SECTION II. 11 God, when no man was near him, and his body was buried by God himself. See 2 Kings ii. 11. and Deut. xxxiv. 1, 5, 6. and his spirit was probably made visible only by an assumed vehicle for that purpose. .John v. 24. " Whoso heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, bath everlasting life, is passed from death to life :" John vi. 47, 50, 51. " This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." John xi. 26. " Whoso liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die :" To which may be added the words of Christ to the woman of Sa- maria ; John iv. 14. ".The water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." 1 John v. 12. " He that hath the Son, bath life, &c." The argument I draw from these scriptures, is this. It is hardly to be supposed, that our Saviour, in this gospel, and John, in his first epistle, imitating him, should speak such strong language concerning eternal life, actually given to, and possessed by the believers of that day, if there must be an interruption of it by total death, or sleep, both of soul and body, for almost twe thousand years, that is, till the resurrection. Acts vii. 9. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Those who deny à separate state, suppose that Stephen, here, commits his spirit, Air principle of human life, into the hands or care of Christ, be- {sause the life of a saint is said to be hid with Christ in God; Col. iii. 3, 4. that he might restore it at the resurrection, and raise him to life again. But, I think, this is an unnatural force put upon these words, contrary to their most obvious meaning, if we consider the context : for Stephen here had a vision of the Son of man, or Christ Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, and the glory of God near him: see verses 55, 56. Whereupon Stephen, being conscious of the existence of Christ in that glo- rious state, desired, that he would receive his spirit, and take it to dwell with him in his Father's house : not to lie and sleep in heaven, for there is no night there, but to behold the glory of Christ, according to the many promises that Christ had made to his disciples, that he would go and prepare a' place for them in his Father's house, and that they should be with him there to be- hold his glory; John xiv. 3. and xvii. 24. which I shall have occasion to speak of afterward. Rom. viii. 10, 11. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteous- ness ; that is, if Christ dwelt in you, by the sanctifying influences of his spirit ; it is true indeed, your body is mortal, and must die, because it is doomed to death, from the fall of Adam, on the ac- count of sin, and because sinful principles still dwell in this
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