by all the Prophetic writings, unto mere temporal deliverance; but the knowledge of a future state we see did exist throughout, and unto their God the Jews did look for a resurrection from the dead. The path of Revelation was appointed to shine more and more unto that perfect day when the Sun of Righteousness was to arise, chasing back the shadow and darkness of death from the nations; but a life, after death, was generally known; nor is our evidence of the fact all drawn from the dark sayings of progressive prophecy, for circumstantial proofs, casually introduced, and derived from friends and foes to the truth, are found to bear it witness. Is it possible, then, that Moses could have been silent on this subject to his people? If we are allowed to carry upward the explanation derived solely from the prophets, or those even which may be gleaned from the Psalmist and Solomon, there cannot be a doubt, that where Moses spake of life the word æternal was sometimes clearly understood. In fact, in all human probability, the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and of a future life, were in that early age so generally known and confessed, that the words live and life, as depending upon an Æternal Being of Almighty Power, were consi. dered in no other light, but, as holding forth no less, than æternal blessings to those who rested in humble faith upon the promise of their God. In the solemn and awful protest which is recorded in the xxx. ch. of Deuteronomy, the Prophet thus expresses himself: I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. Is not this the blessing, even life for evermore, alluded to by the Psalmist? That thou (continues Moses,) mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, for He (mark this assertion) HE is thy LIFE and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give THEM. Both in this passage, and in a similar charge with which the prophet closes the song which he was commanded to teach all Israel, life, and length of days, are promised; and elsewhere we find the expression of all the days that ye live UPON THE EARTH; while in one most remarkable and convincing passage, these, as regards the faithful, are compared in length with THE DAYS OF HEAVEN. But what is the LIFE above mentioned? HE, the Lord God, who saith unto thee I live for ever,* I kill, AND I make alivet,-HE, IS THY LIFE! Can such strong terms allude then only to the life which we share with the brutes that perish? or are they not to be understood, as we now understand this and multitudes of similar passages in the Gospel, * xxxii. 40. + v. 39. Gal. ii. 20; Col. iii. 2-4; John xx. 31, &c. &c. &c. HE, is the way, and the truth, and THE LIFE? Again, in the song (to use the words of Hosea, promising the same blessing to the Gentiles,) Moses plainly calls them the sons of the living God*. Of the Rock that BEGAT thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee †. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not HE THY FATHER that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee? The subsequent beautiful simile breathes also the same parental tenderness, He, the Lord, found Jacob his people in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of his eye. As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her YOUNG, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him! Turn again to the words in the prophet's last blessing: The ETERNAL" God, O Israel, is thy REFUGE, and underneath are the " EVERLASTING" arms ‡, and say, are these promises, or is this a case adapted to a few short years of labour and of sorrow; or do they not self-evidently point far beyond? Is it not plain that Moses must have pointed beyond this life, beyond the sleeping dust of the dissolved body, in these and in the following sentences-O that there was such an heart in them that they would fear me, and keep my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children for ever!§ and again, + Deut. xxxii. 18 & 6. * Hosea i. 10. v. 29. after the allusion in the song to the destruction of the earth, and to the existence of hell or hades; O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! It is contended, however, that the earthly Canaan was all the Israelites looked for; that the blessings they coveted, and had alone in view, were altogether temporal. To me this seems to be utterly incredible. They were a turbulent, a stiffnecked and rebellious people always, in the very face of miraculous punishments, rising against their ruler; and it is far more difficult to believe that they would have undergone the sore burden and the heavy yoke of their ceremonial law, unless they well understood, as did their forefathers the Patriarchs, that the earthly shadowed forth a far more enduring Canaan: Nor is it to be imagined that they supposed a rest was reserved for them which their far more righteous progenitors had been promised in vain. This appears more strongly, when we consider the tenure under which they were previously warned, they were to hold the promised land: The land* shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine; and ye are strangers and sojourners before me! Their possession was to be of the same unsettled nature, then, as that of mere tillers of the soil t. Could the Israelites have indeed been ignorant of the meaning couched in these words, or was not their *Lev. xxv. 23. + Advene et coloni.-Heb. & Chald. perfect submission to their law, and to these terms, a proof that they knew, as well as the Psalmist did in after ages, that they were strangers upon the earth? Or, was that meaning, indeed, entirely hid from the descendants of that Jacob who is recorded in these very writings to have said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in their pilgrimage? Figurative, too, as they may partly be, it cannot be doubted that Moses alluded to the destruction of the promised land with the earth itself; the annihilation of which all the prophets likewise insist on, in those remarkable words of the song, A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest HELL, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. At all events there exists here a direct allusion to Hell †, or Hades, which proves that the Israelites knew the existence of a state beyond the grave; and that, probably, of punishment. Their Their very law publicly affirmed this fact to every individual in the nation. The prohibitory *Ps. cxix. † Transl. Hebraica, Hieronomi: Usque ad inferni novissima: devorabitque terram, &c. Chald. Translatio: Usque ad infernum inferiorem : et perdidit terram, &c. LXX. Κανθησείαν έως Αδου καταλαλον - καταφαγεῖαι Γην, &c. |