should suppose, that the appearance of men in their complete state, i.e., having body, soul, and spirit, is no proof that the spirit by itself, is a living man. Mr. Warleigh tells us that Scripture presents us with four appearances, which prove that the believer has a true and real life as a spirit in the intermediate state. We will proceed to examine them.

XXIII. Mr. Warleigh first gently touches on the appearance of Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration (496). How he could possibly imagine for a moment that this has anything to say to the question before us I cannot see. Yet he thinks it has. Comparing it with the appearance of Moses on the same occasion he says, "the case of Elijah might possibly not be so much against Mr. C.'s theory." Why, how can it be against it in any way at all? Elijah never died! Elijah was taken up bodily to heaven! We are talking of the spirit apart from the body, and Mr. W. presents us with a case where it was not apart from the body! If cases of this kind were of any use to him, there is another in the history of Enoch. He might just as well have mentioned one as the other.

XXIV. But on the appearance of Moses upon this same occasion Mr. W. fully relies as clearly subversive of my view. Moses had died and been buried long before. He now appears in life. Hence, Mr. W. infers, as the inevitable conclusion, that Moses appeared alive on this occasion in the spirit-existence, and that consequently my theory that believers have no existence in the intermediate state is overthrown.

XXV. Moses however is not said in any of the Gospel accounts, to have appeared as a spirit. If this had been told us, of course it would have borne out Mr. W.'s view. For my part, I am perfectly certain that Moses did not here appear as a spirit. There are two other views of this occurrence which may be taken, which set aside Mr. W.'s view, and both of which have the incalculable advantage of harmonising with the general teaching of Scripture upon the intermediate state. I will first state that which in my judgment is the true explanation. When I have stated the other, my readers must decide which they prefer.

XXVI. The scene of the transfiguration is expressly called by our Lord "a vision." (öpapa, Matt. xvii. 9.) We have then to find out what is meant in Scripture by a vision. Cruden tells us that it is a revelation from God. He mentions four sorts of such visions. In his fourth he gives us the description which, we have no doubt, explains the vision before us. It is "by prophecy, which were two-fold, either in dreams, or when awake, in a trance, or ecstasy." The scene of the transfiguration was, in our opinion, a vision predictive of future glory, and presented to the minds of the three apostles when awake. But the main question here is, what is meant in Scripture by a vision ?

XXVII. There are twelve places in the New Testament, where the vision is spoken of. We subjoin them for the information of our readers, who can examine them for themselves.* The English word "vision," occurs in other passages, but those referred to are all the places where the Greek word opapa, translated "vision" in Matt. xvii. 9, occurs. From an examination of these places, it will be seen that while the

* Matt. xvii. 9; Acts vii. 31; ix. 10, 12; x. 3, 17, 19; xi. 5; xii, 9; xvi. 9, 10; xviii. 9.

"vision" had its truth as a revelation from God, it had not the truth of a real and actual occurrence.

XXVIII. There are of course among these instances some which are not conclusive of this view, but there are none which are contradictory to it. There are others which fully prove this view, and by their teaching we are to judge of the sense of a "vision" in those places which are less definite in their expression. It is to these we will now advert. The first of them occurs in Acts ix. 12. God appears in this chapter to Ananias, and informs him that Saul, while blind in the house of Judas, had already "seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand upon him." Ananias had up to this not gone to Saul, and had never seen him, nor been seen by him as men see each other. Yet we are told that Saul had seen Ananias. But how? In a vision. Here we see that the vision is not a real occurrence, but a revelation made by God to the mind of a man, and which appears to him with all the vividness of sense, It would also seem most probable that the vision presented to Saul's mind was presented to him while he was awake, for it seems to have been presented to him while in the act of praying (11, 12 ver.). In exact conformity with this view, we are told that the appearance of the great sheet let down from heaven, and containing all manner of four-footed beasts, as seen by Peter, was a a vision. (Acts x. 17.) This certainly was not a real occurrence. It was simply a revelation made to the mind of Peter while he was in a state of trance (10, 11 ver.). It was true as a revelation of God's purpose. It was presented to Peter's mind with as much force and vividness as if with his eyes open he had seen an actual sheet descending from the clouds and containing beasts. But it had no other truth than this. There was really no sheet in the sky, and no beasts of any kind. The whole occurrence was a vision. I will only refer to one other place, but it is a passage which is absolutely conclusive of the meaning which the Scripture puts upon the "vision." (Acts xii. 9.) Peter is in prison. An angel comes into his prison, and bids Peter follow him, and the chains fall off from Peter's hands, and in blank astonishment he follows his angelic guide. All this was a real occurrence, but Peter at first thought it was not. In what words is Peter's first idea of this remarkable occurrence described ? Thus :-" And Peter went out and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision." Here we see as clearly as it is possible what we are to understand by a vision. It is not a true and real occurrence, but an appearance presented to the human mind with the force and vividness of a real occurrence. Such then we are led by Scripture to suppose was the scene of the transfiguration so far as the presence of Moses and Elias is concerned. We do not think they were actually and truly there at all. The scene was a vision in which these great representatives of the Church are brought before the minds of the apostles, an emblem to them from God of the future glory of the redeemed. It had as much truth as the vision of the great sheet let down from heaven to Peter, but neither more nor less. This view of the translation sets aside all necessity of adopting Mr. Warleigh's idea that Moses here appeared as a spirit.

