chap. xvii. declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things; "who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, "even to give to every man according to his ways, and accord"ing to the fruit of his doings."* And again, “He that get"teth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of "his days, and at his end shall be a fool."+ And again, “O "Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, "and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth; "because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living "waters." Thus Ezekiel, in the vision of the valley of dry bones, chap. xxxvii. gives a scenical representation of the restoration of the dead hope of Israel, by the restoration of these bones to life: "Then said he unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole "house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. Therefore pro"phesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, "O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come "up out of your graves, and bring you unto the land of Israel." Thus also Hosea, encouraging Israel to obedience by the prospect of deliverance from the calamities which God would inflict on them for their crimes, if they should truly repent; in chap. * Blayney observes, the Prophet contrasts the accursed condition of him that resteth his trust on man, ver. 5. 8. He sheweth that, be the human heart ever so wily, God can detect, and will finally punish its double dealing, ver. 9, 11. He acknowledgeth that sure salvation cometh from God, and from God only. દ +Blayney reads, "felon," that is, "he shall have the reward of a felon at "last, or shall be brought to condign punishment. This is directly opposite to what Balaam wished, Numb. xxiii. 10, and what every wise man would "wish for himself, a latter end like that of the righteous.' If this observation is just, the Prophet, by the last end of the irreligious, means their future state; which, according to Taylor, is the exact force of the word here used. The Chaldee paraphrase renders the words "shall be written in earth," by falling into Gehenna. ¢ Primate Newcome, in his note on the 12th verse of this chapter, observes: "In the land of their captivity, the Jews seemed as absolutely deprived of their own country, as persons committed to the grave are cut off "from the living. The foregoing similitude shewed in a strong and beautiful manner, that God, who could even raise the dead, had power to restore them." Having been led to recur to the Works of this truly learned and Christian divine, I cannot forbear expressing the fond and grateful remembrance which must ever remain imprinted on my heart, of a man, whose encou› ragement animated, whose advice guided, my earliest studies, and in whose friendship (terminated alas! only by his death) I received the most honorable reward. But he is gone in peace-he rests in glory; though dead, his. example and his works still speak to the living; and Oh! "may we die the death of "the righteous, and may our last end be like his." xiii. calls on them: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but ❝in me is thine help. * I will ransom them from the power of "the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will "be thy plague! O grave, I will be thy destruction: repent“ance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Joel, with all the energy and sublimity of Isaiah himself, predicts the wonderful effusion of divine grace under the Gospel scheme; and passes on to describe the signs that should precede, and the terrors that should attend, the coming of the day of judgment, that great and terrible day of the Lord: "And I “will shew wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, blood and “fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into dark66 ness; and the moon into blood, before the great and the ter"rible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, shall be deli"verance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the "Lord shall call."+ Amos also first describes the temporal sanctions of the Mosaic law, and their exact distribution by the immediate hand of God, who "caused it to rain upon one city, and not to rain upon "another city; one piece was rained upon, and the piece where66 upon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered "unto one city to drink water; but they were not satisfied: 66 yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I have "overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Go"morrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burn * This verse is otherwise, and, as it seems to me, more accurately rendered by Primate Newcome: "Yet I will redeem thee from the grave, "I will deliver thee from death. Repenting is hidden from mine eyes. "i.e." says Newcome, "change of purpose, my veracity being concerned." And he remarks, that "St. Paul naturally applies to the resurrection of the dead, what the Prophet says of future national happiness." Admitting the Prophet means only this, we have here a very strong instance how distinct and familiar was the idea of a resurrection to the Prophet and his countrymen. Joel ii. 30. Primate Newcome understands this passage, of the events which took place at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But from our Saviour's language, Matt. xxiv. 29, we are certainly warranted in applying them also to the day of general judgment. "ing; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”* He then proceeds to point out that great day of judgment, the prospect of which ought to restrain, as its punishment would assuredly chastise, the obstinacy of their guilt: "Therefore thus "will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because I will do this unto "thee, PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD, O ISRAEL. For lo! he "that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and de"clareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morn"ing darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, "The LORD GOD of Hosts is his name." Nahum, with equal sublimity, describes the vengeance of God in terms applicable only to the general judgment on all the inhabitants of the earth: "He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it « dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and "Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The moun"tains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt "at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. "Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in "the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, "and the rocks are thrown down by him. The Lord is gooda strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them "that trust in him. But with an overrunning flood he will “make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall "pursue his enemies."