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"creation. The mind, formed for inhabiting the glori"fied body, would thus be another mind than that "which formerly possessed the body when in a state of 66 mortality; the identity of the soul would be de"stroyed: a reward and punishment would be useless; "and a day of retribution unavailing." For why should you and I be any way concerned for the happiness or misery of the men who should ages hence be raised from our ashes, when the future beings could be in no respect the same in reference to us than as they were arbitrarily to be denominated the same, because their bodies were to be constituted of the same matter which now constitutes ours? Why should we regard any promised rewards or threatened punishments in another life, when they can only be enjoyments and sufferings of a new race of beings made out of the old materials which we dropped at our dissolution ?

The notion, then, of soul sleeping is not without danger, since it deprives religion of its most cogent motives, or at least weakens them excessively. How, you may ask, do any persons contrive to deduce it from Scripture? Entirely, I believe, from the circumstance that death is frequently in Scripture depicted under the image of sleep. Dead persons are there often said to be "fallen asleep:" and in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, we are told that " they "which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." But in such passages the word sleep is used in reference to the body; and I know not one in which the same metaphor is employed in allusion to the soul. In

Daniel, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the "earth shall awake," (w) applies manifestly to the body. More expressly still we learn in Matthew, "that the graves were opened, and many bodies of "saints which slept, arose." (x) And again, "David, "after he had served his own generation, by the will of "God, fell asleep, and was gathered to his fathers, "and saw corruption: but he whom God raised

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again saw no corruption." (y) Here that which is described as falling asleep is evidently the body, that which undergoes corruption.

Many other passages might be adduced to the same purpose.

It is also easy to quote or refer to various portions of the word of God which run directly counter to this opinion of the sleep of the soul. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, for example, we have a description of the state in which good and bad men are placed immediately after death, in which there is no allusion to a suspension of happiness or misery; but, on the contrary, it appears that directly after the termination of mortal existence, the poor man was comforted, the rich tormented. Whether the delight and the anguish are equal to what they will be after the day of judgment, when the soul and body will be inseparably united, or whether they are principally the pleasurable and the dreadful anticipation of future bliss and woe, we are not there taught: those points are, however, amply decided from other Scriptures; and we, at least, learn from this that the soul does not, at death, pas into a state where it is unconscious of pleasure or pain. (w) Dan. xii. 2. (x) Matt. xxvii. 52. (y) Acts, xiii. 36, 37.

Once more,

So again, when our Lord promised the penitent malefactor, on the cross, that he should "that day be with "him in Paradise," he could not mean that he should be conveyed thither to sleep. Nor can we imagine that he meant to say, as has been sometimes asserted, "verily I say unto you this day, thou shalt be with me "in Paradise." Either of these would be sadly trifling with the trembling penitent's feelings; and would be, besides, perfectly incompatible both with the character of the Saviour, and with the solemn and important purposes for which he was then suffering. the doctrine of the sleep of the soul is irreconcileable with the language of the apostle Paul: "I am in a "strait between two, having a desire to depart, and to "be with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless, to "abide in the flesh is more needful for you." (*) If, after death, the soul sleep till the day of judgment, and that be all that is meant by being with Christ, not only is the phraseology very strange, but the apostle fancies himself in a difficult dilemma, when a sensible man would decide without hesitation. On the one hand, he might be useful to the Church, and might invite many more to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls ;"

(z) Phil. i. 23, 24. Be it remarked, more for a practical purpose than to strengthen the argument above, that the apostle's "strait" was not whether it was good to live, or good to depart, because both were good; but he doubted which of the two was more desirable; that is, to do the work and promote the interest of Christ, or to die and serve his own interest by passing immediately to his reward. And hence, with regard to private Christians, although heaven must have our highest esteem, and be the object of our habitual best desire; yet earth must have its share, its appropriate share, of our daily thoughts, otherwise present duty will be neglected.

on the other, though he would die earlier, he would not earlier enter into glory, but would be rendered perfectly useless to those whom he loved as himself, and deemed "his joy, and crown of rejoicing." Lastly, in another passage of the same apostle, he says, "There"fore, we are always confident, knowing that while we "sojourn in the body, we are absent from the Lord;

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we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be "absent from the body, and present with the Lord." (a) Here the expression, "present with the Lord," as a necessary consequence of the reasoning, implies happiness immediately subsequent to death; whereas sleep is not happiness, but insensibility. These passages, which have been quoted again and again to refute the doctrine of soul-sleeping, will, I doubt not, fully suffice to convince you that that doctrine is directly contradictory to many of the most stimulating and cheering promises in the New Testament.

I must now guard you against the adoption of the still more dangerous error, respecting the duration of future punishment; and I shall call your attention the more seriously and earnestly to this subject, because it is far from a matter merely speculative, but one of the highest moment with regard to its practical tendency. The notion of punishment for a limited period has been espoused by many, in the earlier as well as the present times; but it was strongly opposed by the primitive Christians : "We say (observed Justin "Martyr) that the souls of the wicked being reunited "to the same bodies shall be consigned over to eternal (a) 2 Cor. v. 6, 8,

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“torments; and not, as Plato will have it, to the "period of a thousand years only: but if you will "affirm this to be incredible or impossible, there is no 66 help but must fall from error to error till the day "of judgment convinces you we are in the right." (b) They, who oppose the doctrine of the eternal suffering of bad men after death, have recourse to a variety of arguments; but they may be reduced to three, which I shall here consider.

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1. It is said that, since God is a Being whose ⚫ goodness and mercy are indisputably infinite, he may naturally be expected to overlook inconsiderable errors; and even when he does punish, to observe a proportion between offences and punishments, and "not punish temporary sins by inflicting eternal suffer'ing, because that is unjust: he is bound by his

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(b) Just. Mart. Apol. ii. § 8. The same sentiment is reiterated, and its tendency to stimulate to holy conduct most forcibly exhibited, in various parts of this admirable Apology. The contrary opinions, says the Apologist, are due to the suggestions of "evil spirits, who do all "they can to smother the notion of hell-fire." "But since all de"parted souls continue in sensation, and everlasting fire is treasured up "for the unrighteous, let me exhort you to lay these things seriously to "heart." Yet Dr. Estlin, p. 18 of his "Discourses on Universal

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Restitution," adduces Justin Martyr as an evidence in favour of his opinions! I request the serious attention of this gentleman, and of those who have repeated his erroneous assertion, to the following observations of Dr. Waterland :-" It should be considered that the moral obliquity "and turpitude of misquoting or misrepresenting authors, consists in "this: that it is a means to deceive the simple, to surprise the unwary and "unlearned (who must or will, receive things upon trust); it is taking 66 advantage of the blind side of human nature, laying a snare for such "readers (perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred) as read not with due care "and thought. I do not see but this very method of the Doctor is big "with all this mischief."

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