tures, that signifies the place of departed spirits. It is to be regretted, that in our English translation, no other term could have been found to express it, than the word "hell," which also denotes "the place of future torment,”—and without a regard to the original language, the one hell is sometimes likely to be mistaken for the other. When David said, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption," he was not speaking of a place of torment, but of the region of departed spirits. His language was perfectly understood by the Jews, and is confirmatory of the doctrine upon which I am discoursing. Why were Enoch and Elijah translated so as not to see death, but that they might be illustrations of raising both the soul and the body to eternal life? The Almighty is styled the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; but as "he is not the God of the dead but of the living," we infer that the spirits of those patriarchs still exist. The length of days, and the possession of the land of Canaan which were promised to them,-and in short, all the temporal promises to them and their posterity,-were pre-significations of eternal life, and were so understood. For St. Paul tells us, that " they desire a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city." They all died in faith,-"not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced

them." Jacob, therefore, when he was introduced to Pharoah, spoke of his life as his pilgrimage, meaning not only a wandering existence on earth, as his had really been, but also a state of absence from his final and eternal home. When pronouncing his dying benediction upon his sons, he exclaimed that he had waited for God's salvation,-a term which the Jewish interpreters themselves, in that passage of Scripture, apply to the Messiah :—and it is a remarkable fact-but this is not the time to go into details in proof of it-that salvation is, in the prophetical and other books, a name for the Messiah, and that our Saviour's name Jesus signifies not a Saviour, but salvation. If, indeed, the Messiah was not to be expected as "the Author of eternal salvation," the promises of his coming could not have comforted and cheered the many generations of God's faithful servants, who, with their forefather Abraham, had all sunk into the grave. What could have enlivened the faith of the patriarchs and of their descendants, but the hope and confidence that they should, in virtue of the Messiah's great work, rise again from their sepulchres, and share the blessings of his re*demption? "I know," says Job, "that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; And tho' after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ;Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." It was an opinion of the Pharisees, as Josephus tells us, that the resurrection

of good men from the dead was an easy thing. We are told also by other writers, that the Jews doubted whether the Messiah himself should come from the living, or from the dead. That there was a prevalent expectation of him from the dead, is evident from the report which the disciples brought to our Saviour, as to his own person and character. "Some say that thou art John the Baptist ;-some, Elias ;-and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." If, indeed, the human soul is not immortal, then it must by some means be destroyed:-and as its destruction implies, or rather is the same thing as, its annihilation, there must be a miraculous power employed to enable it to pass from a state of existence to a state of nonexistence, between which, according to the principles of all philosophy, there can be no natural medium. Now the ancient Scriptures, to which our Saviour directed the attention of the cavilling Jews, teach us that in regard to the immortalizing of our nature, God will work a miracle;-not, however, by changing the essential qualities of the soul, but by restoring the body to a state of life. Thy dead men," says the prophet Isaiah, "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." The declarations of the prophet Daniel are still more explicit for he says, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,-some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

VOL. II.

66

P

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."

From these cursory observations, it is clear that the ancient Jews had good reasons for recognizing in their Scriptures the doctrine of "eternal life." That the same Scriptures "testified," copiously and expressly, of our blessed Saviour himself, it will not be difficult to shew.-We are not to suppose, however, that all those testimonies were as obvious to the Jews of that time, as they are to us now ;--because many of them could not be applied to Him, and therefore could not be so understood, till his earthly ministry was completed, and he had ascended into heaven. Yet, as our Saviour declares, in general terms, that the Scriptures of the Old Testament do testify of him, and as we are not so much concerned with what was intelligible to the ancient Jews, as with what may be traced out by ourselves as Christians,— we shall best serve the purposes of our own instruction, by collecting the testimonies generally, as far as we know them to be applicable to him.

A promise was made to our first parents in Paradise, that he who was to bruise the serpent's head, would be "the seed of the woman." This was afterwards explained more circumstantially by the prophet Isaiah, who foretold that "a virgin should conceive, and bear a son, and should call his name Immanuel :" -and how it was fulfilled, St. Matthew tells us ; for he applies that prophecy to the Virgin Mary and

her Son Jesus. Micah foretold that out of Bethlehem should come forth that "ruler in Israel, whose goings forth had been from of old, from everlasting :"-and it is evident from the evangelical history, that Christ was, in fulfilment of this prophecy, born in Bethlehem. Hosea prophesied, in terms literally expressive of God's love for Israel, that the Messiah should be called out of Egypt. St. Matthew accordingly testifies, that when Herod endeavoured to destroy the infant Jesus, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, and commanded him to escape with the young child and his mother into Egypt, till he should have orders to return, "that it might," says the Evangelist, "be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son." Malachi predicted that a messenger should be sent before the Messiah to prepare his way, to which messenger he gave, in the next chapter, the official or allusive name of "Elijah the prophet." In reference to this harbinger of the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah speaks of "the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Here, we may take St. Luke for our commentator, who speaks of John the Baptist as coming before the Lord Jesus, "in the spirit and power of Elias," and as crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord,-make his paths straight." Again, it was foretold by Isaiah, that the Messiah would make Galilee, in particular, the