refer. In the Old Testament, the Garden of Eden is always translated in the Greek by the word of which our word Paradise is the English form, and which is believed to be of Persian origin: and in various other parts of Scripture a pleasant garden is by the same word rendered: and from this the use of the word Paradise in our language is derived. Now let any one compare the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse with the Paradise of the Book of Genesis, and deny, if he can, that the one is described in terms of the other, so far as can be consistently with the preservation of the distinct properties of a garden and a city. The Second Adam and his bride its sole possessors; the tree of life in the midst; the river; the exclusion from it of every thing that defileth and maketh a lie; the immediate presence of God, and many other things, which can be predicated of no other place than the New Jerusalem, do put it beyond a doubt that this and Paradise are intended by God to stand in the relation of type and antitype. And I have no doubt whatever, as hath been already said, that the name Paradise is used in the text for the very end of marking this relation by a Divine sanction. The use of the word paradise as synonimous with the third heaven, in 2 Cor. xi. 4, demonstrates the same truth. Without going into the question, where the place of separate spirits is, we can certainly assert, upon Christ's authority, that he had not ascended unto his Father till after the resurrection for when he appeared to Mary Magdalene he spake to her in these words (John xx. 17): "Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto iny Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Now there was no higher or holier place among the Jews than the third heaven, which they believed, as indeed of heaven generally, that it is the special abode of Deity: and Christ's ascension is never otherwise described than "into heaven." We may conclude, therefore, that whereever Christ as a separate spirit was between his death and the resurrection, it was not in the third heaven, or in the heaven at all, otherwise it would have been with God. No doubt he went where other separate spirits go; otherwise his death would not have been like our death, which consisteth not in a buried body merely, but in a soul inhabiting some where. This place

the ancient church thought to be in the lower parts of the earth; taking that opinion from what is written Eph. iv. 9, 10; which is a passage bearing so much upon the matter in hand that we cannot forbear quoting it: "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended, is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." If any one say that the separate soul is taken at once into heaven, all I can do is to ask proof, and to observe that Christ's soul was not so privileged; and therefore He hath not in all things the pre-eminence, but in this his people have it. Of the New Jerusalem it is never otherwise spoken than as above and in the heavens, and coming out of heaven from God: and it is called the city of God, where God hath his habitation, and will ever have it (Gal. iv.; Rev. ii., iii., xxi.) And seeing Paul identifies paradise with the third heaven, the dwellingplace of God, and John identifies the New Jerusalem with the dwelling-place of God, what can any one say, but that the New Jerusalem and Paradise are one and the same?

There is one text indeed, and only one, in the whole Scripture, which hath even the appearance of contradicting these conclusions, and that is the text which represents our Lord as saying to the thief upon the cross, "I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." In which text, let only the comma be placed after "to-day," and it is in harmony with the whole Scriptures; I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with me in paradise: and methinks that this is the best reason in the world for altering the punctuation, which is a thing not of inspiration, but of human invention. But I hold that besides putting the passage in harmony with every Scripture where mention is made of paradise, it is more consistent with the grammatical structure of the words, and with the sense of the context, which two things ought ever to give the law to the punctuation of unpunctuated manuscripts, as the originals of the Scriptures are. Prefacing then these remarks with the declaration that I am a steady believer in the blessedness of the soul in its separate state-concerning which I shall have to discourse plentifully in the progress of these Lectures-I observe that the passage in which the promise to the thief occurs

