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ing of this tabernacle signifies nothing more nor less than death. When we die, then the body is dissolved, and the soul will live without the body. Thus is most clearly taught the doctrine that the soul does not die with the body.

This text asserts the same doctrine when it declares that to be "at home in the body" is to be "absent from the Lord." While the earthly tabernacle, that is, the body, continued, he was at home in it, but it shrined his soul and prevented it from entering into that visible and sensible presence of the Lord, which it would enjoy at death, when the tabernacle should dissolve and leave the soul unencumbered amid the scenes of the spirit world. If the soul dies with the body, then to be at home in the body would not be absence from the Lord, but the only possible means of enjoying any degree of the divine presence.

Such an absence is to se The Apostle therefore be

This text, however, clearly, directly and fully asserts the conscious existence of the soul independent of the body when it repeats that, to be "absent from the body," is to be present with the Lord. As a matter of choice it is a preferable state to be absent from the body. cure the presence of the Lord. lieved and taught when Christians die, they enter more full into the presence of God than when living. If the death o the body be the extinction of existence, then there can be such thing as being absent from the body. The Aposi therefore evidently asserts that the soul leaves the body death, and if it be a sanctified soul it departs to be with th Lord.

The same Apostle declares, "I knew a man in Chri above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I cannot tel or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I kne such a man, (whether in the body, or cut of the body, I ca not tell; God knoweth,) how such a man was caught up in paradise."

This man no doubt was the Apostle himself, and there

10 doubt respecting the vision. He positively speaks of it as certain. He has doubts however about his position. He could not tell whether he was in the body, or out of the body. If there is no soul, no mind, no conscious existence only what is a part of and inseparable from the body there could have been no doubt upon the matter. He would have known that ne was in the body and not out of the body when he was caught up to the third heaven. The body and mind, or soul, are two distinct. things. From this text we also infer that the soul is capable of existing, of going to heaven, and of hearing unspeakable words without the body. The Apostle understood the truth on this subject, and if the soul cannot exist as 2 rational being without the body, he must have known it. He did not know that it could not, or he would have known that it was not out of the body when he was taken up into the third heaven. Now if the Apostle did not know that it could not exist out of the body, he must have known that it could, for one or the other must be true. If then he knew this fact, then it was what he taught and allusions to the subject in his writings.

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There is but one text more to which I will refer in this connection.. There are many others equally distinct and conclusive as those which I have presented. John, the beloved, the banished, declares, "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and they cried with a loud voice." This language is conclusive. It establishes the conscious existence of the soul after the death of the body. Such a conclusion is inevitable. The most.

skeptical attempt at evasion is to say it was only a vision, and does not describe literal facts. Admit it was a vision and it only makes the fact a literal one. Souls can never be seen but by some spiritual vision. The beloved disciple ays, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." "I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven.". He also says hat he then heard a voice saying, "Come up hither, and I will show you things which must be hereafter." And he

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immediately adds, "I was in the spirit," &c. In vision he saw the souls of the martyrs, "them that were slain." This must be a matter of fact view of those souls, or it was a false vision, and none of the representations are to be relied upon. The subject itself does not appear to be obscure. It is a plain one, as it was well understood that many had been slain for the word of God. The sight brought the disciple in view of the scenes of the spirit world. The door was open in heaven, and he in the spirit was taken up to receive a representation of things yet to transpire. In this state he "saw the souls of those who had been slain." Here it is stated that the souls of Martyrs exist separately from their bodies, and after their bodies had been devoured by wild beasts, or consumed in the fire. No reasonable construction can be put upon this passage which will invalidate its testimony in support of the deathlessness of the soul independent of the body. The vision is based upon the fact that souls exist in a disembodied state. It was from God, and the Apostle cer tainly saw something he calls the souls of "them that were slain." If they were not souls he has misnamed them, and God deceived him by presenting souls when no such things as souls can exist. This could not have been a representa tion, because if there are no such things as distinct souls, i would be impossible to represent them. In every stance of symbolical representations found in the Bible, rea existences are employed as symbols, and if in this we would make a symbolical representation we must admit the exist ence of souls in a disembodied state, which is the point con tended for as true.

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The testimony which has been produced I think conclu sive. Other texts might be quoted, but it is unnecessary I think the doctrine is clear that the lamp of human intelli gence does not go out in utter darkness in the hour of death but passes from this state of being where it sees and shine "through a glass darkly" to its paradisiacal home, wher

souls meet face to face, see as they are seen, and know as they are known.

The distinguishing characteristics of man's soul then, are reason, conscience, moral will, moral affections and deathlessness. These characteristics belong to none of all the brute creation; they are the natural image of God in man. Mankind are thus rendered accountable beings. The moral image of God in the soul consists in its holiness, the entire devotion of all its powers to the divine glory. The moral power of our progenitors from the commencement of their being until the transgression, was in a state of perfect allegiance to the holy law of heaven. This was man in his primitive state.

MAN IN HIS FALLEN STATE.

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This is a subject of deep and melancholy interest. we have presented has been preparatory to the consideration of what pertains to the more distinctive and peculiar themes of the Gospel. We have already considered man as created by God; we are now to behold him as a sinner-lost, dead, dark and depraved. As the doctrine of man's lost and perishing condition out of Christ is one with which the entire system of radical regeneration stands or falls, I must bespeak for its consideration a devout and earnest attention.

We read in the New Testament, that "The angels who kept not their first estate, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness." The first recorded transgression, therefore, extends back in the eternal ages among the higher order of intelligences, who fell from their allegiance to God. This rebellion was immediately checked by the Sovereign of the Universe. He cast his power of justice upon them and exiled them from his presence. Here was manifested necessarily God's eternal unreconciliation to sin. It must be so, and cannot be otherwise. Holiness and sin are forever opposite..

SIN'S INTRODUCTION.

In the history of the first transgression among men, we are informed that a malicious agency found its way to this earth, that it found its way to the bowers of Eden, where it became envious of the happy condition that innocence presented, and resolved to destroy its beauty and enjoyment. This agency began its work of seduction, and succeeded in seducing the first pair from allegiance to God, and involved them in ruin. This is the fall of man; and from that hour we have been a fallen race. The extent of power connected with this malicious agency was only to tempt; the responsible agents were human intelligences, and they yielded to the temptation when they should have obeyed God.

By this transgression a tide of moral evil was put in motion, which has swept as a flood over the whole earth, filling the world with rebellion against God-with idolatry and every species of crime-converting a paradise of joy into a vale of tears-and placing the hand of death upon every human bosom excepting the translated. There is evidently a connection of some kind between the first transgression. and that of Adam's posterity. The fact is plainly declared, and the connection, is such as to involve fearful and disastrous consequences. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned." This is the Apostle's record of the fact. Sin was thus introduced.

DEPRAVITY.

By depravity I would not signify that men are naturally and universally rendered so impotent by the first transgression, that they can have neither desire nor power to do any good or acceptable act till they are renewed by grace; or, that by depravity is meant such a state of weakness and

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