In the next chapter, another fact is recorded, which surely conveys an intelligible hint of another state of existence; by giving an instance of one mortal, distinguished for piety, being translated to that state without passing through death: + For we are told of Enoch, that he "walked with God, and he was "not: for God took him." It has been said, that this fact is related with a studied obscurity and brevity, as if to conceal the idea of another life. But this is surely an unfounded inference; it is related in exactly the same style and manner as every other fact in this part of the patriarchal history; and it is so plain, that the only possible way of consealing or obscuring the information it contains, would be entirely to suppress the fact. Enough is told to justify the observation of the Apostle, "By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see "death; and was not found, because God had translated him: "for before his translation he had this testimony, that he "pleased God." § And the inference of the author of Ecclesi-asticus, Enoch pleased the Lord and was translated, being an "example of repentance to all generations.” || The next circumstance I shall notice in the history of the Patriarchs, is the command of God to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. As to the purport and object of this command, I adopt with the greatest pleasure the opinion of the learned Warburton, who with equal ingenuity and truth, (as appears probably gave rise to a dispute about the justice of God, which Abel's "insisting on, was, with such an evil disposition as Cain's, likely to pro"voke the fatal resentment that followed. In this opinion the Jewish com« ments agree; and the examples of a faith which was maintained to death, being a lesson to posterity, it is no hard straining of language to say, that "Abel preaches or speaks still to us of the purity and firmness of his faith "in a future life; because as to this life, all his hopes and interest vanished "the moment in which he risked the loss of the present." * Genesis v. 24. This is the clear interpretation established by the authority of the Apostle. By others, the original has been differently explained; " he did "not appear," or was not found," say the Samaritan and the Septuagint versions; the Syriac, "he ceased to be;" the Arabic, “he died." The Targum of Onkelos indeed asserts," he did not appear, and God did not cause him to die;" but all unite in declaring that God took him; and the direct declaration of this will establish a future state with equal clearness, even if he passed through death. This fact must therefore have suggested an intelligible hint of a future state from the first, however interpreted. Vide Biblia Polyglotta Waltoni. Warburton, Book V. sect. v. subs. ii. Vol. iv, p. 322. Heb. xi. 5. 1 Divine Leg. Book VI. sect. v.; the very satisfactory Dissertation on the command to sacrifice Isaac. 66 to me) has proved, that when God says to Abraham, • Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,' &c. "the command is "merely an information by action, instead of words, of the great sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of mankind, given "at the earnest request of Abraham, who longed impatiently "to see Christ's day; and is that passage of sacred history "referred to by our Lord, where he says to the unbelieving "Jews, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and ❝he saw it, and was glad." To this able writer I refer, for the proof of this being the true explanation of this contested passage; and I entirely agree with him in the consequences he deduces from it. "Two great ends," says he,* “ 66 seem to be gained by this interpretation: the one, to free the command "from a supposed violation of natural law; the other to sup"port the connexion and dependency between the two revela"tions; for this interpretation makes the history of the com"mand a direct prophecy of Christ as Redeemer of the world." I have introduced this part of the sacred history for the purpose of quoting another part of this learned Writer's reasoning on this passage, which appears important on the present subject. "Of the principal reason of this command," says he,+ "the "words of Jesus are a convincing proof. Nay, I might go "farther, and say that this is not the only place where the true "reason of the command is plainly hinted at. The Author of "the Epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of this very command, says, By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up "Isaac, accounting that God was able to raise him up even "from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure; "EN ПAPABOAH, in a parable: a mode of information either "by words or actions, which consists in putting one thing "for another. Now, in a writer who regarded this commanded “action as a representative information of the redemption of "mankind, nothing could be more fine or easy than this expres"sion. For, though Abraham did not indeed receive Isaac "restored to life after a real dissolution, yet the son being in. "this action to represent Christ suffering death for the sins "of the world, when the father brought him safe from Mount "Moriah after three days (during which the son was in a state " of condemnation to death) the father plainly received him, "under the character of Christ's representative, as restored "from the dead. For, as his being brought to the Mount, there "bound, and laid upon the altar, figured the death and suffer"ings of Christ, so his being taken from thence alive, as pro"perly figured Christ's resurrection from the dead. With the highest propriety, therefore, and elegance of speech, might "Abraham be said to receive Isaac from the dead in a parable, or in representation." 