Dr. WHITBY, in many parts of his "Commentary,"” and particularly on 2 Tim. iv. 8. advances many arguments from Scripture to prove that the final and complete happiness of the righteous does not take place until after the judgment at the great day. He considers the immediate ascent of the soul to Heaven after death, as an heresy contradicted by Scripture, and by the faith of the primitive ages. And he quotes numerous passages from the Fathers to prove that the souls of good men remain till the day of judgment, in a certain place out of Heaven, expecting the day of judgment and retribution.

The learned BINGHAM, in his "Christian Antiquities" (book xv. chap. 3. sec. 16.) observes, that it was the sense of the primitive Church, that "the soul is but in an imperfect state of happiness till the resurrection, when the whole man shall obtain a complete victory over death, and by the last judgment be established in an endless state of consummate happiness and glory."

The same doctrine of the separate state of departed spirits, is advanced by WHEATLEY, the author of the "Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer," and by JORTIN the author of "Notes on Ecclesiastical History," in their Sermons.

Dr. NICHOLLS, in his "Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer," asserts the same doctrine; interpreting the descent into Hell, of Christ's descent into the place of separate souls.

Dr. WALL, in his "History of Infant Baptism," (part 2, chap. 8.) goes at considerable length into a statement of the doctrine of the intermediate state, and of the opinions of the Primitive Christians on this point.

Dr. HAMMOND, in his " Annotations" on 2 Tim. i. 16. observes, "It is certain that some measure of bliss which shall at the day of judgment be vouchsafed the saints,

when their bodies and souls shall be reunited, is not till then enjoyed by them."

There can be no doubt that the Primitive Church held this doctrine of the intermediate state. The opinions of the Primitive Fathers are quoted by Bishop Pearson on the Creed; by WHITBY on 2 Tim. iv. 8.; by WALL on Infant Baptism, part 2, chap. 8., and by SIR PETER King in his Critical History of the Apostles' Creed. To their works, and particularly to the latter, the inquisitive reader is referred for information on this point.

III. The doctrine of a place of departed spirits to which the souls of the righteous and the wicked go after death, and where they remain in a state of happiness or misery, expecting their complete felicity or woe in Hea-. ven or Hell (yeɛvva), after the resurrection at the last day, is a doctrine of Scripture.

The leading arguments from Scripture have been already alluded to in the preceding address. It will be proper to recapitulate and amplify them.

In reasoning upon this subject the principle will be assumed, that, with the existence of all created spirits, is essentially connected the idea of locality. They must exist in some place. For, as Bishop Horsley observes, (Ser. vol. ii. 89-90) "the soul existing after death, and separated from the body, though of a nature immaterial, must be in some place: for however metaphysicians may talk of place as one of the adjuncts of body, as if nothing but gross sensible body could be limited to a place, to exist with relation to place seems to be one of the incommunicable perfections of the Divine Being; and it is hardly to be conceived that any created spirit, of however high an order, can be without locality, or without such determination of its existence at any given time to Ff2

some certain place, that it shall be true to say of it, "Here it is, and not elsewhere."

The following view of the state of the departed is also founded on the principle, that the soul between death and the resurrection, is in a state of consciousness. The contrary supposition is incompatible with the idea of spirit, of which consciousness seems to be an inseparable attribute. It is opposed by the uniform tenor of Scripture. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all the Patriarchs and Saints who are departed, are represented as "living unto God." Of course they must be in a state of conscious enjoyment. Moses and Elias appear to our blessed Lord on the mount of transfiguration, and converse with him. The Saviour promised the penitent thief, immediately after death, the reward of bliss with him in Paradise. And the Apostle Paul, blessed with the consolations of the Divine favour, and with the comforts of the Holy Ghost, looked forward to his state after death, when he should "be with Christ, and be present with the Lord, as far better."

The Apostle was not one of those philosophers, who think that the soul cannot exercise its functions, independently of its corporeal companion.

The expression sleep or sleeping so frequently applied in Scripture to the state of the dead, is evidently metaphorical; derived from the resemblance between a dead body and the body of a person asleep. The body is said figuratively to "sleep in the dust of the earth;" expecting a resurrection at that day, when the dead, both small and great, shall be summoned to stand before God. Hence the words cemetery and dormitory from the Greek and Latin words xoáw and dormio to sleep, are applied to the receptacles of the dead.

The comparison between the state of the dead, and a state of sleep, is beautiful and appropriate. Sleep is that

relaxation from the toils and afflictions of life, that short suspension of the powers of corporeal sense and action, which are succeeded by a more vigorous exercise of the animal and intellectual faculties. And so death, releasing us entirely from our conflict with the trials of this mortal éxistence, and suspending all the corporeal functions, is followed by a reviviscence of our whole nature, in the active delights and unalloyed glories of the heavenly

state.

The term sleep, applied to the state of the dead, denotes not unconsciousness, but a freedom from the cares and labours of life; and as it respects the righteous, expresses comfortable enjoyment, rest, security and felicity. It is a phrase by which, in all languages, the state of the dead is denoted. And yet the popular belief among all nations, assigned consciousness and activity to the departed.

In the SHEOL or Hell of the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel * the departed Monarchs rise from their thrones to meet and to hail the Kings of Babylon and of Egypt.

In the dns, hades, or hell of Homer, Ulysses, having trod "the downward melancholy way," converses with the shade of his mother, and the "forms of warriors slain +." And Virgil represents Æneas, in "faucibus orci," in the jaws of hell, in the entrance of Orcus, or the receptacle of the dead, as encountering "variarum monstra ferarum," "of various forms unnumbered spectres." And having passed the bank "irremeabilis undæ❞ of the "irremeable flood," he holds converse with the shades of the mighty dead.

*Isa. xiv. 9. Ezek. xxxi, xxxii.

+ Odyss. xi.

‡ Æneid vi. 273.

-juvat usque morari

Et conferre gradum et veniendi poscere causas

“The gladsome ghosts—

"Delight to hover near, and long to know,

*

"What business brought him to the shades below."

The Jews and the Heathens had no idea of the state of the departed as a state of insensibility and inaction.

There may be a metaphysical difficulty how the soul can exist in an incorporeal state. But does not God, who is a spirit, exert an infinite intelligence and activity, independently of material organs? Did not Jesus, the eternal Word, exist in the spirituality of the Godhead before his incarnation? Does not the Holy Spirit exert his quickening power without the aid of corporeal instruments? Are not angels those ministering spirits ever occupied in fulfilling the commands of the great Creator -And what is there corporeal in them? When we can account how the infinite and eternal persons of the Godhead, and how the countless numbers of angelic spirits act independently of body, we may expect to determine in what mode the soul acts without the aid of corporeal organs.

But can she not thus act? Undoubtedly. Angelic spirits thus exert intelligence and activity. And the soul thus acts in her present state. Abstraction often renders her forgetful of her corporeal companion, and almost independent of bodily functions. While the body is locked in the benumbing embrace of sleep, the soul wakes, the soul is active, the soul dreams. And may there not be dreams in the sleep of death!

"To die, to sleep –

"To sleep! perchance to dream.”

*Eneid vi. 487.