and has of itself no relation to a state of consciousness or of future reward or punishment; and it is thus used throughout the Old Testament, and in numerous passages of the New*.

xxvi. 13. O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.

14. They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

19. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead+.

The first of these passages (ver. 14) seems to have reference to the oppressors of the Jews, who are described as consigned to irretrievable destruction; the second (ver. 19) should be read probably in the sense explained in Mr. Hewlet's note to Prov. xv. 10, quoted at p. 73. If taken literally, as in our translation, it affords an argument for the resurrection of the body, but none for the existence of an immaterial soul.

* Vide Ezekiel xxxi. 14—17; xxxii. 17–32.

† 19. Septuagint, αναςήσονται οι νεκροὶ και ἐγερθήσονται οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημέιοις καὶ ἐυφρανθήσονται ὁι ἐν τῆ γῆ ἡ γὰρ δρόςος ἡ παρὰ σου ἴαμα αυτοῖς ἐτιν, ἡ δὲ γῆ τῶν ἀσεβῶν πεσεῖται.

“The dead shall be raised up, and they shall be brought to life in their sepulchres, and shall be gladdened in the dust. For the dew from thee is a restorative to them, and the earth Perhaps the passage, like the shall be rid of the wicked.”

vision of dry bones, Ezekiel xxxvii. is merely prophetic of the restoration of the Jews, as a powerful people in their own country, after their return from bondage.

xxxviii. 9. The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness :

10. I said, in the cutting off of my days I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

11. I said I should not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

15. What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

16. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit; so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.

17. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

18. For the grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

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19. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

These extracts from the thanksgiving of Hezekiah after his recovery, are inserted to shew the remarkable coincidence, both as to belief and expression, which they have with the Psalms, and other similar compositions in the Bible.

lvii. 1. The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil to come.

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2. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

These verses are supposed to refer either to Hezekiah or Isaiah, both of whom died before the evils denounced against Judah and Jerusalem were brought on, and were therefore at rest in their graves when those calamities occurred. The Septuagint version of the 2nd verse is "sa

ἐνε ιρήνη ἡ ταφὴ ἀυτὸν ἦρται ἐκ τοῦ μέσου.” "His burial shall be in peace; he hath been taken from the midst" (of the evil.) Which seems much better, in connexion with the preceding verse, than the rendering in our translation; though, if the latter be correct, it may merely signify that those good men had the benefit of their virtues even in death, in not living to witness the ruin of their country.

In those portions of the prophecies of Isaiah, as well of the other prophets, which relate more immediately to the Messiah and his kingdom, are some passages which may be thought relevant to the subject under consideration; but as a short summary of the most striking of these prophecies, with their accomplishments, will form a separate chapter of this Essay, no previous notice need be taken of such passages.

Jer. ii. 34. Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents; I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these.

iv. 10. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.

19. My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

v. 9. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

vi. 8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

16. Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said we will not walk therein.

xii. 7. I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heri

tage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

iii. 17. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord's flock is carried away captive.

xviii. 20. Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.

xxvi. 19. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls.

xxviii. 16. So Zedekiah the king sware secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, As the Lord liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life.

17. Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, if thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live and thine house:

20. But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live.

xliv. 7. Therefore now thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to reinain.

li. 6. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; he will tender unto her a recompence.

Of these texts, it will surely be admitted that the greater part cannot possibly relate to a soul in man distinct from his body, and of those which might be construed to do so, a different interpretation, more in unison with the rest of the Scriptures, is a more natural, and therefore more likely to be the true one.

Lament. i. 16. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

19. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

ii. 11. The children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

12. They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mother's bosom.

18. Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

19. Arise, cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. iii. 17. And thou hast removed my soul far off from I forgat prosperity.

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20. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

24. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

25. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

41. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

58. O Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

In some of the foregoing verses from Lamentations, the heart is used in the same sense as the soul is in the others. Throughout the Scriptures these words seem to be put as synonymous or equivalent, denoting the affections and desires of the mind.

Ezek. iv. 14. Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up, even till now, have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.