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p387 [F G Patterson] [To the same.] DEAR BROTHER, - I judge the sleep of the soul to be a most wretched and unscriptural idea. The Word never hints at such a thing - all live unto Him: a Christian "falls asleep" when he dies; but we have the certainty that it is used for death itself, not for the soul's sleeping after death, by what the Lord says in the case of Lazarus. But the passages you quoted are ample to my mind and clear. It is a sorrowful thing if being with the Lord is vague; it is a main feature in final blessedness. Both the souls under the altar, and Lazarus and Dives, shew it is false. I freely admit they are figures, and the latter adapted to Jewish notions, but not figures of being asleep. . . .

I apprehend that "the blood of the everlasting covenant" is in contrast with the covenant in and for them and the world in Sinai and for Israel - as in all the contrast in Hebrews. Here it is established in the power of the resurrection, of an endless life, as he says elsewhere. It is that which lasts for ever, is real, and for souls, and in the power of the resurrection.

Revelation 20:4 corresponds, I think, to those slain under the beast, and before, when it might have seemed too late when the saints are gone, and so are especially mentioned as having a part in it.

I am just arrived from Elberfeld.

Affectionately yours.

London, October. 1864.

[51235E]

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