網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

call this state by a name expressing negation of action altogether.

The apostle Paul, in the epistle to the Hebrews, drops a hint, as if the immensity of the works of God were to form the future range of the glorified body; and while with unwearied powers it searches into these, and makes endless discoveries, ten thousand sources of happiness may be unsealed. For if in a limited sense man was set over the works of this lower sphere, much more, when restored by the second Adam, will his range be widened, and he, by his new faculties, and loco-motive powers, be rendered capable of finding his entertainment and improvement through the regions of the boundless universe.

Body and soul imply objective matter, suited to each. There will not, it may be presumed, be wanting new and stupendous objects to employ the external senses. When elevated above all heavens, they may take in at one view the mundane ocean, and behold innumerable worlds floating in the vast abyss, and peopled with their various inhabitants. To explore these through their various links, connections and ends, the organs of the glorified body may be fitted. Among these, its different departments may form a boundless prospect―a subject never to be exhausted, and of which, while in the present state, it is impossible we can form any 'conception..

[blocks in formation]

In this state also the various powers of the soul meet in like manner their proper objects. The highest of these may be considered to be the Deity himself, and his infinite perfections. In the progressive knowledge, and in the love of these, admiration and praise may keep pace, and hand in hand walk through the immensity of ages. Aids to knowledge, and motives to search, proceeding from the external senses, and their notices, may possess an amazing vigour. An unknown sagacity may be conferred, to enable to distinguish, and to penetrate into objects whether great or minute, near, or remote. The force of reason and genius may now gain a transcendant height, and in every class of motions and contemplations, the soul may arise to the vigour and excellence of angels. Eternal truth, intellectual light, diffuse themselves through all extent, but are received only according to the measure of the recipient. What activities. may the human spirit display in nnlocking and examining the treasures of God; in investigating the secrets of his wisdom, which have been kept hid from the foundation of the world! How bright must the glory of his love, goodness, wisdom, and justice, shine upon the intellectual eye? How happy they whose activity, whether of body or of mind, is ever successful : who see light in his light: who drink life from the fountain: who bathe themselves in living streams,

and

and who are ever carried out in effusions and extacies towards the all-bounteous King! All these views go to evince, that the glorified state is not a state of rest, but of the utmost activity, yet without being subject in the least to embarrassment or weariness.

2dly. This rest is not peculiar to the times of the gospel. It was open during the period of the law. Into it the souls of the faithful entered, then as well as now. It was termed by Jeremiah /7./2 the place of our sanctuary from the beginning: the 15m. 25,29 bundle of life-the assembly of the righteous. Then, Heb/2.23 indeed, there existed this difference, from what it is now, that it was not so openly propounded to the world, because its type, the first tabernacle, was yet standing. Into it the great High Priest had not entered, and therefore it had not by his death received its completion, termed by Daniel the anointing the most Holy: but still it was the place of refreshment, termed by the fathers (Locus refrigerii) for all who having embraced the promises died in the firm hope of their future accomplishment. This was the rest which the Holy Ghost proclaimed as open in the days of David, and which was the true antitype to the rest of Canaan for, remarks St. Paul, on this passage, "if Joshua had given them that highest rest," the Heb. 4.8 spirit would not have spoken of another day, as in that case, the promise would have been fully exhausted. On the contrary, this apostle views the

phrase,

phrase, to-day, as expressive of all the time assigned to men through their different generations, and just as applicable to himself, and the people of that age, as it had been to David and the people then, and which will be equally applicable down to the very last generation which shall be on the earth.

[ocr errors]

It is upon this to-day of the Holy Ghost, that the apostle builds his inference (ara) “therefore there remaineth ;" i. e. there is "still open a rest for the people of God." To-day then denotes the monitory period, during which the Spirit lifts up his voice to the children of men, " harden not your hearts;" and this extends through the season assigned to each individual upon earth. The entering then, or the non-entering into this rest, is when the to-day, or portion of time given to each, is fully expired.

[ocr errors]

3ly. This sabbatism is not, and indeed cannot be enjoyed under the times of the gospel, because the very term rest implies such a state as is the utter reverse of what we are under on earth. The things are admitted which are alledged as constituting this rest, viz. " peace with God, an exemption from the Mosaic yoke, and an acquiescence in the worship of the gospel," but it is utterly denied, that by these there can be meant a cessation or dissolution of powers, which is the sense that the original means to convey. Add too, the solem

nity of the words, "there yet remaineth a rest,” which, as to each individual, is evidently expressive of futurition, or of its taking place, not now, but at some distant period.

The rest in Canaan was not until the Israelites were completely done with their wandering condition in the desert. This rest of theirs, indeed. was not a dissolution of powers, because a rest of this nature did not belong to the type, but to the antitype: but it was a complete rest from their will former state, and from the various inconveniences and hardships of the wilderness. These two states were not co-existent, i. e. partly in Canaan, and partly in the wilderness, but the one rose as the other terminated.

Let it be farther observed, that the situation of men under the New Testament dispensation, is no where held forth in the gospels or epistles as a sabbatismus or cessation, but rather as a period of trial, of warfare, and of suffering. Of this Dr. Owen was aware, and makes the following concession: "I must acknowledge that the truth insisted on (a present rest on earth) is liable to some important objections, which seem to have strength communicated unto them, both from the scriptures and from the experience of them that do believe, such as that the description given us of the state of believers in this world lies in direct contradiction to our assertion." This objection he attempts

[ocr errors]
« 上一頁繼續 »