there will be no Change, either of Manners, or of the Portion of Happiness, or Mifery which we have merited from those Actions. Whether the Tree falls to the South or the North in the Place where it fell, there it must lie, fays Ecclefiaftes; which Saying is generally referr'd to the Death of Man, and his unchangeable Condition afterwards. And fo they are wont to interpret the shutting of the Gate in the Parables of Chrift.. But St. Paul tells us that more plainly in the second Epiftle to the Corinthians, and the fifth Chapter; For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Chrift, that every one may receive the Things done in his Body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or whether it be evil: which Words feem to determine and fix the future Condition of Men, from the Actions which they have done, or ought to have done, during this prefent Life. But if another Life intervenes before the Day of Judgment, and a Life of that Nature, that it is as capable of good or of evil Actions, of Virtue or Vice, as is the prefent Life, than which it is of much greater Length and Duration; I fee no Manner of Reafon, why the whole Weight of Eternity, and of the future Lot and Condition of Men fhould depend upon this prefent Life, which is fo fhort, fo furrounded

with Trouble, and to numberlefs Temptations liable, that other of much greater Moment being entirely neglected and efteem'd as nothing."

You fee here that the Doctor intimates very plainly, that if there be any fuch Thing as an intermediate State, between Death and Judgment, capable of Action, it ought not, he thinks, to pafs as of no Account; nor is it eafy to fee a Reafon why it should do fo. For if there may be Wisdom, Knowledge, and Device, and that too as fome think of a more perfect Kind, when the Soul by Death has gain'd its Release from Body, and is by that Means qualify'd to know more than ever, it must be very difficult to affign a Reafon why a Soul at fuch a Time may not turn Penitent, and freed from every bodily Temptation, and the Veil of the Flesh removed from before its Eyes, make a fwift and fpeedy Advance towards God and Heaven. There is nothing in Nature that I can conceive to obstruct this: And the Cafe of our Death Bed Pefitents feems to prove it. It must be own'd indeed, that it is but too often feen, that Sick Bed Penitents, as Health returns, are but too toc apt to return to their former Vices: but then it is to be confidered in this Cafe, that as Health returns, they are apt to be

met

met with again by the fameTemptations, and to be feduced again by the fame vain Delufions that had so often beguil'd them before.. But with regard to the Dead, their Cafe is widely different; they are neither fuppos'd to be liable to fuch Temptations,, nor to be deluded by fuch like Deceptions; the Eyes of their Faith must in that State be clear and strong, or if you had rather have it fo, they walk by Sight, and must of Course be difpofed to rectify all thofe Errors, that either Ignorance or want of Thought had led them into. And therefore if they are not to be judged, as there is no Reason to think they will be, nor fo much as a Shadow of Proof for it to be brought from Scripture, till the fecond Coming of the Lord to Judgment, how hard must it be to keep them from flattering Hopes, that what either by their own, or the Prayers of others for them, by one or other, or by both united, tho' not immediately fit to ftand in Judgment, they may yet acquire that Fitness before Judgment comes. This does not only pafs with many for folid Reasoning, but is made by many a Part of their Faith; and tho' we as Proteftants profefs the contrary, yet did we know the private Thoughts of many Proteftants, we should not find them perhaps fuch great Strangers to fome fecret

K 2..

Ex

Expectations of this Kind, as we are gene-. rally apt to believe. They arise fo naturally from the common Faith, or the common receiv'd Opinion of Immortality, that it is not eafy for a thinking Mind to be always free from them. St. Auguftin freely owns that this was his Faith, that fome in the feparate State might gain their Pardon, and Sins be pardon'd there which are not here.

As for temporal Pain, fome endure it here, fays he, and fome hereafter, and fome both here and there, yet all is over before the laft Judgment. But all shall not come into these eternal Pains. (which notwithstanding fhall be eternal after the laft Judgment, unto them that endure them temporally after Death,) for fome shall be pardon'd in the next World that are not pardon'd in this, and acquitted there and not here from entering into Pains eternal". [City of God. Lib. 21. Cap. 13.]

You must eafily fee, that fuch are not affected by this, as are for fending Souls to Heaven or Hell directly, and for an irreverfible Sentence immediately pafs'd upon every one, as foon as ever it has left the Body. But as this is a Notion exploded by moft thinking Men, and fuch as has not the leaft Foundation in Scripture whereon to build it, the Belief of a feparate State, as held at -prefent, is but too much liable to produce

fuch

fuch Inferences, and has in Fact been productive of Inferences highly injurious to the present Cause and Intereft of Virtue; fo far is it from favouring Virtue more than our's, as I fhall fhew more at large in my next; till when, with the greatest Sincerity, I reft Yours, THEOPHILUS.

LETTER III.

THEOPHILUS to CRITO.

I Now go on, according to my Promife,

to fhew more largely the pernicious Use that has been made of the common Doctrine of Immortality. To Heathens ignorant of a Refurrection, the Belief of this no doubt was good and useful, and the Design of spreading it pious and laudable; but as to us who believe that the Dead fhall one Day rife, and rifing bodily be brought to Judgment, it is not only a Doctrine of no Neceffity, but fuch as both may and has been abus'd to wicked Purposes, and to the hurting the Intereft of that very Virtue it was intended at firft to promote. You cannot but know, that this is the grand Foundation upon which the Papists have erected fome of their greatest Errors. The Invocation of Saints, and Maffes for Souls in PurK 3 gatory,