he was caught up into paradise, and heard un speakable words." I grant this ecstacy of the apo"stle does not actually show the existence of a separate state after death till the resurrection, ye it plainly manifests St. Paul's belief, that there might be such a state, and that the soul might be separated from the body, and might exist, and think, and know, and act in paradise, in a state of separation, and hear, and perhaps converse in the unspeakable language of that world, while it was absent from the body.

And, as I acknowledge I am one of those persons who do not believe that the intellectual spirit or mind of man is the proper principle of animal life to the body, but that it is another distinct conscious being that generally uses the body as an habitation, engine, or instrument, while its animal life remains: so I am of opinion, it is a possible thing for the intellectual spirit, in a miraculous manner, by the special order of God, to act in a state of separation without the death of the animal body, since the life of the body depends upon breath and air, and the regular temper and motion of the solids and fluids of which it is composed.* And St. Paul seems here

* It would be thought, perhaps, a little foregin to my present purpose, if I should stay here to prove that it is not the conscious principle in man that gives or maintains the animal life of his body. It is granted, that, according to the course of nature, and the general appointment of God therein, this conscious principle or spirit continues its communication with the body, while the body has animal life, or is capable of its natural motions, and able to obey the volitions of the spirit; and on this account, the union of the rational spirit to the body,' and the animal life of the body,' are often represented as one and the same thing.

But, if we enter into a philosophical consideration of things, we should remember that animals of every kind in earth, air, and sea, and -even the minutest insects which swarm in millions, and worlds of them, which are invisible to the naked eye, have all an animal life, but no such conscious or thinking principle as in a man; and why may not the body of man have the same sort of animal life quite distinct sfrom the conscious spirit?

Besides, if this conscious principle give life to the body, medicines and physicians, whose power reaches only to rectify the disordered

to be of the same mind, by his doubting whether his spirit was in the body or out of the body, whilst it was wrapt into the third heaven, and enjoyed this vision, his body being yet alive.

Phil. i. 21. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." The apostle, whilst he was here upon earth, spent his life in the service of Christ, and enjoyed many glorious communicatious from him. For him to live was Christ." And on this account he was contented to continue here in life longer: yet he is well satisfied that death would be an advantage or gain to him. Now we can hardly suppose what gain it would be for St. Paul to die, if his soul immediately went to sleep, and became inactive and unconscious, while his body lay in the grave, and neither soul nor body could do any service for Christ, nor receive any communications from him till the great rising-day. This text seems to carry the argument above a mere probability.

1 Thess. iv. 14. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." The most natural and evident sense of these words, is this, that when the man Jesus Christ (in whom dwells the fulness of the godhead) shall descend from heaven, in order to raise the dead bodies of those that died or went to sleep in the faith of Christ, God dwelling in him, will bring with him the souls of his saints, who were in paradise, down to earth to be reunited to their bodies when Jesus raises them from the dead,

solida and fluids of the body, would not be so necessary to preserve life, as an orator to persuade the spirit to continue in the body and preserve its life. And accordingly, we read of foreign ignorant nations where the kindred persuade the dying person to live and tarry with them, and not to forsake them; and when the person is dead, they mourn and reprove him, "Why were you so unkind to leave and forsake us? and indeed this conduct of the poor savages is a very natural inference from their supposition of the intelligent spirit giving animal life to the body.

of which the apostle speaks in the 6th verse: this, I say, is the most natural and obvious sense; other paraphrases of the words seem strained and unnatural.

1 Thess. v. 10. "Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." Sleep is the death of good men, in the language of the apostle, in chap. iv. I3, 14, 15. and sleep, in this verse, can neither signify natural sleep, as verse 7. nor spiritual sloth, as ver. 6. therefore it must signify death here, Now, they who sleep in Christ in this sense, do still live together with him in their souls, and shall live with him in their bodies also, when raised from the dead. This exposition arises near to a certainty of evidence.

1 Pet. iii. 18, 19, 20. "Christ was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." I confess this is a text that has much puzzled interpreters, in what sense Christ may be said to go and preach to those ancient rebels who were destroyed by the flood; whether he did it by his Spirit working in Noah, the preacher of righteous ness in those days: or whether, in the three days in which the body of Christ lay dead, his soul visited the spirits of those rebels in their separate state of imprisonment, on which some ground the notion of his descent into hell: but, let this be determined as it will, the most clear and easy sense of the apostle, when be speaks of the spirits in prison, is, that the souls of those rebels, after their bodies were destroyed by the flood, were reserved in prison for some special and future design and is very parallel to the present circumstances of fallen angels, in Jude, ver, 6. The angels that kept not their first estate, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under dark

ness, unto the judgment of the great day." And why may not the spirits of men be as well kept in such a prison as angelic spirits?

Jude, ver. 7. "Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." It is evident, that the material fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah was not eternal, for a great lake of water quickly overflowed, and now covers all that plain where the fire was kindled, which burnt down those cities. It is manifest also, that, the day of resurrection and future punishment being not yet come, they do not, at this time, suffer the vengeance of eternal fire in their bodies: nor can this verse, I think, be well explained to make Sodom and Gomorrah an example to deter present sinners from uncleanness; but by allowing that the spirits of those lewd persons are now suffering a degree of vengeance or punishment from the justice of God, which is compared to that fire whereby their cities and their bodies were burnt, and which vengeance, at the last great day, shall continue their punishment and pronounce it eternal, or kindle material fire, which shall never be quenched.

The last text I shall mention, is Rev. iv. 9. "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." I confess this is a book of vision, and this place, amongst others, might be ex plained as a mere vision of the apostle, if there were no other text which confirmed the doctrine of a separate state: but since I think there are some solid proofs of it in other parts of the New Testament, I know not why this may not be explained, at least something nearer to the literal sense of it than those will allow, who suppose the soul to sleep from death to the resurrection. Why may not the spirits of the martyrs, which are now with God, pray him to hasten the accomplishment of his promises made to his church, and the day of vengeance upon his irre concileable enemies?

SECT. III.

SOME FIRMER OR MORE EVIDENT PROOFS OF

A SEPARATE STATE.

I COME now to consider those texts which do more expressly and certainly discover the separate state, and which, I think, cannot, with any tolerable appearance of reason, be turned aside from their plain and obvious intention, to reveal and declare that ther is a separate state of souls. And such, in my opinion, are these that follow.

1. Text, Matth. x. 28. "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." Every common reader, as well as every man of learning, who reads this text with a sincere mind and without prejudice, I think will acknowledge at least, that the most obvious and easy sense of the words, implies that there is a soul in man which men cannot kill, even though they kill the body.

It is to very little purpose for writers to say, that the Greek word which we translate soul here, doth in other places of scripture, and even in the 39th verse of this very chapter, signify life, and consequently here it may also signify the animal life, or the person of the man; for it is manifest, that in this place it must signify some immortal principle in man that cannot die; whereas when the body is killed, the animal life dies too, and does not exist till the body is raised again but the soul is a principle in this place which men cannot kill, even though they destroy the life of the body: and whatsoever other senses the word may obtain in other texts, that cannot preclude such a sense of it in this text, as is most usual in itself, and which the context makes necessary in this place...

Nor will it avail the supporters of the mortality of (XII.)

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