glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to himself. Those bodies in whom the work of regeneration has been here commenced, who had through the spirit mortified the deeds of the flesh, He will now render complete in virtue, and glorious in holiness. The second Adam will repair the neglect, and perform the work which had doubtless been assigned unto the first Adam, who, we may presume, was not ordained just to maintain a stationary excellence, to barely offer up his talents unimproved, and tell his Maker, there is that is thine-but to progress in goodness. The terrestrial paradise in which he was primarily placed required not only keeping, but dressing; and we may reasonably conclude man's intellectual powers required like cultivation.*

* The observations just offered do, we conceive, fulfil our promise, page 21; namely, that additional reasons would soon be given for the purpose of showing that God would not accept his handy work in a degraded state.

VOL. I.

T

CHAPTER VIII.

By comparing and reflecting on the foregoing considerations, we conceive our readers may derive very ample testimony to prove, that we cannot be presented to, or received by a holy and a jealous God, till the joint natures with which we were originally invested are re-united, and act-as in their primary estate they did-in mutual contact of holiness and happiness on each other. Also, that the high appellation of cherubic, or angelic nature, will not be conferred on our separated spirits, till they are rejoined to their old companion; which great event will be effected by the glorious resurrection. Then we shall glorify God both in our bodies and our spirits, which are God's. (1 Cor. vi. 20.) Then we know, on unquestionable authority, we shall be equal to the angels; and the reason also is distinctly given, namely, being the children of the resurrection. Therefore then, without doubt, we shall be dignified with the illustrious appellation. But though the remarks just stated have only ascertained these preliminary points, and not yet reached the object of inquiry, the scripture annals

do, we think, exhibit information whereby we may resolve it; for they record three instances of man's translation in his twofold natures:-first, during the antediluvian ages, when Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him; (Gen. v. 24;) secondly, during the Mosaic dispensation, when Elijah was carried up to heaven by flaming cherubims; and, thirdly, the far more illustrious victory of the great Christian champion, who, triumphing over death, bore our glorified humanity beyond the parting vail, where He alone has entered. And this high heavenly Priest has set to these conclusions the blessed seal of truth for He himself declares, that no man hath ascended up to heaven, (that is, to highest heaven, within the parting vail,) but He who came down from heaven. (John iii. 13.) It is, therefore, plain that those renowned worthies, Enoch and Elijah, have only been as yet admitted in the intermediate heaven, and that they there remain encamped till the final consummation."

* It is observable that this declaration of our blessed Lord was made prior to his own death, resurrection, and ascension. Subsequent to his resurrection, we are informed that "the vail of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened: and many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matt. xxvii. 51-53.) But it would be utterly repugnant to right reason to suppose that these were re-consigned to the prison of the tomb; and it has been by some conjectured, that they graced the great Redeemer's triumph through the parting vail, and were at that glorious juncture received in the holiest of holies.

Besides the law has concluded all under sin, and Elias, we know, was a man of like passions with

But supposing this to have been the case, and even that Enoch and Elijah may have joined this blessed train, and with them have been admitted unto beatific vision; it does not at all interfere with the position we are establishing, namely, the necessity of an intermediate state, wherein our immortal spirits may be purified and perfected for acceptance with God; for in both these instances, the beings in question had partaken of the benefits of the sanctifying sanctuary: Enoch and Elijah, in their twofold natures, for they certainly were not advanced beyond the paradisaic region when our blessed Lord declared that no man had ascended to heaven; and the separated spirits of those bodies which arose after Christ's resurrection, must have been stationed in paradise during the time their bodies lay in the tomb; consequently all those beings were endowed with the requisite preparatories for admission into the high heavenly sanctum, having been cleansed in the secondary one, and in their twofold natures fitted for acceptance with God. We are, however, disposed to think, that the conjecture stated is erroneous, and that these illustrious saints only accompanied their great revivifyer into his paradisaic territories, as the Mosaic types distinctly show that the great heavenly Priest entered alone into the holiest of holies. Besides, though in Adam all die, and in Christ all are made alive, yet every man is to be in his own order-Christ the first fruits, and afterward they that are Christ's at his coming; (1 Cor. xv. 23;) and it appears more in unison with this order, for those distinguished heroes who were martyred in the Christian cause, (whose souls, we know, are destined to rest in paradise until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled; and which events will probably not be consummated till the times of that unprecedented tribulation which is to precede the last decisive day,) to head the van of victors from out our little earth into the grand emporium, than that they should have been preceded by the worthies of the pristine dispensation. It was the former on whom was poured down the wonderful effusions of the holy, blessed Spirit. (Rom. viii. 23.) They are

ourselves, (James v. 17,) consequently the purifying rites of the celestial sanctuary would be

a kind of first fruits of God's creatures; and these are to sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and these, we know, remain in paradise until the final consummation of all things;-here they will rest that little season, which, when compared with eternity, is as nothing. The subject on which we are treating suggests also another consideration which gives birth unto inquiry. If we are destined to sustain probationary trials, and the enjoyment of extreme felicity cannot be obtained without the endurance of them, how can the spirits of young children, of whom we are at an early age oftentimes bereaved,*

* The observations respecting the departed spirits of infants we are now about to state, may perhaps be considered by the pious and orthodox Christian as resulting from an inquiry which it would have been better altogether to have declined; and the writer would entirely concur in the propriety of this opinion, were it not for the following argument being frequently urged by unbelievers as a reason for rejecting the whole of revelation-namely, the inconsistency of its declarations. The Deist would say, " You Christians believe the necessity of a probationary state, and which the Scriptures in which you confide appear to assert as an essential preparatory for eternal happiness. If this be the case, what is to become of the spirits of departed infants, whom you suppose, in direct opposition to the suggestions of your own reason and the assertions of Scripture, to be, immediately on their dislodgment from their mortal bodies, without any exercise of their wills, received into permanent felicity? How do you dispose of this difficulty? How do you answer this objection to our acquiescence in your way of thinking? If you cannot satisfactorily explain away such contradictions as these, your other reasoning falls to the ground, and we are justified in refusing our assent to the truth of the Christian religion." To this, a pious Christian, unaccustomed to hear the cavils broached by sceptics, would probably reply, "that the ways of God are inscrutable, and that if we are supplied with