CHAPTER XIII.

Of the Situation or Locality of Hades; also of the Highest Heavens, as the region where the glory of God is more immediately manifested, and where the souls of good men, reunited to bodies, are to abide in felicity for ever, after the judgment of the great and last day of this world.

"Can you comprehend whither the soul goes when disentangled from the body? If you can give me information on this topic, you will confer a favour upon me." Body and Soul.

THE subject of this Chapter is not one of mere curiosity and unprofitable study;—it is absolutely necessary to be investigated in as far as relates to Hades, in order, if it be possible with our limited knowledge, to reconcile some passages of Scripture with each other.

Hades, or the general name for the middle state of residence of disembodied spirits, is represented as the place of all the departed before the day of judgment, and is said to be below the earth, when reference is made to its tartarus ; which might perhaps be supposed to be so situated,—but then its paradise is also in the same general place, and yet it is often spoken of as above the clouds, and, in some instances, paradise is called a heavenly residence, although not the third or highest heavens, from which Holy Writ, as before pointed out, always makes a clear distinction, when referring to the present abode of human separate spirits.

The ancients had no idea of the real shape of the earth, nor, consequently, what must be the locality of a place

which, in common language, we would call beneath its surface. The best informed among them merely meant, by the expression, that no one knew where Hades was, and that therefore it must be somewhere beneath the boundless plain which they inhabited.

All these seeming inconsistencies are capable of being reconciled, with nearly every scriptural description, as well as with our modern knowledge of the universe. Even were the question one of curiosity alone, it would be a very natural one, and one which there could be no impropriety in endeavouring to gratify. It has occupied the attention of many wise and good men, and those who have neglected it, are generally led into glaring contradictions when they speak of the state of the dead.

Although the Almighty has chosen to conceal, in his scriptural revelations, where the mansion is situated to which the soul directs its unseen flight when the body is laid senseless in the grave, we may surely be allowed to conjecture, without being deemed presumptuous, or without such a speculation being accounted uninteresting. If all knowledge was to be deemed unnecessary or unprofitable, but what is to be found in the Bible, it would be shrinking from acquiring what God evidently intends us to receive—a gradually increasing knowledge of his wonderful works, and of the secrets of nature. Whether faster or slower the progress at particular times may be, man seems destined to go on adding to his acquirements in science; so it is impossible to say that the time may come when he can learn no

more.

Dr. Chalmers, in his exposition on the text which speaks of a new heavens and a new earth, begins by observing, that "there is a limit to the revelations of the Bible about futurity, and it were a mental or spiritual trespass to go beyond it. The reserve which it maintains in its informations, we ought to maintain in our inquiries-satisfied to know little on every subject, where it has communicated little, and feeling our way into regions which are at present unseen, no further than the light of Scripture will carry us." This

passage, at a first perusal, might seem to be a recommendation to abstain from all knowledge but what we find clearly detailed in the Bible. To assert that it were a trespass to go beyond it, is a mere gratuitous assumption, unfounded on any rule of conduct therein left for our guidance. Since God has inspired the human mind with a strong desire for acquiring knowledge of all kinds, why should we abstain from investigating any point because it is not distinctly communicated in the Bible? and when we are not commanded to abstain-why should we not study to learn every thing which we can on so very important a subject? But the latter part of the passage referred to, carries a different meaning to different people, according as each may interpret-" how far the light of Scripture will carry us." Dr. Chalmers himself explains this, in what immediately follows, (already quoted,*) in a much more liberal sense than what otherwise it might be held to imply.

Most people think that not attempting to be wise beyond what is written, means decidedly-not beyond what they themselves can understand; but such commentators should remember, that what may appear to convey little or no information to them, may be shown by another to disclose a great deal, and Dr. Chalmers does accordingly draw a very luminous and highly instructive explanation from his text on several points, as well as pious and natural ones regarding the future place of residence for the just, in so far, at least, as to its being a material place.

The situation of Hades has ever been a mystery which God has not thought it necessary directly and explicitly to unfold to man, but as knowledge of the universe increases -a knowledge which proceeds from Himself, in whatever way we may acquire it, we may be allowed to take advantage of modern discoveries relative to the distances, sizes, and positions of the different bodies which we see in the vast

See p. 428 of this work. "But while we attempt not," says Dr. C. “to be wise above that which is written, we should attempt, and that most studiously, to be wise up to that which is written."

concave of heaven all around the earth, to try if we can thus throw a little more light than the Scripture affords us on the question to be discussed.

It is, no doubt, sufficient in one sense, that there is such a place so designated in the Scriptures,-that we learn it is one of rest and pleasure for the good, and of painful remorse and perturbation to the wicked; but if we wish to understand the whole Scriptures regarding it-to be able to reconcile their apparent contradictions, too readily laid hold of by the infidel and scoffer,-then we must search more deeply. We see in Holy Writ that neither the Prophets nor Apostles had any communications on this point, and therefore they generally adopted the commonly received opinions of their fellow-men, which supposed it to be under the earth, little imagining, apparently, at the same time, that the world was a globe revolving on its axis, and flying with amazing velocity through space in a certain determinate circle or ellipse round the sun. Allowing the divine origin of the Book of Genesis, it must be admitted that it was not intended to teach the Jews systems of philosophy, but the laws of life and morals; and a great man and an exalted Christian raised his voice two centuries ago against this mode of applying, and often of wresting the sense of the Scriptures, to make them conformable to human fancies; "from which," as Lord Bacon observes, "arise not only false and fantastical philosophies, but heretical religions." If the Scriptures are to be in some instances literally interpreted, and to have systems of science founded on them, Galileo merited his persecution from that dreadful tribunal the Inquisition, and we ought still to believe that the sun moves round the earth, while the latter is at rest in the centre of the universe; and that the stars, contrary to the laws of all matter upon earth, do not look smaller at a distance than they really are, but if they fell, would cover the surface of the ground like a shower of hailstones!

We are not called on, therefore, to continue, in these our enlightened days, the belief of former times, that the earth is a wide extended plain of unlimited extent, because God