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 pas-
sage, of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory interpretation.

The eighth text is Luke xxiii. 46, "Into thy hands I com-
mend my spirit." But the spirit is not therefore separated from
the body, or incapable of death; for David uses the same lan-
guage. 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 com-
mended 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 unto 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 appa-
rent, 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 taber-
nacle," 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, whereby "we are clothed
upon" in the heavens, being clothed, .... not naked. 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 verse 5, "now he that hath
wrought us for the self same thing is God;" not for the sepa-
rating 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, for our eternal departure to an heavenly world; or perhaps to be "at home in the body and to be absent from the Lord," 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 "for we walk by faith, not by sight:" whence it follows "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: 66 Wherefore we labor 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 endeavors 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 we must all appear be fore the judgment-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 judgment. 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.

66

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