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on this occasion the style of common conversation, as it is acknowledged to do in speaking of the apparent motion of the sun around the earth.

The second answer to the conclusion drawn from the passages cited above, is, that to understand them as importing the insensibility of the soul in its separate state, is contrary to other passages in which its conscious existence is most explicitly affirmed. When Stephen said with his dying breath, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," he manifestly supposed that his soul should immediately pass into the presence of his Saviour. Our Lord's promise to the penitent thief, "To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise," implies, if words have any meaning, that ere that day was finished, his soul should be in the same place with the soul of Christ, and should enjoy the blessedness which the word " paradise" suggests. In the fifth chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul proceeds upon the supposition, that believers, as soon as they leave this world, enter upon a happier state: "For we know, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The one event immediately follows the other, the entrance into the heavenly house, the removal from the earthly. The same thing is implied when he says, that he was "in a strait betwixt two," whether to remain upon earth, or "to depart and to be with Christ, which was far better,"§ Certainly he believed, that as soon as he departed he should be with Christ, as is clear both from the words themselves, and from his strait; for, if he had known that he was to remain in a state of insensibility for thousands of years, he could not have hesitated, for a moment, whether it would be better to sink into that state, or to continue in life, engaged in the most important services, and enjoying the delights of communion with God. To evade this argument, a distinction is made between absolute and relative time; the former meaning time considered in itself, independently of human perceptions; the latter, time as perceived by us. In respect of absolute time, it is granted that the saints are not with Christ as soon as they depart from this world; but they are so in respect of relative time, for however long the interval may be, they are not conscious of it, and it will seem to them but a moment. "But does the Apostle," to adopt the words of Dr. Campbell," any where give a hint that this is his meaning? or is it what any man would naturally discover from his words? That it is exceedingly remote from the common use of language, I believe hardly any of those who favour this scheme will be partial enough to deny. Did the sacred penmen then mean to put a cheat upon the world, and by the help of an equivocal expression, to flatter men with the hope of entering, the moment they expire, on a state of felicity, when in fact they knew that it would be many ages before it would take place? But, were the hypothesis about the extinction of the mind between death and the resurrection well founded, the apparent coincidence they speak of is not so clear as they seem to think it. For my part, I cannot regard it as an axiom, and I never heard of any who attempted to demonstrate it. To me it appears merely a corollary from Mr. Locke's doctrine, which derives our conceptions of time from the succession of our ideas; which, whether true or false, is a doctrine to be found only among certain philosophers, and which, we may reasonably believe, never came into the heads of those to whom the Gospel in the apostolic age was announced."

The distinction between absolute and relative time is totally inapplicable to the following words: "We are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." He had said before, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." I do not conceive it possible to express, in a • Acts vii. 59. † Luke xxiii. 43. + Verse 1. § Phil. i. 23. Campbell on the Gospels, Diss. vi. part ii. §. 23. 2 Cor. v. 8. & 6.

clearer manner, the immediate transition of the soul from its present habitation into the presence of Christ. What detains us from his presence, is our continuance in the body; what introduces us into it, is our departure from the body. Our absence from the body, and our presence with him, are closely connected; the latter succeeds the former without any interval. Would it have ever entered into the mind of any person of common sense, if there had been no theory to support, that, after all, hundreds and thousands of years might intervene? and would the Apostle have said, with any regard to truth, that, when "absent from the body, we should be present with the Lord," if he had believed that the soul, in a state of separation, is insensible, and does not recover its consciousness till it is reunited to the body, and consequently can then only be with Christ? It is evident to every reader, that the doctrine which he lays down in this passage, is exactly the reverse of the theory which we are combating.

On the whole, the Scriptures proceed on the supposition, that, as soul and body are distinct, the former is capable of happiness or misery in a separate state. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a proof of it. So are those passages which speak of the spirits of just men as made perfect; of the souls of the martyrs as alive; and of the departed saints as assembled in heaven. and engaged in the worship of God. Parables and prophetic visions are not to be literally interpreted; but the substance of them must be true, that is to say, the general instructions which they convey must be conformable to fact, or they would be no better than fables. It is unnecessary to trouble you with any more quotations, as, I presume, you are all satisfied that the hypothesis of the sleep of the soul is a wild fancy, founded on a misapprehension of some passages of Scripture, and directly contrary to its most explicit declarations. I have only to add, that some of the passages to which we have appealed, are equally conclusive against an intermediate state, as they teach the immediate entrance of the soul into the place where Christ now is, which all will acknowledge, is the heaven of heavens; for he ascended far above "all heavens, that he might fill all things."

