20 THE PROOF OP A SEPARATE STATE dying, to -day, shall he sit in the bosom of Abraham: And,' it was their common opinion, that the "'souls of the righteous who were very eminent in piety, were carried immediately into para- dise." The Chaldee paraphrase on Solomon's Song, chapter iv. 12. takes some notice of the " souls of the just, who are carried into paradise by the hands of angels." Grotius in his notes on Luke xxiii. 43. mentions the hearty and serious wish of the Jews, concerning their friends who are dead, in the language of the 4almudical writers, " Let his soul be gathered to the garden of Eden ;" And in their solemn prayers when one dies, " Let him have his portion in paradise, and also in the world to come," by which they mean the state of, the resurrection, and plainly dis- tinguished it from this immediate entrance into Eden or paradise ut the hour of death. The Jews suppose Enoch to be carried to paradise even in his body ; and that the souls of good men have no interruption of life ; but that there was a " reward for blame- less souls," as the book of Wisdom speaks, chapter ii. 22. " For God created man to be immortal, and to be an image of his own eternity," which seems to suppose blameless souls, en- tering into this reward without interruption of their life. And if this be the meaning of paradise among the Jews, doubtless our Saviour spoke the words in such a known and common sense, in which the penitent thief would easily and presently understand him, it being a promise of grace in his dying hour, wherein he had no long time to study hard for the sense of it, or consult the critics in order to find the meaning. We come now to consider the writings of St. Paul : And it is certain, that the most natural and obvious sense of his words in many places of his epistles, refers to a, separate state of the souls after death : For as he was a pharisee in the sentiments of religion, so he seems to be something of a platonist in philosophy, so far as christianity admitted the same principles. Why then should it not be reasonably supposed, wheresoever he speaks of this subject, and speaks in their language too, that he means the same thing which the pharisees and the platonists believed, that is, the immortality and life of the soul in a separate state. But I proceed to the particular texts. V. 2 Cor. y. 6, 8. Therefore we are always confident, or of good courage, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; We are' confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord: The apostle, verse 4. seems to wish that he might be clothed upon at once, with immortality in soul and body, with- out dying or being unclothed: But since things are otherwise determined, then in the next place, he would rather chose ab- sence from the body, that he might be present with the Lord. These words seem to use so plain, so express, and so unapswer-,
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