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to our being, there is something altogether unaccountable in this scheme of Providence.

Princes and prophets, it hath been said, must sometimes suffer for the iniquity of the people, and children for the sins of their parents. Be it so: another life clears up all these irregularities and difficulties: but nothing else can. It is no satisfactory answer to one who endeavours sincerely and diligently to serve God, that the public utility and the honour of the divine laws require his afflictions, his misery, and his destruction, whilst worthless men live and prosper, or, at least, fare no worse than he.

God will judge the world in righteousness, and all men must appear before him, and give an account of themselves. This is the doctrine of the New Testament; but hence it follows that all men, either by reason or by revelation, might have known this important truth, or at least might have looked upon a life to come as probable. We may say then, either wicked Jews in all ages could discover the reasonableness of a time of judgment and retribution, or they could not. If they could not, it seems hard that they should undergo penalties to which they could not foresee themselves obnoxious: if they could, we cannot suppose that those great truths were hidden from wise and good men, which even the stupid and the wicked, by a right

use of their understanding, were capable of discovering.

Again: If Abraham and the patriarchs, and Moses and Joshua, if Samuel and David, if pious kings and prophets believed another life, which is generally acknowledged, the consequence is unavoidable, that it must have been the common opinion amongst the Hebrews. Did not these great and good men teach it to their own wives and children and domestics? or had they no interest at home, and no influence over their dependents? or was this important doctrine communicated to a few chosen persons, like an Ægyptian mystery, under the seal of eternal secrecy? or was it of such an ugly and uncomfortable nature, that none could be brought to entertain it? or were the Hebrews so very different from all the rest of mankind, that neither the innate love of immortality, nor respect for their parents and rulers, nor even the vanity of imitating illustrious men, which must always be a genteel and fashionable thing, could have any effect upon them?

There are, besides the proofs which we have given, several texts in the Old Testament, which may indeed be thought capable of another and a lower sense; and yet, without any violence done to the words, may as justly at least be supposed to contain intimations of a future state. Some of them

I shall examine; for to produce them all would be an endless task.

David says *,

'In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.'

We will consider what these words can mean, if they relate not to the kingdom of heaven. They can mean no more than this; It is a great pleasure to me, and to all good men, to dwell at Jerusalem, where thy ark, O God, is placed, and where thou art daily worshipped with sacrifices, prayers, and hymns. In attending at thy house, I enjoy that unspeakable delight which thou conferrest upon those who love and honour thee.

Upon the supposition that these words were spoken by one who expected no future state, we must needs say that he hath strangely magnified a small matter, and dressed it up in most lofty terms. To dwell a few years, or days, in Mount Sion, to visit the tabernacle constantly, to be well skilled in a law calculated in some measure for a stubborn and perverse people, for children in understanding and rebels in disposition, is represented as happiness without measure and without end.

If they are the words of a pious Israelite who expected another life, these objections will indeed.

* Psalm xvi.

fall to nothing; and it must be owned, that such a man might justly speak in this strong and lively manner of the pleasures of worshipping God in the tabernacle, as it was the way to happiness in this world and in the next. But then the point is gained; namely, that he entertained hopes of living hereafter with God.

Yet though these words, in the mouth of one who had views beyond the present world, may be interpreted, as we said before, of the satisfaction which he found in serving God after the manner which God required; they may perhaps relate to heaven, and perhaps better to heaven than to the tabernacle, which was only a faint representation of that throne and that kingdom of God, where the holy angels attend, and where they, with all righteous persons, shall indeed find fullness of joy, and pleasures for ever, greater and more valuable than these or any other words can express.

David says *,

'As for man, his days are as grass: as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord

is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that

fear him.'

* Psalm ciii.

M

"Here David, first, declares the vanity and shortness of this life, and of all its enjoyments; and, secondly, the everlasting mercy of God to the faithful in the other life. For the everlasting

mercy of God, here spoken of, being opposed to the short, transitory enjoyments of the present life, must necessarily signify the mercy and goodness of God to the faithful in the other life, which is indeed the only everlasting mercy. Hence Jewish doctors saw and acknowledged that this text speaks of the everlasting happiness of the righteous in the life to come. And the Chaldee paraphrast thus renders the latter part of the text; 'But the mercy of the Lord is in this world, and even in the world to come, upon them that fear him."— BULL*.

In the Book of Job we find that good man sometimes overcome by his afflictions, and despairing to see an end of them. At other times he gets the better of his doubts, and expresses a firm hope and confidence in God. 6 Though he slay me,' says he, yet will I trust in him.' And again, 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 re

Vol. i. Sermon viii.; where he undertakes to prove, from many passages of Scripture, that life everlasting was expected by good men under the Old Testament.

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