rNS ESSAY icrWAmp THE [SECT. M. Suitable to the design of Christ, in his epistle to the church of Ephesus; Rev. ii. 7. " The tree of life in the midst of the paradise of nod," which are the only three places where the New Testament uses this word. I know there have been great pains taken to spew that the stops should be altered, and the comma should be placed after the word " to-day," thus, " I sa.y unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in paradise," that is, some time or other hereafter. As though Christ meant no more than this, viz. " thou askest me to remember thee .vhen I come into my kingdom : And I declare unto thee truly this very day, that some long time hereafter thou shalt be with me in happiness at thy resurrection, when mykingdom shall be just at an end, and I shall give it fall up to the Father," as in 1 Cor. xv. 24. Can anyone imagine this to be the meaning of our blessed Saviour, in answer to this prayer of the dying penitent ? I know also there are other laborious criticisms to represent these words " to -day," in other places of scripture as referring to some distant time, and not to mean that very day of twenty-four hours: But rather than enter into a long and critical debate upon all those texts, I will ven- ture to trust the sense of it in this place, with any sincere and unlearned reader. But, if we consult the learned, Dr. Whitbywill tell us, that it was a familiar phrase of the Jews, to say on a just man's dying, to-day, shall he sit in the bosom of Abraham :" And, it was their common opinion, that the "souls of the righteous who were very eminent in piety, were carried immediately into paradise." The Chaldee paraphrase on Solomon's Song, chapter iv. 12, takes some notice of the "souls of the just, who are carried into paradise by the hands of angels." Grotius in his notes on Luke xxiii. 43. mentions the hearty and serious wish of the Jews, concerning their friends who are dead, in the language of the talnaudical writers, Let his soul be gathered to the garden of Eden :" And in their solemn prayers when one dies, " Let him have his portion in paradise, and also in the world to come," by which they mean the state of the resurrection, and plainly distinguished it from this immediate entrance in- to,Eden or paradise, at the hour of death. The Jews suppose Enoch to be carried to paradise even in his
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