that the soul is furnished with a body of which the Scriptures make no mention, and of the existence of which we have no evi- dence. The Bible knows nothing of any human body save that which we now have, and that which we, are to have at the resur- rection ; the one natural, the other spiritual. The third interpre- tation assumes that the Apostles erred not only in their own con- victions, but in their teaching. It assumes that what they taught could be true only on the condition that the second coming of Christ was to occur while the men of that generation were alive. The point, however, in which all these views of this passage agree, is the only one which concerns the question under consid- eration. They all suppose that the soul is received into a state of blessedness immediately after death. This the Apostle clearly teaches. As soon as our earthly house is destroyed, the soul, in- stead of being left houseless and homeless, is received in that house which is eternal in the heavens. " We are always confi- dent," he says, " 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."
In Philippians i. 23, he expresses the same confidence : " For," he says, " I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; which is far better : nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Two things are here perfectly plain ; first, that Paul regards the state of the soul after death as more exalted than its condition while in the flesh. This he distinctly asserts. And, secondly, that this change for the better takes place immediately after death. He was confident that as soon as he departed he would be with Christ. Both these points are conceded, even by those who deny the doctrine which they evidently involve. Some say that Paul, finding that Christ did not come as soon as he expected, changed his opinion, and held that the souls of believers were admitted at death into heaven, instead of awaiting the second advent in the under- world. The fathers said that while the great body of believers at death went into Hades, some few, especially the martyrs, were admitted at once into heaven. Mr. Alger conjectures that " we may assume .... that Paul believed there would be vouchsafed to the faithful Christian during his transient abode in the under- world a more intimate and blessed spiritual fellowship with his Master than he could experience while in the flesh." 1 All this is
1 Alger, ut supra, p. 290.
730 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
floundering. The simple fact is that the inspired Apostle confi- dently anticipated for himself, and evidently for his fellow-believ- ers, immediate admission at death to the presence of Christ. The ancients regarded the "under-world" or Hades, as "a gloomy prison," as Mr. Alger himself calls it. That Paul should have desired death in order that he should be thrust into a dungeon, no man can believe.
The Scriptures represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being in heaven. The good, at death, are carried by angels to Abra- ham's bosom. Moses and Elijah appeared in glory on the mount of transfiguration, conversing with Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is said, u Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innu- merable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Nothing can be more utterly inconsistent with the nature of the Gospel, than the idea that the fire of divine life as it glows in the hearts of God's elect, is, at death, to be quenched in the damp darkness of an underground prison, until the time of the resur- rection.
§ 2. The Sleep of the Soul.
The doctrine that the soul exists, during the interval between death and the resurrection, in a state of unconscious repose, properly supposes the soul to be a distinct substance from the body. It is therefore to be distinguished from the materialistic theory, which assumes that as matter in certain states and combi- nations exhibits the phenomena of magnetism or light, so in other combinations it exhibits the phenomena of life, and in others the phenomena of mind, and hence that vital and mental activity are as much the result or effect of the molecular arrangements of matter, as any physical operations in the external world. As in this view it would be absurd to speak of the sleep or quietude of magnetism or light when the conditions of their existence are absent, so it would be equally absurd, on this theory, to speak of the sleep of the soul after the dissolution of the body.
The doctrine of the sleep of the soul, moreover, is not identi- cal with that which assumes that, although matter is in none of its combinations the cause of mental activity, yet that it is the necessary condition (so far as man is concerned) of its manifesta-