world, to support them under their distress, and to keep up their faith and confidence in God.

In those days lived Cyrus, that great and virtuous prince, who, as Xenophon informs us, made a speech at his death to his friends and family, in which he expressed his belief and hope of the soul's immortality. This illustrious king showed kindness to the captive Jews, and set them free; and he had the honour to be mentioned with praise in the holy Scriptures, and to be prophesied of by name. It is thought by Grotius* that he acquired the notion of the immortality of the soul in some measure from the Jews, as likewise the doctrine of one God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

In those days also lived Daniel and Ezekiel, in whose prophecies are contained some intimations of a future state, and of a recompence of the righteous in that state.

66

Augustin and other fathers acknowledge that even under the dispensation of the Law there were religious persons who hoped for better than mere worldly and transitory blessings. But, say they, this they learned, not from the Law, but from the patriarchs, to whom God, by many indications, had given encouragement to expect higher rewards; amongst which indications this is none of the least,

* On Isaiah xlv. 5.

that many excellent men found very little happiness and prosperity in the world; an argument upon which the writer to the Hebrews largely insists. The same fathers add, that the temporal good things promised in the Law of Works were emblems and figures of the blessings which should accompany the Law of the Spirit.

"That the people during the Babylonian captivity might not apostatize from their religion, the prophet Daniel first, and after him Ezekiel, made use of the words rising again, a word ambiguous indeed, but supposed to contain in it something very great and desirable. And the wiser Jews thought it expedient, by affixing a sublimer sense to the words of Daniel, to fortify the people against temptations, by propounding the hopes of a more glorious state to those who should lose the present life for the sake of God: which doctrine then began to be brought to light, and taught in express words. Nor was the immortality of the soul only then propounded and received, but also a resurrection, or a certain recuperation of the body, as it manifestly appears from Heb. xi. and from Acts xxiii. 8. to which are to be added two remarkable passages from the History of the Maccabees, xi. 7." -GROTIUS *.

*On Matt. v. 20.

"Whereas St. Paul, Acts xxvi. 6. styles the resurrection, the promise made to their fathers, and saith, The twelve tribes served God in expectation of it, this needs a little explication, because many deny that any such promise was made to the fathers, or can be found in the Old Testament. therefore assert,

I

"First, That it is evident from the history of the Maccabees, &c. that the Jews did then believe the resurrection.

66

Secondly, That they conceived this hope was built upon the covenant of God made with them, and the promise of God made to them.

66

Thirdly, That they had just reason both from the Law and the Prophets for this hope. From the Law, for thence our Saviour proves the resurrection. From the Prophets, the words of Daniel being these: Many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting confusion.' Where note, that though men in misery and affliction are sometimes said to sit or dwell in the dust, yet oi Kalεúdovтes, they that sleep in the dust, doth always signify they that die, and hath no other sense in Scripture. And though men that sit in the dust may be raised out of that afflicted into a comfortable state, yet seeing they must shortly die, they can in no propriety of speech be said to arise to life eternal.

'I worship

the God of our fathers, saith St. Paul, believing all things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets, having hope that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust. I say nothing but what is contained in the Law and in the Prophets, that Christ shall be the first, ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, of those that rise from the dead;' plainly insinuating that the resurrection of others after Christ was contained in the Law and the Prophets. Hence the apostle tells us that the champions of the Jewish Church all died in faith, in expectation of a better resurrection.

"This hope was rightly built upon the covenant of God, that he would be their God-and he was therefore called their God, because he had prepared for them a heavenly city.

"A Messiah was promised to them; and it was one of the fundamental articles of the Jews, that their Messiah shall raise the dead and bring them into Paradise.

"Lastly, this seems evident from the nature of the thing; for God being the Father of our spirits, which are immortal, it is absurd to think his promises to the obedient should relate only to this present life, and yet he should engage them to be faithful to the death, and suffer here the worst of evils for his sake; since if they had only hope in

this life, they must of all men be most miserable." -WHITBY *.

"There is a sublime and beautiful passage in Isaiah †, where the dead kings and princes are described as coming forth to meet the king of Babylon, and insulting over him.

"Hell from beneath is moved for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?'

Ezekiel hath imitated Isaiah, and says that the king of Egypt, with his people, should fall by the sword, and descend into hell, into the place of the dead; and that other princes who had been cut off in war should come about him, and speak to him; and that he should be comforted with the consideration that he had so many companions who had shared the same fate.

Now though in a parable, or poetic fiction, every part is not to be urged as literally true, yet do these representations fairly imply that it was at least a vulgar opinion that the souls of the dead went to some common receptacle, and continued to be and to act, and were neither destroyed nor senseless.

* On Acts xxvi. 6.

+ Chap. xiv.

Chap. xxxii.