of the living;' but God is the God of Abraham, and the other patriarchs; therefore they are not dead; dead to this world, but alive to God; that is, though this life be lost, yet they shall have another and a better; a life in which God shall manifest himself to be their God, to all the purposes of benefit and eternal blessings.

This argument was summed up by St. Peter, and the sense of it is thus rendered by St. Clement, the Bishop of Rome, as himself testifies: "Si Deus est justus, animus est immortalis;" which is perfectly rendered by the words of my text: "If in this life only we have hope, then are we of all men the most miserable;" because this cannot be, that God who is just and good, should suffer them that heartily serve him, to be really and finally miserable; and yet in this world they are so, very frequently; therefore, in another world, they shall live to receive a full recompense of reward.

Neither is this so to be understood, as if the servants of God were so wholly forsaken of him in this world, and so permitted to the malice of evil men, or the asperities of fortune, that they have not many refreshments, and great comforts, and the perpetual festivities of a holy conscience; for "God my maker is he that giveth songs in the night," said Elihu; that is, God, as a reward, giveth a cheerful spirit, and makes a man to sing with joy, when other men are sad with the solemn darkness, and with the affrights of conscience, and with the illusions of the night. But God, who intends vast portions of felicity to his children, does not reckon these little joys into the account of the portion of his elect. The good things which they have in this world, are not little, if we account the joys of religion, and the peace of conscience, amongst things valuable; yet whatsoever it is; all of it, all the blessings of themselves, and of their posterity, and of their relatives, for their sakes, are cast in for intermedial entertainments; but their good,' and their prepared portion shall be hereafter.. But for the evil itself, which they must suffer and overcome, it is such a portion of this life, as our blessed Saviour had; injuries and temptations, care and persecutions, poverty and labour, humility and patience: it is well; it is very well; and who can long for, or expect better

e Job, xxxv. 10.

here; when his Lord and Saviour had a state of things, so very much worse than the worst of our calamities? but bad as it is, it is to be chosen rather than a better; because it is the high way of the cross; it is Jacob's ladder, upon which the saints and the King of saints did descend, and at last ascend to heaven itself; and bad as it is, it is the method and inlet to the best; it is a sharp, but it is a short step to bliss for it is remarkable, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that the poor man, the afflicted saint, died first, Dives being permitted to his purple and fine linen, to his delicious fare, and (which he most of all needed) to a space of repentance: but, in the mean time, the poor man was rescued from his sad portion of this life, and carried into Abraham's bosom; where he who was denied in this world, to be feasted even with the portion of dogs, was placed in the bosom of the patriarch, that is, in the highest room; for so it was in their ' discubitus,' or lying down to meat, the chief guest, the most beloved person, did lean upon the bosom of the master of the feast; so St. John did lean upon the breast of Jesus, and so did Lazarus upon the breast of Abraham; or else xóλπos 'Аßpaàu, 'sinus Abrahami' may be rendered the bay of Abraham,' alluding to the place of rest, where ships put in after a tempestuous and dangerous navigation; the storm was quickly over with the poor man, and the angel of God brought the good man's soul to a safe port, where he should be disturbed no more: and so saith the Spirit; "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; for they rest from their labours."

But this brings me to the second great inquiry; if here we live upon hopes, and that this is a place of hopes, but not this only; what other place is there, where we shall be blessed in our hope, where we shall rest from our labour and our fear, and have our hopes in perfection; that is, all the pleasures which can come from the greatest and the most excellent hope?

"Not in this life only:"-So my text. Therefore hereafter; as soon as we die; as soon as ever the soul goes from the body, it is blessed. Blessed, I say, but not perfect; it rejoices in peace and a holy hope: here we have hopes mingled with fear, there our hope is heightened with joy and confidence; it is all the comfort that can be, in the expectation of unmeasurable joys: it is only, not fruition, not the joys

of a perfect possession; but less than that, it is every good thing else.

But that I may make my way plain: I must first remove an objection, which seems to overthrow this whole affair. St. Paul intends these words of my text, as an argument to prove the resurrection; we shall rise again with our bodies; for "if in this life only we had hope, then we were of all men most miserable;" meaning, that unless there be a resurrection, there is no good for us any where else; but if "they who die in the Lord," were happy before the resurrection, then we were not of all men most miserable, though there were to be no resurrection; for the godly are presently happy. So that one must fail; either the resurrection, or the intermedial happiness; the proof of one relies upon the destruction of the other; and because we can no other ways be happy, therefore there shall be a resurrection.

