SECT. III1 PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. 305 try of separate souls or paradise; where good men are re- warded, and God is their God, if they had no plain pro- mises or views of the resurrection of the body ?' ArId, in- deed, they had need ofa very plain and express promise ofsuch a resurrection, to encourage their faith and obe- dience, if they had'no notion or belief of aseparate state, or a heavenly country, whither their souls should go at their death. Job seems to have some bright glimpses of a resurrec- tion, in chap. xix. 625 -27. but this was far above the level of the dispensation wherein he lived, and a peculiar and distinguishing favour granted to him under his un- common and peculiar sufferings. In the institutionof the jewish religion byMoses, there is no express mention of a resurrection, and we must suppose their hope of a future state, was chiefly such as they could gain from the light of nature, and learn by tra- ditions from their fathers, or fromunwritten instructions. For though our Saviour improves the words of God to Moses in the bush; Erod. iii. 6. " I am the God of Abra- ham," &c. so far as to prove a resurrection from them, yet we can hardly suppose the Israelites could carry it any further, than merely to the happiness of Abraham's soul, &c. in some separate state ; and thence came the notion of departed souls ofgood men going to the bosom ofAbraham. I grant that David, in his Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel, in their prophecies, have some hints of the resurrection of the body : but this cloth not seem to have been the, common principle or support of virtue and goodness,, or a general article of belief among the Jews, in the early ages. In the days of the later prophets, and. after their return from Babylon, I confess, the Jews had some notion of a resurrection; but they also retained their opinionof the righteous souls being at rest with God, in a separate state before the resurrection: See the book of Wisdom, chap. iii. 1 -4. The souls of the righteous are in the band of God. And there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise, they seemed to die, and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction ; but they are in peace ; for though they iae perished in the sight of men, yet is their hope VOL. I.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=