XXIX. If any hesitate to adopt this view, there is another which has

very much greater support from Scripture than any one can for a moment pretend that Mr. Warleigh's view has. If Moses was really present on the mount, in the same sense that the three apostles and Christ were there, then it is only in conformity with Scripture precedent and teaching to suppose him raised from the dead and present there as a man. No one, indeed, knew where his sepulchre was, but God knew, and could as readily raise him for a great occasion as he raised the widow's son or Lazarus. God often raised the dead and permitted them to appear to men. We affirm that there is not in Scripture, from beginning to end, one instance in which a spirit-man is said to have appeared. If the scene on the mount then was a true occurrence, it is only in conformity with undoubted Scripture examples to suppose that Moses was on that occasion raised from the dead to appear. So we see that there is no necessity whatever for supposing with Mr. Warleigh that this was the appearance of a spirit Moses.

XXX. But Mr. Warleigh has another case in point, in addition to Moses and Elias. It is the appearance of the angel to John as related in Revelation xxii. 9 (496). We were certainly astonished when we came to this part of Mr. Warleigh's paper. We have read Revelation a great many times, and it has never occurred to us that the angel here was a human being in any condition whatever of humanity. But Mr. Warleigh has no doubt about it. He says-speaking of the angel here and of the angel in xix. 10, whom he supposes two distinct persons"It is clear that these two glorious messengers were human intelligences; for they were fellow servants, one of them had been a prophet, and the other had testified of Jesus. Here again, then, are human spirits existing alive in an individual conscious state. This is a fact, and cannot be accounted for on Mr. C.'s theory." (497.)

XXXI. We think that Mr. Warleigh's fact here is not a fact but only a fancy. He grounds his opinion upon the authorised translation, which runs thus:- “Then saith he (the angel) unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book." From this Mr. Warleigh supposes that the angel told John that he was not only his "fellow servant," but also one of the prophets. If Mr. Warleigh had looked carefully into the Greek, he would have seen that the passage does not say what he supposes it to say. The English version might bear his sense, the Greek does not. It affirms indeed that the angel was "a fellow servant" of John; it does not affirm that he was a prophet. We will not give our own translation of the passage, but we will give that of Dean Alford, whose views on the intermediate state, were much more in consonance with Mr. Warleigh's than with ours. It is thus that Dean Alford translates it:-"I am a fellow servant of thee, and (a fellow servant) of thy brethren the prophets." According to this translation, the angel did not say he was a prophet. He only said that he was a servant of God, and as such a fellow servant of all who were such. As a "ministering spirit sent forth by God," he puts himself on a level with every disciple of Christ and servant of God. And so Mr. Warleigh's theory of believers being alive when they are dead, is found to have no countenance from the angel's appearances in the book of Revelation. Mr. Warleigh stands almost alone in

his opinion that the "angel" of Revelation xxii. 9 is "a human intelligence."

XXXII. Such are the four "human spirits" whom Mr. W. has summoned from Scripture in proof of his theory that the dead are alive. One of these was certainly not in the intermediate state at all, for he had never died. Another of them only appeared in a vision. The third and fourth were not men at all, and never had been men. Verily Scripture utterly fails when called upon to bring forth human spirits to build up an unscriptural theory of the dead. We are thankful that from the records of the Book of God not one solitary example can be adduced in favour of the view that the dead are in any way alive, whether as held by the Spiritualist, the Swedenborgian, or the more orthodox Christian. Scripture is consistent with itself and with common sense. It tells us of the departed that they are dead in their graves. It does not cover its teaching with ridicule by telling us in the next breath that they are alive, in heaven or Hades or Paradise, or any other place.

