An Essay Toward the Proof of a Separate State of Souls Between Death and the Resurrection

§ I. The introduction or proposal of the question, with a distinction of the persmis who oppose it.

It is confessed that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead at the last day, and the everlasting joys, and the eternal sorrows, that shall succeed it, as they are described in the New Testament, are a very awful sanction to the gospel of Christ, and carry in them such principles of hope and terror as should effectually discourage vice and irreligion, and become a powerful attractive to the practice of faith and love, and universal holiness.

But so corrupt and perverse are the inclinations of men in this fallen and degenerate world, and their passions are so much impressed and moved by things that are present or just at hand, that the joys of heaven, and the sorrows of hell, when set far beyond death and the grave at some vast unknown distance of time, would have but too little influence on their hearts and lives. And though these solemn and important events are never so certain in themselves, yet being looked upon as things a great way off, make too feeble an impression on the conscience, and their distance is much abused to give an indulgence to present, sensualities. For this we have the testimony of our blessed Saviour himself, Matt. xxiv. 48, “The evil servant says, my Lord delays his coming; then he begins to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken.”’ And Solomon teaches us the same truth, Eccles. viii. 11, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” And even the good servants in this imperfect state, the sons of virtue and piety, may be too much allured to indulge sinful negligence, and yield to temptations too easily when the terrors of another world are set so far off) and their hope of happiness is delayed so long. It is granted, indeed, that this sort of reasoning is very unjust; hut so foolish are our natures, that we are too ready to take up with it, and to grow more remiss in the cause of religion.

Whereas, if it can be made to appear from the word of God, that, at the moment of death, the soul enters into an unchangeable state, according to its character and conduct here on earth, and that the recompences of vice and virtue, are, in some measure, to begin immediately upon the end of our state of trial; and if, besides all this, there be a glorious and a dreadful resurrection to be expected, with eternal pain or eternal pleasure both for soul and body, ana that in a more intense degree, when the theatre of this world is shut up, and Christ Jesus appears to pronounce his public judgment on the world, then all those little subterfuges are precluded, which mankind would form to themselves from the unknown distance of the day of recompence. Virtue will have a nearer and stronger guard placed about itp and piety will be attended with superior motives, if its initial rewards are near at hand, and shall commence as soon as this life expires; and the vicious and profane will be more effectually affrighted, if the hour of death must immediately consign them to a state of perpetual sorrows and bitter anguish of conscience, without hope, and with a fearful expectation of yet greater sorrows and anguish.

I know what the opposers of the Separate State reply here, viz. That the whole time from death to the resurrection is but as the 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 alarmed 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 offences may be forgotten, or something may happen that I may escape: or, let the wor&t 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 State be not chiefly such as arises by natural consequence 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 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 b)r Jesu& 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 connection 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.

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 unactive. 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 of 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.

I. Some imagine the soul of man to be his blood or his breath, or a sort of vital flame, or refined air or vapour, or the composition and motion of the fluids and solids in the animal body. This they suppose to be the spring or principle of his intellectual life, and of all his thoughts and consciousness, as well 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 principle of consciousness is renewed again, and intellectual life is given him at the resurrection as well as a new corporeal life.

But it should be considered, that this conscious or thinking principle having lost its existence for a season, 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 such a new conscious principle or person cannot properly be rewarded or punished for personal virtues or vices of which itself cannot be conscious by any power of memory or reflection, and which were transacted 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 continued 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 43 2D or quantity, I confess I have no manner of idea of the existence or possibility of such an inextended 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 any 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 extension, 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 I frame any more an idea of it, than I can of a blue motion or a sweet smelling sound, or of lire or air or water reasoning or rejoicing: and I do not affect to speak of things or words, when I can form no correspondent 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 principle, 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.

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 refutation 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 resurrection.

§ 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 shall not long insist upon them: however it may not be amiss just to mention a few of them, and pass away.

