perfectly agreed, as far at least as relates to the existence of retributive justice beyond the grave. There we find the rich man (a Sadducee probably) attending alone to self and selfish pleasures, and seemingly conducting his life upon the principle which distinguished that sect; let us eat and drink for to morrow we die. This was his hope, this was his belief; and the poor wretch at his door, with whose pining misery and utter want of the common necessaries of life he must have been acquainted, together with his utter helplessness, and therefore the impossibility of his acquiring these things for himself, is treated by him with the same careless contempt as the very dogs who came and licked his sores. Even those dogs did eat of the crumbs which fell from their master's table, with which this poor being desired in the agonies of hunger to be fed, but desired in vain. No pitying hand was extended to his succour, and he perished. Reason should assure us that such a scene could not be viewed by the Righteous Being, whose providence governs the earth, with indifference, but that there must be some place of retribution. Revelation teaches us that this is the case; the beggar died, and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man dies also, and is awakened to the utter folly of all his previous hopes and belief in the region of everlasting horrors-in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom !

'We know, O GOD, that thou art a consuming 'fire to all the workers of iniquity; but couldest

THOU, who keepest mercy for thousands, whose ' dearest attribute mercy is, for thou delightest ' in it*, and even makest it to rejoice against 'judgment †, having no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from 'his ways and live, and therefore pardonest iniquity and sin- couldest THOU plunge a poor and frail and erring being ALTOGETHER 'UNWARNED into the horrible pit of the everlasting burnings? THY justice still more than THY mercy forbids, yea, utterly, denies, the possibility!'

Again, let us look to the word of God, for there we shall find always in all things His ways justified. In vain does the rich man seek relief from Abraham the father of his nation, to whom also the promise was made, and who believing had entered into that rest. All access to mercy was closed for ever; the rich man had chosen his portion; now he reaped the fruits of his choice. Finding his own fate unalterable, some remains of natural affection induces him to urge the following request;

I

pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brethren: that he may testify unto them, lest they come into this place of torment! What answer does our Redeemer HIMSELF place in the mouth of Abraham? Does he say, 'the times of this ignorance + James ii. 13.

* Micah vii. 18.

"God winked at, so that at a certain revolution of

things, thou even, mayest hope to be released, but NOW life and immortality are brought to light, and they are inexcusable who cannot gather these 'truths from the doctrines of the Son of man?' No: to the law and to the testimony is again the answer: Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. 'Moses and the

' prophets, as you well know, warned you, and still ' warn these your brethren, that there is a state 'after death: they are therefore without excuse ' if they do not gather this fact from their writings alone, and if they do not, by obedience to the law, having faith in the promises of God, avoid this place of torment.' Again he urges, not daring, observe, even for a moment, to contradict this palpable truth-NAY, father Abraham, BUT if one went unto them from the dead they will repent! The same just and inflexible answer is again returned, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

If there is any meaning in words so plain that it cannot be wrested, surely it is here; and as surely this passage does attribute the certain consequences of future rewards and punishments as confirming the revealed precepts of the law, and of the prophets. The mild, the more than merciful, the tender character of our Saviour, preclude the possibility of his having passed this decisive judgment but on the surest and most indubitable

grounds. From the varied internal evidence adduced, which might be yet greatly extended, it is altogether undeniable that the Jews clearly understood that Moses spoke of an ETERNAL LIFE, and that they moreover well knew that the keeping or transgressing of the law of God was to be followed by far more than temporal consequences. Nor is the evidence partial; the whole of the writers of the New Testament, the rulers, the high priests, the teachers, the Scribes, and nation of the Jews, with the exception of one sect, did understand and explain Moses as conveying the promise of an æternal life, and if so, it is scarcely necessary to add that æternal consequences must have been attached, as we see they were in their own unbiassed opinions, unto their law. Their great and fatal error was that they trusted solely in themselves; that they looked no farther than to their own sinful and imperfect obedience, vainly fancying in their presumption that they could do and live:-being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God*,-overlooking the promise, and the constant and daily necessity of atonement by sacrifice, they regarded not all the warnings of their God, as He spake by the mouths of his holy prophets which have been since the world began, that the just, that is the obedient to their God, shall LIVE BY FAITH.

*Rom. x. 3.

But was this no novel doctrine, artfully introduced, in later ages, by their rulers? Revelation clearly proves that it was not; and even reason and experience would equally answer in the negative. Is it probable, is it possible, that the peculiar people to whom were committed the oracles of God, should ever have been nationally ignorant of a truth which universal humanity has received, as if by acclamation, and which cannot be traced to any one original mortal teacher: which in fact descended equally to all nations from the first parents of mankind, to whom, with the word of life, it was doubtless revealed by the Almighty? However obscured the doctrine of a future state may be, by fable and superstition, it has yet, amongst the wrecks of true religion (committed to all mankind originally,) been always providentially preserved in the mind of man, his conscience bearing witness with his spirit to its reality. Nor could such a thought have ever entered therein, untaught by a Superior Intelligence.

Had these doctrines been innovations moreover, unsupported by the Prophets and Moses, it is literally impossible that the Jews would ever have embraced them without a struggle, which would have been remarked in their history, ready at all times as they were to die for their law, and proving by their very contempt of death throughout all the ages of their existence as a nation, their thorough belief in a future immortality. No writer,