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thority of a teacher sent from God, that the hour was I coming in the which they that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation."

It must not be supposed that the condition of the Jews was worse in this respect than that of their heathen neighbours, or that the absence of express allusions to a future state in the Mosaic revelation places it in an unfavourable light, as compared with uninspired systems of religion. The same natural inducements to belief which gave rise to the pagan notions of Elysium and Tartarus the Jew possessed, and they were not contradicted, but rather aided, by the tenor of his law; while in the solemn silence which the inspired records preserved on the condition of the soul after death, the fancies of imagination, or that frivolity of temper which could sport with such a subject, found no nutriment. Of what real value was the pagan faith, if it can be called so, as a motive to virtue? What seriousness of mind did it inspire, either among people or philosophers? The range of early Jewish speculation on a future state may have been limited, but at least it was free from the debasing elements which mingle so largely in the traditions of other nations of antiquity to the heathen death was a natural event,

j John v. 28, 29.

to the Hebrew it was the penalty of sin; and the unknown existence to which it led became invested in his eyes with a painful and solemn interest, which must have produced a far greater practical effect than the fantastic details of pagan fable.

With the commencement of the principal age of prophecy the subject begins to open, and distinct notices appear, not merely of the separate existence of the soul after death, but of the much more distinctive doctrine, the resurrection of the body. In several passages of Isaiah, in the remarkable vision of Ezekiel', and, above all, in the unequivocal announcement in the book of Daniel, "that many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt "," the pious Israelite could not fail to see the doctrine of the resurrection implied, if not distinctly expressed; and from these notices, and not, as Warburton supposes, from pagan sources, the general belief of the nation, as we find it in our Lord's time, no doubt took its rise. Some degree of obscurity, however, still hung over the subject; especially as regards the nature of the resurrectionbody. That the body will rise again had become a settled point; but it was still "a mystery," a thing formerly hidden but now revealed, that xxvi. 19.

See especially chap. xxv. 8;

1 Ezek. xxxvii. 1—12.

though "we shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed;" that "this corruptible" shall "put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality";" a change the pledge of which was exhibited, and not before, in Christ's own glorious transformation, and respecting which we have the assurance, that "when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is "."

On the whole, on an impartial survey of the facts of the case, we shall probably be led to take a middle course between the exaggerated views that have been put forward on either side of this question; between the strange assertion of Warburton, that "the doctrine of a future state never once appears to have had any share in this people's thoughts"," and the theology which in this as in other points would place the Jew on an equality with the Christian. How the eminent writer just mentioned could have hazarded such a statement it is difficult to say; so far from its being correct, the subject of a future state seems, if we may judge from those books of Scripture which especially pourtray the feelings of the writers, to have deeply exercised reflective minds under the ancient economy. Whatever the results may have been at which they arrived, it cannot be said that the subject was not frequently in their thoughts. On the other hand, it must be confessed that their state of mind, in the contemplation of the last

n 1 Cor. xv. 52, 53. 。 1 John iii. 2. P Div. Leg. b. v. §. 5.

enemy, was far removed from that which the Christian enjoys. "They were all their life-time, through fear of death, subject to bondage." Arrived at the boundary of human existence, they looked forward into the abyss of a vast eternity, not indeed wholly unilluminated, for here and there a promise, or a prophecy, like stars suspended in the dark firmament, shed a cheering ray; but the radiance of all the nocturnal lights of heaven together cannot compensate for the absence of the sun, and the ancient believer ventured into the comparative obscurity upheld rather by an implicit faith in the Divine goodness and mercy, than by any specific prospects of what awaited him in those unknown regions.

3. A very few words must suffice on the third head under which the Christian prophecy arranges itself, the prophetical notices of the future kingdom of the Messiah.

In describing the approaching Gospel dispensation, the prophets, as might be expected, enlarge upon the promised extension of the blessings of true religion to the Gentiles: the comprehensiveness of the new covenant, as contrasted with the restricted and local character of the existing one, is spoken of as one of its main characteristics. But this expansion is to place on the basis of existing arrangements. "Thou shalt break forth," is the promise to Zion, " on the right hand and on

Heb. ii. 15.

the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles';" "in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts"." What meaning are we to attach to these predictions? The Jews, as we know, interpreted them literally and carnally; Messiah was to be a temporal prince, who should restore the kingdom to Israel', and compel the nations to acknowledge His universal sway: a large section of the Christian body likewise interprets them literally, and accordingly reproduces in the Christian Church a visible counterpart of the Jewish appointments of priesthood and sacrifice. Of the latter error I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; but with respect to the former, it is strange that such misconceptions respecting the nature of the Gospel kingdom should have prevailed, when prophecy had clearly marked out in what sense the Theocracy was to be perpetuated under the reign of Christ. For it is no longer the nation in its corporate capacity to which the prospect is held out of a future enlargement by the coming in of the Gentiles; the Zion which is the subject of these prophecies is described as "a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit," as "afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted"," as needing consolation at the hand of the Lord, and not chastisement.

It was

t Acts i. 6.