SERMON XXIV.

The Intermediate State.

MATT. xxii. 29.

"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power
of God."

THE doctrine of a resurrection of the dead was

conse

no new thing in the time of our Saviour; it is not peculiar to the Gospel. On the contrary, it was a doctrine which had been received commonly among the Jews from the time of Abraham, and no doubt was older still, and quently not confined to Abraham's descendants. We find in one of the oldest books of Scripture, of which the subject relates to times before the word of any written Revelation, a most clear and distinct avowal of faith in this doctrine, and in Him by whom it is to be accomplished. "I know," said Job, "that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God."

Nevertheless, it appears that in our Saviour's time there had arisen a sect, of considerable importance for their place and learning, who denied the truth of this doctrine. Some of them on one occasion put a case to our Lord, founded upon the

Scripture, which seemed to them to involve an impossibility in respect of it, and consequently to be conclusive against it. They supposed a woman to have been married, according to a provision of the law, to seven brothers in succession, and to have borne children to none of them ; they demanded whose wife of them she should be in the resurrection.

It is not my intention, brethren, at this time to call your attention so much to this capital doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and its reunion with the soul, for I am persuaded that ye clearly understand and fully know it. But from our Lord's reply to the Sadducees' question and His argument from Scripture, I would fain draw somewhat for our comfort and instruction. And they from whom the sudden stroke of death hath snatched some friend or dear relation whose affection they have experienced, on whose promise, worth, and loveliness they have fondly and naturally dwelt, will best appreciate the value of our argument. And all whom the sweetness and the sense of life hath touched to make them desirous of life, will in the bitterness of their distress assuredly derive the most solid comfort from the Saviour's promise of unceasing and immortal life. Such experience we have had, and such we shall have, as we are the children of faith. Yet would I, by the Divine grace and favour, raise my voice, feeble in itself, but strong in truth, lest any here should err through ignorance of the Scriptures and of the power of God, and be led away by the example of the wicked, who, while they are become

vicious and abominable in their doings, have learned to say in their hearts, "Tush, there is no God."

In the reply made by our Lord to the objection of the Sadducees, He first shewed their mistake in supposing the thing intended was a resurrection to the very same state and circumstance of being in which the dead formerly lived. Were this indeed the case, it had not been difficult to multiply arguments and cases which should as effectually bar the possibility of such a rising as that which they proposed. But such views proceed from the weakness and short-sightedness of man, conceiving of nothing but what he now sees, and relying upon himself and his own puny understanding rather than upon the Word of God. For the resurrection is indeed no such thing. When we rise we shall rise again with our bodies at once the same and changed; the same in form and substance, but mightily changed in conditions and properties and powers. For "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body;" and "this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality."

Our Lord charged also the Sadducees with error and ignorance, as "not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." "For," said He, "as touching the resurrection, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" in which, though the resurrection be not expressly mentioned, He argues its certainty from the divine Word. For, because

God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living, therefore the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, still live. And in truth, He observes, all-i.e. all who have departed this mortal life, as well as all who still live in it-alike live unto God; which indeed is the ground of our communion with departed saints, our brethren; for whom, therefore, we may well pray as for ourselves, that we may be all as one, and saved together through Christ. And as the separate spirit in which alone the dead now live is not the whole and perfect man, but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are so spoken of, they live indeed unto God, inasmuch as He regards with one view, past, present, and to come. They, therefore, and all men live to Him in their perfect and entire nature, seeing they all shall rise again with their bodies. The mortal body perishes for a time, but the spirit survives, to be reunited to the body in the day of the body's resurrection, and as a principle of identity, by which in the resurrection we shall be found indeed the very same conscious persons, though in another state, and each one receive the due reward of his deeds done in this. Otherwise indeed retribution had been imperfect, or rather impossible. Wherefore the resurrection of the body is certain, and being necessarily implied in the Scripture, our Lord added to the infidel objectors, "ye do greatly err."

The doctrine of an intermediate state, which is also implied necessarily by our Lord here in the text, is indeed near akin to that of the resurrection; and as that was rejected by the Jewish Sad

ducee, so this also has been denied by some and doubted of by others, and is much too little felt and thought of as a certain truth by every one of us at this day. And yet the Scripture is abundantly sufficient and clear to silence every doubt or misgiving that might arise within our breasts, and to satisfy every reasonable desire of information, even beyond what one might think; and to lead us to contemplate the day of our departure hence, which we know to be at hand to every one of us, as of greater and more immediate consequence than, while men pass the present idly, or thoughtlessly, or sinfully, as they too often do, it is possible for them to imagine.

As the wages of sin is death, and all are sinners, we all must pay the forfeit, once at least, with our present lives. Believing or unbelieving, we want no assurance of that. The experience of all that have gone before us, of all that is around us, nay, of the accidents of our own lives, tells us that we shall die. The Scripture, moreover, informs us that after death there is a judgment to come. And now at least is it explicitly declared that our bodies also shall be raised from the dead preparatory to that judgment; and that after death we shall again live, body and soul, the same persons, that walk in the fear of God or without His fear upon the earth now. This doctrine has been fully confirmed by miracle, and, above all, by the great miracle of our Lord's rising.

But we know not when this thing shall be. Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were. There may be as many ages or