We come now to the last hypothesis respecting the state of departed souls. It is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, that the saints do not immediately pass into glory, but first go into a place called purgatory, where they are purified by fire from the stains of sin, which had not been washed out during the present life. This doctrine, Protestants affirm, was unknown to the Church till the days of Gregory the Great, as he is called, about the end of the sixth, or the beginning of the seventh century; but the way seems to have been prepared for it by certain opinions, which prevailed prior to that period, as we learn from the writings of the Fathers. A strange notion was entertained by some respecting the fire which will burn up the earth and its works; that all should pass through it, that it would completely purify the bodies of those who were to be glorified, and that the more holy any person had been, he should feel the less pain from this process. With regard to the souls of the righteous, they believed, that they were in a place of rest and enjoyment, but that they should not be admitted to the beatific vision till the resurrection was past. Hence arose the practice of praying for the dead. Conceiving that they had not yet attained full felicity, the ancients thought that they might be benefited by their prayers, which would procure to them a greater degree of enjoyment. You will observe that, although these opinions were fit materials for fancy and superstition to work up into a still more extravagant form, they were widely different from the doctrine afterwards established by the Church of Rome as an article of faith.

The prototype of the doctrine of Papists on this subject is to be found in heathenism, from which they have borrowed thefr cumbersome apparatus of

The existence of a purga

ceremonies, and many of their religious opinions. tory is plainly taught in the writings of both poets and philosophers. In the sixth book of the Eneid, Anchises explains to his son, who had visited him in the Shades, the process which souls were doomed to undergo, before they could be admitted into the Elysian fields, that they might be freed from the stains of sin which adhered to them at death:

"Ergo exercentur pœnis, veterumque malorum
Suplicia expendunt."*

Some, he says, are stretched out to the winds; others are purified by being plunged into an immense whirlpool or lake; and others are subjected to the operation of fire

"Infectum scelus exuritur igni."t

In his dialogue entitled Phædo, Plato informs us that when men enter into the invisible state, they are judged. Those who are neither truly virtuous, nor consummately wicked, are carried away to the Acherusian lake, where, having suffered the punishment of their unjust deeds, they are dismissed, and then receive the reward of their good actions. Those who, on account of the greatness of their sins, are incurable, are cast into Tartarus, from which they shall never escape. Those who have committed curable sins-taoua áμaptμara—and have repented, must also fall into Tartarus, but after a certain period they will be delivered from it.

In both these passages, we have a very exact description of the Popish purgatory; and, as there is no trace of it in the Bible, we conclude that this is the source from which it has been derived. The resemblance will appear more striking, if you reflect that, in both cases, it rests precisely upon the same foundation, the curable and incurable sins of Plato answering exactly to the venial and mortal sins of Papists. By mortal sins, they understand those which alienate men entirely from God, and are worthy of eternal death; and they may be compared to those bodily wounds which, by their own nature, cause the destruction of life. Venial sins do not turn away the sinner altogether from God, although they impede his approach to him; and they may be expiated, because their nature is so light that they do not exclude a person from grace, or render him an enemy to God. Mortal sins are few, if I rightly remember, only seven, and even these are so explained away by their casuists, the most unblushingly profligate that the world ever saw, that the number is still farther reduced, and scarcely one is left upon the list. All other sins are venial, or pardonable; or, in the language of Plato, auаprημara lasiμa. They are expiated partly by penances in this life, and partly by the pains of purgatory, the place appointed for completing the atonement.

Another distinction has been contrived by the Church of Rome, with a view to support its doctrine concerning satisfaction for sin in the future state. The pardon of sin we understand to consist in the full remission of guilt or of the obligation to punishment, so that to the pardoned man there is no condemnation; but they take a different view. They affirm that there are two kinds of guilt, reatus culpa, the guilt of the fault, and reatus pœnæ, the guilt of the punishment. The former is remitted, and the latter is retained; or in other words, the penitent sinner is absolved from the sentence of eternal death, but is still subject to temporal punishment. Thus speaks the Council of Trent: "If any man shall say, that after justification the fault is so remitted to a penitent sinner, or the guilt of eternal punishment is so blotted out, that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be endured, in this life or in the

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future life in purgatory, before he can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. let him be accursed."* Now, Purgatory has been fitted up as a great penitentiary, into which the half-pardoned culprits are sent, that they may undergo the painful but wholesome discipline, by which they will be qualified for full restoration to the favour of God.

The notion of purgatory is so gross and palpably false, that the common sense of every man would reject it, where it is not perverted and overpowered by authority and prejudice. Can a person have any idea in his mind, when he talks of souls being purified by fire? Might he not, with equal propriety, speak of a spirit being nourished with bread and wine? The soul is supposed to be a material substance, (upon which alone fire can act,) contrary to the belief even of the abettors of purgatory, who admit, as well as we, the spirituality of its essence. This single remark is sufficient. The whole fabric tumbles to the ground. Purgatory, as explained by the followers of Antichrist, is physically impossible.

