it not, rather, one more proof that "the heart is deceitful above all things,"* and forgetting that "God is not mocked;" that He is a "Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do;"† forgetting this, do we not deceive ourselves even to the extent of supposing we can thereby deceive God? Do we not gloss over, under the plea of such "unworthiness," the fact of our own apathy and disinclination to endeavour to render ourselves less unworthy? May it not, rather, be said that man compares himself with man, instead of applying to his heart the test of divine precept; that he is habitually satisfied in thinking himself "as good as his neighbour," fearful, if anything, of being righteous overmuch, if he exceed such standard of perfection; and that the still small voice of conscience is lulled from time to time, with the resolution indefinitely postponed, to hear more "of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come," like Felix, at a "convenient season," a few years hence.‡

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and

"Thou fool this night thy soul may be required of thee.-Luke xii. 20.

If there are those to whom the body of text here given, appears insufficient to satisfy the mind on many anxious points, to them I would say, what the known mercy and goodness of God render unquestionable, that more knowledge would have been given had it been essential or beneficial for us. "If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not-how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things."* But there are the Scriptures before us, and we are expected to study divine law with at least the same care and attention we bestow on the words, phrases, and meanings of human law.

Take for example on this point, our Saviour's reproach to that sect of the Jews, who, receiving the Books of Moses as Divine authority, refused to understand them as conveying a promise of life to come. "The same day came to Him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection." They imagine the case of a woman dying after

judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will send for thee.-Acts xxiv. 25. *John iii. 12.

having had seven husbands, and already triumphing in the supposition that the difficulty was unanswerable, they enquire" In the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven?" The answer they assumed to be impossible, was found to their shame and conviction. They are referred to a text in one of those very books on which they professed to rely, and are taught, that "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,'* shewed Abraham and the Patriarchs to be then existing, and therefore to have risen from the dead.-See Matt. xxii. 23; Mark xii. 18; Luke xx. 27.

Hence then it is clear that the Jews were expected to mark the difference (and deduce a most important inference) between a present and past tense, "I AM the God of Abraham," are the words of the text, not I was.

Again have we a lesson to the same purport, in the question put by our Saviour to the Pharisees,† "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say unto Him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David, in spirit, * Exod. iii. 6. + Matt, xxii. 42.

call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He his Son? No man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions."

With these examples before us, impressively shewing the earnest and fixed attention due to the study of Holy Scripture, let us not dare to complain, that the information we seek is not given, until we have first braced our minds to the task of carefully examining, and then humbly "pondering in our hearts," such instruction as we already have; and thus also may we learn "there with to be content." In this spirit let us now proceed.

"That the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." These are our Saviour's words. They were mercifully intended to enlighten the Sadducees, and not less may we find in them, application to ourselves, and the subject before us. They answer an enquiry of unspeakable interest, arising

out of that very text. "What becomes of man's spirit when no longer animating its mortal frame?"

THE SPIRIT LIVES! Abraham and his descendants who had died and were buried, still lived; God was still their God, and so declared to be because He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. If thus explicitly enlightened as to a fact so solemn, a fact believed by philosophic minds, before our Saviour's appearance on earth,* but the

;

It is always an enquiry full of interest, to ascertain what have been the religious opinions of different nations and times and those of my readers, who are unacquainted with classical authors, may wish to be informed, that, although there exist no ancient writings approaching, even by many hundred years, the antiquity of the Bible, we know that 400 years previously, down almost to the commencement of the Christian era; that is, from the age of Socrates, to that of Cicero, (omitting all uncertain mention of Pythagoras, a century earlier,) the immortality of the soul, and its happiness or misery after death, were reasoned upon and maintained. Socrates, when condemned to death by the thirty tyrants of Athens, for "not acknowledging the gods which the state acknowledged," and for " introducing new divinities," passed his last moments in calm and confident argument with his friends, respecting the nature of the new and immortal existence about to open to him: "I should be inexcusable," he observed," in despising death, if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me into the society of great and good men;" and in reply to the question of his friend Crito, as to his burial, he says, "is it not strange, after all that I have said to convince you that I am going to the society of the happy, that Crito still thinks that this body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, is Socrates? Let him dispose of my body as he pleases, but