the grave.

tion.

Resurrec- to have been a general opinion among the Pharisees; is taken from death, and the victory over our souls froni Resurrection. for although it was a notion of the sect of the Saddu

cees that there was no resurrection, neither angel nor Others have conceived the human soul :as naturally
spirit, yet the Pharisees, we are told, confessed both. immortal, and as setting death and the grave at dees
And this assertion is plainly confirmed by St Paul him fiance. Adam, they say, died only in a figere; and
self when his countrymen accused him before Felix. “I only from the consequences of this figure, which means
confess unto thee (says this eminent apostle), that after sin, has our Lord saved us. In this sense Adam died
the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God on the very day in which he had sinned; or he died li-
of my fathers, believing all things which are written in terally in 1000 years, which with the Lord are as one
the law and in the prophets, and baving hope toward day. To these arguments their opponents replv, What
God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall then is the victory over death and the grave ? You must
he a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and un still have recourse to a new figure, and betake yourselves
just."

to the second death ; though, after all, where is your or the This resurrection of the dead to jndgment, though grave? To this it is answered, that the soul of itself is Christians, not perbaps in the same sense in which the old Phari- naturally immortal, and that it depends not either for

sees conceived it, is now generally and almost univer- its existence or the exercise of its faculties upon the
sally (L) maintained by Christians (M). Yet the Chri- body; that the properties of matter, as figure, magni-
stians differ considerably with respect to the nature of the tude, and motion, can produce nothing that is like to
human soul. Some imagine that this spirit is naturally perception, memory, and consciousness. This is true,
mortal, and that it is propagated along with the body rejoin their opponents ; but besides these few properties
from the loins of the parent. In support of this opinion, of matter, which are only the objects of that pbilosophy
it has been observed that a great number of insects and which has lately and properly been termed mechanical,
plants transfer their lives to their posterity, and die soon the chemical philosophy has discovered other properties
after the act of propagation ; that after this act the of matter; las found that matter is of various kinds;
vital principle is in the most vigorous of plants and that it very often does not act mechanically ; that it
animals always found to be much exhausted ; and that acquires many new properties by combination ; and that
Tertullian a father of the church, in attempting some no man, till farther experiment and observation, should
experiments of the kind, became subject to a momentary venture to assert bow far the soul is or is not dependent
blindness, and felt a portion of his soul going out of on its present organised system. The others, proceeding
bim (N).

on their hypothesis, maintain tbat the soul, as being im-
These imagine that immortality was only condition- material, is not divisible; and though the body of a frog
ally promised to man; that Adam forfeited this immor- may live without the head for a whole day; though
tality by his disobedience; and that Christ has restored the body of a tortoise may live without the head for a
os to the hopes of it again by bis sufferings and death: whole month : though a human limb may for some mi-
for as in Adam we have all died, so in Christ, they nutes after amputation continue to perform a vital mo.
say, we shall all be made alive; and that now the sting tion, independent of a brain, a stomach, or a heart;

and

risce.

tion; and some are not even for allowing them, except they be men of piety and virtue. To render this re

surrection probable, the rabbins say, with some of the Mahometans, that there is a certain bone in the body See Pho- wbich resists putrefaction, and serves as a seed for the next body *. What that bone is, is of no great moment,

as any bone, we believe, in the skeleton will answer the purpose equally well. With respect to the manner of
this resurrection, the learned Hody has quoted several opinions of the Jews, and among others, that of the Chal-
dee paraphrast of the Canticles, asserting that the prophet Solomon had said, “ When the dead shall revive,
it shall come to pass that the Mount of Olives shall be cleft, and all the dead of Israel shall come out from thence ;
and the just too that died in captivity shall come through the way of the caverns under the earth, and shall
come forth out of the Mount of Olives.” He has likewise quoted Saunderson's Voyage to the Holy Land, in
which, we are told that many of the Jews, by their own account, are to rise up in the valley of Jehoshashat;
and that in the rowling or devolution of the caverns, those at a distance must scrape their way thither with their
pails.

(1) The sect of the Quakers explain it figuratively.