66 66 Adopting this (as appears to me) just and ingenious explana tion of this piece of sacred history, it is obvious, and indeed is confessed by this learned writer, that the doctrine of a resurrec tion to life, even of Christ's resurrection, must have been known to Abraham and Isaac, as well as to their families. Can we then suppose so important a truth would have been by them suppressed? No: it was assuredly communicated from them to the succeeding Patriarchs, and formed the support of their virtue and the source of their consolation, through all the sorrows and sufferings of their eventful lives. True it is, the peculiar purposes of the divine economy did not permit the Jewish Lawgiver to employ it as the sanction of his Laws, which were to be enforced by an immediate extraordinary Providence, and therefore he was not allowed to promulgate it so plainly as to make it a direct article of the popular creed; but it was intimated with sufficient clearness to be discernible to minds of a superior class, capable of reflection, and adapted to rise to greater heights of piety, exhibit bright examples of virtue, and prepare the way for the full manifestation of the counsels and the mercies of God, by that Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, whose sufferings and resurrection for the redemption and justification of man, the remarkable transactions we have been now considering so plainly represented and prefigured. But to establish the fact, that the conduct of the Patriarchs was influenced by the prospect of a future life, I should choose to rely on an authority superior to that of any article of mere human composition, even the authority of the Apostle to the Hebrews, who has distinctly stated and clearly illustrated this position: "By faith," says he, "Abraham, when he was called to go up into a place, which he should after receive for an in"heritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he "went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a "strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, "the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city, which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is "God."* And again, speaking of the Patriarchs: "These all (says the Apostle†) died in faith, not having received the promi"ses, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of "them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims "upon earth. For they that say such things, declare plainly "that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful "of that country from whence they came out, they might have “had opportunity to have returned: but now they desire a bet→ "ter country, that is, an heavenly. Wherefore God is not "ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for "them a city." In this passage, the Apostle plainly refers to the remarkable declaration of Jacob to Pharaoh, when that monarch inquired from the venerable Patriarch, "How old art thou?" And he answered, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hun"dred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years "of my life been, and I have not attained to the days of the "years of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage."§ In truth had there been no state of existence beyond the present life, this Patriarch would have received very inadequate proofs of that distinguished favour, with the hope of which God encou raged him, when, in the vision at Luz, he declared himself "the God of his father Abraham, and of Isaac; and that he "would give the land whereon he lay to him and to his seed; and "that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed." Nor was this all: to the promise of this public distinction and general blessing was added a promise of personal favour and protection: "And behold," said God, "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee 66 On this subject, Witsius, in his Economia Fœderum, Lib. III. cap. ii. Sect. v. p. 262, observes: "When God declares himself a God to any, it in"cludes eternal life; for when God from his free grace gives himself to man, " he gives him every thing, for in himself he is every thing: man therefore "finds in him a shield against all evil, and an exceeding great reward (ac"cording to the promise to Abraham, Gen. xv. 1.) And what more can he "desire to secure full and perfect happiness, which includes eternity? Whence "the Apostle joins these two, Hebrews xi. 16: Now God is not ashamed to "be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.” "again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have "done that which I have spoken to thee of."* This promise was certainly fulfilled to a certain degree, in the preservation of the Patriarch and his family during his eventful history; yet the life of Jacob was undoubtedly embittered from the very beginning with disappointment and sorrow:† from his twenty years of exile and laborious servitude under Laban; the terror of his brother's vengeance; the violent passions and great misconduct of his children; the premature death of his beloved wife Rachel; the early loss of his favourite child Joseph, which so afflicted him, that he refused to be comforted, saying, I will go down "into the grave unto my son, mourning;" the anxiety which the apprehension of famine must have excited, and his still greater terror at the apprehended loss of Benjamin, which wrung from him this pathetic complaint unto his remaining sons, "Me "have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon "is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me."§ And when Reuben undertook for his security, how melancholy the perseverance of his refusal ! "My son "shall not go down with you: for his brother is dead, and he is "left alone: if mischief befal him by the way in which ye go, "then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the "grave." And when at length the pressure of famine compelled his assent, how strongly does the solemnity of his parting benediction bespeak the anguish of his heart; "Take your bro→ ❝ther, and arise, go again unto the man. And God Almighty 'give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your "other brother and Benjamin: if I be bereaved of my children, "I am bereaved." I mention these circumstances, to shew that then as well as now (until God undertook, by an immediate andextraordinary Providence, to support the interests of virtue**) human nature required the prospect of another life to sustain 66 * Gen. xxviii. 15. || Gen. xlii. 38. + Vide from chap. xxviii. to chap. 1. Ch. xliii. 13, 14. ** The learned Witsius expresses this argument in the following strong terms: "Extra controversiam est Deum præstantissimum aliquid, et in quo, supra cæteros minus Numinis reverentes, eximii essent, clarissimis "illis Patriarchis promississe, quando se Deum ipsorum nuncupabat. Nihil "autem supra cæteros homines eximium adeo in hac terra obtinuerunt, quod promissi hujus magnitudinem æquarat; multi improbi in terra Canaan alibique vixerunt, restat ergo ut altius hæc spectarent, et ad æternam cœlestemque vitam pertinerent." |