of Time without
Bounds. All darkness, falsehood, suffering, shall flee utterly
away, and the whole universe be filled by the illumination of good
spirits blessed with fruitions of eternal delight. In regard to
the fate of man,

Such are the parables Zartushi address'd To Iran's faith, in the
ancient Zend Avest.

36 Windischmann has now (1863) fully proved this, in his
Zoroastrische Studien. Spiegel frankly avows it: Avesta, band
iii., einleitung, s. lxxv.

37 Rhode, Heilige Sage des Zendvolks, s. 467.

CHAPTER VIII.

HEBREW DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

ON the one extreme, a large majority of Christian scholars have
asserted that the doctrine of a retributive immortality is clearly
taught throughout the Old Testament. Able writers, like Bishop
Warburton, have maintained, on the other extreme, that it says
nothing whatever about a future life, but rather implies the total
and eternal end of men in death. But the most judicious,
trustworthy critics hold an intermediate position, and affirm that
the Hebrew Scriptures show a general belief in the separate
existence of the spirit, not indeed as experiencing rewards and
punishments, but as surviving in the common silence and gloom of
the under world, a desolate empire of darkness yawning beneath all
graves and peopled with dream like ghosts.1

A number of important passages have been cited from different
parts of the Old Testament by the advocates of the view first
mentioned above. It will be well for us to notice these and their
misuse before proceeding farther.

The translation of Enoch has been regarded as a revelation of the
immortality of man. It is singular that Dr. Priestley should
suggest, as the probable fact, so sheer and baseless a hypothesis
as he does in his notes upon the Book of Genesis. He says, "Enoch
was probably a prophet authorized to announce the reality of
another life after this; and he might be removed into it without
dying, as an evidence of the truth of his doctrine." The gross
materialism of this supposition, and the failure of God's design
which it implies, are a sufficient refutation of it. And, besides
the utter unlikelihood of the thought, it is entirely destitute of
support in the premises. One of the most curious of the many
strange things to be found in Warburton's argument for the Divine
Legation of Moses an argument marked, as is well known, by
profound erudition, and, in many respects, by consummate ability
is the use he mak