| 398 to "the port of peace." At length the "Sun [Son} of righteousness arose, and life and immortality were brought to light." Salvation for the living and the dead was proclaimed, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," faith in him established as a condition, and baptism with water, as a seal and pledge of the latter, and the effusion of the Holy Spirit, as an earnest of the promised and desired inheritance. No wonder the multitudes "gladly received the word, and were baptized;" when, by simply trusting in the Son of God, and going down into the laver of regeneration, in obedience to his command, they could come forth filled with hope and joy; and by the laying on of the hands of his duly commissioned and authorized servants, receive the fulness [fullness] of his spirit; to lead them into all truth; to show them things to come; to take of the things of the Father and convey them unto them; to assure them that death was deprived of his sting, and the grave robbed of its victims; and to point them to a state of existence free from woes and ills, and glorious in all its associations and enjoyments. Such was the gospel. And as such it was proclaimed, by Christ and his apostles, to the living and to the dead; for we learn from Peter, that Christ went spiritually, "and preached to the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few (that is eight) souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto baptism doth now also save us (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject unto him." 1, Peter III. 19-22
Speaking of the wicked Gentiles, he says [IV. 5, 6,] "who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached ALSO to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."-We see by the above, and by other scriptures, what is the gospel method of saving mankind-faith in him, and obedience to his commands by submission to the ordinance of baptism, administered by those duly authorized and commissioned. How the living, who hear the gospel and have the means of obedience within their reach, stand affected, is plain and not easily misunderstood; "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not and and is not baptized shall be damned.
Here we leave the living and inquire for the dead. How are they affected by the gospel? We have seen that the gospel has been, and we infer is still, preached to the dead-that is, to disembodied spirits. St. Peter has informed us why the gospel is preached to the dead; "that they might be judged according to men in the flesh."-Men in the flesh are judged according as they believe and obey the gospel, or disbelieve and reject it. Inasmuch then as the gospel is preached to the dead, they have a capacity and agency, to believe and in some way obey it, or the contrary. It is easy to imagine how the departed spirit may be made to see, to understand, to comprehend, and to embrace truths which were not manifested to, nor embraced by that spirit while incarnated; but how that spirit could render acceptable obedience, is the subject of our present inquiry. It has been a general supposition for ages past, that no such acceptable obedience could be rendered, and if such spirit had departed before being visited by the sound of the gospel and without ever having had an opportunity of embracing it, it was irrevocably lost and sealed up to misery indescribable and irremovable. True, some have had charity to suspend so heavy a judgment, and to recommend them to mercy; while others have endeavored to conjure up some means to bribe justice. God has been pleased to reveal an answer to our inquiry, and disclose a truth, once well understood and practised [practiced] upon but for a long time past wrapped up and lost among the rubbish of error. It is simply this, that the disembodied spirit shall have the opportunity of embracing by faith, or rejecting the gospel of the Son of God; and that its believing kinsman may step forth in its behalf and be baptized for the remission of sins, and be confirmed for the reception of the holy spirit; and that
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