anxiously questioning the Baptist, What shall we do to avoid this awful fate? The Baptist received not these doctrines from the Saviour, but preached them before the mission of Christ commenced, before Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. The Redeemer proclaimed not the Gospel, until after John was cast into his fatal prison; when departing from Galilee He came and dwelt at Capernaum. From that time Jesus began to preach'. The Disciples of John, nay, his general hearers, were well informed then, before Christ preached, that after death came the Judgment. Turning, next, to our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, we shall find, the same remarkable evidence of this fact, every where disclosed. Therein, we discover, that rewards, and treasures in Heaven, are held out to the emulation of the believing, and obedient; whilst, the punishments, and fires of Hell, are denounced against infidels, and transgres

sors.

Farther on, in the same Gospel, the way which leadeth to destruction, and the path that leadeth unto Life, are enlarged upon, with the day of judgment, and the

1 Matthew iv. 12, 17

world to come, before all his hearers, (amongst whom were often the Scribes and Pharisees), who never in one, solitary instance, are recorded, as objecting a single word, to his attributing these doctrines, (we may say SANCTIONS,) to their Law. He came, in fact, as He always asserted, not to destroy the Law, and the Prophets, but to fulfil them; and in every page, throughout the four Gospels, wheresoever a future state is insisted upon, it is so, generally speaking, on the authority of previous revelations. It is needless to multiply proofs; even in the fifth of St. John, where the Saviour so plainly asserts, the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of Life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation:-even this passage, bears chiefly, on the revelation of himself, as the Promised Seed, the Almighty Redeemer. Looking forward in the same chapter, we find Him charging his enemies to search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have-what? even ETERNAL Life: and they are they, He

adds, which testify of me, through whom alone, they promise, Life Everlasting.

In reality, the Sadducees were the only portion of the Jews, who disbelieved in a future state; and we have only to remark the manner, in which Jesus rebuked them, and confuted their errors, to collect further proofs of the truth which has been advanced. In the three Gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, the same answer, to an insidious question by this sect, is recorded, with very little variation, even of words. In the latter Gospel these are -as touching the dead, that they RISE, have ye not read IN THE BOOK OF MOSES, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He, is not the God of the dead, but of the LIVING; ye therefore do greatly err. Nothing can be more direct than this reference to Moses, as revealing, and asserting, life ETERNAL. The Scribes, the Pharisees, and the Herodians, seem, from the context, to have been in the Temple, about the time when this question was agitated, and yet, we find no objection recorded against our

Saviour's clear interpretation, of this constantly recurring passage, in the Mosaic Scriptures. On the contrary, we discover decisive marks of the approbation, with which it was received1: One of the Scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them (the Sadducees) well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all? To this our Saviour replies, and dismisses this man with the declaration, thou art not far from the kingdom of God. These very words, the kingdom of Heaven or of God, were terms in use among themselves, referring to a (I) future state. They formed, we find, the chief incentive of all the Baptist's, and our Saviour's, calls to repentance; and, in the xivth of Luke, where Jesus is described, as sitting at meat with one of the chief Pharisees, and as charging them to call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, to their feasts, for thus they should be blessed, in being recompensed at the resurrection of the just, no surprise is elicited by this doctrine; on

1 Luke xx. 39. Then certain of the scribes answering, said, Master, thou hast well said.

the contrary, it is received as well known -one of them, who sat at meat with Him, said unto Him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. They, then, did look for an existence with their God, in the resurrection to Life Eternal. Nay, even Herod himself, living as he did the slave of lust, and interested as he therefore was, to deny this truth, could not conceal his belief in the resurrection, but gave public proofs of his assent to this doctrine. In the sixth chapter of Mark, this fact is twice repeated, which is again noticed in the Gospel of Matthew :-Herod hearing of the mighty works which Jesus wrought said, it is John, whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead.

The national faith of the Jews in a future state, together with the fact that they founded their belief on the Mosaic, and Prophetic Scriptures, is again most distinctly marked, in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul, we are here taught, grounded his defence before the Chief Priests and the elders, and all their council at Jerusalem; and, subsequently, before Felix at Cæsarea, upon the universal reception of this