SECTION II. l souls, and shall live with him in their bodies also, when raised from the dead. This exposition arises near to a certainty of evidence. 1 Pet. iii. 18 - 20. " Christ was put to death in the; flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." I confess this is a text that has much puzzled' interpreters, in what sense Christ may be said to go and preach to those ancient rebels, . who were destroyed by the flood whether he did it by his Spi- rit working in' Nosh, the preacher of righteousness, in those days ; or whether in the three days in which the body of Christ lay dead, his soul visited the spirits of those rebels, in their sepa- rate state of imprisonment, on which some ground the notion of his descent into hell : But, let this be determined as it will, the most clear and easy sense of the apostle, when he speaks of the spirits in prison is, that the souls of those rebels, after their bodies were destroyed by the flood, were reserved in prison for some special and future design : And this is very parallel to the present circumstances of fallen angels in Jude, verse 6. " The angels, that kept not their first estate, he hath reserved in ever- lasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day :" And why may not the spirits of men be as well kept, in such a prison, as angelic spirits ? Jude, verse 7. " Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." It is evi- dent, that the material fire, which destroyed Sodom and Gomor- rah, was not eternal;. for a great lake of water quickly over- flowed, and now covers all that plain, where the fire was kind- led, which burned down those cities. It is manifest also, that the day of resurrection, and future punishment, being not yet come, they do not, at this time, suffer the vengeance of eternal fire in their bodies : Nor can this verse, I think, be well ex- plained, to make Sodom and Gomorrah an example to deter pre- sent sinners from uncleanness, but by allowing, that the spirits of those lewd persons are now suffering a degree of vengeance, or punishment, from the justice of God, which is compared to that fire whereby their cities and their bodies were burned, and which vengeance, at the last great day, shall continue their punish- ment, and pronounce it eternal, or kindle material fire, which shall never be quenched. The last text I shall mention is ; Rev. vi. 9. " I saw under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimonywhich they held.» I confess this is a book of visions, and this place, amongst others, might be explained as a mere vision of the apostle, if there were no other text, which confirmed the doctrine of a separate state : But, since I
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