and from the wrath of the Lamb! for the great day of his wrath is come: and who shall be able to stand?" *

On the other hand, the faithful followers of the Lamb are uniformly spoken of in Scripture, as "loving his appearance; as then lifting up their heads with joy; knowing that their redemption draweth high." To particularize such passages, would only be quoting what every Christian is supposed to know with glad

ness.

Bishop Hall, "the English Seneca,' as Sir Henry Wotton aptly styled him, so admirably comprizes the respective views, both of the righteous and the wicked, on this subject, that the reader shall not be deprived of the pleasure of hearing him.

Man, on his death-bed,” says he, “hath a double prospect, from which, in his lifetime, the interposition of pleasures and miseries debarred him. The good man looks upward, and, with Stephen, sees heaven open, and the glorious angels

Rev. XVI. 12, et seq.

ready to carry up his soul. The wicked man looks downward, and sees three terrible spectacles-Death, Judgment, Hell, one beyond another; and all to be passed through by his soul. I marvel not that the godly have been so cheerful in death; that those torments, whose very sight hath overcome the beholders, have seemed easy to them. I marvel not that a wicked man is so loth to hear of death, so dejected when he feeleth sickness, and so desperate when he feeleth the pangs of death; nor that every BALAAM would fain die the death of the righteous. Henceforth, I will envy none but a good man: I will pity nothing so much, as the prosperity of the wicked. Earth is the wicked man's heaven his hell is to come." *

Bishop BULL goes farther than the views or prospects of good and bad men, on this subject; even to absolute experience, both immediately after death, and after the general Resurrection. "All good men," says he, "without exception, are, in the

* Meditation xxxix.

whole interval between their death, and resurrection, as to their souls, in a very happy condition; but, after the resurrection, they shall be yet more happy, receiving then their full reward, their perfect consummation of bliss, both in soul and body; the most perfect bliss they are capable of, according to the divers degrees of virtues, through the Grace of God on their endeavours, attained by them in this life. On the other side, all the wicked, as soon as they die, are very miserable as to their souls, and shall be far more miserable, both in soul and body, after the day of judgment, proportionably to the measure of sins committed by them here. on earth." *

says,

Bishop PEARSON, on the same subject "as the souls, at the hour of death, are really separated from the bodies, so the place, where they are in rest, or misery, is certainly distinct from the place in which they lived. They do not go together to the grave; but, as the sepulchre is ap

* Sermons concerning the State of the Soul, on its mmediate separation from the Body. p. 67.

pointed for our flesh, so there is another receptacle or habitation and mansion for our spirits." *

ject, says,

Bishop SMALRIDGE, on the same sub"It is an opinion generally received, that the souls of the saints, after their departure out of the body, are immediately by the holy angels conveyed into the highest heavens, and are there admitted into the glorious presence of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ; and that they do there enjoy the same happiness and glory, which they shall enjoy after the resurrection of the body, the same not only in substance but in degree, barely with this one difference-that their bodies are not yet partakers of this glory. But there is another opinion, much more consonant, I think, to the Word of God: that the happiness of departed souls is, in the degree of it, less perfect before than it shall be after the resurrection: that their happiness before the resurrection consists chiefly in this that the faithful are, by

Exposition of the Creed,

death, freed from all those cares, troubles, and dangers, with which they are perpetually disturbed in this mortal life; and that, as soon as they are released from their bodies, they enjoy a perfect quiet and ease in regard of which, those are pronounced "blessed who die in the Lord," because from "henceforth they rest from their labours." This opinion, at the first view, seems to lean to that negative state of happiness, which is little better than a sleeping soul: * "but," adds

A sleep of the soul, such as Luther supposed, and others after him have maintained, is, if possible, more absurd, than the position, maintained by some modern writers, of no soul at all. A spiritual being, such as the soul is, cannot be subject to that lassitude or weariness which brings on the sleep of the body. It is all activity; and, unless supernaturally laid asleep by the author of its being (which can hardly be supposed) will continue, according to Calvin, awake throughout the whole night of death; and, it is reasonable to think, will exert all its powers and faculties with more freedom, and in greater perfection, than when it acted in conjunction with the body.

The objects of the soul's knowledge, in Hades,