XXXIII. But Mr. Warleigh has texts of Scripture in proof of his position. We will examine them. We do not think they will be found to sustain it any more than the examples from Scripture which we have just considered.

XXXIV. His first text is Heb. xii. 22-24 :-"But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant," &c.

XXXV. This text from Heb. xii. 22-24, upon which Mr. Warleigh relies so fully, is not however to his point at all. It seems quite plain that this very noble description is a description of the final state of happiness and glory to which every believer is now admitted in promise, but to which he has not arrived either in the present life, or in the intermediate state. That part on which Mr. Warleigh chiefly relies, where the writer says that we are come "to the spirits of just men made perfect," is of itself sufficient to show that the description applies to a condition of things not to be reached until the resurrection. Mr. Warleigh very properly draws our attention to the fact that "made perfect," does not apply to "the spirits," but to the just men themselves (498). The phrase must then describe the perfection of the believer in his glorified body. Mr. Warleigh's admission at p. 493 that "the true believer will not be complete, either in the manly integrity of his threefold nature, or in his happiness, till after the resurrection," is an excellent comment and guide to this passage in Hebrews, and ought, we think, to have prevented Mr. Warleigh from making the inconsistent statement which he makes at p. 497. We are expressly told in Scripture that the completion and perfection of the believer in his organisation, happiness, and glory, will not take place till resurrection; and the writer of this very epistle has already told us of all those who had died that they are "not made perfect." (Heb. xi. 39, 40; Phil. iii. 20.) We cannot suppose him in one chapter to say of the dead in Christ that they are not perfect as yet, and to say in another that they are. In the former he speaks of their actual condition-" not made perfect;" in the latter he

speaks of their condition at the promised period of redemption: "mado perfect." We cannot allow Mr. Warleigh, for the sake of establishing his theory that the dead are alive, to put an interpretation upon Heb. xii. 22, inconsistent with other scriptures, and with his own more scriptural view elsewhere.

Mr. Warleigh also relies upon Eph. iii. 15: "of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." He assumes that "the whole family" here means the redeemed, and asks, "Is it not most inconsistent with correct reasoning to conclude, that while that part of the whole family which is upon earth has a real existence, that part in heaven has no existence?" (498.) Mr. Warleigh must first, however, show that the "whole family" here means exclusively the redeemed from among men. Middleton, in his work on the Greek article, maintains with much force that the proper translation should be " every family," and very many commentators suppose that "of whom " should be referred to the Father, rather than to Christ. The greater number of commentators, and those of the highest character, maintain that the family in heaven signifies "the angels." So Calvin, Bengel, Holden, Bloomfield. If we will take the express testimony of Scripture, we will conclude that the "family in heaven" does not include the dead in Christ at all. Peter tells us of one of the most eminent of them, David, that he has not ascended to heaven (Acts ii. 34), while numberless Scriptures tell us where they all are, viz., "asleep in the dust of the earth." (Dan. xii. 2.) Mr. Warleigh cannot quietly assume as true a view of this text which the most eminent commentators, and those too holding his own views on the intermediate state, reject. To our mind, this text of Eph. iii. 15 is plainly of one sense with an earlier expression of the apostle in this same epistle, where he tells us that God has set Christ "far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:" and with his teaching in Colossians-"Ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power." (Eph. i. 21: Col. ii. 10.)

We may be sure that the text from 1 Pet. iii. 18 is not left out by Mr. W. in his attempt to prove that the dead are not dead at all. In my work upon "Hades," I have put forward as a very probable view of this difficult passage, that "the spirits " here mentioned were a race of angels who had sinned in the days of Noah through intermixture with the race of men, as would seem related in Gen. vi. 2, and referred to in Jude 6, and 1 Cor. xi. 10. Mr. Warleigh seeks to overthrow my view by saying that "Peter expressly tells us they were the spirits of men who lived in the days of Noah." (500.) Now when we are arguing from Scripture we ought to be very particular in quoting it. Peter does not say that these spirits were the "spirits of men." Let our readers look to the passage themselves, and they will see that Peter only says that they were spirits" which were disobedient at the time when Noah lived and built the ark. It is quite open to us, from Peter's words, to judge whether they were the spirits of men or some of those beings to whom the name of "spirits" is so constantly given in the New Testament.

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Certainly Mr. W.'s view of this passage is one which has as yet recommended itself to very few. He supposes that these spirits were