It is unnecessary to enter into a mihute refutation of an opinion which refutes itself, and is at variance with the dictates of reason as well as of revelation. It were easy to show that it is subversive of the atonement of Christ, of the doctrine of justification by faith, of the peace, and consolation, and hope of the people of God. The testimonies from Scripture, which have been already produced to prove that the souls of believers immediately pass into the presence of Christ, are all arguments against the purgatory of Papists. Yet, as those who profess to be Christians find it necessary, or at least expedient, to have some appearance of support from Scripture, they allege certain quotations from it, the sound of which seems to favour their sentiments.

They appeal, for example, to the words of our Lord concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost, that "it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come ;"t from which it is inferred, that some sins are forgiven in the world to come. It is, however, a little hazardous to build a theory upon the slender foundation of a solitary expression, especially when it admits of a different interpretation. Our Lord may be conceived to have adopted the current language of the Jews, who called their own state, the present world, and that under the Messiah, the world to come ; and in this view he asserts, that the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven under any dispensation of religion. It is plain that his design is to assert the unpardonable nature of the sin; and for this purpose he uses a phraseology which excluded all hope, as we say, that a thing will not be done either now or hereafter. It shall never be done.

Another passage, which is brought forward to support the notion of purgatory, is in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, where the Apostle, speaking of the different superstructures which men might erect upon the true foundation, says, "Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." "If any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." But nothing more can be gained from this passage in favour of the doctrine than an empty sound. This fire is for trial; the fire of purgatory is for punishment. This fire tries the works of men; the fire of purgatory purifies their persons. This fire tries all works whether good or bad; the fire of purgatory is kindled only for the latter. It is a figurative description of the effects of divine judgments, in sweeping away the false opinions which even good men may hold and publish in connexion with the great truths of the gospel; or, of the future judgment, when every work shall be made manifest, and some of the views and practices even of genuine believers, into which, although they hold Christ the head, they were betrayed through ignorance and prejudice, will be disapproved, although they themselves * De Justificatione, Canon, xxx. † Matth. xii. 32. 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15.

The fire

shall receive the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls. will consume the wood, hay, and stubble, but will not touch their persons. Other passages which are referred to are still less to the purpose.

The best argument for purgatory is the immense gain which it brings to the worthless church that patronizes it. The satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and the surplus satisfaction of the saints who suffered more than their sins deserved, are dealt out by the Pope and his underlings for the benefit of the living and the dead. But, although freely they have received, they are not disposed freely to give. They, no doubt, think it reasonable, that a treasure so precious should not be thrown away, and that, if souls are to be relieved from excruciating sufferings, their friends on earth should pay for so valuable a favour. Great efficacy is ascribed to masses and prayers said for them; but if there are no wages, there will be no work. The miserable beings in prison may remain there, and be tormented for ever, for aught that the vicar of Christ and his servants will do in their behalf, if there is not a more powerful motive than charity. Great sums of money have therefore been given, and rich endowments have been founded, to secure the prayers and masses of the priests; and such was their influence in past ages, that, if the civil power had not arrested their progress, they would have engrossed the greater part of the property of Christendom. The delusion was supported by a train of false miracles, and visions, and revelations, with which the legends of the Church of Rome are filled, and which one does not know, whether to despise for their silliness, or to abhor for their impiety.

LECTURE LXXXII.

ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

State of the Body after Death.-The Resurrection.-Proofs of it.-Believed by the Jews.Universality of the Resurrection.-Identity of our Present and Future Bodies.-Resurrection, the work of Divine Power.-Connexion between the Resurrection of Christ and that of the Saints.-The Nature of the Bodies of the Saints.-Opinion respecting a Partial Resurrection.

We have seen that all must die, the righteous as well as the wicked, for the grave is the house appointed for all living. Confining our attention to the former, we have inquired what becomes of their souls; and it has appeared, that as, being distinct from the body, they survive their separation from it, so they neither sink into sleep, nor enter into an intermediate state, but are made perfect in holiness, and immediately pass into heaven. Besides the explicit assurances which are contained in the Scriptures, we are led to this conclusion by the consideration, that the sleep of a disembodied spirit is inconceivable; that the purgation of it by fire is physically impossible; and that to suppose a process of expiatory discipline, is derogatory to the perfection of the atonement

of Christ.

The next subject of inquiry is the state of the body after death. It may seem sufficient to say, that it is committed to the grave, in which it putrefies, and after a certain time is reduced to dust. This is the popular view of the subject; and as the language commonly used is founded upon the words of Scripture, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,"* so it is sufficiently accurate for ordinary purposes. It is certain that all that is earthy in the

* Gen. iii. 19.

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