(M) The last quoted author + (Resurrection of the same Body, asserted from the traditions of the Heathens,
the ancient Jews, and the primitive Church) has endeavoured to show that ibis doctrine, in the same sense as we
understand it, has been asserted by the ancient Magi, and by the present heathen Gaurs of Persia, the relics of
the ancient Magi; by some of the ancient Arabians; by some of the Banians of India ; by the present inhabi.
tants of the island of Ceylon, of Java, of Pegu, of Transiana ; by some amongst the Chinese; by the Arrierians
in Guinea ; and by the ancient Prussians. The proofs which he brings, it must be confessed, are not however
always very satisfactory. It appears, even from his own account, that some of these had derived their notions from
certain Christians, Mahometans, or Jews. But the reader may judge of the great accuracy of his ideas from his
bringing old Pythagoras and the Stoics, and even Democritus and Epicurus, in support of the same or a similar
opinion.

(N) In illo ipso voluptatis ultimæ æstu quo genitale virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque sentimus
exire, utque adeo marcescimus et devigescimus cum lucis detrimento.
Vol. XVII. Part II.

+

SE

Hody.

Resurrec and though the parts of a plant, a polype, or a worm, dency of the fancy to work and to summon vp spectrex Resim, tion. may survive their separation and become living wholes*, when the world around us is involved in darkness, it

yet the soul, they observe, is not to be compared with has also been imagined, that these spirits delight in the * See Po

the vital principles of plants and animals, nor ought to night and shadow of death (P), or have been prohibited lupus and

And be divided on reasons so slender as those of analogy. frou enjoying the exhilarating beams of day. Reproduction, Even granting, they say, that the soul were not natu hence we are told, rally immortal of itself; yet the justice of Gol, which

That in the dismal regions of the dead
is not remarkable for its equal distribution of rewards

Th’infernal king once rais'd his horrid lead;
and punishments in the present world, is bound to make
some amends in the next. And to this again their op-

Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay

His dark dominions open to the day,
ponents answer, as to the equal distribution of justice

And pour in ligbt.
in a future world, of that we are assured on much bet.
ter grounds than

ally of your's : our Lord has declared The nations, therefore, who have fancied a general it in express ternis; and whether the soul be immortal receptacle for the dead, bave thus been induced to place or not, we can easily believe what he said is true, as it in the west (a), where the night begins and the day we kuow himn whom we have trusted.

ends. That part of the world which, in the division of These, with Plato, suppose, that the soul is here as in his father's dominions, fell to Pluto the inferna! god, prison ; though how or at what time it should first have and where, according to Lactantius, Satan bolds the come into this dungeon they have not determined. They empire of darkness, the Friendly Islanders have placed in the have only agreed, that upon its enlargement all its to the westward of a certain island which they call Tc. Heste faculties are to receive an increase of power; and “ba jee ; some tribes of American Indians, in a country beving already equipped it so exquisitely with conscious. yond the western mountains ; and Homer, somewhere ness, activity, and perception in and of itself, and put to the westward of Greece at the boundaries of the it into su complete a capacity for happiness and misery ocean, in a separate state,” their bypothesis does not require them to admit the least occasion for a resurrection ;

Where in a lonely land and gloomy cells

The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells;
which accordingly is said to have been an article of

The sun ne'er views th' uncomfortable seats
Baxter's creed (o),

When radiant be advances nor retreats.
A third opinion, which extends likewise to every spe-
cies of plant and animal, is, that all souls were created at

Unhappy race! whom endless night invades,
once with bodies of ether; that these bodies, orcupying

Clouds tlie dull air, and wraps them round in shades. only a very small space, were packed up in their first Another opinion entertained by the Greeks and some Under the progenitors, and there left to be afterwards evolved and other nations was, that the place of departed spirits is earth clothed with matter of a grosser kind by acts of gene under the earth. This opinion is frequently mentioned ration and consequent nutrition. For the proof of this in Homer, in "irgil, and alluded to by the Jewish protheory we are referred to the small animals seen through phets. As for the prophets, we know the circumstance the microscope, and likewise to those which are suppo from which they borrowed it: it was borrowed from sed to escape even microscopic observation; but, above those subterraneous vaults where their chiefs were buall, to the eggs of insects, which, though scarcely per ried, and which bave been described by modern travelceptible, yet contain in embryo a future caterpillar lers. In the sides of these caverns there is ranged a and all its coats, and within these a future butterfly with great number of cells; and in these cells the mighty lay its legs and wings. These philosophers can perhaps ac in a sort of state, with their weapons of war and their count for the general taint of original sin in some other swords at their head. To these kinds of Egyptian ceway than has hitherto been done. We have only to meteries Ezekiel alludes, when he says, “ that they shall add, that on their scheme the resurrection is not a mat not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumter that seems to be indifferent.

