xxi. 12), and sent them by angels.]
[Footnote 7: Colit Lazarum ilium ut vere sanctum
hominem.--Bellarm. De Ecd. Triumph, p. 864.]
Another very extraordinary inconsistency, arising from the same
solicitude, forces itself upon our notice, when the same author urges a
passage in Leviticus [Levit. xix. 13.] to prove, that the saints are now
admitted at once into the enjoyment of the presence of God in heaven,
without waiting for the day of final judgment. [Bell vol. ii. p. 865.]
"God (such are his words) commanded it to be written, 'The work of the
hireling shall not remain with thee till the morning;' therefore, unless
God would appear inconsistent with Himself, He will not keep back the
reward of his saints to the end of the world." How strange, that in the
same treatise [Ibid. p. 833.] this author should expressly maintain,
that the reward of Abel and Abraham, and the holy prophet and lawgiver
Moses, the very man who was commanded to write that law in Leviticus,
was kept back,--the last for a longer period than a thousand years; the
first well nigh four thousand years.
I mention these particulars merely to point out how very unsatisfactory
and unsound is the attempted solution of the difficulties which surround
on every side the theory of those who maintain, that the reason why we
have no instance of the righteous departed being invoked in the times of
the elder covenant is, that they were not as yet admitted into heaven,
but were kept in prison till the resurrection of Christ.
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