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man knew nothing of this, when he said, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain: but if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour, yet what I shall choose I wot not. For 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," Phil. i. 21-24. Had the Apostle known that he must have remained in a state of inactivity and uselessness, deprived of the communion of Christ and his Church, it would have been no difficulty with him to determine which was most eligible, to live or die; nor can it be imagined, that the desires of any of the saints would be so strong after a dissolution, as they sometimes are, when they say, we are willing rather to be absent from the body, if they did not believe that they should be immediately present with the Lord, 2 Cor. v. 8. This notion then, makes the condition of saints departed worse than that of the living; whereas, the wise man says, "I praised the dead, which are already dead, more than the living, which are yet alive;" Eccl. iv. 2. the reason is, because "blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them," Rev. xiv. 13. As soon as dead, they enter upon a state of happiness and joy, and are employed in praising God, and singing the Lamb's new song.

6. This notion is contrary to many places of Scripture, Eccl. xii. 7. 2 Cor. v. 1-8. which assures us, that the soul after death returns to God that gave it, has a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, into which it is received, when dislodged from the earthly house of its tabernacle, where it is present with the Lord, enjoying uninterrupted communion with him," in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore." This was what Christ promised the thief upon the cross, when he said to him, This day thou shalt be with me in paradise, Luke xxiii. 43. which would not have been true, if his soul slept with his body until

the resurrection. The Apostle John says, That he "saw under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held," Rev. vi. 9, 10. and we may be assured, that these souls were not asleep; for of them he says, "And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ?"

The advocates for soul-sleeping, make use of several passages of Scripture to support their opinion; particu larly such as speak of persons sleeping when they die, of which there are many instances, as 2 Sam. vii. 12. 1 Kings i. 21. Job vii. 21. Dan. xii. 2. 1 Cor. xv. 18. 1 Thess. iv. 14. John xi. 11, 12. 1 Cor. xv. 51. This is a way of speaking which was much used in the eastern countries, and is expressive of the death of the body, and its lying in the grave, because sleep is the image of death; so to sleep with the fathers, is to die as they did, and be buried where they were: and to sleep in the dust, or in the dust of the earth, or in the grave, is to die, be buried, and lie there, which can be understood of the body only, and not of the soul. When we read of any who fell asleep in Christ, or that sleep in Jesus, the meaning is, that they died in the Lord. When Christ said, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, he meant, that he was dead; and when the Apostle Paul says, We shall not all sleep, he designs nothing else than that we shall not all die, for those who are alive at Christ's coming, will be changed. If this mode of expression, and the Scriptural instances of it, prove any thing in this controversy, they prove too much; for if they prove that the soul sleeps with the body, they prove that the soul dies with it, since by sleep is meant no other than death.

Again, they urge all those Scriptures in favour of their notion, as Mat. xiii. 40, 41, 49, 50. and xxv. 46. Luke xiv. 14. 2 Tim. iv. 8. which represent the happiness of the saints, and the misery of the wicked, as not taking place until the last day, the end of the

world, the resurrection of the just, and the day of judgment, when the wicked shall go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal; and therefore, during that time, their souls must be asleep. To which it may be replied, That there is a twofold state of the righteous and the wicked, after death, respecting their happiness and misery; the one is inchoate, or but begun; the other is full, consummate and perfect. Now, it is of the latter that these Scriptures speak, but not of the former; and it is allowed that the righteous will not be in the full possession of glo. ry until the last day, when their bodies will be raised and united to their souls, and both together enter into the full joy of their Lord; nor will the wicked receive the full measure of their punishment until the judgment is over, when both soul and body shall be cast into hell. But then immediately upon death they both enter on a state of happiness or misery; the righteous, as soon as they are absent from the body, are present with the Lord; and the wicked are no sooner dead, but in hell they lift up their eyes.

Again, they endeavour to improve all those Scriptures to their advantage, as Psal. xxx. 9. and lxxxviii. 10-12. and cxv. 17, 18. Isa. xxxviii. 18. which describe men, after death, as incapable of praising God: such as these; "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence; for the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee. They that go down into the pit, cannot hope for thy truth." From which it is inferred, that if the souls of the saints, after death, are not employed in praising God, they must be asleep, or be destitute of sense and operation; for what work else can they be

employed in? To this it may be answered, That though the saints, whilst their bodies are in their graves and before the resurrection, do not, and cannot praise God in and with their bodies, of which only these Scriptures can be supposed to speak, since nothing but the body goes down into the pit, or is laid in the grave; yet their souls may and do praise God, in like manner as the angels do; with whom, in the book of the Revelation, they are sometimes joined and represented as with them, "glorifying God, praising his name, singing hallelujahs and ascribing salvation to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever," Rev. v. 11-13. and vii. 9-12. Like. wise, though the saints, after death, do not praise God before men, and in the midst of his church militant, as they did when in the land of the living, to which these passages of Scripture refer; yet they may, and do, praise him before the angels, and in the midst of the church triumphant; so that, from hence, there is no reason to conclude, that the souls of believers, after death, till the resurrection, are in a state of inactivity, or sleep with their bodies: therefore seeing the soul sleeps not, it is not what will be awaked at the resurrection, or be the subject of it. I

go on,

To prove that it is the body which dies, that shall be raised. This is not annihilated, or reduced to nothing by death; it is not a new, airy, etherial or celestial body, which shall be united to the soul at the resurrection, but it will be the same numerical body, which dies, that shall be raised again; all which, I hope to make appear, in the following part of my dis

course.

1st, The body is not annihilated, or reduced to nothing by death. This is asserted by Socinus, and his followers, but is contrary both to reason and Scripture. The body is not made out of nothing, nor will it be reduced to nothing; it consists of the four elements, and will be resolved into the same; and though it may, after death, pass under many changes and alter

ations, yet the matter and substance will always remain in some form, and in some place or another. Death is a separation, or a disunion of soul and body, but not an annihilation of either; by death the whole compositum is dissolved, but neither part of it is reduced to nothing; the dust, or the body, which is of the dust, returns to the earth, as it was, and the soul, or spirit, to God that gave it.-Death is sometimes expressed by returning to the dust; but to return to the dust, and be reduced to nothing, are two different things, unless it can be thought that dust is nothing. -It is sometimes signified by seeing corruption; but corruption is one thing, and annihilation another corruption supposes the thing in being, which is corrupted, annihilation takes away the being of it; notwithstanding corruption, the matter and substance may remain, though the form and quality may be altered, but annihilation leaves nothing.-Death is sometimes figuratively expressed by sowing seed in the earth, and its rotting and corrupting there by pulling down a house, and putting off a tabernacle. Now, though the seed sown in the earth dies, corrupts, and rots, yet it is not reduced to nothing; it neither loses its being, nor its nature, but in due time being quickened, buds and puts forth its seminal virtue; a house may be pulled down, and a tabernacle unpinned, and the several parts be separated one from another, and yet the matter and substance of them all remain and continue. If the body is annihilated by death, Christ will lose that, which is a part of his purchase, and what is united to him; and the Spirit his dwelling place for Christ has bought the bodies of his people, as well as their souls, and which, with their souls, are the members of him, and in which the Spirit of God dwells, as in his temple. Besides, if the body was reduced to nothing by death, the resurrection of the body would not be properly a resurrection, but a creation of a new body; and, indeed, this notion of annihilation is designed to make way for the introduction of that, the truth of which I shall presently examine.

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