Excerpt from The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. 12 There is point of more moment to all, r of greater comfort to saints, than what shall become of their souls when they die. It is our next stage; and things that are next use more to affect us. And besides, it is the beginning, and a taking possesion of our eternity. That these words should aim at this self-same thing, cant be discerned without consulting the foregoing part of the apostle's discourse; and yet I cant be large in bringing down the coherence, having pitched upon what this fifth verse contributes unto this argument, which alone will require more than this time allotted, having also very largely gone through the exposition of the foregoing verses elsewhere; and I w go but on where I left last. But yet to make way for the understanding the scope of my text, take The coherence in brief, thus: In the 16th verse of the foregoing chapter, where the well-head of his discourse is to be found, he shews the extraordinary care God hath of our inward man, to renew it day by day. Where inward man is strictly the soul with its graces, set in opposition to our outward man, the body with its appurtenances, which he saith daily perisheth, that is, is in a mouldering and decaying condition. Chap. v. 1. For we kw, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house t made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In this first verse of this fifth chapter, he meets with this supposition: but what if this outward man or earthly tabernacle be wholly dissolved and pulled down, what then shall become of this inner man? And he resolves it thus, 'That if it be dissolved, we have an house, a building of God in the heavens.' And what is the we, but this inner man he had spoken of, renewed souls, which dwell w in the body as in a tabernacle, as the inmates that can subsist without it? And it is as if he had said, If this inward man be destituted of one house, we have ather. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
