S$eT. II. PROOF OF A KPARATE STATE. ?99- Paul seems here to be of the same mind, by his doubt- ing, whether his spirit was in the body, or out of the' bedv, while it was rapt into the. third heaven, and en- joyed-this vision, his body being yet alive. Phil: i. g1. " For me to live is Christ,' and to die is gain." The apostle, whilst he was here upon earth, spent his life in the service of Christ, and enjoyed many glorious communications from him. " For him to live was Christ." And, on this account, he was contented to continue here in life longer: yet he is well satisfied, that death would be an advantage or gain to him. Now we can hardly suppose, what gain it would be for St. Paul to die, if his soul immediately went to sleep, and became unactive and unconscious, while his. body lay in the grave, and neither soul nor body could da any ser- vice for Christ, or receive any communications from him till the great rising-day. This text seems to carry the argument above a mere probability. 1 Thess. iv. 14. " For if we believe, that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also, which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him." The most natural and evident sense of these words, is this, that when the man Jesus Christ, in whom dwells the fulness of the godhead, shall descend from heaven, in order to raise the dead bodies of those that died, or went to sleep in the faith of Christ, God dwelling in him will bring with him the souls of his saints, who were in paradise, down to earth, to be re united to their bodies, when Jesus raises them from the But if we enter into a philosophical consideration of things, we shoulü resnernber, that animals of everykind, in earth, air, and sea', and even the minutest insects which swarm in millions, and worlds of them, which are invisible to the naked eye, have all an animal life, but no such conscious or thiliing principle as is in man: Andwhy may not the body of man hive the samesort of animal life quite distinct from the conscious spirit? Besides, if this conscious principle give life to. the body, medicines andphysicians, whose power reaches only to rectify the disordered solid's or fluids of the body, would not be so necessary to preserve life, as an orator topersuadethe spirát to. continuein- the body, and to preserve its life. And, accordingly, we read of foreign ignorant,nations, where the kindred persuade the dying, person. to lave, and tarry with them, and not to forsake them ; and, when the person is dead,_ theymourn and reprove him, " whywere you so unkind to leave and forsake us ?" And indeed this conduct of those poor savages is a very natural inference from their sup.position:of the intelligent spirit giving animal life to the body. VOL. II. ti
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