mysterious and distressing. Bad men, the scourges of mankind, are often prosperous in their undertakings, and fortunate even in villany and in blood. They leave the world, too, frequently without any public punishment, without any visible manifestation of the displeasure of heaven, for all the murders they have perpetrated, and for all the blood they have shed upon the earth. Others, again, are hurried away from the present world, in the bloom of health, and strength, and virtue, without having had an opportunity of displaying their talents, or of reaping the full fruits of their labours and virtues. How many there are who bring into the world with them, weak constitutions, incurable diseases, and such bodily infirmities and disorders, as have rendered their whole lives a source of trouble! The allotment of the great bulk of mankind is invariable poverty and oppression. There is no solution of these difficulties without renouncing a gracious providence, and allowing the world to be abandoned by an infinitely holy and just God, and delivered over to the wild passions of men a dreadful solution! But if a future state be admitted, it will at once solve these phenomena which now appear the most unaccountable. And perhaps those inequalities may be permitted to convince us of it.*

See Doddridge's Lectures on Pneumatology, Encyclop. Brit. art. Metaphysics, Resurrection, and Soul. Porteus's Sermons on a Future Life. Watson's Intimations of a Future State. Beattie's Elements of Moral Science. Butler's Analogy. Watts's Philosophical Essays. Baxter on the Soul; where the reader will find inuch additional and valuable information upon the subject.

III. We now proceed to examine the proofs of this doctrine which are contained in the Old and New Testaments.

1. Proofs of the soul's immortality from the Old Testament.

That reason and experience are capable of supplying various arguments for a future state of existence, may be seen from an outline of the most popular of those arguments which have already been laid before the reader in our preceding pages. But that they do not demonstrate this doctrine, is, perhaps, sufficiently apparent from the absurd and contradictory opinions of the ancient pagan philosophers upon the substance and immortality of the soul of man. Hence the necessity of divine revelation, to dissipate the darkness of paganism upon this sublime subject, and to introduce better and brighter hopes, upon the high authority of its great Author. It will, we trust, be seen very clearly from the following selection of passages, that the Hebrew Scriptures not only give us very intelligible intimations of a distinct personality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, but demonstrate at the same time that the Old-Testament saints were not themselves so ignorant of these truths, as some divines, to support a favourite hypothesis, would persuade us.

The very circumstances relative to the state of man before the fall, the penalty annexed to his transgression, the sentence pronounced upon our first parents, together with the promise to them of a Saviour, who was to deliver mankind from the miseries and ruin to which they were exposed by the fall, are,`of

themselves, no very obscure intimations of that truth which was displayed more clearly, as successive prophets arose in the Jewish church, till the highly important and consolatory doctrine of life and inmortality was fully brought to light by the revelation of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

Upon opening the sacred volume we read, Gen. ii. 7. "And 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."

The words," the breath of life," might, perhaps, more properly be rendered, the breath of immortality. The original words, at least, express life in its highest force and vigour. That the breath of life is the principle of intelligence, the immaterial soul, might be made evident from a careful examination of the text itself, as it stands connected with the general account of the creation, of which it is a part, but more readily, perhaps, to popular apprehension, by the comparison of this passage with other texts in holy writ, particularly with that passage in Job, in which it is said that "the breath of the Almighty" is that which "giveth man understanding." And with Eccles. xii. 16. where the royal preacher declares that "the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." For none who compare the two passages can doubt that “the breath of life," which God breathes into the nostrils of man, in the book of Genesis, is the very same thing with the spirit which God gave, in the book of Ecclesiastes. And that this spirit is the immaterial, intelligent principle, is evident, because it is mentioned as a distinct thing from the body, not

partaking of the body's fate, but surviving its putrefaction, and returning unto the Giver of it.*

In Gen. ii. 17. we read, " For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."

Now if there be no future state, the serpent has been, and will be, completely triumphant; for by his wiles our first parents died, and so do all men. How, then, should the primeval promise be fulfilled, that one descended from the woman should bruise the serpent's head? If it be replied that the serpent might be bruised, without any benefit to us, why was the promise given to our first parents, or left upon record for us?

Again, death is the punishment of sin. Yet we read of many who were restored to the favour of God. But if there be no future state, punishment is executed upon them to its utmost extent: how, then, can they be said to be restored to the favour of God?†

Gen. iv. 8. "And Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." Since the Hebrew scriptures are full of declarations that there is a reward to the righteous, and punishment to the wicked; and since there is, manifestly, no fulfilment of these declarations upon earth in numerous instances, therefore, there must be a fulfilment of them in a future world.

Such a conclusion would naturally be suggested

* See Bishop Horsley's Sermons.

See a short paper of the late Mr. Martin's in the Christian Observer for 1820.

to the Old-Testament saints, by the death of ABEL, who was approved of God, and whose offering was accepted. In this life he was persecuted and murdered, while the guilty murderer survived, reared a family," built a city, and called it after the name of his son."

Further reasoning upon this point is needless. We are sure that "the Judge of all the earth will do right." Adam, as an afflicted parent, would draw the same inference; and, doubtless, often comforted himself with the thought, that his pious, but martyred son, who "by faith offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain," was removed to a better world, to receive a gracious reward.

The account in Gen. v. 24. of Enoch's translation,* is equally decisive of a future state. The apostle Jude refers to him as an inspired prophet, who announced to the antediluvians the important doctrine of a future judgment. This circumstance, in connection with the facts of his own history, is an intimation too plain to be misunderstood, that there is a future state, and that the soul of man is immortal. Enoch possessed a prosperous soul, he pleased God, with whom he walked, by his exemplary piety, and therefore for the instruction of future ages, was honoured with this distinguishing mark of the divine approbation, and was taken up to heaven, to a world of imperishable life and glory, without the customary change by death.†

See the character of Enoch in this work.

+ Wisdom iv. 10. Ecclesias. xliv. 16. and xlix. 14. The Apocrypha, though not inspired, is good authority in all questions