cised, who are gone down to hell with their weapons of Place of

The next thing that falls to be considered is the place war, and they have laid their swords under their head." the dead of the dead. From a natural enough association of And Isaiah, when thus speaking of the prince of Babynear to the ideas, an opinion bad very early prevailed, that the spi lon, “ Thou shalt be brought down to bell, to the sides grave.

rit continued near to the body; and the offerings there of the pit. Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to fore intended for the dead were by most nations pre meet thee at thy coming ; it stirreth up the dead for sented at the grave; and that on which the departed thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it bath raised

spirit is supposed to rest is always placed near the grave up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All 23 in China.

the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, In dark From the dreams of the night and the natural tep every one in his own house."

Many

22

ROS.

(0) An Historical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State, and the Separate Existence of the Soul.

(P) Some Turkish ghosts are an exception, who use lamps or candles in their tombs, when their friends choose to supply them with these luxuries.

(a) 'l'he west and darkness are synonymous in Homer. 2 Qoros, ou gae o' ideer oan 30006, oud oma, naug. (Odys.) « Ò my friends ! which is the west, or which is the east, the place of darkness, or that of the morning, we cannot learu."

Resurrec Many of the ancient fathers of the church asserted brute, that man might suffer injuries similar to what he Pesurrection. only, that the dead are now in abditis receptaculis, or had inflicted, and the brute retaliate what he had suf tion. in certain hidden and concealed places.

fered. Others have confined the human soul in plants 26

Orpheus, Origen, and some others of the fathers, In hidden

and in stones; and Bell of Antermony mentions an receptacles.

with the ancient Caledonian bard Ossian, and the learn Indian, who supposed that his ancestors might be in 27 ed Dodwell among the moderns, imagined that the son), fisbes.

31 In the air. when it left the body, went into the air, and resided The notions of Homer were probably those of many

of According somewhere between the surface of the earth and the his time. But these notions were dismal indeed. When to Homer. 28 moon.

his bero Ulysses visited the shades, many of the ghosts In new bo Those who believed in a transmigration caused the seemed to retain the mangled and ghastly appearance dies.

soul at death only to enter a new body, and kept the which they had at death; and, what is worse, seemed
departed always with the living. This creed has been to be all starving with hunger, innumerable multitudes,
found in India, in Egypt, in Mexico, and in all those with loud sbrieks, flocking to the steams of his slain vic.
countries where picture-writing has been much used. tim as to a most sumptuous and delicious banquet.
In this species of writing, the same picture is on fancied
analogy transferred by metaphor to signify either a god For scarcely had the purple torrent flow'd,
or a man, a brute or a plant; and in those countries And all the caverns smok'd with streaming blood,
where it was practised, men had usually their names When, lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts
from animals, and were represented by their figure in Thin airy shoals of visionary ghosts ;
writing (R). From this last stage of the process, a Fair pensive youthis, and soft enamour'd maids,
transmigration was easily supposed : and hence we hear And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkl’d shades.
of the gods of Egypt wandering about like so many va Ghastly with wounds, the forms of warriors slain,
grants in brute shapes, and of princes being translated Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train.
into stars, because a star was their emblem in bierogly. These, and a thousand more, swarm'd o'er the ground,
phic, or stood for their name in figurative language. And all the dire assembly shriek'd around.
And, in like manner, we see, from the specimen of this Ulysses saw, as ghost by ghost arose,
character which is still preserved on celestial globes, All wailing with unutterable woes.
how the beavens at first came to be filled with bears, Alone, apart, in discontented mood,

scorpions, and dragons, and with a variety of other ani. A gloomy shade, the sullen Ajax stood;
299
mals.

