Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION III. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. PROOF OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE— (1) PROM THE WORDS OF CHRIST ; (2) FROM THE WORDS OF PETER; (3) FROM THE WORDS OF PAUL; (4) FROM THE WORDS OF CHRIST. — ORJECTIONS TO THIS—(1) FROM SCRIPTURE; AND (2) FROM REASON. Hating learned from the word of God that death, the penalty of sin, falls chiefly upon the soul, and consists, for the present, in separation from God rather than extinction of conscious being, we must now carry forward our investigation to the state of unbelievers during the period which elapses between the dying and the rising again of the body. The Scriptures teach, as we believe, that the souls of impenitent men continue still, in the transitional state to be conscious and miserable; and it will be our duty in the present section to exhibit, partially at least, their testimony on this point. In our Lord's account of the rich man and Lazarus, it is said : " And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died and was buried; and in hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments," etc.1 The limits assigned to the present essay do not permit us to review and estimate in detail the various hypotheses which have been made respecting the import of this passage; but the result of a somewhat careful survey is simply this: that the most obvious meaning of Christ's language is its real meaning; that no amount of ingenuity, no keenness of spiritual vision, can discover any occult sense in this language, or dissipate the impression which it makes at once upon a thoughtful mind. Says Dr. Whately of the passage : " It seems to imply, indeed, very plainly, that there is a future state of rewards and punishments, . . . and also that those who have been dev...