character of the Hebrews, and suitable to that superintending providence which God exercised over the Jewish people. A full and express revelation of the doctrine concerning a future state would have been inconsistent with the divine economy during the continuance of the Theocracy; for the rewards and punishments of another stage of being, necessarily implied in that doctrine, would have nullified the temporal threats of the law. It would have been a glaring absurdity to promulgate spiritual and invisible sanctions, during the existence of a dispensation supported only by those of a temporal nature. Accordingly, a future state is nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures announced as a fundamental truth. Neither in the Pentateuch, nor in the prophetical writings, does it constitute the essence and leading truth of what is there delivered; it is much oftener glanced at than mentioned in direct terms; incidentally rather than as the principal subject; it is sometimes implied in the sacred narrative, or typically shadowed forth, and frequently indicated by a variety of allusions; but in no passage whatever is it declared to be a necessary article of faith. While this grand doctrine is the foundation of Christianity, pervading every part of the New Testament, without which Christ died in vain, and our faith is vain, it is, even in the most explicit declarations of the Old Testament, involved in no small degree of doubt and obscurity;

and it was reserved for the Apostles of our Lord to place this great truth in the full effulgence of Evangelic light.

The ancient Jews, it is true, grounded their belief of a future state upon the intimations communicated in their Sacred Writings; but that this momentous doctrine was, previous to the promulgation of Christianity, dark and obscure, may be gathered from the apostolic affirmation of Christ having "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."* "This, however, would not have been the case, it is presumed, had Solomon composed a work for the express purpose of proving that important tenet. Is it likely that he should have an object in view, and yet fail in the attainment of it; that he should attempt to illustrate a subject, and yet leave it in obscurity; that he should have laboured in vain, whose "wisdom excelled all the wisdom of the East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt," (1 Kings iv, 30,) and whose understanding was enlarged and enlightened by holy inspiration?

2 Tim. i. 10. Though the original may, perhaps, be better rendered, with Macknight, "hath made life and immortality clear;" yet the authorized version equally proves, that the doctrine was obscurely delivered before the Christian era. With Macknight agree the Vulgate, which renders wriσavros by "illuminavit," and probably the Syriac, which has Qa word denoting to manifest, &c. Schleusner renders it “patefecit et manifestavit." Rosenmüller explains it, "per doctrinam suam nos fecit certos de felicitate æterna."-Scholia in loc. See Wolfius, Cura Philol. in loc.

If we likewise take into consideration, that a future state of retributive justice could not, consistently, be revealed during the continuance of a dispensation supported by temporal sanctions only, it cannot be imagined, that this doctrine would form the basis of any book in the Hebrew Volume. To suppose so, would be to attribute inconsistency to the Divine counsels, and mutability to an unchanged and unchangeable Deity.

In another point of view, it is improbable that Solomon should have been commissioned by the Almighty to promulgate, in a particular treatise, the sublime dogma of a future retribution. By comparing together all the records of revelation, we find it has been the plan of Divine Providence to develop gradually the grand scheme of redemption; to reveal it in successive ages with still increasing clearness and force, till, at the advent of Christ, the world was illuminated with the splendour of celestial truth. The Prophets, whose works have reached posterity, were all subsequent to the age of Solomon; and it cannot be credited, that the royal Preacher had a clearer knowledge of the scheme of redemption, and of a future state, than those worthies who were raised up in succession by Jehovah to unfold the sacred truths of providence and grace. That the king of Israel should teach expressly what the Prophets have scarcely declared openly

and without reserve, cannot be reconciled with the plan pursued by Omnipotent Wisdom, of the gradual development of religious truth.

These reasons clearly warrant the conclusion, that the book of Ecclesiastes was not designed, as Desvoeux affirms, to enforce the doctrine of immortality, and of a future state of rewards and punishments. Whatever incidental intimations of these doctrines may be discovered in the book, it is not the scope and leading object of it to promulgate them. And this is a distinction necessary to be urged upon the reader. Though it appears to be unanswerably established, by the preceding observations, that it is not the chief object and primary design of the work to inculcate a future state of retribution, it appears equally clear, that it contains some strong proofs of this article of religious faith. And here the writer of these pages may, it is hoped, be permitted to digress a little, in order to state the grounds of this conviction.

The strongest testimonies to an eternal existence hereafter which the discourse supplies are, chapter iii. 21, xii. 7, xii. 14. In the two former we read, "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" and, "The dust shall return to the earth as it was,

and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." These passages, according to Bishop Warburton, only express the survivorship of the soul, without implying its distinct personality, and coincide with the sentiments of those ancient philosophers who considered the soul as a substance, and held the refusion of it into the universal nature, or TO EN, while they denied it all personality, and disbelieved a future state of rewards and punishments.* Or it may be alleged, that the same expressions might be used by those who maintained the metempsychosis, without believing a proper resurrection and an eternal state of retribution.† But, ingenious as these interpretations may appear, proof is still wanting of their accordance with the opinions of the learned Jews in the age of Solomon; and, what is more, they are inconsistent with other passages of the work. We meet with repeated declarations of a divine retribution; but if this retribution is not absolutely perfect here below; if vice often prospers, while virtue is depressed; if oppression and misery await the good equally with the bad; if,

Compare lib. iii. § 2.

* Divine Legation, lib. v. § 6. + The transmigration of souls seems to have been the doctrine of at least some of the Jews in our Saviour's time; (John ix. 2; see Whitby ;) but others deny it.—(See Kuinöel in loc.) The Pharisees, according to some, held the metempsychosis, but others are of a different opinion. -See Reland, Antiquitates, par. ii. cap. 9, § 14; Pritius, Introductio in Nov. Test. cap. xxxiii. § 11; Lardner, Works, vol. i. p. 66, ed. 4to.

Chap. iii. 17, viii. 11, xi. 9, xii. 14. See Oxlee, On the Trinity and Incarnation, vol. i. p. 47, and Witsius, Economia Foederis, lib. iii. cap. 13, 15.