reply here, viz. That the whole time, from death to the resurrection, is but as a sleep of a night, and the dead shall awake out of their graves, utterly ignorant and insensible of the long distance of time that hath past since their death. One year, or one thousand years, will be the same thing to them; and therefore they should be as careful to prepare for the day of judgment, and the rewards that attend it, as they are for their entrance into the separate state at death, if there were any such state to receive them.

I grant, men should be so in reason and justice; but such is the weakness and folly of our natures, that men will not be so much influenced nor alarmted by distant prospects, nor so solicitous to prepare for an event which they suppose to be so very far off, as they would for the same event, if it commences as soon as ever this mortal life expires. The vicious man will indulge his sensualities, and lie down to sleep in death with this comfort, I shall take my rest here for a hundred or a thousand years, and perhaps, in all that space, my offence may be forgotten, or something may happen that I may escape; or, let the worst come that can come, I shall have a long sweet nap before my sorrows begin.' Thus the force of divine terrors are greatly enervated by this delay of punishment.

I will not undertake to determine when the soul is dismissed from the body, whether there be any explicit divine sentence passed concerning its eternal state of happiness or misery, according to its works in this life; or whether the pain or pleasure, that belongs to the separate state, be not chiefly such as arises by natural consequences from a life of sin or a life of holiness, and as being under the power of an approving or a condemning conscience; but it seems to me more probable, that since “the spirit returns to God that gave it, to God the Judge

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of all," with whom "the spirits of the just made perfect" dwell, and, since the spirit of a christian, when "absent from the body, is present with the Lord,” i. e. Christ, I am more inclined to think that there is some sort of judicial determination of this important point, either by God himself, or by Jesus Christ, into whose hands he has committed all judgment." Heb. ix. 27. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Whether immediate or more distant, is not here expressly declared, though the immediate connexion of the words hardly gives room for seventeen hundred years to intervene. But if the solemn formalities of a judgment be delayed, yet the conscience of a separate spirit, reflecting on a holy or a sinful life, is sufficient to begin a heaven or a hell, immediately after death.

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Amongst those who delay the season of recompence till the resurrection, there are some who suppose the soul to exist still as a distinct being from the body, but to pass the whole interval of time in a state of stupor or sleep, being altogether unconscious and inactive. Others again imagine, that the soul itself has not a sufficient distinction from the body to give it any proper existence when the body dies; but that its existence shall be renewed at the resurrection of the body, and then be made the subject of joy or pain, according to its behaviour in this mortal state.

I think there might be an effectual argument against each of these opinions raised from the principles of philosophy: I shall just give a hint on them, and then proceed to search what scripture has revealed in this matter, which is of much greater importance to us, and will have a more powerful influence on the minds of christians.

1. Some imagine the soul of man to be his blood or his breath, or a sort of vital flame or refined air or vapor, or the composition and motion of the fluids and solids in the animal body. This they

uppose to be the spring or principle of his intellecqual life, and of all his thoughts and consciousness, as vell as of his animal life. And though this soul of man dies together with the body, and has no manner of separate existence or consciousness, yet when his body is raised from the grave, they suppose this prineiple of consciousness is renewed again, and intellecual life is given him at the resurrection as well as a new corporeal life.

But it should be considered, that this conscious or whinking principle having lost its existence for a seaon, it will be quite a new thing, or another creature, at the resurrection; and the man will be properly another person, another self, another I or he and uch a new conscious principle or person cannot pro-' berly be rewarded or punished for personal virtues or vices, of which itself cannot be conscious by any Dower of memory or reflection, and which were ransacted in this mortal state by another distinct principle of consciousness. For if the conscious principle itself, or the thinking being, has ceased to exist, it is impossible that it should retain any memory of former actions, since itself began to be but in the moment of the resurrection. The doctrine of rewarding or punishing the same soul, or intelligent nature, which did good or evil in this life, necessarily requires that the same soul or intelligent nature should have a continual and uninterrupted existence, that so the same conscious being which did good or evil may be rewarded or punished.

II. Those who suppose the soul of man to have a real distinct existence when the body dies, but only to fall into a state of slumber without consciousness or activity, must, I think, suppose this soul to be material, i. e. an extended and solid substance.

If they suppose it to be inextended, or to have no parts or quantity, I confess I have no manner of idea of the existence or possibility of such an inextend

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ed being without consciousness or active power, nor do they pretend to have any such idea as I ever heard, and therefore they generally grant it to be extended.

But if they imagine the soul to be extended, it must either have something more of solidity or density than mere empty space, or it must be quite as unsolid and thin as space itself: let us consider both these.

If it be as thin and subtle as mere empty space, yet while it is active and conscious, I own it must have a proper existence; but if it once begin to sleep and drop all consciousness and activity, I have no other idea of it, but the same which I have of empty space; and that I conceive to be mere nothing, though it impose upon us with the appearance of some sort of properties.

If they allow the soul to have the least degree of density above what belongs to empty space, this is solidity in the philosophic sense of the word, and then it is solid éxtension, which I call matter: and a material being may indeed be laid asleep, i. e. it may cease to have any motion in its parts; but motion is not consciousness; and how either solid or unsolid extension, either space or matter, can have any consciousness or thought belonging to any part of it, or spread through the whole of it, I know not; or what any sort of extension can do toward thought or consciousness, I confess I understand not; nor can l frame any more an idea of it, than I can of a blue motion, or a sweet smelling sound, or of fire or air or water reasoning or rejoicing: and I do not affect to speak of things or words, when I can form no corresponding ideas of what is spoken.

So far as I can judge, the soul of man, in its own nature, is nothing else but a conscious and active principle, subsisting by itself, made after the image of God, who is all conscious activity; and it is still the same being, whether it be united to an animal

body or separated from it. If the body die, the soul still exists an active and conscious power or princi"ple, or being; and if it ceases to be conscious and active, I think it ceases to be; for I have no conception of what remains.

6 Now, if the conscious principle continue conscious after death, it will not be in a mere conscious indolence: the good man and the wicked will not have the same indolent existence. Virtue or vice, in the very temper of this being when absent from matter or body, will become a pleasure or a pain to the conscience of a separate spirit.

I am well aware that this is a subject which has employed the thoughts of many philosophers, and I do but just intimate my own sentiments, without presuming to judge for others. But the defence or Frefutation of arguments on this subject would draw me into a field of philosophical discourse, which is very foreign to my present purpose: and whether this reasoning stand or fall, it will have but very little influence on this controversy with the generality of christians, because it is a thing rather to be determined by the revelation of the word of God. I therefore drop this argument at once, and apply myself immediately to consider the proofs that may be drawn from scripture for the soul's existence in a separate state after death, and before the resurrec tion.

SECT. II.

Probable arguments for the separate state.

THERE are several places of scripture in the Old Testament, as well as in the New, which may be most naturally and properly construed to signify the existence of the soul in a separate state after the body is dead; but since they do not carry with them such plain evidence, or forcible proof, and may possibly be interpreted to another sense. I