?" ^ In their 
 wilful blindness they despised both the Scriptures of 
 revealed, and the light of natural, religion. " Ye 
 therefore do greatly err."^ 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The Almighty, kc. p. 134. 
 
 The writer was much gratified to find that Bishop 
 Horsley had taken the same view of this important 
 truth. 
 
 " In Egypt idolatry was in its infancy, if it had at 
 all gotten ground, in the days of Joseph. For, when 
 Joseph was brought to Pharaoh to interpret his 
 dream, the holy patriarch and the Egyptian king 
 speak of God in much the same language, and with 
 the same acknowledgment of his overruling provi- 
 dence." — Vol. iv. p. 46. 
 
 The Bishop also instances the two Egyptian 
 women, to whom Pharaoh committed the iniquitous 
 business of stifling the male children of the Hebrews; 
 and, long after, the woman whom Joshua's spies 
 found in the town of Jericho, as proofs of the ex- 
 istence of the true faith. Potipherah, the father-in- 
 
 ' Mark xii. 24. « ^^.j^-^ ^^^ £7. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 NOTES. 
 
 ]aw of Joseph, and Jetliro, the father-in-law of 
 Moses, were both, too, priests of the true God, as 
 the Pentateuch, Josephus, and St. Jerome assert. 
 
 But it is on record, also, that the Law of God was 
 known and pubhcly promulgated four hundred and 
 thirty years before the legation of Moses. We find 
 it written in the 26th chapter of Genesis, " In thy 
 seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; be- 
 cause that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my 
 charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my 
 laws." Man had, therefore, always a Law before him, 
 given by the Almighty, that he might not come short 
 of life eternal. Neither sacrifice nor circumcision 
 were of Moses, previous to whose mission these two 
 sacraments and the Law of God existed. 
 
 xxvn. 
 
 Titus, again, ive Jind that Job, &c. p. 135. 
 
 The antiquity of the Book of Job has given rise to 
 much controversy. Kennicott, in a table of descent 
 given by him, represents Job to have been contem- 
 porary with Amram, the father-in-law of Moses ; 
 Eliphaz the Temanite, who was the fourth from 
 Abraham, being contemporary with both. Calmet 
 asserts that he was Jobab, the son of Zerah, who 
 reigned in Edom, Gen. xxxvi. 33 ; and both the 
 Septuagint and Syriac version represent Job as the 
 
NOTES. 197 
 
 fifth descendant from Abraham, by the line of Esau. 
 This would appear the most probable date, and un- 
 less the Book of Job were of remote antiquity, no 
 such difference of opinion as does exist could pro- 
 bably have arisen. One evidence imperatively fixes 
 the date of this book at as distant a time as six cen- 
 turies before the birth of Christ. The Prophet Eze- 
 kiel twice mentions Job in the 14th chapter of his 
 prophecies. It is very improbable that the Book of 
 Job originates from such late antiquity ; but no man 
 who accepts the Bible as the Word of God can affix 
 a more recent date than that which Ezekiel thus 
 assigns. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 O that thou woulclest hide me, &c. p. 135. 
 
 Job xiv. 13. The Septuagint render this expression 
 *'keep, or guard me, in Hades," h''A'^'n iJ-t s(pu>,aiag-^ 
 and the^ separation made in a future state by the 
 Jews, under the express knowledge that the righteous 
 and the wicked inherited a far different fate in eter- 
 nity, renders this interpretation perfectly unobjec- 
 tionable. Only collate this wish of the Arab patri- 
 arch Job with similar facts recorded by Moses. The 
 Jews had most certain warrant in their Law, of assured 
 separation in Sheol. Moses thus represents Israel 
 
 ' See Note XL, and the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 
 
198 NOTES. 
 
 as expressing exactly the same " wish " as Job, 
 namely, to follow his supposed dead son to Sheol, as 
 a place of rest and peace ; while, on the other hand, 
 the prophet warns the Jews that " a fire is kindled 
 in the anger of the Lord," for rebellious sinners "in 
 the lowest Sheol." The Law of God thus makes 
 this separation; and therefore it is that our Saviour 
 does not assert only ** The prophets warn all of this 
 state of punishment," but " they have Moses and the 
 prophets, let them hear them." The Lord is through- 
 out made the guardian of his faithful, both by the 
 Arab and by the Jewish patriarchs, of all those who 
 have entered into his rest (" they rest from their 
 labours," Rev. xiv. 13); while death is represented as 
 the Shepherd of the ungodly. This description of 
 guarding the spirits of the departed in Hades agrees 
 singularly with that Avell-known and very remakable 
 passage in the Second Epistle of St. Peter, roT^ h 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 / know that my redeemer liveth, &c. p. 136. 
 
 Job xix. 25. — ^The reader may or may not be 
 aware, that the reference of this passage to life eter- 
 nal has been contested; but there exists abundant 
 internal evidence in the Book of Job, leaving this 
 
 ' Ch. iii. 19. 
 