Psal. lxxiii. 24, 26. “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory: my flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.” In these verses ‘receiving to glory’ seems immediately to follow a guidance through this world; and when ‘the flesh and heart’ of the Psalmist should ‘fail him’ in death, God continued to be his ‘portion for ever,’ God would receive him to himself as such a portion, and thereby he gave strength or ’ courage to his heart’ even in a dying hour. It would be a very odd and unnatural exposition of this text to interpret it only of the resurrection, thus, “Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel through this life, and after the long interval of some thousand years thou wilt receive me to glory.”

Eccles. xii. 7, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit to God that gave it.” It is confessed the word spirit in the Hebrew is the same with breath, and is represented in some places of Scripture as the spring of animal life to the body: yet it is evident in many other places, the word spirit signifies the conscious principle in man, or the intelligent being, which knows and reasons, perceives and acts. The Scripture speaks of being “grieved inspirit,” Isa. liv. 6; of “rejoicing in spirit,” Luke x. 21; “the spirit of a man knoweth the things of a man,” 1 Cor. ii. 11; “there is a spirit in man,” i. e. a principle of understanding, Job xxxii. 8; and ‘this spirit’ both of the wicked and the righteous at death “returns to God,” Eccl. xii. 7, to God who (as I hinted before) is the ‘Judge of all’ in the world of spirits, probably to be further determined and disposed of, as to its state of reward or punishment.

Isa. lvii. 2, “The righteous is taken away from the evil to come, he shall enter into peace, they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.” The soul of every one that walketh uprightly shall at death enter into a state of peace while their body rests in the bed of dust,

Luke ix. 30, 31, “And behold there talked with him, (i. e. with Jesus,) two men which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” I grant it possible that these might be but mere visions which appeared to our blessed Saviour and his apostles: but it is a much more natural and obvious interpretation to suppose that the spirits of these two great men whereof one was the institutor, and the other the reformer of the Jewish church, did really appear to Christ, who was the reformer of the world, and the institutor of the Christian church, and converse with him about the important event of his death and his return to heaven. Perhaps the spirit of Elijah had his heavenly body with him there, since he never died, but was carried alive to heaven; but Moses gave up his soul at the call of God when no man was near him, and his body was buried by God himself, (see 2 Kings ii. 11. and Deut. xxxiv. 1, 5, 6,) and his spirit was probably made visible only by an assumed vehicle for that purpose.

John v. 24, “Whoso heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life; is passed from death to life.” John vi. 47, 50, 51, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.” John xi. 26, “Whoso liveth and believeth in me, shall never die,” to which may be added the words of Christ to the woman of Samaria, John iv. 14, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.” 1 John v. 12, “He that hath the Son hath life,” &c. The argument I draw from these Scriptures in this. It is hardly to be supposed that our Saviour in this gospel, and John in his first epistle imitating him, should speak such strong language concerning eternal life, actually given to and possessed by the believers of that day, if there must be an interruption of it by total death or sleep both of soul and body for almost two thousand years, i. e. till the resurrection.

Acts vii. 59, “And they stoned Stephen calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit.” Those who deny a Separate State, suppose that Stephen here commits his spirit, or principle of human life, into the hands or care of Christ (because the life of a saint is said to be “hid with Christ in God,” Colos. iii. 3,4,) that he might restore it at the resurrection, and raise him to life again. But I think this is an unnatural force put upon these words, contrary to their most obvious meaning, if we consider the context: for Stephen here had a vision of the “Son of man, (or Christ Jesus,) standing on the right hand of God, and the glory of God near him;” see ver. 55, 56. Whereupon Stephen being conscious of the existence of Christ in that glorious state, desired that he would receive his spirit, and take it to dwell with him in his Father’s house; not to lie and sleep in heaven, for “there is no night there,” but to behold the glory of Christ according to the many promises that Christ had made to his disciples, that he “would go and prepare a place for them in his Father’s house,” and that they should be “with him there to behold his glory,” John xiv, and xvii, which I shall have occasion to speak of afterward.

