Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/141

 among the spirits of just men made perfect, performing the uses and enjoying the advantages belonging to their state and character.

The like fact is taught by what the Lord said of the three patriarchs of the Jewish nation; namely, "That the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him." Here it is plainly affirmed that those persons are (not shall be) raised from the dead, and that they were then living unto the Lord; and this fact is said to have been proved at the bush, by the statement that He was their God, and that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Unless they were then living, this passage could have had no point; for the Lord referred to it as a proof of their resurrection, in answer to the Sadducees, by whom the doctrine of resurrection was denied. And it seems that even they admitted the argument to be unanswerable, for it is written, "that they durst not ask Him any question at all."

The Lord said unto the dying penitent, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Was not this plainly telling him, that notwithstanding the death of his natural body, he would soon be raised into the spiritual world, and there find himself to be a living, thinking man, in a spiritual body?

John informs us that he was about to worship one in the spiritual world, who "said unto him, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God." The magnificence in which this angel appeared shows that he had been raised into the enjoyment of some distinguished glory; and yet we have no evidence that any earthly body had been re-