of the dead better for Israel than the days of Messiah?" or, in other words, is not the state which follows the resurrection, to be desired before the state of souls, while the body is under the power

of death?

P727 In Messiah's days, the righteous are to flourish, and there is to be an abundance of peace, till there be (Beli Jereach) no moon. Let it now be kept in view that the days of Messiah exert their influences on earth only as initiatory or elementary, and that these continuing their progress into the world of souls, it is there that righteousness flourishes, and abundance of peace obtains.

We are apt to imagine that that world is entirely cut off from this, and having no connexion with it at all. Hence we say of a person deceased, that he is gone into eternity. But I apprehend that this is neither just nor accurate. Eternity can only commence when duration ceases to be measured out by the heavenly bodies. That this is by no means the case with the dead, the following considerations will demonstrate: 1st. They have not done with time: their bodies are yet on earth, and a fixed number of ages is appointed to roll over them. 2dly. The departed spirits know and are assured that their present state is to have Rev.6. its period. "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt thou not avenge our blood on them who dwell on the earth; and it was told them, that

they

they should rest yet a little while, until their brethren were perfected." This is a proof then that they are sensible of the co-existence of earth. Neither is their state immutably fixed, but their destiny is. The states of both the righteous and the wicked are to undergo a material change. At present, the former exist in hope, the latter in fear. As the righteous have to rise to higher joys, so the wicked have to sink lower, and to encounter fiercer punishments. Eternity, or an unmeasured duration, does not take place until time be expired: till then, every created being exists in time. It is only the prerogative of the great Jehovah, never to have existed in time. The succession of ages was by him appointed to admit a succession of finite beings; but his duration may be said to be what the schoolmen term a punctum stans; a now that entirely excludes past and future-being ever present and ever the same.

It is evident that of the people of God, the living on earth, and the spirits of the dead, form but one church, termed Zion, and that Messiah's reign equally extends to both, although in very different degrees. Here righteous men drag along with them a body of death; there they flourish: here there is a war with flesh and blood, and with principalities and powers; there, there is abundance of peace.

These days of Messiah are set forth as being commensurate with the continuance of the moon.

The

The words, " until there be no moon," appear to intimate, that in the end there is a remarkable change to take place in the visible system of nature, and expressed by Job, in words nearly similar: "So man lieth down and riseth, not till the heavens be no more." Alh.12

The new heavens and new earth are represented as being without a sea, and consequently without an atmosphere, or circumambient air. The moon, by her action on the tides of sea and air, is the servant of mortality-supplying to men refreshing streams of both, and by giving to these a perpetual motion, preserving them from corruption. The moon, then, is the symbol of time and change, and although not subjected to annihilation, may have her lunary connexion broken up, and her station changed; so that with respect to earth, it may be said that there is no more moon.

We are, however, to keep in mind, that although the heavenly bodies measure out the ages which flow away, while the bodies of the dead are mingled with the dust; yet this does not hold with respect to their spirits. Time, they are undoubtedly conscious of, but they have no longer any need of the sun or the moon. The Lamb himself is their light, and this must be understood to be an intellectual light, comporting with their present intellectual situation and existence, as being entirely divested of matter, and its properties.

In this psalm there is a remarkable sentence, and which, as clearly pointing to the state of Paradise, well merits our attention. It is rendered almost word for word by the apostles Paul and John, and by them applied to the intermediate state. In our version, the sentence runs thus: "They shall fear thee while sun and moon en- Ps.72.5 dure." This is by no means the sense of the original, which does not suggest, as in the common translation, the termination of these acts of worship, but their continuance and unremitted exercise. When literally rendered, it runs in this manner: "They shall fear thee with the sun, and in presence of the moon." This reading suggests a sense very different from the other. Let us now see how the Chaldee paraphrast understood it. His sense of the passage is so much the more to be attended to, as it is the expression of the sense of the great body of the Jewish nation. They shall fear thee with the ascent of the sun, and pray to thee in presence of the light of the

and~~

I hope it will not be objected here, why these two luminaries are mentioned, when it is said that the Lamb himself is the light of that blessed region. Nothing more is meant than to express continuance that the existence of these spirits is now one endless act of worship: that they are not interrupted by any secular labour, during the

day.

day, as when on earth, nor summoned to repose by the shades of night, as if needing the refreshments of sleep; that when the sun had risen upon the inhabitants of earth, they were still worshipping before the throne; and that when day was ended, and the moon with her paler rays had succeeded, the worship of that blessed region, knew no standing still.

The same objection could be made to the apostle John, where in one place he says, that they serve Rev. 7.God in his temple day and night. Yet some chap

21.25

22.5 ters after tells us, that no night was there. The reconciling of these will, to the candid and reflecting mind, prove an easy task.

I had said that here day and night were merely employed to express continuance. The apostle Paul, in his version of this sentence, uses the very individual word in Greek. "Unto which hope our twelve tribed body serving God (En ekteneia) in continuance, expect to come." Acts 26.7

The apostle uttered these words as part of a defence which he was making before King Agrippa. His zeal for the reality of the hope of the resurrection that was promised unto the fathers, retained him as counsel to plead the cause of these illustrious dead; and in pleading their cause, he plead his own. He does not say our twelve tribes (dodekaphuloi) for, admitting that there were twelve tribes to be found, these could

only