Rom. viii. 10, 11. “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness,” i. e. if Christ dwell in you by the sanctifying influences of his Spirit, it is true indeed, your body is mortal and must die, because it is doomed to death from the fall of Adam on the account of sin, and because sinful 2 d 2 principles still dwell in this fleshly body; but your soul or spirit is life, or (as some copies read £« instead of l<*») your spirit lives when the body is dead, and enjoys a life of happiness, because of the righteousness imputed to you, i. e. “your justification unto life,” Rom. v. 17, 18. 21. I know there are several other ways of construing the words of this verse by metaphors; but the plain and most natural antithesis which appears here between the death of the body of a saint because of sin or guilt, and the continuance of the spirit or soul in a life of peace because of justification or righteousness, and that even when the body is dead, gives a pretty clear proof that this is the sense of the apostle. This is also further confirmed by the next verse, which promises the resurrection of the dead body in due time. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead,” i. e. God the Father, “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” The spirit or soul of the saint lives without dying, because of its pardon of sin and justification and sanctification, in the 10th verse; and the body (not the spirit or soul) shall be quickened or raised to life again, by the blessed Spirit of God which dwells in the saints, ver. 11.

2 Cor. v. 1,2, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.” Ver. 4, “We in this tabernacle groan being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” It is evident that this ’ house from heaven,’ this ‘building of God,’ is something which is like the clothing of a soul divested of this ’ earthly tabernacle,’ ver. 1, 2, or it is the clothing of the whole person, body and soul, which would abrogate the state of mortality, and ’ swallow it up in life,’ ver. 4. For though in ver. 4, the apostle supposes that the soul doth not desire the death of the body, or that itself should be unclothed, and therefore he would rather choose to have this state of blessed immortality superinduced on his body and soul at once without dying, yet in the first verse he plainly means such a hou.se in or from heaven, or such a clothing which may come upon the soul immediately as soon as the ‘-earthly house’ or ‘tabernacle of his body is dissolved.’ And how dubious soever this may appear to those who read the chapter only thus far, yet the 8th verse, which supposes good men to be ’ present with Christ’ when ’ absent from the body,’ determines the sense of it as Lhave explained it; of which hereafter.

Perhaps it is hard to determine, whether this superinduced clothing be like the Shechinah or visible glory in which Christ, Moses, and Elias, appeared at the transfiguration, and which some suppose to have belonged to Adam in innocency; or whether it signify only ’ a state of happy immortality,’ superinduced or brought in upon the departing soul at death, or upon the soul, and body united as in this life, and with which those saints shall be clothed, who are “found alive at the coming of Christ,” according to 1 Cor. xv. 52, 53, 54, which will not kill the body, but swallow up its mortal state in immortal life.

Let this matter, I say, be determined either way, yet the great point seems to be evident, even beyond probability, that there is a conscious being spoken of, which is very distinct from its tabernacle, or house, or clothing, and which exists still, whatever its clothing or its dwelling be, or whether it be put off, or put on; and that, when the earthly house or vessel is dissolved or put of, the heavenly house or clothing is ready at hand to be put on immediately, to render the soul of the Christian tit to be present with the Lord.

2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, “1 knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth; howthathe was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words.” I grant this ecstacy of the apostle does not actually shew the existence of a Separate State after death till the resurrection; yet 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 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 to be of the same mind, by his doubting whether his spirit was ‘in the body or out of the body,’ whilst it was ’ rapt 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 communications 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 imagine what gain it would be for St. Paul to die, if his soul immediately went to sleep and became unactive and unconscious, while his body lay in the grave, and neither soul nor body could do any service for Christ, or receive any communications from him, till the great rising-day. This text seems to carry the argument above a mere probability.

* It would be thought, perhaps, a little foreign 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 communications with the body, while the body has animal life, or is capable of its natural motions, and able to obey the volition 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 is in man: and why may not the body of man have the same sort of animal life quite distinct from the conscious spirit T

Besides, if this conscious principle give life to the body, medicines and physicians whose power reaches only to rectify the disordered solids or 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 fcrsake them; and, when the person is dead, they mourn and reprove him, ‘Why were you so unkind to leave and forsake us 1’ and indeed this conduct of those poor savages is a very natural inference from their supposition of the intelligent spirit giving animal life to the body. — Watts.