has nothing to do whatever with the separate state. His request was, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." That a Jew understood by the kingdom of Messiah the separate state, no one will even dare to affirm; and this alone ought to lead us into the suspicion of any interpretation which discovers the separate state and not the kingdom in our Lord's answer, concerning which state of souls I do not find that he ever discourseth at all; and how he should fall upon the discourse of it when the penitent thief's question led him to another subject altogether, is what I cannot understand. Besides that, as we have said above, Paradise never by any chance means the separate state, but always the New Jerusalem, which is at present above with God, and, when it shall come down to the earth, will be the proper antitype of the Paradise of Eden. These are insuperable difficulties against the common interpretation of the passage, which has nothing in grammar to recommend it, but quite the reverse. The passage being rendered word for word is as follows: "Verily I say to thee To-day with me shalt thou be in paradise." Now even an English eye, looking at the sentence, would hesitate with which clause to connect the adverb to-day, and would be guided by the context and the meaning of the words; and if he should be told that Christ was not in Paradise on that day, nor until forty days after his resurrection, he would not hesitate for a moment in saying, Then surely the to-day must, and cannot otherwise but, be connected with the former clause, "I say unto thee.' And if even an English eye would thus reason and judge, much more would any one acquainted with the idiom of the Greek language, which hardly ever places the adverb before the verb and its adjuncts, but most commonly after; so that it is in the analogy of grammar to connect it rather with the first than with the second clause. In proof of this idiom, let me refer to these two passages: Matt. v. 11; which is, being translated out of the original, "Our daily bread give to us to-day:" Luke xi. 11; That there is born to you to-day a Saviour;" and from the Septuagint many passages of the like kind might be quoted. Better in grammar, therefore, I hold it, and absolutely necessary to preserve consistency with all the other Scriptures where the word Paradise is mentioned, is it to change the punctuation, and

write it thus: "Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with me in paradise." But how does this bear, when considered in connection with the penitent's request? It bears a most excellent and appropriate meaning. The thief asks to be remembered at a certain time, when Christ should be clothed with power and glory. Christ answers, "Now, even to-day, I remember thee." The thief thought that Christ's power was limited by the grievous conditions with which he was surrounded, and knew not of the twelve legions of angels which would have unsheathed their swords at his bidding; and Jesus, to teach him that he was dying a King, as well as about to come again, says to him, "Amen I say to thee to-day, Thou shall be with me in paradise" not only shalt thou be remembered there, but with me shalt thou be then, where I am, and as I am. And thus, as in all other petitions that were made to Christ, the answer far outwent the thing requested. The petition went into his ear a man's thought, but it came forth of his lips again enlarged beyond a mortals' narrow charity. On all which accounts, I find no difficulty in this passage, which is altogether confirmatory of our four general conclusions, That paradise is the name for the place in which Christ and the believer shall abide when he cometh in his kingdom. Let this, then, suffice for the resolution of the first question, What is to be understood by the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God? It is that which is mentioned in the first three chapters of Genesis in the type, and that which is mentioned in the last two chapters of the Revelations in the realized antitype. And now we come to the second question, What is meant by the promise, to him that overcometh, He shall eat of that tree?

When we would interpret this promise, like all the others, to signify something which to our glorified bodies shall stand in the same relation that eating doth to our present body of weakness and vileness, there ariseth I know not what feeling of disgust in the mind, as if it were a thing never for a moment to be entertained, but rejected on the instant with disdain. But a few words will convince us that this is worthy of a more calm and deliberate entertainment. If, indeed, there be associated with eating nothing but the idea of preserving ourselves from death by famine; if it be regarded as a badge of the mortal body; if it be

looked upon as necessarily followed by dishonourable and disgusting circumstances, then I wonder not that it should be rejected from our notion of that blessed state into which death enters not, nor flesh and blood, nor any thing which defileth. But if those circumstances which do now accompany it be not necessarily, but accidentally, its accompaniments; if it be not the badge of a mortal and corruptible creature, but is ever found to be as essential a function of man as is seeing or hearing, and exhibited in Scripture as performed by him both before the fall and after the resurrection, without inducing any after-consequences of pollution or disgust;-if, moreover, it be that only act whereby man possesseth the creation, and the vegetable creation bringeth its offerings of grateful help to man ;and, finally, if it be a commandment and privilege of God to man in his state of innocence and purity; and if, in its after-consequences in and upon the body, it be attended with all that is tasteful, fragant, and happy to ourselves and others all which we shall easily shew-then I think it will be the duty of my readers to bow to the good arbitriment of God, and to receive as a blessing and a reward that which as a blessing and a reward he hath promised

unto us.

I began this apology for God's word, and for God's ordinance of a tree of life in the New Jerusalem, with the condition of man above the Fall; to whom it was said by God, immediately upon his creation (Gen. i. 29), “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat ;" and again (Gen. ii. 16), "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat." Now, lest any one should say (for there is no limit to their ingenuity in wresting the Scriptures from their plain and obvious sense), that this is a constitution not given for man above the fall, but for man considered prospectively as about to fall, I have these two things to set forth. First, that the latter of these two injunctions is set in contrast with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is excepted from the

rest.

No one will say that this exception was made with a view to the state below the fall, seeing that it was in