+ 66 Finally, I close this series of prophetical denunciations of the great day of final retribution, with the distinct and awful description of it by the Prophet Daniel. "I beheld," says the Prophet, "till the thrones were cast "down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was "white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; "his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning "fire. A fiery stream issued, and came forth from before him; "thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand "times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, "and the books were opened." And again, "I saw in the "night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with "the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and "they brought him near before him. And there was given him "dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, "and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom "that which shall not be abolished."* And at the conclusion of this wonderful and solemn prophecy, in the last chapter of Daniel; "And at that time shall Michael "stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of 66 thy people and there shall be a time of trouble, such as was 66 never since there was a nation, even to that time: and at that "time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be "found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in "the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, “and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 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."+ Thus clearly do the Jewish Prophets promulgate that truth, so plainly declared by another inspired writer, who probably did not live under the Jewish dispensation, and who, at a much earlier period, proclaimed the same awful doctrine, even the Patriarch Job, who, with all the solemnity which its importance required, demands for it the attention of mankind, when he exclaims, "O that my words were now written, that they "were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron * Dan. vii. 9, 10, and 13, 14. + Ibid. xii. 1-3. Job, xix. 23-27. That this passage of Job really means the redemption of the just at the last day, has been abundantly proved by many writers, in opposition not only to Warburton, but to Grotius and Le Clerc. Vide particularly the notes of the very learned Schultens, and of Peters. The ancient origin of the book has also, as appears to me, been abundantly proved by many writers, but by none more ably than by my learned friend Dr. Magee, in his work on Atonement and Sacrifice. I think it unnecessary to dwell longer on this subject, the argument on which has already swelled far beyond my original intention. I would only remark, that notwithstanding his laboured dissertation, Warburton appears to have entertained some doubt, as to the validity of the proofs he had given of the modern date of this book. Since if this was certain, it was unnecessary for him to maintain, that this passage was to be understood only of a future temporal deliverance of the Jews. For nothing could justify such a forced interpretation, but the supposition that the author lived at a period when the idea of a future life had never been entertained (if such a period can be assigned.) If, on the contrary, Job was written about the close of the Babylonish Captivity, as Warburton contends, it is quite certain, and even admitted by himself, that the ideas of a future life and retribution were then familiar to the Jews; and there would remain no possible reason for suspecting they were not familiar to and plainly expressed by the supposed author of the Book of Job. “pen and lead, in the rock for ever! For I know that my "Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day "upon the earth. And though 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; "though my reins be consumed within me." We have now traced the gradual promulgation of the great doctrine of a future retribution, from the first gracious intimation of final deliverance from the power of Satan, vouchsafed at the fall, to its full disclosure by David and Solomon, and its * Our translation introduces the word "worms" in this verse unnecessarily; it may be more closely and clearly translated, "And that even I, "after my skin is consumed, shall in my flesh behoid my God." This is Houbigant's version, with which Schultens and Peters nearly agree. I have been much gratified at finding that a very learned writer confirms the exposition I had given* of the expressions used by the Jewish lawgiver, in the history of the Creation, when he declared that God said, "Let us "make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let him have domin"ion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the "cattle, and over all the earth." After clearly proving that this image included reason, which qualified man for that dominion with which he was vested, he proceeds to observe: "But now the substance in which the faculty of reason resides, could not be a material substance, as the best philosophy evinceth. † Man, therefore, must needs consist of an imma"terial substance, joined to a material: or, in other words, he must be a compound of soul and body. And this seems to be intimated, and not "obscurely neither, by the words of the text: 'The Lord God formed MAN "of the DUST OF THE GROUND, and breathed into his nostrils THE BREATH OF LIFE, and man became A LIVING SOUL.' By the words the breath of "life, and a living soul, which discriminate LIFE in man from LIFE in brutes, we are not to understand immateriality simply; since all animals, as we say, have this in common; but the CONTINUANCE of LIFE after the separa❝tion of the compound, in virtue of man's rationality, which making him "responsible for his actions, may, according to the different parts in God's "moral economy, require that separate existence.” 66 The learned author afterwards remarks, that "the place which points out "this difference, is made to serve for an introduction to the history of the free gift of immortality. And a better cannot be conceived than that "which teacheth us, that the subject on whom this gift was bestowed, is, "by the immateriality of his physical nature, capable of enjoying it; and, by "the freedom of his reasonable nature, accountable for the abuse of it. So "much is observed in honor of that exquisite knowledge with which the "sacred writer was endowed." The reader will perhaps be surprised as much as I was, at discovering that the learned writer now quoted is no other than WARBURTON HIMSELF; the identical Warburton who had so strenuously maintained that in all the writings of Moses not so much as an intelligible hint of a future state was to be found. The passage now quoted occurs in the ninth book of the Divine Legation, written many years after the first six, and which though printed, so far as it goes, by the author, * Vide supra, p. 291. +Alluding to Clarke and Baxter. + Vide Vol. III. pp. 620 and 621 of Warburton's Works, in seven volumes 4to. printed 1788. |