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ing from a foresight of that discrimination; and that of these days, however distant the prospect, he himself was to be a participant. This is the opinion which the Jews of posterior ages entertained, "that there was to be one assembly of all the righteous, and a new degree of nearness to the Creator conferred."

Olam, or future age, through all the periods of the Jewish church, was still looked to as the time when the seeming darkness of life was to terminate in light, and when its seeming inequalities were to be made plain. Jehovah, as being the great discriminator of characters, is termed (Melec-Olam) the king of the invisible world. Of this I adduce a few instances from the Jews of ages very remote from each other the sense they affixed to this title, and the comforts they drew from it.

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In the 10th psalm, David sets forth in a very lively manner the diversified wickedness of earth, describes the hidden sentiments of the reprobate part of mankind—prays for an interposition, and comforts himself with the reflection that a period of adjustment was approaching. "The Lord," u.16 says he, "is King of the hidden world, and the passing period." Such also is the view which Jeremiah exhibits. Jehovah is king of the fu- 10.10 ture age ;" and then he follows up this with declaring his belief of the discrimination that is to follow.

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follow. "The earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation." In Isaiah xl. 27. The church in a moment of despondency and gloom had imagined that they were for ever gone from the view-even of God himself, and forgotten. But he, by bringing to their recollection the covenant of the hidden period, chides them back into trust. "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel; my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment from my God." The complaint amounts to this, that God himself did not know where and whether they went, or in what state his church existed after death. dissipate this gloom of despair; to eradicate sentiments which had been cherished, so unworthy of a kind superintending father, Jehovah sets up a double appeal; the first to their own experience, hast thou not known; the second to what they had learned by tradition from their fathers, hast thou not heard; that all his actions were still with a view to the Olam or period of future adjustment; that he would be to them what he already had been to their fathers (Elohe-Olam) the God of that intermediate and concealed state of existence, where their fathers were, and where they themselves should be-in peace, and safe under the protection of his shadow. Messiah is the rock of this Israel of God, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against them. That what Je

hovah intended could not at present be known: that with respect to them, his plan was such, as he would not drop or give up, as impossible to be executed. That they who in their hidden period were in a state of waiting, termed here (KoveJehovah) expectants of Jehovah, should renew their strength. Being sown in weakness, they should be raised in power, and be made completely capable of performing all the functions of that happy state, in full exemption from the infirmities of mortality.

It was the same view as the God of the hidden period that animated the Maccabean brethren in their opposition to Antiochus, who would have allured them to apostatize, and to forsake the religion of their fathers. Two passages are particularly illustrative of this, and shew that however exquisite their sufferings might be, they found great consolation in the reflection that they were the children of the Berith-Olam, or that covenant of old made with Abraham.

The King of the future age, says one of them, will raise us up who have died for his laws, to the resurrection of everlasting life. (Tou kosmou Basileus) is clearly a version of what David and Jeremiah term Melec-Olam; and what the Chaldee paraphrase, on the Song of Solomon, repeatedly expresses by the phrase (Mari-Olma) Lord of the future age; which two words, it is probable, the thief

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thief on the cross employed when he said, "Lord Lk23.42 remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." In ages of more modern date, Olam, with the Rabbins, came to signify the world; and as the original of one of the books of the Maccabees was, as Jerom testifies, written in Hebrew, but now lost; the version in Greek following the Rabbinical sense, rendered Olam, by kosmos; whereas the antient rendering of the Seventy is Basileus aionios, and this latter term, when joined to God, was always viewed by them as promissive of the care to be taken of their souls during the interval between death and the resur2 Mac.7.36 rection. "Our brethren," say they, " after having endured a short toil, have fallen under God's covenant of everlasting life." To fall under this covenant, is to be of those to whom it applies, and who die in the faith of its accomplishment, as is said of one of those brethren, "so he 44°. died trusting in the Lord." So the son of Sirach expresses in clear and distinctive language, the view which he and his countrymen of that age entertained of Olam; and, what is remarkable, his language plainly shews, that in his opinion. this state was intermediate, and not final; for he Wis. 5. 15 speaks of their reward as being yet with God, and the care of them with the Most High, and that this was through the extent of that hidden period. Fixing the eye on this state, St. Paul terms his soul a depo

a deposit to be kept against that day. So St.
Peter speaks of committing their souls unto God,
as to a faithful Creator. The epithet faithful, has
an evident retrospect to the promise wrapped up in
the title (El-Olam) God of the hidden period. IP.449

The same view of God, as was to be expected, may be traced in many other passages of the apostles and evangelists, that where ever everlasting covenant, everlasting life, everlasting habitations, are mentioned, they uniformly point to the covenant of the hidden period. When God says, in the Apocryphal Esdras, that he would give to his 2 Es.2.1/ people everlasting habitations; and when Christ, adopting the same language, says, that they who make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, shall be received into everlasting Lk 16.9 habitations: it was probably in the Hebrew (OhleOlam) tents of the future world. In Rev. xiv. 6,7%. an angel appears flying in the midst of Heaven, having (euangelion aionion) not the everlasting gospel, but the good news of the hidden period, or a promise of Paradise to receive the departed spirits. These good news, the angel expresses, which from the first of time this future world had promised; "Fear God, and give to him the glory, for the hour of his judgment is come."

That Olam is synonymous with heavenly Jerusalem, will appear from a comparison of two pas

sages,

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