For men are promised, if to Christ they flee, And, though that time is hid as yet in night, Then all who ever liv'd in earthly state Shall hear the doom of their eternal fate. The judgment past, the blest their heaven shall gain, And range unwearied without care or pain. No longer disembodied shall bewail Their nature incomplete, or bodies frail. The mansions then which sainted eyes shall see, Must far surpass what here may lovely be. And show'd how God-like human kind could be Where God was seen before their wondering eyes, And held communion with our favoured race, Before the demon Sin unveil'd his face, Or yet had mingl'd crime and shame with joy, 563 While those who lov'd on earth his skill to trace, Through all his works spread round their dwelling place Will joyous scan new scenes in heavenly lands, And drink of streams which flow o'er golden sands. Each fresh discovery of th' Almighty's skill Shall raise their love and wonder higher still; Those glorious regions of eternal life, Where love and peace shall reign, and never strife But heaven-born pleasure be for ever nigh! APPENDIX. A. In the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, we read, according to our translation, that—“ God created man to be immortal, and made him an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through the envy of the devil, came death into the world."* From a casual perusal of the above, it might be inferred to contradict (in as far as its authority may be allowed) what has been argued in the first chapter of this work, or that the body was created mortal; but a little consideration of the arguments there used, it is presumed, will show that they are fully sanctioned by the account of the Tree of Life, as given by Moses, and the meaning, therefore, of the text just quoted, must only be, that God at first intended man "to be immortal;" which intention indeed was evident from the means having been provided for preventing his body from dying, and although Adam must not have been aware of the virtue of the tree, The Wisdom of Solomon, ch. ii. 23, 24.-See also ch. i. 14, 15, 16. The phrase in the Septuagint is 'en' apoapoia, literally, unto or for incorruption in the Syriac version, corruptiones expertem, void or free of corruption in the Arabic, ad incorruptabilitatem, unto or for incorruptability. All which readings may be fairly interpreted as rendered in the English translation—that man was intended by God to be immortal,—-created for that purpose,-to live for ever if he behaved well, and in assurance of this immortality of which he was to be made partaker, the tree of life was planted within his view. vxt cut v ta mperance a in-cil nee mes mut Bishop Gleig* also holds that Adam was created mortal, albicugi capable of immortality, and that some time elapsed between his creation and introduction into paradise,-two points winch, however difficult they may be considered to prove, are yet more so to controvert, but this last is attempted by the Rev. Thomas Walkson,† in his discourse on the doctrine of original sin. B. HAVING endeavoured to show in the first chapter of this work, that death in the inferior animals was not one of the consequences of the fall of man, I may notice a different opinion by the Rev. Thomas Scott, who, when commenting on part of the eighth chapter of the Romans, tells us that—" the animal tribes are subject to pain and death through man's sin," which must mean that they were at first immortal, and so constructed as not to be liable to the bodily derangement which gives rise to pain, being intended also to remain * Of the Scottish Episcopal Church. See his Appendix to Stackhouse's Dissertation on the subject. + Rector of Bulvan, Essex, and Curate of St. Andrew's, Holborn. |