if they wished to be understood by the people on this subject." * ."* The same language then which described what takes place with respect to the body after death, came, by a very natural and easy process, to be employed in reference to the soul when it quits its earthly habitation. It, therefore, can determine nothing respecting either the nature or the locality of the invisible mansion of departed spirits.

But there is another passage in the first epistle of Peter which is supposed by many to place the correctness of the notion beyond a doubt. I mean the one in which he says of the Saviour, that he was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit by which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison." This "prison," of course, is understood to be the habitation of disembodied souls, and to be the place to which the soul of the Saviour went immediately after he expired upon the cross, and where it continued till his body was reanimated on the third day. The design of his going there, it is affirmed by Bishop Horsley, in the sermon from which I have already quoted, was, "to proclaim the glad tidings, that he had actually offered the sacrifice for their redemption, and was about to appear before the Father as their intercessor, in the merit of his own blood." These "spirits in prison," according to this notion, can be none other than the departed souls of the righteous, because to none else could the

* Lowth, on Heb. Poet. vol. 1. page 163.

preaching of Christ be addressed-pardon never being offered to the wicked after death, nor intercession made for them by the Saviour. But if the term "prison" can, with propriety, be applied to the place where the disembodied souls of the saints are, and where they shall remain till the resurrection, our conceptions of their blessedness cannot be very exaltedthe idea of a prison being always associated in the mind with that of privation and suffering, if not with penal infliction. The language, in truth, seems to have no reference at all to the state of departed souls in the invisible world, it is susceptible of a much more rational interpretation.

"The spirits in prison" are those "which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing." This explanatory clause removes all dubiety from the language, and shows that the persons of whom the apostle speaks are those who lived before the deluge, and to whom Noah preached. It is true, it is said that it was the Saviour himself who "went and preached" to them, when, in reality, it was Noah who did so. But this is not an uncommon mode of expression, for the apostle Paul, when describing to the Ephesians the blessings which they enjoyed through his mediation, says of him that he " came and preached peace to them which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." This he certainly did not do in his own person, as the gospel was not preached to the gentiles till after his ascension to heaven. Now,

if it is said that he preached to the gentiles when he did so only by his apostles, may it not with equal propriety be said that he preached to the antediluvians when he did so by a person whom he inspired by his Spirit for that purpose? Noah is elsewhere called "a preacher of righteousness;" and doubtless while he sustained that character he was under the influence of the Spirit of Christ." The spirits of those who rejected his testimony and continued" disobedient" are now "in prison," because, like the fallen angels, they are kept in confinement till the judgment of the great day. Such being the plain and obvious import of the language, it determines nothing concerning the disembodied spirits of the righteous. Indeed, it is unreasonable to suppose that the soul of the Saviour, after he endured the penal inflictions of divine justice, and exclaimed upon the cross, "it is finished," should be consigned to a place of seclusion from the immediate presence of God; and, if his soul was not in such a place while his body was in the grave, there is no reason to conclude that the disembodied souls

of his people are so. To imagine that they are shut up in a place of confinement, there to be detained till the second and glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, would fill the mind with gloomy apprehensions, or at least would neutralize, in some measure, the feelings of comfort and joy which the righteous are warranted to cherish in the prospect of dissolution. This passage, then, being opposed neither in spirit nor in language to the sentiment I have been

illustrating, we are warranted to think of the departed spirits of the righteous as dwelling in the special residence of the Great Eternal, associated with the angelic beings who wait around his seat. In that place they have not simply some transient glimpses of his glory, they enjoy its full manifestation, and are permitted constantly to gaze upon its highest splendours.

Unless we take this view of the subject, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to account for the feelings expressed by some of the servants of God in reference to the happiness they anticipated in the disembodied state. 66 Therefore," says the apostle Paul, we are always confident, 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 sacred writer, in this language, evidently contrasts the circumstances of the soul while in the present world with those in which it is placed in the disembodied state. The body, which is elsewhere called a tabernacle or tent, is the place of its present residence, and while it dwells therein it is in a state of exile, shut out from the immediate presence of the exalted Redeemer; and prevented, in consequence of its vision being obscured by the veil of mortality, from beholding the inconceivable glories of the world on high. But, when by the stroke of death it is dismissed from its present habitation, it wings its flight to the place where the throne of God is situated, and

where the glorified body of the Saviour is. The phrase, "to be present with the Lord," can mean nothing short of this, because, if it could be used with respect to the departed spirits of the righteous if they are in some place where the glorified humanity of the Saviour is not, where the full splendours of his majesty are not displayed, it might with as much propriety be used respecting them in the present world, while imprisoned in a tenement of clay. In either case it could be used only because he pervades the regions of immensity, and because there is no locality in the boundless universe in which a holy creature would not experience the sustaining and cheering influence of his presence. On no other supposition, indeed, than the one I have made, could there be any propriety in saying, "whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." In this world christians are not so far exiled as to be deprived of the happiness resulting from a sense of the presence of their Lord, they are absent from him only as it respects his glorified human nature. To be present with him, then, is to be, not only where his presence is enjoyed, it is to be in the place where his throne is situated, where he fully manifests his glory, and where the hosts of angelic spirits have their habitation. And this is the reason, I apprehend, of the apostle's willingness " rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

On what other supposition can we account for the expressions he employs in another part of his writ