But there is still another view in which our Lord's discourses deserve
to be considered; and that is, in their negative character,--not in what
they did, but in what they did not, contain. Under this head the
following reflections appear to me to possess some weight.
I. They exhibit no particular description of the invisible world. The
future happiness of the good, and the misery of the bad, which is all we
want to be assured of, is directly and positively affirmed, and is
represented by metaphors and comparisons, which were plainly intended as
metaphors and comparisons, and as nothing more. As to the rest, a solemn
reserve is maintained. The question concerning the woman who had been
married to seven brothers, "Whose shall she be on the resurrection?" was
of a nature calculated to have drawn from Christ a more circumstantial
account of the state of the human species in their future existence. He
cuts short, however, the inquiry by an answer, which at once rebuked
intruding curiosity, and was agreeable to the best apprehensions we are
able to form upon the subject, viz. "That they who are accounted worthy
of that resurrection, shall be as the angels of God in heaven.
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