NOTES. 199 
 
 passage out of the question, not only of the know- 
 ledge of a future state, but also of the necessity of 
 atonement by sacrifice. Beyond the passages quoted, 
 the existence of the giants of old in a future state, as 
 has been noticed, is expressly asserted in ch. xxvi. 
 5, 6. The whole of ch. xxi. from the seventh verse, is 
 exactly a repetition of David's reasoning, complaining 
 of the seeming prosperity of the wicked in this life : 
 " They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment 
 go down to Hades :" and then, in almost the same 
 terms as the Psalmist, Job thus justifies the Almighty: 
 " The wicked is reserved for the day of destruction, 
 they shall be brought forth for the day of wrath," 
 ver. 30. Compare this with the expression, " Hide 
 me until thy wrath be past," used in ch, xiv. 13. 
 
 Eight several times is Sheol, or Hades, mentioned 
 in this book also; and the Septuagint render ch. iii. 
 18, in a most expressive manner, after speaking of 
 the place, " where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 and the weary are at rest ;" '0/j.odviJ.a^ov Je oi AIIINIOI 
 ouK moixrav (puvriv (popoXoyou. — " There the prisoners rest 
 together, they hear not the voice of the oppressor." 
 Who are these eternal ones, but the souls of the de- 
 parted? Or, to use our own translation, who are these 
 prisoners, but " the spirits in prison," spoken of by St. 
 Peter? Examine next ch. xxxviii. 17. 'Avolyovrai Je 
 (70( <p60co TTuXai ^avarou, ttuT^uj^o) Se "Aj'oy l^ovrsi as sTrrn^av^ 
 " Have the gates of death been opened unto thee in 
 fear? Have the gatekeepers of Hades, seeing thee, 
 
200 NOTES. 
 
 folded tlieir wings awe-struck before thee?'" Were 
 this imagery of mere human creation, it might be 
 considered with passing admiration; but being, as 
 it is in truth, the Word of God; setting before us, 
 to suit mortal senses, the very gates and gatekeepers 
 of Hades, it simply demands faith. With that per- 
 verseness which distinguishes human nature in the 
 things that belong unto eternity, the words Sheol and 
 Hades have been frittered down into their lowest and 
 most straitened meaning ; whereas, their first primary 
 and most obvious signification (where eternal life 
 has always been revealed) has been, and always will 
 be, " the place where the eternal spirits of those de- 
 parted this life are confined." Compare the above 
 passage with Matt. xvi. 18, hoI itv-Kai ^K^ov, "the 
 gates of hell," also with the descriptions of Hades 
 in the Revelation, and the identity of the imagery 
 will add evidence to the proof, ch. i. 18. Kat o fav, 
 *«» eyEv6//,vv VEH^og, kcu l^oh C^v el/xi elg rohg a'luvag tuv 
 aiuivuv Kal EXn TA2 KAEIS TOT 'AAOT KAI 
 TOT 0ANATOT. " I have the keys of death and 
 hell." This appears an actual forewarning against the 
 future claim of the Church of Rome to infallibility, 
 and its peculiarly asserted powers of absolution. 
 Whatever privilege was granted the Church of Christ, 
 
 * nr^o-o-o), proprie de ave, cutn frigore nietAve alas contrahit : 
 this word is singularly appropriate, considering these gate- 
 keepers angelic beings ; and there is warrant for the supposi- 
 tion, Rev. XX. 1. 
 
NOTES. 201 
 
 through St. Peter and the Apostles, in the passage of 
 St. Matthew xvi; 18, — "And I say also unto thee, 
 That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
 my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
 on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever 
 thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven;" — yet St. John, in the spirit of prophecy, 
 expressly warns us that the most important powers of 
 salvation, " the keys of hell and death," are for ever 
 held only by Jesus Christ, the one Mediator and the 
 only Redeemer ! The Roman Church lays claim to 
 more power than has ever been entrusted to the very 
 limited knowledge of any men or any church, except 
 under the extraordinary influences of the Spirit, ex- 
 isting in the first ages in miraculous knowledge of the 
 secrets of all hearts, and in the exercise of superhuman 
 power. This reservation of the last judgment in the 
 hand of the Redeemer only is very important, and 
 ought to be especially marked in our inquiry as to 
 life eternal. The keys of death and hell remain in 
 the hand of the Redeemer alone. " I am he that 
 liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for 
 evermore. Amen ; and have the keys of hell and of 
 death."— Rev. i. 18. 
 
APPENDIX 
 1851. 
 
 Note A. 
 
 Throughout all the prophets, then, from Samuel, &c. 
 p. 115. 
 
 That the first revelation of eternal life is not to be 
 found in the Gospel has been abundantly proved; 
 and it as assuredly appears that we are referred by 
 the Prophetic Scriptures to the Books of Moses as 
 the fountain head from whence all these doctrines 
 proceeded. Samuel is especially designated the first* 
 of the Prophets. He was the fourteenth and last 
 judge ; and thus the meaning may be that he was 
 the separation between the Judges and the Prophets : 
 yet, in very deed, he was essentially a prophet as well 
 as judge. We find the Word describing his mother 
 Hannah as giving public proofs of faith in a future 
 existence, while her son was yet a scarcely weaned ^ 
 child, and therefore several years before his ministry 
 could possibly have commenced. The Word seldom 
 
 ' Acts iii. 24 ; xiii. 20. ^ 1 Sam. i. 24. 
 
