tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not "that we would be unclothed, but clothed

upon, that mortality might be fwallowed up of life."

Now this being "clothed upon," or, as it is expreffed, ver. 2. "clothed upon with "our house which is from heaven," certainly refers to the bodies which we are to receive at the refurrection; and, it is evident, from ver. 1. that the apoftle had no idea of any ftate between that and the present. "For we know, that if our earthly house of "this tabernacle were diffolved, we have a

building of God, an houfe not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And fince, in the fleep of death, we cannot be fenfible of any interval of time, how long. foever it may really be, the one will seem immediately to fucceed the other; fo that it will appear to us, that the very next moment after clofing our eyes in death, we awake at the general refurrection, which is a most fublime and alarming confideration.

Other fingle paffages of fcripture are produced in favour of the doctrine of an intermediate ftate, but none fo plaufibly as thefe, and with me they weigh nothing against the force of the general arguments above-mentioned.

As to the place where the virtuous, or the vicious, will be difpofed of after death, it is abfolutely unknown to us, efpecially the latter; for, as to the former, the apoftle Peter feems to intimate, that good men will inhabit this earth after it has been destroyed by fire, and been made habitable again in a more advantageous form, 2 Peter iii. 7. "The heavens and the earth which are now, "are referved unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly

"men." Ver. 10.

"The day of the Lord

"will come as a thief in the night, in "which the heavens fhall pafs away with a

great noife, and the elements shall melt "with fervent heat, the earth alfo, and "the works that are therein, fhall be "burnt up." Ver. 13. "Nevertheless

"we,

ἐσ

we, according to his promife, look for "new heavens and a new earth, wherein "dwelleth righteousness."

As the apostle fays, that "the earth is " referved unto fire against the day of judg

ment, and perdition of ungodly men;" it fhould feem, that the deftruction of this world by fire, is to have fome connection with the punishment of the wicked; and may, perhaps, be the immediate inftrument of it. If this be the cafe, there will be fomething more than figurative in the defcription of the torments of the wicked in the scriptures, as caused by fire, and this fire may terminate in the utter extinction of the wicked. But thefe, it must be acknowledged, are mere conjectures.

A learned friend, being diffatisfied with the preceding interpretation of the paffage in the Epifle to the Philippians, has fuggefted another, which, to gratify my readers, I shall here infert.

I freely own, that I am not fatisfied with this explanation of Phil. i. 21. firft, because the apoftle does not appear to me to write under any depreffion, but rather with triumph and exultation, ver. 20. " According "to my earnest expectation, and my hope, "that in nothing I fhall be ashamed, but "that, with all boldnefs, as always, fo now "alfo Chrift fhall be magnified in my body, "whether it be by life or by death."

Secondly, the apoftle does not feem to have confidered the two things by which he fays he was ftraitned as evil, but rather as good, and both of them as objects of earnest choice; fo good, that his difficulty was, which to prefer, whether to live to Christ, i. e. for the furtherance of the gospel, and the falvation of his fellow-creatures through him, which had long been the object of his ardent wishes, and earnest cares and labours, or to die and be with Chrift, which would be a gain to himself, and far better for his perfonal interest. From the whole preceding context, from ver. 12. the apostle ap

pears

pears to have had, at the time of writing, no painful feelings of what he had already fuffered, either from the malice of open enemies, or treachery of falfe friends, nor formidable apprehenfions of what might yet await him. He rather expreffes a quite different state of mind in those words, ver. 18. "And I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice;" a ftate of mind pretty much fimilar to that which he profeffed to the elders of Ephefus, Acts xx. 22.---24.

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However, I do not think it will follow, that the apostle meant by the words, to die is gain, and to depart and to be with Chrift, which is far better, to convey an idea of a fate of consciousness and pofitive happiness, which he should enjoy with Chrift from the inftant of his death till the refurrection. It is enough to juftify the expreffions, and his desire to depart, if we only suppose him to mean, that he fhould not only be exempted from farther danger, fuffering, oppofition, and treachery from others, but also from care, folicitude, and apprehenfions in himfelf about his own eternal interefts, which