We are sometimes tempted to think, that the actual punishment of our first parents was less than that they had been threatened with. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was GOD’S assurance; but when they ate they did not die,—as we account dying; they were but banished from the Garden of Eden, and prevented from returning, by cherubims who kept the entrance, and a flaming sword which turned every way. It was indeed a sad reverse—a wilderness instead of a garden—sorrow instead of joy—toil instead of rest—curses instead of blessings: but it was not the threatened death. They did not die. So we are wont to think: but we err therein; they did die, brethren. This reverse _was_ death. Death (what GOD means by death) is not annihilation—not ceasing to be; it is protracted existence apart from GOD, and the blessings of His right hand, and the light of His countenance. More truly did they die when they entered upon this state of existence, than when, hundreds of years afterwards, their bodies stiffened, and their breath ceased, and their flesh turned to corruption in the grave. It is a misconception—a practical unbelief of immortality, which makes us think otherwise. The soul does not perish—does not slumber; living once, it lives ever, and ever knows and feels its existence. The separation of it from the body alters its circumstances, uncasing it—depriving it of one of its appendages—breaking off its connexion with a material and natural world; but not destroying it. No; it lives on, and lives on (in its spiritual relations) as it did before, save that the withdrawal of bodily senses enables and _obliges_ the spiritual senses to exercise themselves to the full, and so intensifies the feelings, and completes the realisation of the spiritual state.