with him in paradise:" hence, this cannot be a state of insensibility, but happiness.

That the bodies of all men shall be raised up again, and reunited to their souls is reasonable: for God is infinite both in power and knowledge; and it is, unquestionably, as possible to bring together and enliven the scattered parts of our body again, as it was to make them out of nothing, and give them life at first. This doctrine is probably implied in that general promise made to our first parents that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," destroy his power, and consequently take away the curse under which he had brought mankind. For as part of that curse consists in the death of the body, it cannot be completely taken away but by the resurrection of the body. ("That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.")

Abraham had so strong a belief in this, that he was willing, on the Divine command, to sacrifice his son; reasoning, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, "that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead."

Job says: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin this body be destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Elijah being taken up alive into heaven, must also have given an expectation that the body, as well as the soul, was to partake of future happiness.

It is a question about which commentators are much divided, whether Job expresses in these words his firm belief of a resurrection in the body to happiness after death; or only of God's interposition in his favour before he died, to vindicate his character from the unjust imputations of his friends. The truth was not yet revealed.

Mind could not then grasp the doctrine of the Resurrection of the flesh, still less (of course) could language consciously express it; and yet it may have been a thing spiritually discovered by the faithful, from the first hour that the promise of a Redeemer was given. Dim, indistinct, impalpable, in short, a mystery, so far as intellectual apprehension was concerned, it may nevertheless have wrought upon the spirit with an influence scarcely less mighty than it does now, when it is read in the full light of the risen Jesus.

That which, in fact, was from the beginning of the Word of Life," we upon whom the ends of the world are come have heard, yea, have, in a manner, 66 seen with our eyes, and have looked upon, and our hands have handled." For the life which Job discerned, if at all, so dimly, distantly, and indistinctly-the life of the body after the soul has fled from it, and it has mingled with the dust-that life has been manifested to us in Christ, who is the life and we have seen it, though not with our own eyes, with the eyes of Christian forefathers with whom, through the Spirit, we are one in the Communion of Saints.-Job, a Course of Lectures, by J. E. Kempe, Rector of St. James's.

The Intermediate State.

THE Intermediate State is the condition of the righteous immediately after their departure from this life, and between that event and the General Resurrection. That this will be a state of repose from the sufferings that mortality is heir to, may be thought sufficiently plain from the declaration of St. John in the Revelation, that to those who "die in the Lord," their death will be the introduction to a state of undisturbed tranquillity: they will "rest from their labours." That it will be their immediate introduction to a state of enjoyment also, may, perhaps, be inferred from the clause, " and their works do follow them;" that is, the rewards consequent on their former works.

But there is stronger foundation for the opinion that the righteous will enter upon a state of enjoyment immediately after their dissolution. From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus

the former in torments, and the latter in Abraham's bosom,-it is inferred that death is at once followed by a condition of conscious comfort or torment; for the parable supposes the continuance upon earth of the "five brethren" of the rich man, in a state of prolonged trial and responsibility, at the same time that it represents Lazarus as "comforted," and the rich man as "tormented.” It is, therefore, argues Bishop Mant, to be understood as describing, on the part of those who were dead, the condition which they were allotted before the Day of Judgment.

The Bishop maintains, also, that the language of our blessed Redeemer to the dying malefactor on the cross, recognises the same notion. But the completest exposition of the doctrine of Holy Writ on this subject is considered by Dr. Mant to be found in the following collect in the "Order for the Burial of the Dead"--one of the most impressive portions of that admirable service of our scriptural Church :

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; we give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching Thee that it may please Thee of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish

the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Still, this is but an instalment of enjoyment, and will be succeeded by another state of yet superior happiness, "when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed;" and when the crown of righteousness shall be given to "all those who love the Lord's appearing' "by the Lord, the righteous Judge," in the presence of assembled men and angels, "on that day." (2 Tim. iv. 8.) Such is the argument of Bishop Mant, which must carry conviction by its clearness and simplicity.

Archbishop Whately, in his Scriptural Revelations, having considered the prevailing view of the subject, goes on to say:

"The only alternative-the only other possible supposition-is, that the soul remains in a state of profound sleep-of utter unconsciousness -during the whole interval between its separation from the body by death, and its reunion at the Resurrection. One objection to the reception of this supposition in the minds, I apprehend, of many persons -an objection which affects the imagination, though not the understanding is, that it seems as if there were a tedious and dreary interval or non-existence to be passed, by such as should be supposed to sleep, perhaps for some thousands of years, which might elapse between their death and the end of the world. The imagination represents a wearisome length of time during which (on this supposition) those that sleep in Christ would have to wait for His final coming to reward them. We fancy it hard that they should be lost both to the world and to themselves-destitute of the enjoyments both of this life and of the next, and continuing for so many ages as if they had never been born.

"Such, I say, are the pictures which the imagination draws; but when we view things by the light of the understanding, they present a very different aspect. Reason tells us (the moment we consider the subject), that a long and a short space of time are exactly the same to a person who is insensible. All our notion of time is drawn from the different impressions on our minds succeeding one another: so that when any one loses his consciousness (as in the case of a fainting fit, or of those recovered from drowning, suffocation, or the like) he not only does not perceive the length of the interval between the loss of his consciousness, and the return of it, but there is (to him) no such interval; the moment at which he totally lost his sensibility seems (and is, to him) immediately succeeded by the moment in which he regains it.. It will often happen, when any one sleeps very soundly, that the moment of his waking shall appear to him immediately to succeed that of his falling asleep; although the interval may have been many hours. Something of the same kind has been observed in a few instances of madness, and of apoplexy; in which all the ordinary operations of the mind having been completely suspended for several years, the patients, on the recovery of their senses, have been found totally unconscious of the whole interval, and distinctly remembering and speaking of, as having happened on the day before, events which occurred before the seizure; so that they could hardly be brought to believe, that whole years had since elapsed." (The author of the work here adds in a note

Opinions concerning the State of the Dead.

