power over the devil, either in acts of expulsion or in working any miracles, till he had repulsed him in the above temptations. I certainly do not think his divine power was now engaged, nor am I prepared to say I fully comprehend the extent of his human power. His bitter cry in his last agonies favours the idea that his human nature alone was then in the conflict: but that his divine nature was embarked in the miracles and prophecies, is evident enough. All the miracles of the Old Testament and those of the apostles were expressly worked in the name of the Lord Jehovah and the Lord Christ; and every prediction was prefaced with 'Thus saith the Lord'. But Christ did all in his own name, saying 'I and my Father

are one.'

"How did the devil proceed during the rest of Christ's ministry?"

He looked on in sullen dismay, and saw his empire falling like lightning from heaven, till the last grand struggle, when permission was given him to try the Saviour to the uttermost.

"What do you consider the aim of the last trial or temptation?"

It was undoubtedly a power granted the enemy of mankind to try the Saviour till he himself was satisfied of fair-play. We may paint to ourselves a repetition of the scene which preceded Job's

trials for God must and will be justified. With respect to the Saviour, it was a thorough sifting of his whole composition. The whole process was artfully contrived to plumb every depth and lurking place of the soul for vanity and pride. Had any been therein, it would have been brought out in some vindictive anger, some desire of vengeance, some hint or ostentatious display of a power if he chose to exert it, by which he could deliver himself; but nothing appeared, and he was victorious.

"What was it with respect to the devil?"

Undoubtedly, along with the hopes of victory, he had a secret satisfaction, as in the case of Job, in the personal suffering and corporeal pain of the Redeemer. Malignity against the welfare of the human race, pure misanthropy, is the chief attribute of the devil. While he urged on the Jews, no doubt he was flushed with the hopes of victory; for he might well deem it no small success to have so exalted a personage in his empire of the grave and death. But in this he was outwitted, for if Christ was put to death in the flesh, he was quickened by the Spirit. It was now that he first perceived he had brought in the spoiler who would lead both him and this his captivity captive. Like Sampson with the gates of Gaza, Christ carried away the barriers of the grave and gave all

the inmates the assurance that they should hereafter go free.

"And what with respect to mankind?"

That in whatever circumstances they approach death, the approach is terrible, for even the Redeemer approached it in agonies of terror; and the only way to make it less so, is a previous life of preparation; so as to make him our friend, who thus made the breach upon the empire of death, and will hereafter completely break it up and carry it away.

CHAPTER VIII.

REDEMPTION.

1. 66 You say that Christ was put to death in the flesh, but was quickened by the Spirit; that he was included in the empire of death and the grave, but that, Sampson-like with the gates of Gaza, he escaped in triumph: what do you call the place whither he went, this empire of Satan or Death?"

It is sometimes called the Intermediate State, as being the abode of the departed souls till the general resurrection. It is that prefigured by the abode of Noah in the ark, and that alluded to by our Saviour in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: for the Jews were accustomed to distinguish it as a regaining of Paradise; and as Abraham was the head of their nation, they called the portion of it set apart for his true children 'Abraham's Bosom.'

"Do you suppose that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a revelation of the true nature of the intermediate state?"

No: it may be so. But our Saviour only spake according to the prejudices of the Jews. He knew they were accustomed to think thus of the state of

the departed immediately after death. His aim was to establish the certainty of a future state with rewards and punishments, not to reveal its natural history. The same may be said of his answer to the penitent thief on the cross. He spoke to him according to his notions of the future state, to comfort him and to assure him of its reality, but not to enlighten mankind concerning its nature.

"What inference do you draw from these passages respecting the intermediate state?"

That it is a state of consciousness, of positive pleasure or pain, in opposition to those who allow an intermediate state, but affirm it to be a state of unconscious sleep.

"What arguments do they advance to reconcile us to the cheerless thought of passing so many thousands of years in such a waste of existence?"

That as there is no consciousness, the moment of death and that of the general resurrection will appear one and the same; and therefore there can be no loss.

"But as the resurrection is to be a resurrection of the body, the future state after the resurrection will be something of a corporeal existence, though glorified; in what state is the soul with respect to its activity while the body is dust and ashes?”