Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/104

100 reasonings of sensual men, who suppose, that all life is confined to the material body, and that, as soon as this latter perishes, the whole man has lost his existence, which can therefore only be renewed by the revivification of the same body that died. But that man, immediately after death, actually rises in the spiritual world, as already stated, or continues to live as a man in a spiritual form and body, similar in appearance to his former body, but essentially different from it in substance, is the clear and express doctrine of Divine Revelation. In the Old Testament we read, that Samuel, after he was dead and buried, appeared to Saul, and conversed with him, his material body still lying in the grave: see 1 Sam. xxviii. 3, 11 to 19. But we are more particularly instructed concerning this matter in the New Testament, which distinctly states, that, when our Lord was transfigured on the mountain, "two men, which were Moses and Ellas, appeared to him in glory, and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," Luke ix. 30, 31. Matt. xvii. 3, 4. Mark ix. 4, 5. To the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, and started what appeared to them as difficulties attending it, our Lord answered, "As touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," Matt. xxii. 31, 32. Here Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are represented as still living in the spiritual world, though their material bodies were consigned to the dust. The same doctrine of immediate resurrection further appears from the case of the rich man and Lazarus, the former of whom was seen to "lift up his eyes in hell, being in torments, while the latter was comforted