Pf. xxxvi. 5. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

ciii. 11. As the heaven is high above the earth, fo great is his mercy toward them that fear him. See Ifa. lv. 9, 10.

cviii. 4. Thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.

Prov. xxv. 3. The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unfearchable.

Jer. xxxi. 37. Thus faith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured, and the foundation of the earth searched out beneath, I will also caft off all the feed of Ifrael.

li. 9. Her (Babylon's) judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even unto the skies. See on Rev. xviii. 5.

Ifa. lv. 9. As the heavens are higher than the earth, fo are my ways higher than your ways.

Matt. xi. 23; Luke x. 15. Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, fhalt be brought down to the grave. Exalted in wealth and magnificence, and in having fo much of Chrift's prefence and instruction.

Rev. xviii. 5. Her fins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Sins fo enormous as to be ripe for judgment. Comp. Gen. xix. 13; Jonah i. 2; James v. 4.

SECTION XVIII.

Inferences from the preceding Sections.

IN the foregoing enumeration of texts I do not know that any inftance is omitted in which the

occur שמי and the Chaldee שמים Hebrew word

in the Old Testament, and spavos in Griefbach's New Teftament. Though different opinions may be entertained concerning the arrangement of fome of them, yet I hope it has appeared that a fufficient number of paffages is produced under each fection to establish the peculiar fense which it attributes to the word heaven. I trust, alfo, that from all the preceding sections taken together, the following conclufions are fairly deduced.

שמיא or שמים I. There is no one inftance in which

are used in the Old Teftament to fignify either the place or the condition of righteous human beings in a future life.

2. There is not any text in the New Testament in which κρανος denotes the place in which the righteous of mankind shall dwell after death or the refurrection. 3. Ougavos means the ftate or condition of the righteous in the life to come exclufively in only fifteen

inftances; fix others being only parallel paffages in different evangelifts. This may be feen in fection xiv.

4. The word spavos never occurs in the two epiftles to Timothy, in the epiftle to Titus, in any of the epiftles of John, nor in Jude. In 2 Tim. iv. 18, Paul indeed fays, the Lord will preferve him 45 TRY Bariλear aux gavicy. But from ver. 11 and 17,

I appears to refer to the kingdom of Chrift on earth: and in twelve instances, exclufive of this, out of the nineteen in which this word occurs in the New Testament, it refers to the present life. Though ver. 6 to 8 feem not to accord with this fenfe, yet Lightfoot and Lardner understand this paffage as alluding to the Apostle's age, infirmities, imprifonment, and continual danger; Lardner's Works, vol. vi. p. 360. Es may fignify pro, in ufum, as in Matt. xx. 1; 1 Cor. xvi. 1; 2 Cor. viii. 4; ix. 1. If the 2d Timothy was written by Paul during his first imprisonment at Rome, as Lardner maintains, the interpretation of gas here given will be eftablished, by comparing Philip. i. 19, 24, 25, 26; ii. 24; Philem. 22; which were alfo written during the fame confinement. Even if Paul wrote the second letter to Timothy during his fecond imprisonment at Rome, he might not foresee the time of his death; and 2 Tim. iv. 6 to 8, and 18, might still be underflood in the sense already mentioned. Michaelis lays no firefs upon the paffage ver. 6 to 8, though he thinks 2d Timothy was penned during Paul's fecond imprisonment.

5. From all the above premifes it follows, that the defign of revelation is not to inform us of the place in which the righteous will dwell in the future life.

The Hebrew and Greek words which are tranflated heaven, more frequently fignify the atmofphere than any other fingle object. The most diftant or the highest heaven, beyond the expanfe in which are the fun, moon, and stars, was supposed by the Jews to be the peculiar refidence of God. Though the beft instructed among them thought, as Solomon did, that the heaven of heavens could not contain the Moft High: 1 Kings viii. 27. To fpiritual beings of a higher order than mankind, the Jews affigned a habitation near to that which they appropriated to the Supreme Being. Now Chrift having faid, in the ufual metaphorical style of the age and nation in which he lived, that true Christians in their future ftate fhall see God, and dwell in their Father's houfe, in which Jefus will prepare a place for them; it has been inferred, that human beings, in their future fpiritual and glorified state, will dwell in a diftant region of the universe, nearer to the fuppofed peculiar habitation of the Supreme Being. This, however, is a conclufion drawn from figurative expreffions in the New Teftament, which they do not authorize. The fcriptures fay nothing about mankind being removed from this globe after they die or are raifed from the dead. Comp. 1 Theff. iv. 16, 17, with Dan. vii. 13, 14; Rev. xi. 12; xiv. 14; and on Matt. xxvi. 64, 30, in page 295.

In Matt. v. 10; vii. 21; the future ftate of the righteous is called the kingdom of heaven; which is a phrase of the fame meaning as the kingdom of God, or of Christ, and alludes to Dan. ii. 44; vii. 13, 14; Micah iv. 6 tq, 8; Ifa. ix. 7; and other prophecies. Now, concerning this kingdom or reign of God and of Christ, even in this world, where it commences, our Lord tells the Pharifees, that it will not be right for men to fay, Lo, it is here, or lo it is there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you, eos vμwv, Luke xvii. 21. (See Campbell's note; Schleufner on vos; Bp. Pearce's Comment. and note; and comp. Rom. xiv. 17.) Even if evos be rendered among, ftill this kingdom is a spiritual, not a temporal one; it relates to mind, not to place. Now the kingdom of heaven, or of Christ and God, in the future ftate, is also spiritual in the pureft and most exalted degree. Much more, then, may it be faid of that future kingdom, that it is within us, and that it confifts in right difpofitions and habits.

The several phrafes with which the word heaven is connected, when it fignifies the future condition of the good, are all figurative. See fect. xiv.

Their various literal meanings are inconsistent with each other. All these figures, then, must be interpreted in a manner that is confiftent with the general tenor of the New Teftament upon the fubject, which mentions nothing in plain language about a local manfion for the righteous after their refurrection. For the term heaven itself, though its most frequent