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tions, while the existence of the state itself is altogether unquestionable.

To the situation of Sheol, as implying descent, it is deemed an insuperable objection that any place of light and happiness should be conceived to lie the downward road in the lower parts of the earth, "no commodious situation," says Dr. Barrow, "for a garden, for delightsome walks and bowers." I do not see I do not see any solid reason why happiness should attach to ascent, more than to descent; when, after all, we may be as much mistaken in the situation we give to heaven as above, as we are in placing Sheol below. In the boundless regions of space, ascent and descent are lost; these being merely ideas impressed upon us from our earliest infancy, by reason of our union to matter. We are naturally led to annex cheerfulness to ascent, because of the bright splendor of the firmament above; and gloom to descent, because of the interminable depth of earth, and its supposed dark caverns presenting themselves to the imagination from below: yet the skies are every way around our globe, and spirits, whatever be their motion or particular mode of existence, have nothing to do with the influence of attraction or gravitation: this more naturally agreeing to the properties of body.

Men of learning and science are unhappily biassed against many things in scripture, because

of

of thes upposed error of some of its adaptations, which the human condition, or the degree of knowledge then possessed, made it necessary to employ. They seem to forget that what is said or delineated of the invisible world, must unavoidably be in the language and colours of earth; and that the Deity in conversing with mortals, stoops to speak in their dialect. Who ever called in question the existence of the heavenly Jerusalem, because its walls are said to be of jasper, and its gates of pearl? or who ever imagined that trees were actually growing on the banks of the river of life? Such language is unavoidable in a world where things are seen only in a glass, and expressed in a riddle. Neither does Jehovah condescend to rectify mistakes which, while the present state renders unavoidable, are at the same time innocent, and no way affect human happiness. The inhabitants of earth may have lived for ages in profound ignorance of many of the phenomena of nature. The earth might be to them one extended plain, and the moon no bigger than a cart wheel; but what are all these, even when rightly understood, to the interests of the immortal soul? or what is it to human happiness on what point of the compass a thing lies, provided its existence be sufficiently ascertained. When the Deity revealed that souls survived their bodies, and that they were in the mean time

either in happiness or in misery, he might leave mankind to give a situation to that place, which situation might perhaps be remote from the truth. Place and situation in a matter of happiness and misery, are trifles, and a mistake in trifles is not worth the rectifying. Deo hic nodus non est vindice dignus. But it can by no means be a triffe to be fully assured from the mouth of God himself, "that after death the righteous enter into peace," Is. lvii. i. and " that the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction, to be brought forth to the day of wrath." Job. xxi. 30.

When Messiah came, he added new and authoratative information to the general opinion,founded on the Hebrew scripture, as to the state of souls, and while he left men to follow the old harmless notion of its situation, as if below the earth, he threw new light upon it as to happiness or misery-drew his warnings from it, and founded his parables upon it.

In the early ages of the world, Jehovah permitted that gloom which arose from the ignorance and vain fears of mankind, to rest on the invisible state, reserving its full dissipation to the splendor of Messiah's light, when this should break forth in its transcendant glory in the latter days. Hence it was, that from the righteous the voice of terror proceeded, as well as from the mouth of the wicked. They, although perfectly safe,

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shrunk back, and discovered horror at the idea of treading the dark and dreary way. They fancied to themselves abysses in which they were sinking— dark mountains on which their feet were stumbling, and they gave to death an extent of vale on which its shade rested. So the timid, notwithstanding the goodness of the ship which carries them, will startle at the deep below, and tremble at dangers which they are never to experience.

The antient Hebrews formed their idea of this state, from their manner of burial, and from the figure of their tombs. When they saw the lifeless body deposited in the grave, they borrowed from this the notion of going down to Sheol. They gave the path which led to it a descent, and placed the region itself in the lower parts of the earth; as far below the center as the sky is above it. They transferred to it some of the melancholy concomitants of death, which they would never have done, could the eye have followed the departed spirit to its last destination. The descent into the gloom and stillness of the tomb, dwelling last on the mind, were transferred to the mansion of the spirit. The total exclusion of light from the sepulchre, made the invisible state be considered as the land of darkness, and procured it the name of the shadow of death. A walk amidst these dreary caverns, might fill the mind with a temporary

temporary gloom; a walk of this nature might inspire the poets song, to speak of the sine sole domos, and the inania regna, "Shades where silence holds her reign, and on which ever-brooding darkness dwells-kingdoms where no mortal meets the sight." This is merely the language of human ignorance, speaking from habits to which it has been accustomed, and still clothing the soul with the properties and affections of body. These, are mistakes of harmless consequence, and inseparable from the present state. Some of these modes of expression Jehovah adopts in his own language, and he condescends to describe to us the things of the heavenly world, not as they really are, orwill afterwards appear,but under images of earth, with which we are already acquainted. It is not, indeed, impossible to give us adequate ideas of these invisible things; but to do so, would be to change our nature and to put us into another mode of existence.* Such is the present condition of man, that he is by no means a proper recipient for the knowledge of things which lie so remote from matter and sense, until the necessary change passes upon him by death.

* Haud quia hanc iis cognitionem invideret divina Revelatio, sed quia humanæ mentis conditio eam omnino non recipiat: quæ cum res a corpore & materia remotas contemplatur, propriarum notionum inopia, cogitur ad improprias confugere & corporeis incorporea quadantenus adumbrare.

De Sacra

Although