NOTE A. 203 
 
 yields these singular proofs but for especial cause ; 
 and our finding this evidence, marked as it is, before 
 the first prophet guided Israel, plainly refers the 
 revelation of life eternal to the Law of God. That 
 revelation is not to be found in the Scriptures of the 
 Prophets, because it existed before the first of these 
 holy men was sent by God unto Israel. 
 
 The passage of Hannah's prayer which supplies 
 this proof can neither be misunderstood nor wrested 
 from its evident meaning: "The Lord killeth and 
 the Lord maketh alive ; he bringeth down to Hades 
 and bringeth up." * The exact force of the word 
 Hades is elsewhere ' sufficiently and amply defined, 
 and the reference of the first clause of the sentence 
 to the Law of Moses, and to death as well as a 
 future resurrection, is also pointed out. The term 
 which the Septuagint uses for bringing back or up 
 is 'ANATEI. Now the writer of this First Book of 
 Samuel leaves us no space for doubt, with regard to 
 any explanation that we may require as to the right 
 understanding of this term, because he employs it 
 three times elsewhere in a manner and under circum- 
 stances which fully bear out the interpretation that 
 this passage does refer to a future existence. Where 
 Saul meets the Witch of Endor, he is represented as 
 requesting, " Bring me him up whom I shall name 
 unto thee ;" 'ANATAFE' f^oi, ov iav elVoj o-oi : " Then 
 said the woman. Whom shall I bring up unto thee ? '* 
 
 ' 1 Sam. ii. 6. 2 See Note XXI. 
 
204 APPENDIX, 
 
 xai iiTTEv v yuvr) Tiva 'ANArATH (Toi ; " And he said, 
 Bring me up Samuel : " y.cii eItts, Tov l.ajji.ovn'^ 'ANA'- 
 FAFE' ixoi ^ The false power which the woman ex- 
 ercised was over-ruled; for her terror proves that 
 she did not expect to see the very spirit of Samuel, 
 who did arise, and who expressly foretold Saul, 
 '^To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me," 
 — in Hades, that is, in the region of departed spirits. 
 Thus, as Ecclesiasticus^ and the Jewish rabbins assert, 
 Samuel was the only one of their Prophets who fore- 
 told future events after his death. Hannah expresses, 
 then, her positive faith that the Lord will in his own 
 good time restore Hfe, and bring up his faithful from 
 Hades. In the Book of Tobit there occurs a very 
 valuable commentary on this passage in Hannah's 
 prayer, bearing out to the full this exposition : " For 
 he doth scourge " (or doth kill) " and hath pity " (or 
 maketh alive) ; " He bringeth down to Hades and 
 bringeth up again" (these are the very words), 
 " neither is there any that can escape his hand." ^ "Oti 
 Auto; /xacriyoT xai iXesT' KccTayei slg "A^^nv koI 'ANA'- 
 FET Kai oxjK Ecrriv oj £x(p£v^£Tai ty[v yj''f>a, Aurou. No 
 passage could, in fact, more directly affirm life 
 eternal, and therefore the impossibility of withdraw- 
 ing from the power of the eternal Lawgiver and 
 King. 
 
 The first revelation of eternal life is not, then, to be 
 found in the Prophets, for the Word still refers our 
 
 ' 1 Sam. xxviii. 8, 11. « Ecclus. xlvi. 20. » Tobit xui. 2. 
 
NOTE A. 205 
 
 search beyond their Scriptures. Where, then, is it to 
 be found ? Assuredly (as our Saviour asserts in the 
 parable of the rich man and Lazarus) in the Pen- 
 tateuch. There is not one promise, or covenant, or 
 doctrine, or emblem, or word, revealing or affirming 
 eternal hfe, which is not to be traced through the 
 prophetic writings in and to the Books of Moses, 
 as are the sacraments (if we may so express our- 
 selves), and as is the moral law. 
 
 High as was the prophetic office, holy as were the 
 characters, and miraculous as were the powers, of all 
 these sainted and gifted men, they were yet one and 
 all subordinate unto Moses. Two men only were 
 honoured with the high calling of being legislators to 
 the Eternal ; and to Moses, as the first legislator, or 
 rather to the Law of God, is the first revelation of 
 hfe eternal only to be traced. The Prophets, moved 
 by the Holy Spirit, enlarged upon all the doctrines 
 of eternal life, and from time to time drew more and 
 more aside the veil which covered the Law, in point- 
 ing to the time when Christ should suffer for man- 
 kind ; in revealing his mission, offices, and attri- 
 butes ; and in continually asserting that He, whom 
 Moses foretold, would redeem his people who be- 
 lieved in Him, together with all mankind. The 
 revelation of the Bible was thus, throughout, progres- 
 sive and gradual, as is rightly asserted. But when 
 Christ came, and taught and suffered, and rose 
 again, the veil which covered the Law of Moses was 
 
206 APPENDIX, 
 
 by Him absolutely done away ^, and annihilated for 
 ever : the Dayspring from on high, and the Sun 
 of Righteousness, then dissolved every cloud which 
 had before obscured the mental vision of the faith- 
 ful. It was then no longer revelation, it was actual 
 redemption. 
 
