It is very easy to assert, that all the souls of the faithful departed
were kept in the prison-house of Hades, and to allege in its behalf an
obscure passage of St. Peter, to which many of the most learned and
unprejudiced Christian teachers assign a meaning totally unconnected
with the subject of departed spirits. But surely the case of Enoch's
translation from this life to heaven, making, as it has been beautifully
expressed, but one step from earth to glory, which St. Paul, in his
Epistle to the Hebrews, cites with a most important comment of his own,
requires to be well and patiently weighed. He was taken from the earth
by an immediate act of Providence, that he should not see death; and
before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
Surely the case of Elijah too, when we would ascertain the soundness of
this theory, must not be dismissed summarily from our thoughts, of whom
the book of eternal truth declares, that Jehovah took him {30} in a
whirlwind into heaven; his ascent being made visible to mortal eyes, as
was afterwards the ascension of the blessed Saviour Himself. Indeed the
accounts of Elijah's translation, and of our Lord's ascension, whether
in the Septuagint and Greek Testament, the Vulgate, or our own
authorized version, present a similarity of expression very striking and
remarkable.
On this subject we are strongly reminded, first, with what care and
candour and patience the language of Holy Scripture should be weighed,
which so positively declares, that Moses and Elijah, both in glory,
appeared visibly to the Apostles at the transfiguration of our blessed
Saviour, and conversed with Him on the holy mount: "And behold there
talked with Him two men, who were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory
(in majesty, as the Vulgate renders the word), and spake of his decease
which He should accomplish at Jerusalem;" [Luke ix.
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