soul's survival of the body, nor do any of these scriptural expressions concerning the soul forbid this supposition: For, though in some places, the word soul signifies the person of the man or his body, or that animal principle which may die, yet in other places it signifies that intelligent or thinking principle which cannot die, as we have before proved where our Saviour tells us, "we should not fear them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul." Wheresoever the Scripture speaks of a "soul's being killed," it only means that the person who was mortal is slain,' i. e. the life of the body is destroyed, and the man considered as a compound being made up of soul and body is in some sense dissolved when one part of the composition dies. But where the soul signifies the intellectual principle in man, it is never said to die, unless when the word death means a loss of happiness, or living in misery; but this implies na. tural life still, for this soul cannot naturally be destroyed by any power but that which made it.

If any person object that the apostle in Acts ii. 31. says, "the soul of Christ was not left in hell, or the grave;" for so the word in the Hebrew may signify, Psal. xvi. 10. whence this is cited; there is a sufficient answer to be given to this two or three ways. It may be construed, that the principle of the animal life of Christ was not left to continue in death; or that the person of the man Jesus was not left in death or the grave, the body being sometimes put for the person; or it may be as well construed, that the spirit of Christ or his intellectual soul was not left in

the state of the dead, or of separation from the body, which the word sheol in the Hebrew, and ads in Greek, signify.

Here it may be observed also, that the word which signifies spirit, ruach, pneuma, spiritus, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and other languages, is used sometimes for air or breath, which is supposed to be the principle of life to the animal body; and sometimes it signifies the intellectual soul, the conscious and active principle in man; and therefore whatsoever may be said of the spirit's dying, or being lost, is no proof that the conscious principle in man dies, which is a very different thing from breath or air.

Perhaps it will be said here, does not Moses suppose breath to be the soul or spirit in man, when he says, Gen. ii. 7. "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.".

I answer, it is evident that Moses makes a plain difference between God's formation of man and brutes, for he makes no distinction between their soul and body in their creation; but he distinguishes the soul from the body of man, in his creation, speaking according to the common language and philosophy of that age as though the soul were in the breath: Nor was it proper to speak in strict philosophical language to those ignorant people; nor were the modes of expression in the Bible so peculiarly formed to teach us philosophy as religion.

But of this distinction between the soul of a brute,' and the soul of a man,' there seems to be a plain intimation given by Solomon in the book of Ecclesi

astes, chap. iii. 21. "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of a beast that goeth downward to the earth?" that the spirit of man,' i. e. his conscious and intellectual principle 'goeth upward,' or survives at the death of the body, but the spirit of the beast,' i. e. the spring of its animal life, 'goeth down to the earth,' is mingled with the common elements of this material world and entirely lost.

But the wise man in this place perhaps expresses some of his former atheistical doubts, saying, who knows' whether there is any difference between them? yet it intimates thus much, that men who pretended to wisdom in that age, supposed such a difference between the spirit of man and the spirit of a brute.

Object. II. Is taken from Psal. vi. 5. "In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" and Psal. cxlvi. 4. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." And Eccles. ix. 5. "The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not any thing." From all which words some would infer there is no such thing as a Separate State of souls.

Answ. Both David and his son Solomon exclude all such sort of thoughts and actions, both religious and civil, from the state of death as are practised in this life, all the pursuits of their present purposes, their present way and manner of divine worship, and their management or consciousness of human affairs: But they do not exclude all manner of consciousness,

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knowledge, thought or action, such as may be suited to the invisible state of spirits. The design of the writers in those places of Scripture requires no more than this, and therefore the words cannot be construed to any farther sense, or to exclude the conscious and active powers of a separate spirit from their proper exercise in that invisible world, though they have done with all their actions in the present visible

state.

Object. III. Is taken from John xiv. 3. "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also;" which seems to determine the point, that the followers of Christ were not to be present with him until he came again to this world to raise the dead, and to take his disciples to dwell with him.

Answ. 1. It hath been already granted by some persons who doubt of the Separate State of all souls, that the Apostles had this special favour allowed them to be received into the presence of Christ when they departed from this body: Now these words were spoken to the Apostles, and therefore they cannot preclude this privilege which they expected, viz. that when they were absent from the body' they should be present with the Lord,' 2 Cor. v. 8.

Answ. 2. Christ came again' to his disciples at his own resurrection from the dead, and taught them the things of the other world, and better prepared them for the happiness of heaven and his own presence: He came again also by the destruction of the Jewish state, and called his own people thence before

hand, as an emblem of their salvation when the world should be destroyed. He also came again at their death; when he that hath the keys of death and the invisible world' let them out of the prison of the body into the Separate State, that they might dwell with him: The coming of Christ' has many and various senses in the New Testament, and need not be referred only to his coming at the day of judgment.'

Answ. 3. But suppose in this place the words of Christ be construed concerning his great and public coming' to raise the dead and judge the world; it is certain that in that day the disciples shall be received to dwell with him' in a much more complete and glorious manner, when both soul and body shall be made the inhabitants of heaven: But this does not preclude or forbid that the separate souls of his followers should be favoured with his presence in paradise before his public coming to judge the world. Though the last and greatest blessing be only mentioned here, it does not exclude the former.

Object. IV. St. Paul in Phil. iii. 10, 11. says, that he desired "to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, (&c.) if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead:" Now what need had the Apostle to be so solicitous about the resurrection if he expected to be with Christ immediately upon his death, since being with Christ is the state of ultimate happiness?

Answ. 1. Some learned men suppose that the Apostle here presses after some peculiar exaltations of piety in this world, and after an interest in some first