 To Moses and Christ alone, as the legislators of 
 the Eternal, are the revelation and the redemption of 
 life eternal to be traced. Moses, by the command of 
 God, asserted and revealed that life in and by the 
 Law of God, that Law detailing the covenants *, and 
 the promise vouchsafed to the Fathers. Christ, in 
 his infinite superiority, and in his own person, 
 made manifest and redeemed that life for every son 
 and daughter of Adam who trusted in the pro- 
 mise^, and who "believeth in his name."* Far 
 more! He is Himself that life; "For the life was 
 manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, 
 and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with 
 the Father, and was manifested unto us." ^ 
 
 • Karapyerai. = gee Note XXVIII. » Psalm 1. 5. 
 
 * Acts iv. 17. John xx. 31. 1 John iii. 23; v. 13. 
 8 1 John i. 2. 
 
NOTE B. 207 
 
 B. 
 
 From the power of that Shedl, kc. p. 125. 
 
 It is a very remarkable, and at the same time 
 manifest fact, that the Word of God (for the Old 
 Testament agrees in this instance also with the Scrip- 
 tures of the New Testament) does make a decided 
 distinction between death and Hades, or Sheol. In 
 truth, these are two different and distinct words, each 
 having its own peculiar signification. Now, this also 
 is another proof that the covenant of God with man 
 was that of eternal life. 
 
 The Old Testament teaches us that death is the 
 separation of the soul from the body, and the utter 
 dissolution of the latter; warning us at the same 
 time, that there is an unseen region appointed for the 
 soul, where in continued consciousness it awaits the 
 day of judgment. Of the body only it is written, 
 " Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return :"^ 
 not so of the immortal spirit, that essence which 
 "God breathed into the nostrils of man"* at his 
 creation ; that is to be guarded until the appointed 
 time (when it shall be summoned to revive the body) 
 in one of the separate states of Hades. This distinc- 
 tion is to be traced in the earliest records ; and it per- 
 vades the whole Word to the latest writing of the 
 
 ' Gen. Ui. 19. « Gen. ii. 7. 
 
208 APPENDIX, 
 
 New Testament. Moses represents Jacob as express- 
 ing his faith in this doctrine ; for although his body 
 was to be buried, " earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes 
 to ashes;" yet the patriarch asserts, that he, that is 
 his soul, would go down to Hades or Sheol, mourning 
 in full consciousness to his son\ Death and Hades 
 are again both mentioned in the gainsaying of Korah*, 
 who dieth not the death of all men, but descendeth 
 alive into Hades or Sheol. Thus Job also distin- 
 guishes death from Hades, as the xxxi. and xxxii. 
 notes abundantly testify. In later times, before the 
 Prophets commenced their ministry, the mother of 
 the first prophet bears witness to the same fact : " The 
 Lord killeth, and maketh alive ; he bringeth down to 
 Hades, and bringeth up;" that is, the Lord killeth 
 the body, and maketh it alive again in a future re- 
 surrection ; but He killeth not the soul, He bringeth 
 the soul down to Hades, and bringeth it up. David 
 again confirms the same faith : " Thou wilt not leave 
 my soul in Hades, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy 
 One to see corruption."' Examine the fulfilment of 
 this prediction : the soul of Christ descended into 
 Hades, but was not left therein : his body was buried 
 in death, but arose again before it saw corruption : 
 thus soul and body were raised by Almighty power 
 from Hades and death. The Prophets throughout 
 their writings proclaim the same distinction; but it 
 
 ^ Gen. xxxvii. 35. ' Jude 2. Numbers xvi. 
 
 » Ps. xvi. 10. Acts xiii. 34-37. 
 
NOTE B. 209 
 
 will be sufficient to select one proof from Hosea : 
 "I will ransom them from the power of Hades; I 
 will redeem them from death : O death, I will be 
 thy plagues; O Hades, I will be thy destruction !"* 
 Now let us apply to the Gospel for our complete ex- 
 position : "And it came to pass that the beggar died ;" 
 this regards the body ; " and was carried by the angels 
 into Abraham's bosom ;" this regards the translation 
 of the soul into Hades. "The rich man died also, 
 and was buried ;" this refers to the body : " and in 
 hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments;"^ that is, 
 Gehenna, or the lowest Sheol, receives his soul. Con- 
 sider next the passage, " Fear him which after he 
 hath killed," or put the body to death, " hath power 
 to cast into hell ;" that is^ into Tartarus or the lowest 
 Hades. Nor should a very explanatory commentary 
 on this distinction which occurs in Ecclesiasticus be 
 omitted ; where, speaking of Elijah, he saith : " Who 
 raised a dead man from death, and his soul from 
 Hades, in the power of the Most High." ^ Another 
 may still be added from the Book of Wisdom : " Thou 
 hast the power of life and death ; thou bringest down 
 to the gates of Hades, and bringest up."* Examine, 
 lastly, the Revelation of St. John, wherein we find 
 death and Hades* both separately and repeatedly 
 mentioned; and the final destruction of both these 
 
 ' Hosea xiii. 14. See also Isaiah and Ezekiel. 
 