For ever sad, with proud disdain he pin’d, State of The opinions concerning the state of the dead are And the lost arms for ever stung his mind. the dead still more numerous than those concerning the place according where they reside. Rude nations have generally thought

Upon Ulysses saying to Achilles, to some rude ns

that the future state is similar to the present; that Alive, we bail'd thee with our guardian gods; tions. plants, animals, and inanimate things there, have their And, dead, thou rul'st a king in these abodes; shades: and that these contribute as much to the plea

The shade replied:
sures and conveniences of the dead as their realities do
to the living ; tbat husbands have their wives (s), Talk not of ruling in this dol'rous gloom,
lovers their mistresses, warriors their battles, buntsmen Nor think vain words (he cry’d) can ease my doom ;
their sport; and that all their passions, amusements, Rather I choose laboriously to bear
and business, are the same as formerly. For this rea A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,
son, that the dead may not appear un provided in the A SLAVE TO SOME POOR HIND THAT TOILS FOR BREAD,
next world, like the ancient Gauls, some tribes of In THAN LIVE A SCEPTER'D MONARCH OF THE DEAD.
dia, America, and Africa, bury with them in the same

grave their wives, their arms, their favourite animals, In this gloomy region no one is rewarded for his vir-
30
and their necessary utensils.

tue, nor is punished for bis crimes, unless committed, According The ancient Egyptians, who believed in transmigra- like those of Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion, against the to the E. tion, supposed that the soul was after death obliged to gods. All indeed are classed into groups, from a cergyptians,

animate every species of bird and quadruped, of reptile tain analogy of age, sex, fate, and disposition; but all
and insect and was not to return to a human form till appear to be equally unhappy, having their whole heart
after a period of 3500 years. Others have confined and affections concentrated in a world to which they are
their transmigrations to particular animals, as the soul fated never to return.
of man to the human form, and the soul of the brute to The Elysium of Homer is alloted only for the rela-
the bodies of the species to which it belonged. Some tions and descendants of the gods ; and Menelaus goes
have changed the brute into man, and man into the to this country of perpetual spring (T), not as a person

of

(R) A military gentleman who resided at Penobscot during the late American war, assured us that the In-
dians, when desired to subscribe a written agreement, drew always the picture of the object or animal whose
name they bore. But for fuller information on this subject, see Clavigero's History of Mexico.

(s) The question which the Sadducees put to our Saviour about the wife of the seven brothers, is a proof that
the Pharisees thought there was a marriage and giving in inarriage in the future state, and that it was some-
what similar to the present.
(T) Homer sends the ghost of Hercules to the shades, while Hercules himself is quaffing nectar with Hebe in

5 E 2

in

32

ments,

33

buted ac

Resurrec. of superior merit, but because he had married the daugh The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal, Beste tion. ter of Jove.

Loth to confess, unable to conceal,
Even long after a future state bad become the scene From the first moment of his vital breath,
Becomes a

of rewards and punishments, these for the most part To the last hour of unrepenting death.
piace of re were distributed, not according to moral, but physical
wards and distinctions. With the Greeks and Romans, the soul

The spirits of the dead no longer mingle together as punishwas condemned to many calamities for a number of

in the less enlightened period of Homer; the vicious years, if the body was not honoured with funeral rites.

ars dismissed to a place of torments, the virtuous sent to Among the Scandinavians, a natural death was attend-regions of bliss : indifferent characters are confined to a ed with infamy, while a violent death, particularly in

limbus *; and those who are too virtuous for bell, but per battle, gave a title to sit in the halls of Odin, and to

too much polluted with the stains of vice to enter hea.dixenfrás quaff beer from the skulls of enemies. Among the

ven without preparation, are for some time detained in a Tascalans, it was only the great that were permitted purgatory. to animate birds and the nobler quadrupeds ; the lower For there are various penances enjoin'd,

ranks were transformed into weasels, into paultry And some are hung to bleach upon the wind; pergate These 'at beetles, and such mean animals. Among the Mexicans, Some plung'd in waters, others purg'd in fires, first distri- those who were drowned, who died of a dropsy, tu Till all the dregs are drain'd, and rust expires ;

mors, or wounds, or such like diseases, went along with Till nothing's left of their habitual stains, cording to

the children that had been sacrificed to the god of waphysical

But the pure ether of the soul remains, distinc ter, and in a cool and delightful place were allowed to tions; indulge in delicious repasts and varieties of pleasures:

When thus purified, they become fitted to receive
those who died of other diseases, were sent to the north

the rewards of their past virtues, and now enter into
or centre of the earth, and were under the dominion of those regions of happiness and joy.
the gods of darkness. “ The soldiers, who died in

With ether vested, and a purple sky,

His be battle, or in captivity among their enemies, and the

The blissful seats of bappy souls below,
women who died in labour, went to the house of the

