before the term toil. They have given a different turn to the same preposition before the word ground, and thereby have injured that uniformity which the original exhibits, turning it because of.

These different versions are adduced merely with the view of shewing that translators have, in some small degree, been puzzled, not with any grammatical difficulty in the syntax, for nothing can be more simple and plain, but only to educe, according to their view, some consistent meaning. Now the preposition (min) from, denotes distance or removal, both with respect to place and time. "For I have not dwelt in an house since the day (me-jom) from the day that I brought up Israel." 2. Sam. 7.6.1 Chr. 17.5.

Here then from conveys the sense of after, as in Latin, à cæna a morte, are equivalent to post cœnam, post mortem. So in this sentence; "Porro hæc ad Mosen post tot sæcula ab illis sepultis locutus Deus." Moreover God spake these things to Moses, after so many ages, from the time they had been buried, viz. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Lamech then, when he says this, does not point to his son Noah, who was merely, so far as the name was concerned, the sign, but to the word itself Nuach, which is Messiah's rest, and appointed, in its blessed effects, to be as general as the curse had been. "For as by the offence of

one

one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Rom. 5.18.

This rest, indeed, may throw somewhat of its foretastes into earth, but its full effects, as constituting a comfort from the works and from the toils of life, is to be experienced only in the regions of the blessed. The words of Lamech may be considered as an oracle, in which the pious of all generations are to find their immediate account after death. Vanity is to deceive, and vexation to harrass no more. That blessed Nuach, or rest from their labours, while their works do follow them, is to be a rich compensation for all they have suffered.. Hence, in opposition to the curse of earth, it is given as one of the properties of that blessed place, that no curse was to be there. Rev. xxii. 3.

The very invitation of Messiah meets the situation of Lamech. This latter speaks of works and of toils,. to which this rest would be the full and

Mat.1.28 only remedy; and the former says, come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you a cessation from them." This is the very rest mentioned in the book of Revelation. They who labour here, are there said to rest from their labours; i. c. post labores confectos. What is remarkable, the Greek construction is pre

c.14.13

cisely the same with the Hebrew.

The same

corresponding preposition is employed to denote after (ek ton kopión) which is literally the Hebrew (Mim-maashenu) from our work.

There is evidence also in the original word, that Lamech, by the term toil, meant not bodily hardships only, but troubles and distress of mind. This then gives strength to the consideration, that the radical cure to these, is not to be found in any medicine of earth, but in that rest into which they enter who die in the Lord. It is plain that this rest or sabbatism cannot mean any particular state of tranquillity to be enjoyed here below, from what our Lord says in another place; that while here we must bear the cross, and that the way to his kingdom lay through suffering and tribulation. Even setting aside external sufferings, we are called upon to exert such acts of selfdenial, and so painful that they are represented under images of corporeal mutilation, such as the plucking out of an eye, and the cutting off of an hand.

It is admitted that Christ may, and does give to his people, amidst much suffering, an inward peace and tranquillity; but this cannot be called rest. It is not a discontinuance of present trials and exertions. Such inward tranquillity is merely a ray of heaven, shot into the mind; not to give deliverance from present labours, but to give

birth to a reliance that he will never leave nor forsake.

Having discussed this passage, I return to the original subject. The apostle, not content with the Greek term, employs one formed from the Hebrew, because it was not a mere transient rest, such as the Greek tongue might furnish a name for, but a rest that originate with God, and by him was revealed to his chosen people. Of this, the sabbaths of the Mosaic dispensation are the shadows. These, among the Jews, were national cessations from the labours of life, to which they were to return after the stated time was expired. Even the land was employed to represent 125.8-21, this. Every seventh year it was to lie uncultivated, and to enjoy its rest. There was a cessation of its vigour in the productions, as including human toil, of its various fruits: and that the type might be as perfect as the inanimate nature of the subject would admit, its spontaneous growth was to be neglected, and not gathered in. The inhabitants were to be supplied from what they had laid up in the preceding year. In this sense, while they rested, their works followed them. Rev. 14.13

As the land then ceased from putting forth its vigour, as men resting on the sabbath, were, as to secular employments, in a sense, divested of their bodies: so was it to be with respect to that sabbath that takes place in the invisible world.

Being released from the toils, and from the warefare of earth, they are to pass that interval with Christ, amidst the comforts and refreshments of that state, while the functions of the body were to be entirely suspended.

The sin in not hallowing the sabbath, lay in this, that it expressed a disregard to, and a disbelief of ⚫ that rest which the sabbaths of earth symbolically promised. A conscientious setting apart that day was the language of faith, expecting and anticipating that rest that yet remains for the people of God. It is thus that "the sabbath becomes a delight;" because through this glass of earth we not only discern that rest which is entered upon after death, but we contemplate the memorial given (Jehovah) as a promise of his last and glorious ap

pearance.

This rest is intended so exclusively for man, that by Christ he is termed lord of it; that is, possessor. Mark, ii. 23. His disciples having been censured by the Pharisees for plucking some ears of corn on that day, to sustain life, he defended them on the ground, that as man was proprietor of the actual rest, the figurative ought not to operatę to his disadvantage.

In this state the soul rests necessarily, as being now out of all capacity of such action as might require the agency of the bodily organs. Its present happiness may arise from the approving review