 ' Luke ii. 5. 3 Ecclus. xlviii. 5. 1 Kings xvii. 21. 
 
 * Book of Wisdom xvi. 13. * Rev. i.l8; vi. 8; xx. 13. 
 
210 APPENDIX, 
 
 enemies predicted ; — enemies, be it observed, of the 
 first life only, who are to be destroyed by the second 
 death \ In short, in the words of St. Paul, asserting 
 the same distinction, yet contemplating the triumphant 
 salvation of Jesus, the Christian may exclaim, " O 
 death, where is thy sting; O Hades, where is thy 
 victory ?" 
 
 The Jews, in whose Law and Prophets this distinc- 
 tion is manifestly revealed, were assuredly as well in- 
 formed on this subject, as were the heathen nations 
 around them ; and both the Egyptians and Greeks 
 were from all antiquity aware of the same fact. Thus 
 the writers of the Septuagint in after ages, but nearly 
 three centuries before the Gospel, always translate the 
 Hebrew word Sheol by the Greek word Hades. 
 Now, the meaning of this word in the Greek lansfuaofe 
 was defined by Homer and Hesiod, nine centuries 
 before the birth of Christ ; who Himself used it beyond 
 all contradiction in the very same sense. But we 
 have evidence of a more remote antiquity, as Diodorus 
 Siculus, who lived sixty years before our Saviour, as- 
 serts that Orpheus derived this doctrine from Egypt^ 
 Now, Orpheus was one of the Argonauts, whose ex- 
 pedition the Arundel Marbles fix at twelve hundred 
 and sixty-three years before Christ. If the historian 
 was correct in his information (and there can be little 
 
 ' Rev. XX. 14. 
 
 ^ Taj Koi Tccv d(Tfj3S>u iv "A Sou rifjiapias, Koi tovs tZv eixre^av 
 Xft/xwj/ar, &c. — Diodorus Siculus, 1. i, in fol. 86. 
 
NOTE B. 211 
 
 doubt of this), that this knowledge was derived from 
 Egypt (obscured as it was by fables), the account 
 admirably coincides with the Scriptures of Moses. 
 Some centuries before that legislator's mission, the 
 Egyptians were evidently believers in the true God, 
 as the Book of Genesis sufficiently witnesses. The 
 patriarch Jacob, to whom Moses attributes the first 
 mention of Sheol or Hades, held, we find, discourse 
 with Pharaoh (who even submitted to the patriarch's 
 blessing), in which he represented this life as a pil- 
 grimage, in a manner which proves that this doctrine 
 was known to the Egyptian king\ For seventeen 
 years ^ after this interview, did Jacob live in Egypt; 
 where also he died in the faith of a future and better 
 hfe ; giving to his numerous posterity in his last bless- 
 ing a perpetual, and, as it were, public memorial of 
 the fact. Again, Joseph held his high station in the 
 Egyptian government for upwards of eighty years ; 
 so that as the servants of God were always bound to 
 make known his will, no doubt can exist, that this 
 nation and their king derived assurance of " the things 
 which belonged unto eternal life," from the patriarch 
 and his son. Nor did they derive their knowledge of 
 this fact from these sources only, believers as they 
 then evidently were in the Almighty ; for Noah, as a 
 preacher of righteousness^, must have taught the pro- 
 mise of everlasting life to his own family, as is abun- 
 dantly proved, too, by his offering sacrifice to God. 
 
 ' Gen. xlvii. 9, 10. * Gcq. xlvii. 28. ^ 2 Pet. ii. 5. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 APPENDIX, 
 
 In their proneness to error and unbelief, men are 
 tempted to wrest the meaning of words; especially 
 where these present any awful check to tlie indul- 
 gence of their unbridled passions. Whether we 
 search the Hebrew Scriptures, as represented, not 
 only by the Septuagint, but also by the Evangelists, 
 or the writings and traditional records of the Hea- 
 then nations, death, Savarog, is the visible separation 
 of the soul and body, and the dissolution of the latter 
 manifest to all our mortal senses. Not so. Hades, 
 "A^m; this, as the vi^ord itself proves^, is the con- 
 tinued invisible being of the immortal spirit, not ma- 
 nifest to our senses : a fact that can be received only 
 by faith ; for, as the whole Word of God affirms, 
 " Faith is the evidence of things not seen." The 
 meaning of these two separate and distinct words 
 has been wrested by successive ages of unbelievers ; 
 until Hades is frequently considered, and indeed is 
 used, as signifying nothing more than death ; whereas 
 the truth as it is in Jesus is, that death regards this 
 mortal body, but Hades regards the immortal soul ; 
 and also, that both death and Hades shall exist only 
 so long as this world lasts ; for both these enemies 
 will be abolished in our second life, if we be destined, 
 through Jesus, to escape the second death. 
 
 * Frbm d, not, and ei'Sw, to see : the unseen or invisible state. 
 As Windet, p. 32, justly observes, "Lucretius vainly and ab- 
 surdly complains, 
 
 nunquam apparent Acherusia regna ; 
 
 because they neither can, nor ought to appear, being invisible." 
 
