264 !Aim BUILT ON KNOWLEDGE. depositun this important trust. I have committedmy whole per- sou, soul and body, with all my spiritual concerns in this world, and all my everlasting interest in the world to come, into the hands of Christ; my soul, and the affairs of my eternity. And this the apostle seems to have chiefly in his eye, because he was now ready to leave the body, and all things of this present life. So Christ on the cross commits his soul into the hands of his Fa. the! ; Luke xxiii. '16. Father into thy hands I commend my spi- rit. So Stephen; the first martyr, addressed himself to Christ ; Acts vii. 59. Lord Jesus receive mat.spirit. So David, by a spi- rit of prophecy, in evangelic expressions, betrusts his soul with God his Redeemer Ps. xxxi. 6. Into thy hands I commit my s4irit,thou h ast redeemed it, O Lord God of truth. IV. What is that day, that great day, which the apostle means in the text? Without doubt, he refers to the last judg- ment, which is that day; by way of eminence, that day when the works of all other days shall be reviewed, when all mankind shall appear together upon the earth, that have lived inseveral succes.. sive days, and years, and ages, and a decisive sentence shall be passed upon all, without a possibility of reverse : The day on which the fate of their eternity shall depend, andbe determined. It is the custom of the apostle to speak of this day in such a way of absolute eminence, without particular desc>rptions : So he does twice in this same epistle; chap. i. 18. and iv. S. And it is ex- pressly evident in 2 Thess. i. 10. he means this last great day, when Christ " shall appear in fire, taking vengeance on them that obey him not : and shall come to be glorified in all them that believe. Thoughbelievers in Christ, who have committed themselves to hisohare, find theirsouls safe in the moment after death, and the beginning of their intellectual heaven, yet this is more insen- sible to other men, and unseen to the world : The day of judg- ment is a more remarkable and conspicuous day in the eyes of all the creation, angels, and men; in this day shall Christ openly deliver up his great trust to the Father, who committed all elect sinners into his hands : Iu this day shall he make it appear, that be has been " able and faithful tokeep whatsoeverGod and the Saints have committed to him." Besides, till this day come, Christ has not fulfilled his commission, nor answered his trust for which he is engaged to his Father, and to believers ; for this is one part of it, that he would takeDare of their dying bodies, and raise them up at the iast,day ; John vi. 39. The apostle, though he well knew the happiness of separate souls, that were absent from the body, and immediately present with the Lord, yet he more frequently points to this bright and distant day of the resur- rection, when he invites our hope abroad' beyond the limits of life and time, to gïve it the fairest and the longest prospect.
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