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a case occurred within my own knowledge, not long ago, of a sick person who fell into a kind of trance which lasted several weeks; and immediately on her revival she asked for some grapes, which had been brought into her room just befere she became insensible.")

"From considering such instances as these," he goes on to say, “as well as from the very nature of the case, any one may easily convince himself, that if ever a total insensibility takes place, so that all action of the mind is completely suspended, the time during which this continues, whether a single minute, or a thousand years, is, to the person himself, no time at all. In either case, the moment of his reviving must appear to him immediately to succeed that of his sinking into unconsciousness; nor could he possibly be able to tell afterwards, from his own sensations and recollections, whether his state of suspended animation had lasted an hour, a day, or a century.

"To all practical purposes, that is, to each, a long or a short time, which is such to his perceptions. Some of you may probably have known what it is to pass a night of that excessive restlessness, which accompanies some particular kinds of illness. Such persons will easily remember (what no one else can fully conceive) how insufferably tedious a single night will in such a case appear;-how enormously long the interval seemed to be between the times of the clock's striking ;-how they seemed to feel as if morning would never arrive. And if it has happened that the next night the patient was completely relieved, and slept quite soundly, the very same number of hours, which the night before had seemed to him an age, would appear but a moment. The clock, indeed, he is well aware, has made the same movements in the one case as in the other; but relatively to the sick man himself, and as far as his feelings are concerned, the one night will have been immensely shorter

than the other.

"The long and dreary interval, then, between death and the Day of Judgment (supposing the intermediate state to be a profound sleep), does not exist at all, except in the imagination. To the party concerned there is no interval whatever; but to each person (according to this supposition) the moment of his closing his eyes in death, will be instantly succeeded by the sound of the last trumpet, which shall summon the dead; even though ages shall have intervened. And in this sense the faithful Christian may be, practically, in paradise the day he dies. The promise made to the penitent thief, and the Apostle Paul's wish to depart, and to be with Christ,' which, he said, was far better' than to remain any longer in this troublesome world, would each be fulfilled to all practical purposes, provided each shall have found himself in a state of happiness in the presence of his Lord, the very instant (according to his own perception) after having breathed his last in this world.”

OPINIONS CONCERNING THE STATE OF THE DEAD.

It may next be important as well as interesting to examine a few of the ancient notions upon this great question.

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Origen taught, that "Such as depart out of this life after the common course of death, are disposed of according to their deeds and merits, as they shall be judged to be worthy some into the place which is called hell, others into Abraham's bosom, and through divers other places and mansions." St. Hilary taught otherwise. All the faithful, according to him, were to be in

Abraham's bosom, while the wicked are "hindered from coming by the gulf interposed between them." Lactantius taught, that all the souls, both of the righteous and the wicked, should be "detained in one common custody, until the time come when the great Judge doth make trial of their doings;" i.e. by exposing them to a mysterious flame which shall burn the wicked, and do service to the righteous, who have "something in them that will repel or put back the force of the flame!" And the Greek Church, differing from the rest in this, taught that (according to Luke xiii. 28, 29, 30,) men entered Abraham's bosom at the resurrection. "The body is buried in the earth, but the soul goeth in unknown places, waiting for the future resurrection of the dead in which, O gracious Saviour, make bright thy servant, place him together with the saints, and refresh him in the bosom of Abraham." We need not mention the opinion of St. Ambrose, who was not taught by the Apostles to say that "they that come not unto the first resurrection, but are removed out of the second, shall be burned (in purgatorial fire) until they fulfil the times between the first and the second resurrection; or if they have not fulfilled them, they shall remain longer in punishment." Nor need we attach much weight to that of Augustin, who taught that souls went into certain "hidden receptacles," into which the souls of God's children might carry some of their lighter faults, which would hinder them from attaining heaven; but from which they might be released by prayers and alms deeds of the living.-(Authorities from Tracts for the Times, No. 72.)

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Let any one, (says Bishop Courtenay,) who maintains that these individual writers, or churches, were in possession of an oral apostolic tradition concerning the dead, state what that tradition contained, and what it did not; and inform the world how he, by the light of reason, can distinguish the truth of God, as contained in uninspired writings, from the errors of man.

Bishop Courtenay's able work, the Future States, was originally published in 1833, and reprinted in 1857. In the latter edition the author explains, "Time has not changed the writer's belief, that the soul of man is naturally mortal-being, when separate from the body, naturally incapable of independent consciousness; that without the Redeemer it can have no life, and that, even through the Redeemer, it has none until the Day of Redemption. He cannot accept the popular notion, that 'the saints which sleep' are all awake, and that the dead' are now alive."

The Bishop then proceeds, on a question of the interpretation of certain unfulfilled prophecies, to modify and retract an opinion formerly maintained. There are not a few persons who suppose, that the soul of a believer, upon its separation from the body, is immediately in a heavenly state, with Christ and the holy angels, and the saints of all former generations: and that, secondly, at