NOTE B. 213 
 
 The Catholic faith is, that as all must submit to 
 death, so the spirits of all must be brought down to 
 Hades. As man, Jesus Christ himself underwent 
 this fate^; and the disciple is not above his master. 
 In Hades will the soul of every human being be 
 guarded'^, in the consciousness of peace or misery, 
 until the end of the world'; when the Saviour will 
 call* the body from death and the grave, and the 
 soul from Hades, to be rejoined together, and then 
 to undergo the judgment. " Of that day and hour 
 knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but 
 the Father only;"^ but thus much we may under- 
 stand of the intermediate state, that " there is no 
 reckoning of time in Hades, whether it be ten, or a 
 hundred, or a thousand years.'"' To us, the interval 
 between death and the judgment will pass even as 
 the watch of a night. Through the days of this life, 
 and in the hour of dissolution, the Christian will 
 "cast his care upon God,"^ and " commit the keep- 
 ing of his soul to a faithful Creator;"* praying, in 
 the strong assurance of faith, " Lord Jesus, receive 
 my spirit ! " ^ He only, as the Word of God warns 
 us, " hath the keys of Hades and of death."'" 
 
 ' " He descended into Hades." The Apostle's Creed. 
 
 = Job. xiv. 13. => Matt. xiii. 39. ^ John v. 28, 29. 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 36. 
 
 * Ecclus. xli. 4, ovK eariv iv''Apov, tXey^bs Corjs. 
 
 7 1 Pet. V. 7. M Pet. jv. 9. 9 Acts vii. 59. ^^ Rev. i. 18. 
 
 I^ote. — It may be proper to subjoin certain authorities from 
 the Fathers. Burnet, "De Statu Mortuorum," after quoting Ire- 
 
214 APPENDIX, 
 
 c. 
 
 The Law of God, kc. p. 134. 
 
 The Law and Covenant (not of Moses, but) of 
 God has been always, from the Fall even unto this 
 hour, the law of eternal life. This is the simple rea- 
 son why a future state is so little mentioned in the 
 Old Testament. Because that state forms the very 
 basis and foundation, nay, the one great design, of 
 this Law. 
 
 The fear of Cain when he had slain his brother — 
 Cain, we read, well knew the fixed punishment of 
 murder — proves the primeval existence of this Law ; 
 which was, doubtless, coeval with the Fall, the pro- 
 mise, and the covenant. Even this first death among 
 mankind demonstrates a future state; as the Al- 
 mighty himself represents the voice' of the blood 
 
 • Gen. iv. 10. Heb. xii. 24. " Rev. vi. 10. 
 
 nseus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others, to prove the in- 
 variable faith of the Christian Church in this doctrine, proceeds ; 
 " To these we may add, two bishops of Caisarca, of a later, I think, 
 but yet of an uncertain date : I mean Andreas and Aretas, who 
 on the Apocalypse write thus : Qavaros nev, x'^P^^H-°^ ^^X^^ 
 KOL crmfMaTos. "ABtjs 8e, tottos rjfui' cieidfjs, fjyovv u(f)avTjS Koi 
 ayvuxTTOs, 6 ras yjyv)(as rj^oiv, evTfvdev eKdrjiiovaas 8e)^6fji€vos. 
 Death is the separation of soul and body. But Hades is to us 
 an invisible, or imseen and unknown place, which receives our 
 souls departed from their earthly tabernacles." — Burnet, pp. 63, 
 64, 65. 
 
NOTE C. 215 
 
 of Abel (by which the Rabbins understand his 
 soul) crying to Him from the earth. Abel, al- 
 though dead, is thus declared to be still in being. 
 
 No mortal wisdom could have conceived the Law 
 of God. It is the most extraordinary code that ever 
 was proposed to the contemplation and researches of 
 the human mind. Two short, simple statutes, based 
 on one motive or principle, comprehend its whole 
 provisions ; and yet these are as illimitable and un- 
 bounded in their reach and power, as is the great 
 Author himself: " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. 
 And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments 
 hang all the law and the prophets." ^ This, in fact, 
 is an almighty law, from which man can as little 
 escape as he can from the hand and power of the 
 eternal God. 
 
 The language and teaching of Christ and of the 
 whole Gospel is that a future state ^ was always the 
 essential and manifest subject of the covenants be- 
 tween God and man. The eternal God scarcely 
 would have legislated for this life but as a state of 
 trial, but as a pilgrimage to a better life. To legis- 
 late for this life only would have been evidently be- 
 neath the attributes of the Almighty, unless it was for 
 the manifest purpose of restoring man to immortality. 
 
 ' Matt. xxii. 40. * John xii. 50. 
 
216 APPENDIX, 
 
 Intermingled as they are, and proceeding as they 
 do from one fountain, a distinction must be drawn 
 between the primeval Law and that of Moses. That 
 part of the Law which refers to secular government 
 was an entirely secondary and subservient code, as 
 is proved by its not existing for ages after the Fall ; 
 whereas the covenant and the promise immediately 
 followed that event. The temporal provisions of the 
 Law were added in after ages through Moses, when 
 the family of Abraham were to be separated into a 
 distinct nation. The first and great law was the Law 
 of God, and as from this every human law originates, 
 so also on this code hano- all the Law and the Pro- 
 phets, for this is the fountain-head. All the secular 
 provisions of the Law of Moses were added when 
 the descendants of Abraham were to be separated 
 into a distinct nation, and to be placed no longer 
 under patriarchal rule, but under a peculiar national 
 polity. All these laws are manifestly subordinate to 
 the main design, which was from the Fall the re- 
 vealed restoration to a second life ; and man, with 
 the covenant and Law of God before him, never 
 should have been ignorant of a future state, chose 
 he blessing or chose he cursing. 
 
