pressly indicates the time at which we shall be with him; John xiv. 3. if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.'

The fifth text evidently favours my view of the subject: 1 Pet. iii. 19. by which also he went and preached to the spirits that are in prison,' literally, in guard, or, as the Syriac version renders it, in sepulchro, in the grave, which means the same; for the grave is the common guardian of all till the day of judgement. What therefore the apostle says more fully, iv. 5, 6.who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; for, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,' he expresses it in this place by a metaphor, 'the spirits that are in guard;' it follows, therefore, that the spirits are dead.

The sixth text is Rev. vi. 9. I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain.' I answer, that in the Scripture idiom the soul is generally often put for the whole animate body, and that in this passage it is used for the souls of those who were not yet born; unless indeed the fifth seal was already opened in the time of John; in the same manner as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Luke xvi. though Christ, for the sake of the lesson to be conveyed, speaks of that as present which was not to take place till after the day of judgement, and describes the dead as placed in two distinct states, he by no means intimates any separation of the soul from the body.

The seventh text is Luke xxiii. 43. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' This passage has on vari

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ous accounts occasioned so much trouble, that some have not hesitated to alter the punctuation, as if it had been written, I say unto thee to-day; that is, although I seem to-day the most despised and miserable of all men, yet I declare to thee and assure thee, that thou shalt hereafter be with me in paradise, that is, in some pleasant place, (for properly speaking paradise is not heaven) or in the spiritual state allotted to the soul and body. The same expedient has been resorted to Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. At the time of the earthquake, on the same day (not three days after, as is generally supposed) the graves were opened, the dead arose and came out, v. 52. xai §ɛ0óvtes, and having come out at length after the resurrection of Christ they went into the holy city; for so, according to Erasmus, the ancient Greeks pointed the passage; and with this the Syriac agrees: et egressi sunt, et post resurrectionem ejus ingressi sunt, &c. That spiritual state in which the souls as well as bodies of the arising saints previously abode, might not improperly be called paradise; and it was in this state, as appears to me, that the penitent thief was united to the other saints without punishment for sin.

* Hanc vocem præcedentibus jungendam esse statuit cum aliis Hesychius, O. 49. qui citantur Schol. Codicis 34. Theophylactus. ἄλλοι δὲ ἐκβιάζονται τὸ ῥῆμα, στίζοντες εἰς τὸ σήμερον, ἵνα ᾗ τὸ λεγόμενον τοιοῦτον· ἀμὴν λέγω σοι σήμερον· εἶτα τὸν μετ ̓ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ συνεπιφέροντες. Sever. Apologet 22.' Wetsten. ad Luc. xxiii. 43. See the remarks of Whitby on this passage, and the reason which he gives against the punctuation proposed.

'Græci sic distinguunt, ut appareat eos statim mortuo Christo resurrexisse; verum non egressos e monumentis, nec apparuisse, priusquam resurrexisset Christus. Unde resurrexerunt positum est pro revixerunt.' Erasmus ad Matt. xxviii. 55. He proceeds to quote Jerome, Chrysostom and Origen in support of this interpretation. Theophylact and Augustine are against it.

Nor is it necessary to take the word to-day in its strict acceptation, but rather for a short time, as in 2 Sam. xvi. 3. Heb. iii. 7. However this may be, so much clear evidence should not be rejected on account of a single passage, of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory interpretation.

The eighth text is the forty-sixth verse of the same chapter; into thy hands I commend my spirit.' But the spirit is not therefore separated from the body, or incapable of death; for David uses the same language Psal. xxxi. 5. although he was not then about to die into thine hand I commit my spirit,' while it was yet abiding in, and with the body. So Stephen, Acts vii. 59. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit....and when he had said this, he fell asleep.' It was not the bare spirit divested of the body that he commended to Christ, but the whole spirit and soul and body,' as it is expressed 1 Thess. v. 23. Thus the spirit of Christ was to be raised again with the body on the third day, while that of Stephen was to be reserved till the appearing of the Lord. So 1 Pet. iv. 19. 'let them commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing,'

The ninth passage is 2 Cor. v. 1-20. It is sufficiently apparent, however, that the object of this passage is not to inculcate the separation of the soul from the body, but to contrast the animal and terrestrial life of the whole man with the spiritual and heavenly. Hence in the first verse the house of this tabernacle' is opposed, not to the soul, but to a building of God, an house not made with hands,' that is, to the final renewal of the whole man, as Beza also explains it,*

* Arrepta occasione ex comparatione proxime præcedente, corpus istud, ut est in hac vita calamitosum, comparat cum caduco et fragili

whereby we are clothed upon' in the heavens, being clothed....not naked,' v. 3. This distinctly appears from the fourth verse: 'not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.' See also v. 5. now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God;' not for the separation of the soul from the body, but for the perfecting of both. Wherefore the clause in the eighth verse, to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,' must be understood of the consummation of our happiness; and the body' must be taken for this frail life, as is common in the sacred writers, and the absence' spoken of v. 9. for our eternal departure to an heavenly world; or perhaps to be at home in the body, and to be absent from the Lord,' v. 6. may mean nothing more than to be entangled in worldly affairs, and to have little leisure for heavenly things; the reason of which is given v. 7. 'for we walk by faith, not by sight:' whence it folit follows, v. 8. 'we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord; that is, to renounce worldly things as much as possible, and to be occupied with things heavenly. The ninth verse proves still more clearly that the expressions to be present' and to be absent' both refer to this life: wherefore we labour that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of God:' for no one supposes that the souls of men are occupied from the time of death to that of the resurrection in

tabernaculo; cui opponit cœleste domicilium, sic vocans firmam et pe. rennem ejusdem corporis in cœlo glorificati conditionem..... est autem etiam hic locus, de futura gloria, isti tractationi de ministerii dignitate insertus,' &c. Beza ad 2 Cor. v. 1.

endeavours to render themselves acceptable to God in heaven; that is the employment of the present life, and its reward is not to be looked for till the second coming of Christ. For the apostle says, v. 10. 'we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' There is consequently no recompense of good or bad after death, previous to the day of judgement. Compare 1 Cor. xv. the whole of which chapter throws no small light on this passage. The same sense is to be ascribed to 2 Pet. i. 13-15; as long as I am in this tabernacle,' &c. that is, in this life. It is however unnecessary to prolong this discussion, as there is scarcely one of the remaining passages of Scripture which has not been already explained by anticipation.

The fourth and last degree of death, is death eternal, the punishment of the damned; which will be considered in the twenty-seventh chapter.