CHAPTER V.

THE END OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION IS THE HAPPINESS OF THE BLESSED IN HEAVEN.

THE nature of the Levitical Dispensation was such, that, by the very necessity of its peculiar economy, a future state of rewards and punishments could not be made the direct sanction of the Law. For, since it pleased the Most High God himself to act as the temporal king of Israel, precisely in the same manner as any mere mortal might act as the temporal king of another nation it would thence obviously follow, that the sanction of the public law of the Hebrew people must needs be similar to the sanction of the public law of any other people. But the sanction of every public law, as it is administered by human sovereigns, can only be of a temporal nature. Therefore the sanction of the public law of the Israelites, administered as it was by a divine sovereign occupying the place of a human sovereign, could only, with any degree of consistency, be of a temporal nature also. This difference indeed there was, arising from the uncontrouled and super-human power of the

divine sovereign, that, while the only sanction of public law as administered by mortal kings is that of temporal punishments, the sanction of the Hebrew public law as administered by an immortal king was that both of temporal punishments and temporal rewards likewise: but still, though the sanction of the Hebrew law was thus more ample than the sanction of any other na tional law, as comprehending rewards no less than punishments; it was, after all, of a temporal nature; a breach of the law being punished in this world and an observance of the law being rewarded in this world, just as earthly sovereigns punish a breach of the public law here, and just as they would reward an observance of the public law here were rewards as much in their power as punishments'.

This I take to be the true rationale of the Hebrew law in this manner I account for that peculiarity of its sanction, which, among those who forget that the law of Moses was to the Israelites as much the law of the land as the statute-law is the law of the land to the English, has often excited no small speculation. It was not that the Hebrews, like those of the patriarchal ages before them, did not believe the doctrine of future happiness to the just and future misery to the unjust: they believed it as firmly as we do, and it was to them a religious

'See above book ii. chap. 4.

sanction as it is to us: but, from the very nature of every temporal government (and the Israelitish theocracy was as much and as strictly a temporal government as any other national polity), it could not consistently be made the sanction of the statute-law of the land. That sanction, like the sanction of any other statutelaw, was of necessity temporal; God himself presiding over the Hebrew nation, precisely as a human king presides over any other nation. Hence, when the Israelites came to have human kings, those king were circumstanced quite differently from any other kings. Instead of being what we are wont to call independent princes, they were merely and simply the viceroys of Jehovah: by his authority they acted, and by his authority they were often deposed: he himself meanwhile, though acting through his human delegate and minister, was the sole true and proper temporal sovereign of Israel.

Yet, while both the Hebrews and they of the patriarchal ages before them held the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments as a religious sanction, though they neither did nor could hold it as the sanction of their statutelaw; they certainly had by no means that clear and distinct comprehension of it which it is our privilege under the Gospel of Christ so eminently to possess. It may be said of them, that they saw, as in a glass, darkly: but, respecting our case, it may be said, that our Saviour Jesus

Christ hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. They indeed possessed the doctrine; and it seems to have been gradually opened to them with increasing clearness by the later prophets: but still, at the best, they viewed the awful realities of the future world dimly and obscurely; it being reserved for Christ our Saviour to throw a strong and distinct and vivid light upon the already existing doctrine of life and immortality. This light, accordingly, both Christ and his servants the inspired apostles, did throw upon the doctrine for they set forth, with the utmost clearness and without the least degree of ambiguity, a state of eternal and unutterable happiness for the just, and a state of eternal and unutterable misery for the unjust.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand: Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the

1 2 Tim. i. 10.

devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous, into life eternal1,

The express sanction then of the Christian Dispensation is a state of future rewards and punishments; but the end or design of that Dispensation is the happiness of the blessed in heaven; for certainly, unless we be prepared to admit the monstrous and revolting positions of the high predestinarian scheme, the future punishment of the irreclaimable must be viewed, rather as incidental, than as forming any part of God's purpose in conveying the Gospel of his Son to lost mankind. Such being the end of the Christian Dispensation, we cannot more properly conclude this treatise, than by considering the nature of that happiness which the blessed will possess in heaven as the end of their faith', and by noting the reasonableness of that exceeding great joy which well befits the heirs of eternal salvation. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; said our gracious Saviour for great is your reward in heaven3.

I. The happiness of the blessed in heaven is, in some respects, ineffable and indescribable : because it exceeds all our present limited conceptions; and, what we are unable to conceive, we are unable minutely to delineate. Eye hath

not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the

Matt. xxv. 31-46.

2 1 Peter i. 9.

* Matt. v. 12.