 To the promise of immortality after the Fall, the 
 establishment of a state of trial was a necessary con- 
 sequence. Then a Law fitted and adapted for this 
 state of trial must have been vouchsafed. The fear 
 of Cain, the covenant with Noah, and the calling 
 
NOTE C. 217 
 
 of Abraham, each and all prove that such a Law was 
 imposed. 
 
 Could any necessity exist for a covenant between 
 God and man for this short mortal life ? This is not 
 our question ; but if such necessity did exist, the Law 
 would at least have been fitted and adapted for this 
 life, and the condition and circumstances of man in 
 his fallen state. Permission to live on a few days 
 of labour and of sorrow being granted, man would 
 probably have been left for this short period to seek 
 " his food in the sweat of his brow until he returned 
 to the earth from whence he came," with reason and 
 the law of nature ^ as his guide, and the general Law 
 of Providence as his support. But he would not 
 have been placed not only lower than the angels, but 
 even lower than the very animals (which enjoy their 
 life knowing no sin) in having that awful law im- 
 posed upon him "by which is the knowledge of 
 sin." ^ Man, it is true, had chosen to rush into the 
 knowledge of good and evil ; but he would either 
 never have been suffered to live on, or, after just 
 punishment for his disobedience, he would have been 
 banished to live far from the favour and presence of 
 his Maker, under no more severe law than that of 
 nature, enforced by human penalties, such as reason 
 and experience could generally dictate. Burdened 
 as he already was, and justly deserved to be, for 
 transgressing the first parental commandment of 
 
 1 Rom. ii. 4. 2 Rom. iii. 20. 23; v. 13. 
 
218 APPENDIX, 
 
 God, he would never have been driven to desperation 
 and hatred by the enactment of that awful Law 
 
 * which worketh wrath." ^ Our conviction of this 
 truth arises from the consideration of the attributes 
 of God. 
 
 Contemplate only the provisions of this Law. It is 
 self-evident that the Law of God is not fitted, and is 
 not adapted only for this life, nor for the condition 
 and circumstances of man in his fallen state. Man 
 discovers within his bosom a heart and a spirit 
 alienated from God, and prone to transgress against 
 his neighbour. But this awful Law commands him 
 to love his God with all the concentrated powers of 
 soul and body, and his neighbour, on this principle, 
 as himself. Now this is, beyond all doubt, clearly 
 and manifestly impossible; therefore this Law is 
 totally unfitted for ^ this life, and for man's fallen and 
 corrupt nature. It is far above all our thoughts, and 
 beyond all our powers, rendering our attempts at 
 perfect obedience hopeless, desperate, and imprac- 
 ticable ; and yet almighty and eternal blessing and 
 cursing are its tremendous sanctions. 
 
 The Eternal declares Himself to be " the God of 
 mercy, of wisdom, of justice, and of truth." Now no 
 legislator who is just, or true, or wise, or merciful, 
 would mock and oppress his subjects with a law which 
 renders obedience altogether impossible. Nay, the 
 known principle of all law is, that " no man is bound 
 
 ' Rom. iv. 15. 2 Ezekiel xx. 24. 
 
NOTE C. 219 
 
 to do that which is impossible."* Yet this Law is 
 impossible" J and the Almighty remains the " God of 
 mercy, of wisdom, of justice, and of truth." 
 
 Where is the solution of this difficulty ? It is so 
 open and manifest, that it could not escape the re- 
 searches of human reason, were it not blinded by 
 pride. This is the law of eternal life. The Law of 
 God being manifestly not fitted for this life, but as a 
 state of trial ; nor for the corrupt and fallen condition 
 of human nature, but as a standard held up to disci- 
 pline man for a superior state of existence ; it must 
 be the moral light vouchsafed by the All- wise Legis- 
 lator, to guide man in his path to everlasting life. In 
 this view all is clear : we can at once perceive and un- 
 derstand the justice, the wisdom, the mercy, and the 
 truth of God ; we can at once acknowledge in their 
 spiritual extent the loveliness of piety and righteous- 
 ness, and the perfect fitness of the two command- 
 ments, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, 
 to their great end and design. Eternal life being 
 promised, a Law is vouchsafed to discipline man for 
 that second existence ; and because this Law is such 
 as man cannot obey, sacrifice is appointed (in me- 
 morial of Christ) to complete his sincere, yet imper- 
 fect efforts at obedience. No longer driven to despair, 
 as sacrifice opens the way, man cheerfully presses 
 forward " towards the mark for the high calling 
 
 ' Nemo tenetur ad impossibile. * Rom. viii. 7 
 
220 APPENDIX, 
 
 of God in Christ Jesus." ^ Tempted as he was, when 
 looking on an impossible Law, to exclaim, " O wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death?" he tm'ns in full assurance of faith to 
 the Promise, for his ready and triumphant answer ; " I 
 thank God that my deliverance is sure, through the 
 sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord."^ 
 