To this I answer, that if the godly, instantly upon their dissolution, had the vision beatifical, it is very true, that they were not most miserable, though there be no resurrection of the dead, though the body were turned into its original nothing for the joys of the sight of God would, in the soul alone, make them infinite recompense for all the sufferings of this world. But that which the saints have after their dissolution, being only the comforts of a holy hope, the argument remains good: for these intermedial hopes being nothing at all, but in relation to the resurrection, these hopes do not destroy, but confirm it rather; and if the resurrection were not to be, we should neither have any hopes here, nor hopes hereafter, and therefore the apostle's word is, “If here only we had hopes;" that is, if our hopes only related to this life; but because our hopes only relate to the life to come, and even after this life, we are still but in the regions of an enlarged hope, this life and that interval are both but the same argument to infer a resurrection: for they are the hopes of that state, and the joys of those hopes, and it is the comfort of that joy, which makes them blessed who die in the love of God, and the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus.

And now to the proposition itself.

In the state of separation, the souls departed perceive the blessing and comfort of their labours; they are alive after death; and after death, immediately they find great refresh

ments.

"Justorum animæ in mahu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum mortis :" "The torments of death shall not touch the souls of the righteous, because they are in the hands of God." And fifteen hundred years after the death of Moses, we find him talking with our blessed Saviour in his transfiguration upon mount Tabor: and as Moses was then, so are all the saints immediately after death, " præsentes apud Dominum," "they are present with the Lord;" and to be so, is not a state of death; and yet of this it is, that St. Paul affirms it to be much better than to be alive.

And this was the undoubted sentence of the Jews before Christ, and since; and therefore our blessed Saviour told the converted thief, that he should "that day be with him in paradise." Now without peradventure, he spake so as he was to be understood: meaning by 'paradise,' that which the schools and pulpits of the Rabbins did usually speak of it. By paradise, till the time of Esdras, it is certain, the Jews only meant the blessed garden, in which God only placed Adam and Eve but in the time of Esdras, and so downward, when they spake distinctly of things to happen after this life, and began to signify their new discoveries, and modern philosophy by names, they called the state of souls, expecting the resurrection of their bodies, by the name of 1 1, the garden of Eden.' Hence came that form of comprecation, and blessing to the soul of an Israelite, "Sit anima ejus in horto Eden," "Let his soul be in the garden of Eden;" and in their solemn prayers at the time of their death, they were not to say, "Let his soul rest; and let his sleep be in peace, until the Comforter shall come, and open the gates of paradise unto him;" expressly distinguishing paradise from the state of the resurrection and so it is evident, in the intercourse on the cross, between Christ and the converted thief. That day both were to be in paradise ;' but Christ himself was not then ascended into heaven, and therefore paradise was no part of that region, where Christ now, and hereafter the saints shall reign in glory. For napádevos did, by use and custom, signify 'any place of beauty and pleasure.' So the LXX. read Eccles. ii. 5. "I made me gardens and orchards," "I made me a paradise," so it is in the Greek; and Cicero having found this

'Wisd. iii. 1.

De Sen. xvii.

strange word in Xenophon, renders it by "conseptum agrum ac diligenter consitum:" "a field well hedged and set with flowers and fruit."- Vivarium,' Gellius renders it, a place to keep birds and beasts alive for pleasure.' Pollux says this word was Persian by its original; yet because by traduction it became a Hebrew, we may best learn the meaning of it from the Jews, who used it most often, and whose sense we better understand. Their meaning, therefore, was this; that as paradise, or the garden of Eden, was a place of great beauty, pleasure, and tranquillity; so the state of separate souls was a state of peace and excellent delights. So Philo allegorically does expound Paradise. Λέγουσι γὰρ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ φύτα εἶναι μηδὲν ἐοικότα τοῖς παρ' ἡμῖν, ἀλλὰ ζωῆς, ἀθανασίας, sidnews. "For the trees that grow in paradise are not like ours, but they bring forth knowledge and life, and immortality."It is, therefore, more than probable, that when the converted thief heard our blessed Saviour speak of' paradise,' or Gan Eden,' he who was a Jew, and heard that on that day he should be there, understood the meaning to be, that he should be there, where all the good Jews did believe the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be placed. As if Christ had said; Though you only ask to be remembered when I come into my kingdom, not only that shall be performed in time, but even to-day thou shalt have great refreshment; and this the Hellenish Jews called ἀνάπαυσιν τοῦ παραδείσου, 'the rest of paradise :' and magánλnow, the comfort' of paradise; the word being also warranted from that concerning Lazarus, яaçaxaλeitai,' he is comforted.'

But this we learn more perfectly from the raptures of St. Paul: "He knew a man" (meaning himself) "rapt up into the third heaven: and I knew such a man how that he was caught up into paradise." The raptures and visions were distinct; for St. Paul being a Jew, and speaking after the manner of his nation, makes 'paradise' a distinct thing from the third heaven.' For the Jews deny any 'orbes' to be in heaven; but they make three regions only, the one of clouds, the second of stars, and the third of angels. To this third or supreme heaven was St. Paul rapt; but he was also borne to paradise, to another place distinct and separate by

h2 Cor. ii. 3.