Stars of their own, and their own suns tbey know;
sun, who was considered as the prince of glory. In his
mansions they led a life of endless delight. Every day

Where patriots live, who, for their country's good,

In fighting fields were prodigal of blood.
the soldiers, on the first appearance of his rays, hailed

Priests of unblemish'd lives here make abode,
his birth with rejoicings and with dancings, and the
music of instruments and voices. At his meridian they

And poets worthy their inspiring god;
met with the women, and in like festivity accompanied

And searching wits, of more mechanic parts, him to his setting. After four years of this glorious life,

Who grac'd their age with new-invented arts :

Those who to worth their bounty did extend ; ri's Hist. of they went to animate clouds, and birds of beautiful feaMerico,

And those who knew that bounty to commend. thers and of sweet song ; but always at liberty to rise vol. vi,

again, if they pleased, to heaven, or descend to the These good men are engaged in various amusements, p. 136.

earth, to warble their songs, and to suck flowers *." 34

according to the taste and genius of each. Orpbeus is and after These sentiments of a future state, conceived in a sa still playing on his harp, and the warriors are still dewards ac. vage and a rude period, could not long prevail among lighted with their chariots, their horses, and their cording to moral di.

an enlightened and civilized people. When the times arms. stinctions.

of rapine and violence therefore began to cease; when The place of torment is at some distance.
societies regulated by certain laws began to be establish-
ed; when martial prowess was less requisite, and the A gaping gulf, which to the centre lies,
qualities of the heart had begun to give an importance And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies ;
to the character, the future state was also modelled on From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
a diferent plan. In the Eneid of Virgil, an author Of sounding lashes, and of dragging chains.
of a highly cultivated mind, and of polished manners, Here, those who brother's better claim disown,
it becomes a place of the most impartial and unerring Expel their parents, and usurp the throue ;
justice ; every one now receives a sentence suited to the Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,
actions of his past life, and a god is made to preside in Sit brooding on unprofitable gold.
judgment;

Who dare not give, and even refuse to lend,

To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend.
Who hears and judges each committed crime, Vast is the throng of these; vor less the train
Inquires into the manner, place and time.

Of lustful youths for foul adult’ry slain.

Hosts

* Clavige

in the skies. One soul of the hero is therefore repining with the ghosts of mortals in the regions below, while
the other is enjoying all the happiness of the gods above. (See Odyssey, book ii. near the end). Philosophers
since have improved on this hint of the poet ; and men have now got rational, animal, and vegetable souls

, to
which sometimes a fourth one is added, as properly belonging to matter in general

. Homer insinuates, that Menelaus was to be translated to Elysium without tasting death. This Elysium is the habitation of men, and not of ghosts, and is described as being similar to the seat of the gods. Compare Odyss. iv. 1. 563. and Odyss. vi. 1. 43. in the Greek.

43

to some & state of

Resurrec. Hosts of deserters, who their honour sold,

conscience; and support their opinion by observing, that Resurrection. And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold : matter cannot act upon spirit; forgetting, perhaps, that tion. All these within the dungeon's depth remain,

at the resurrection the spirit is to be clothed with a bo-
Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.

dy, and, at any rate, that it is not for man vainly to
prescribe bounds to Omnipotence.

42 33

The souls of babes, of unhappy lovers, and some What seems to have tortured the genius of divines of the midHis paradise of others, seem to be placed in a paradise of fools residing much more than heaven or hell, is a middle state. On dle state,

and diffe. fools. in a quarter distinct from Elysium, Tartarus, and Pur- this subject there being little revealed in Scripture,

rent opigatory.

many have thought it incumbent upon them to supply nions about It is curious to observe, how much these ideas of a the defect; which they seem to have done in different it. future state differ from the vague and simple conjectures ways. From the Scriptures speaking frequently of the of rude nations; and yet from their simple and rudle con dead as sleeping in their graves, those who imagine that jectures, we can easily trace the successive changes in the