 But this doctrine, that the Law of God is utterly 
 beyond our powers of obedience, must be guarded 
 from all abuse. Why is this Law impossible ? Be- 
 cause it is the Law of a better life, framed to fit and 
 prepare us to live " with the spirits of the just made 
 perfect ;" ^ and in the perpetual presence and favour of 
 our Almighty Father. Our most sincere* and ear- 
 nest efforts are therefore absolutely necessary to our 
 own happiness : and no man dares long wilfully to 
 disobey the Law, the sanctions of which are Almighty 
 blessing or cursing through an everlasting existence ; 
 for, " whether he lives or dies, he cannot escape the 
 hand of the eternal God." ^ Again, why is this Law im- 
 possible ? That it may teach man the corruption of 
 his own heart, and thus point out the necessity of his 
 looking to something beyond his own most imperfect 
 
 ' Phil. iii. 14. 
 
 2 Rom. vii. 24, 25. Gal. iii. 13. 
 
 » Heb. xii. 23. 
 
 * Phil. i. 10. Eph. vi. 24. Josh. xxiv. 14, 
 
 * 2 Maccab. vi. 26. 
 
NOTE C. 221 
 
 obedience, for salvation from the wrath to come. 
 Where, then, is salvation ? not in the Law, but in the 
 promise^. We must look unto Jesus; to the Pro- 
 mise and its type, sacrifice : and therefore it was that 
 sacrifice was provided from the very Fall of Man. Now, 
 the sacrifice of Abel, the " sacrifice of the Lamb from 
 the beginning,"* as the whole Gospel teaches us, was 
 the type of the sacrifice of the death of Christ. Not 
 to our obedience, earnest and sincere^ as it must be, 
 are we to look for salvation: our salvation is pur- 
 chased'*, and that only by the blood of Christ. The 
 Law then is impossible to lead us unto Christ ^ ; and 
 through the rich provision of his Gospel and of his 
 Spirit, to fit and prepare us for a second and better 
 life. 
 
 The fountain-head of the revelation of eternal life, 
 is the first covenant and law of God, as it is evi- 
 dently the covenant and law of a future state. 
 
 It may be right to subjoin a concise review of the 
 covenants vouchsafed by God to man. 
 
 The first covenant that was made with Adam after 
 the Fall, and this covenant was founded on the promise^ 
 of the restoration to eternal life ; the seal and me- 
 morial of which was the sacrifice of blood, as is 
 
 ' Acts xiii. 22. 32, 33, 
 
 ^ John i. 29. Rev. xiii. 8. 
 
 3 Phil. i. 10. Eph. vi. 24. Joshua xxiv. 14. 
 
 * Acts XX. 28. Col. i. 14. Ileb. ix. 12. 14. 
 
 « Gal. iii. 24. 
 
 « Gen. iii. 15. Rom. xvi. 20. 
 
222 APPENDIX, 
 
 proved by that of Abel\ So much of the Law of God 
 as was necessary for "a lamp unto man's feet" on 
 his earthly pilgrimage, was revealed, as the fear of 
 Cain'^ evidently implies. The second covenant was 
 that made with Noah, with the continuation of sa- 
 crifice always as the indispensable memorial of the 
 Promise. In process of time, as mankind increased 
 and multiplied, the Law of God, comprising the duty 
 of man, was proclaimed ; as we find this promulgation 
 plainly asserted in the fifth verse of the 26tli chapter 
 of Genesis. The third covenant was that vouchsafed 
 unto Abraham, still with the unchangeable continu- 
 ation of sacrifice as the memorial of the Promise; 
 but, with the addition of circumcision, signifying 
 "the circumcision of the heart and spirit"^ within 
 the boundary of the Law of God. The fourth covenant 
 was that of Moses, when, in addition to sacrifice (or 
 the Promise) and circumcision, the Moral Law, or Law 
 of God, explained and enlarged, was finally promul- 
 gated at Mount Sinai, in miraculous terrors, by the 
 Almighty himself. Now, all these four covenants were 
 evidently but the continuation of one and the same 
 covenant and promise. Nay, with the substitution 
 of the seal of baptism (signifying the same purity of 
 the heart* under a different symbol) for the seal of 
 
 * Gen. iv. 4. Heb. xi. 4 ; xii. 24. 
 
 * Gen. iv. 13, 14. 
 3 Rom. ii. 29. 
 
 ■• Acts XX. 16. Eph. V. 26. Titus iii. 5. 
 
NOTE c. 223 
 
 circumcision; and of the real, instead of typical sa- 
 cacrifice, the covenant remains until this hour, eternal ; 
 and the old and new covenants are the one and in- 
 divisible promise of everlasting life. Thus, " the law," 
 not of Moses, but " of God is the law of eternal 
 life." Thus the Law of Moses was "the law of 
 eternal life," until the advent of the Promise, even 
 " Jesus, the Mediator of a better covenant." ^ 
 
 ' Heb. viii. 6; sii. 24, 
 
 THE END. 
 
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