Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_400.lzh/D_431.TXT

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CHAP. III.                          OF THE SEPARATE STATE OF THE SOUL.                                                              431

body, must be more capable of exercising its p. owers
and' faculties, and be more active than when in it; es-
pecially as it is corrupted with sin, and incumbered
with it, which is a clog and hinderance in the perforn!-
ance of spiritual duties; it cannot attend to it as it
would; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak; but
when it is separated from the body, and is joined to
the spirits of just men made perfect, it must be much
more capable of serving God with greater activity,
spirituality, joy, and pleasure.           .4. The soul sepa-
rate from the body is most like unto the angels, and
its state, condition, and employment, greatly resem-
ble theirs. Now nothing is more foreign to angels
than insensibility and inactivity, who always behold
the face of God, stand ready to do his command-
ments, hearkening to the voice of his word; and no
sooner do they receive orders from him, but they do
his pleasure; they are continually before the throne
of God, praising his name, and celebrating his perfec-
tions.    -5. If the sonIs of believers after death are
in a state of insensibility and inactivity, their case
would be much worse than that of the living, as has
been observed; since in the present state, amidst all
their evil things, they enjoy much good, receive much
from God, and have much spiritual peace and joy in
the exercise of grace; whereas there is a stop put to
all this, and an entire cessation from it, if upon death
they enter into a state of insensibility and inactivity;
particularly it would have been much more happy for
the apostle Paul to have stayed on earth, and conti-
nued here till Christ came again; and more to the ad-
vantage of the churches of Christ, than to be where
he is, if insensible and nnactive; here he might have
made use of his great talents, exercised his graces, had
much communion with God, and been of great ser-
vice in the interest of Christ, in which he would have
found a real pleasure, but now deprived of all, if the
 above is his case.        6. If the souls of truly gracious
 persons are, upon their departure from hence, insen-
 sible and inactive, what is become of the work of grace
 upon their souls ? in what condition is it, and must
 that be ? there must be a full stop to it, and to the
 exercise of it, and that for a lrng season; where is
 growth in grace, where no grace is to be seen ? and
 when it might have been expected it would be in its
 full perfection, does not appear at all {4}? How does
 this well of water spring up into everlasting life, when
 it does not spring at all, but the streams of it cease to
 flow ? what a chasm must there be between grace and
 glory, when the scriptures represent them as closely
 and inseparably connected together ? grace is the be-
 ginning of glory, and glory is the finishing and per-
 fection of grace, and in which there is no interrup-
 tion.      7. The proof that has been given of souls
 separate from the body entering immediately into a
 state of happiness or misery, is also an abundant proof
 of their sensibility; when either they enter into the
 presence of God, are with Christ, and feel unutterable
 pleasure and delight; or are in inexpressible torments

4 [sti non solum opus Dei ad tempus intermittunt, sed etiam extin-
guunt, CalVin. Assertio non dormire seal vivere, &c. fol. 18. ~.
~ Anaxagoras et Leucippus apud Plutarch. de Placitis Philosoph.
1.5. c.~5.

under the lighting down of the arm of God's wrath
and indignation upon them. I proceed,
2dly, To take notice of what is urged in fayour of
the insensibility of souls upon their departure.
1. All such passages of scripture are urged which
speak of persons sleeping when they die; as of sleep-
ing with their fat. hers, and of sleeping in the dust of
the earth, phrases fi-equently to be met with in the
Old Testament; and of Christ being the first-fruits of
those that slept, and of sleeping in Jesus; and of some
not sleeping, which are used in the New Testament,
2 Sam. vii. l2. t Kings i. 21. Job vii. 22. Dan. xii. 2.
I Cot. xv. 18, 51.1 Thess. iv. 14. But,
(1.) BV sleep in all these passages death itself is
meant. 'It was a way of speaking much used in the
eastern countries, and is expressive of the death of the
body, and of that only; so to sleep with the fathers,
is to die as they did, and to be buried with them; and
to sleep in the dust, is, being dead, to be laid in the
grave, to be interred in the dust of the earth; and to
sleep in Jesus, is to die in the Lord. When Christ
said, our friend Lazarus sleepeth, he meant that he
was dead; and when the apostle Paul says, we shall
not all sleep, he designs nothing else but that we shall
not all die; for those who are alive at Christ's coming
will be changed; the reason why death is expressed
by sleep is, because sleep is the image of death, it
locks up the senses, gives rest to the weary body, is
but for a time, and then it awakes again.-----(2.) Death
being designed by those expressions, if they prove
any thing in this controversy they prove too much;
for if they prove that the soul sleeps with the body,
they-would prove that the soul dies with it, since by
sleep is meant no other than death.              .(3.) No men-
tion is made of the soul in any of these passages; it
is not said of that neither that it sleeps nor dies; the
passages only respect the body; it is that only which
at death is gathered to the _fathers, and buried in the
graves of ancestors; and which sleeps in the dust, or
is buried in the dust of the earth; the sleep of which
stands opposed to the change that will pass on the
bodies of living saints at the coming of Christ.. .
4. Sleep is only of the body {5}, and, according to. the
philosopher is a nassion that belongs to the sensitive

that it cannot operate; and says it only belongs to
animals that have a brain, or something analogous to
it 6; it is defined " a cessation of the external senses
from operation, the yapours filling the nerves and the
sensory passages, and so hinder the influx of the ani-
mal spirits {7}." But what is all this to the soul, an im-
material and incorporeal substanc% which has no brain,
nor nerves, nor sensory passages, nor animal spirits ?
and therefore sleep has no piace in it, and cannot be
predicated of it..    ,(5.) When the body is asleep
the soul is awake and active, as appears in abundance
of instances, in dreams and visions of the night, when
deep sleep falls upon men, and is capable of attending
to what is suggested to it, and of receiving instruc-

6 Aristot. de Somno, c. 1. etc. 7. et de part. animal. 1. 2. c. 7.
7 Conimbricenses apud Burgersdicii Philosoph. Natural. disp. 22.
s. 13. vide Suidam in voce