Christians discouraged and enervated, and tives to holiness weakened, when they are they have nothing to do to lay hold upon su sed favours, such revelations of grace, be belong only to the apostles and not to ther

And indeed how shall common Chris know what part of the epistles they may themselves for their direction and consolatio may not hope in such words of grace, wher writers use the word we, and do not plainly that they belong to preachers or apostles on

Answer 3. When our Saviour prays fo and his apostles in the beginning of the xvi John, he comes in the 20th verse to extend ings he had prayed for to all believers. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for 1 which shall believe on me through their w they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in I in thee, that they may be one in us; that 1 may believe that thou hast sent me:" Ver. ther, I will that they also whom thou hast may be with me where I am, that they ma my glory which thou hast given me." H evident that our Saviour prays that those t

believe on him through the word of the Apostles may be present with him in his kingdom to behold his glory; and is not that a very considerable part of his glory, which the Father hath conferred upon him to be Lord and King and head of his church? but this peculiar glory reaches no further than the resurrection and judgment, and cannot be seen afterwards; for in 1 Cor. xv. 24. "then cometh the end, and Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to God the Father; the Son himself also shall be subject unto the Father, that God may be all in all," ver. 28.

As for that final blaze of supreme glory wherein Christ shall appear at the day of judgment just before he resigns up his kingdom, and which perhaps is once called his kingdom, 2 Tim. iv. 1. When " he shall come in the glory of his Father and of his holy angels as well as his own," Mark viii. 38. The sight of it shall be public and common to all the world, and not any peculiar favour to the saints.

It seems therefore most probable that it is only or chiefly in the Separate State of souls departed, that the saints have a special promise of beholding this mediatorial glory of Christ in his kingdom; and this favour our Saviour entreats of his Father for others that shall believe on him, as well as for his Apostles.

I might here take occasion to enquire whether every text which promises to other Christians as well as to the Apostles, a dwelling with Christ in his kingdom,' must not have a more special reference to the glory of the Separate State; upon this very account, because this kingdom of Christ ceases at the resur

C

this nie.

Answer 4. I cannot find any text o where this blessing of being 'present wit after death in the Separate State is limited Apostles: I read not one word of such a vour promised them by Christ; and therel ing to the current course of several othe Scripture which have been here produced suaded it belongs to all true Christians, Apostle in some plainer manner had limite self and his twelve brethren, and seclude our hopes of it.

After all, if it be allowed that the Apostl joy the blessedness of a Separate State bel surrection, then there is such a thing as a State of happiness for souls:' This precluc all the arguments against it that arise fro ture of things, and from any supposed impr such a divine constitution; And since it that there are millions of angels and seve spirits in this unbodied state, enjoying ha see no reason why the rest of the unbodied saints departed should not be received to

ety after death, unless there were some particular Scriptures that excluded them from it.

VI. Phil. i. 23, 24. "For 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." When the apostle speaks here of his "abiding in the flesh," and his "departing from the flesh," he declares the first was the more needful for the Philippians, to promote religion in their hearts and lives; but the second would. be better for himself, for he should be with Christ, when he was departed from the flesh.

I would only ask any reasonable man to determine whether, when St. Paul speaks of his "being with Christ" after his departure from the flesh, he can suppose that the Apostle did not expect to see Christ till the resurrection, which he knew would be a considerable distance of time, though perhaps it has proved many hundred years longer than the Apostle himself expected it? No; it is evident he hoped to 'be present with the Lord' immediately as soon as he was 'absent from the body; otherwise, as I have hinted before, death to him would have been but of little gain if he must have lain sleeping till the dead shall rise, and have been cut off from his delightful service for Christ in the gospel and all the blessed communications of his grace. The objection which may arise here also from supposing this to be a peculiar favour granted to the Apostles is answered just

good men into a nearer union and comr the heavenly world, and the inhabitants 1 the Jewish state could do: now the inhab upper world, this heavenly Jerusalem, a koned up, God as the prime Lord or H the mediator as the King of his church; merable company of angels' as ministers dom; the general assembly' of God's f children who are called the first-born; F may refer in general to all the saints of a and to come whose names are written in life in heaven; and particularly to the 's rits of just men' who are departed from and are made perfect in the heavenly s criticisms that are used to put other so these words seem to carry them away so fa more plain and obvious meaning, that I think they are the meaning of the Apo would be of very little use for a commo to read these verses of divine consolation if he could take no comfort from them u learnt those critical and distant expositio plain language.