powers

of the mind are dependent on the body, supthe writings of Homer, Plato, and Virgil ; and inay ea pose that they sleep till the resurrection, when they are sily show, that those laws which different nations have to be awakened by the trump of God, reunited to their prescribed for their dead, have always borne the strong- bodies, have their faculties restored, and their sentence est analogy lo their state of improvement, their system awarded. of opinions, and their moral attainments. Some na This opinion they support by what St Peter says in tions, as those of India, have fancied a number of hea- the Acts, that David is not ascended into beaven; and vens and bells, corresponding to some of the principal that this patriarch could not possibly be speaking of shades in virtue and vice; and have filled each of these himself when he said, “ Thou will not leave my soul in places respectively with all the scenes of happiness and hell, i. e, the place of the dead.” They observe, too, According inisery, which friendship and hatred, admiration, con that the victory of Christ over death and the grave tempt, or rancour, could suggest. But having already seeris to imply, that our souls are subject to their power; sleep; observed the progress of the human mind in forming the and accordingly the Scripture speaks frequently of the grand and leading ideas of a future state, we mean not soul's drawing near to, of its being redeemed from, and to descend to the modifications which may have occurred of its descending into, the grave; that the Psalmist, to particular nations, sects, or individuals.

however, declares, plainly, that when the breath of man 39 The belief of Christians respecting futurity demands goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and that very The state

our attention, as being founded on a different principle, day his thoughts perish. And should any one choose io
of the dead
As revealed nanely, on express revelations from heaven. From consult Ecclesiastes, he will find, that the living know
in Scrip- many express declarations in Scripture, all Christians that they shall die, but that the dead know not any
ture. seem to be agreed, that there is a heaven appointed for thing : that their love, and their hatred, and their ens

the good and a liell for the wicked. In this heaven vy, are perished ; and that there is no work, nor de-
the saints dwell in the presence of God and the uninter- vice, nor wisdom, nor knowledge, in the grave, whither
rupted splendours of day. Those who have been wise they are gone.
shine as the firmament, and those wbo have converted Those who believe that the soul is not for the exercise According
many to righteousness as the stars. Their bodies are of its faculties dependent on the body, are upon its

to others, 2 40 glorious, immortal, incorruptible, not subject to disease, paration at death obliged to dispose of it some other way. conscicus The nature to pain, or to death. Their minds are strangers to sor

In establishing this theory, they usually begin with at-existence. of heaven.

row, to crying, to disappointment; all their desires are tempting to prove, from Scripture or tradition, both its
presently satisfied ; while they are calling, they are an active and separate existence; but with proofs from tra.
swered; while they are speaking, they are beard. Their dition we intend not to middle. Their arguments from
mental faculties are also enlarged ; they no more see Scripture being of more value, deserve our serious con-
things obscurely, aud as through a cloud, but continual- sideration ; and are nearly as follow.
ly lieholding new wonders and beauties in creation, are Abraham, they say, Isaac, and Jacob, are still living,
constantly exclaiming, “ Holy, boly, holy ! is the Lord because Jehovah is their God, and he, it is allowed, is
of hosts ; worthy is he to receive glory, and honour, and not the God of the dead, but of the living. But their
thanksgiving; and to him be ascribed wisdom, and opponents reply, That this is the argument libich our
power, and might; for great and marvellous are bis Saviour brought from the writings of Moses to prove a

works, and the whole universe is filled with bis glory.” future resurrection of the dead ; and that any person, 41 Their notions of hell differ considerably. Some un who looks into the context, will see it was not meant of Of bell.

derstanding the Scriptures literally, have plunged the a middle state. From the dead living unto God, our
wicked into an abyss without any bottom; bave made Saviour infers nothing more tban that they shall live at
this gulf darker than night ; bave filled it with ranco the resurrection ; and that these geotlemen would do
rous and malignant spirits, that are worse than furies; well in future to make a distinction between simply liv.
and have described it as full of sulphur, burning for ing and living unto God : For though Abraham, Isaac,
ever. This frightful gulf has by some been placed in and Jacob, be living unto God, our Saviour has assured
the bowels of the earth ; by some in the sun; by some us that Abraham is dead, and the prophets dead.
in the moon ; and by some in a comet: but as the Scrip A second argument is that glimpse which St Paul
tures have determined nothing on the subject, all such had of Paradise about 14 years before he had written
conjectures are idle and groundless.

bis Second Epistle to the Corinthians. To this argu-
Others imagine, that the fire and sulphur are here to ment their opponents reply, That as St Paul could not
be taken in a figurative sense. These suppose the tor- tell whether, on that occasion, he was out of the body
ments of hell to be troubles of mind and remorses of or in the body, it is more than probable that the whole

was

se

state of