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, 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. 13, 14, 15, and sleep in this verse, can neither signify natural sleep, as ver. 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 sometime 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 righteousness” in those days; or whether, in the three days in which the body of Christ lay degd, 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 he 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 this is very

44 * See Note, page 100, supra.

parallel to the present circumstances of fallen angels in Jude ver. 4, “The angels that kept not their first estate, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, 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 clay 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 pun ishment 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. vi. 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 visions, and this place, amongst others, might be explained 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 irreconcileable enemies?

§ 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 there is a Separate State of souls. And such, in my opinion, are these that follow.

I. 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 «l*>x,» 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 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 x” 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 the soul to say that this scripture means only that ( men cannot kill the soul for ever,’ so that it shall for ever perish and have no future life hereafter by a resurrection: for in this sense men cannot ‘kill the body,’ so that it shall never revive or rise again: but here is a plain distinction in the text, that the body may be killed, but the soul cannot.

And I think this Scripture proves also, that though the body may be laid to sleep in the grave, yet the soul cannot be laid to sleep; for the substance of the body still exists, and is not utterly destroyed by killing it, but only ‘laid to sleep’ for a time, as the Scripture often describes death: but the soul cannot be thus laid to sleep for a time, with its substance still existing, for that would be to have no pre-eminence above the body, which is contrary to this assertion of our Saviour.

II. Luke xvi. 22, &c. “The beggar died and was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, &c. and send Lazarus, ver. 27, to my father’s house that he may testify to my brethren, lest they come also into this place of torment.” I grant that this account of the rich man and the beggar is but a parable, and yet it may prove the existence of the rich man’s soul in a place of torment before the resurrection of the body; 1. Because the existence of souls in a Separate State, whilst other men dwell here on earth, is the very foundation of the whole parable, and runs through the whole of it. The poor man died and Ids soul was in paradise. The rich man’s dead body was buried and his soul was in hell, while his five brethren were here on earth in a state of probation, and would not hearken to ‘Moses and the prophets.’

2. Because the very design of the parable is to shew, that a ghost sent from the other world, whether heaven or hell, to wicked men who are here in a state of trial, will not be sufficient to convert them to holiness, if they reject the means of grace and the ministers of the word. The very design of our Saviour seems to be lost, if there be no souls existing in a Separate State. A ghost sent from the other world could never be supposed to have any influence to convert sinners in this world, even in a parable, if there were no such things as ghosts there. The rich man’s five brethren could have no motive to hearken to a ghost pretending to come from heaven or hell, if there were no such thing as ghosts or separate souls either happy or miserable. Now surely, if parables can prove any thing at all, they must prove those propositions which are both the foundation and the design of the whole parable.

3. I might add yet further, that it is very strange that our Saviour should so particularly speak of angels carrying the soul of a man, whose body was just dead, into heaven or paradise, which he calls ‘Abraham’s bosom,’ if there were no such state or place as a heaven for separate souls; if Abraham’s soul had no residence there, no existence in that state; if angels had never any thing to do in such an off.ce. What would the Jews have said or thought of a prophet come from God, who had taught his doctrines to the people in such parables as had scarce any sort of foundation in the reality or nature of things.

But you will say the Jews had such an opinion current among them, though it was a very false one, and that this was enough to support a parable. I answer, what could Christ (who is truth itself) have said more or plainer to confirm the Jews in this gross error of a Separate State gf souls, than to form a parable which supposes this doctrine in the very design and moral of it, as well as in the foundation and matter of it?

III. Luke xx. 37, 38, “Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for he is not a God of the dead but of the living; for all live unto him.” Some learned men suppose that the controversy between Christ and the Sadducees in this place was about the anastasis, which implies the whole state of existence after death, including both the Separate State and the resurrection, because the Sadducees denied both these at once, and believed that death finished the whole existence of the man. “They denied angels and spirits,” Acts xxiii. 8, i. e. separate souls of men, and thought the rewards and punishments mentioned in Scripture related only to this life. Upon this account they suppose our Saviour’s design is to prove the existence of persons or spirits in the Separate State as much as the resurrection of the body.

And when he says, that the Lord or Jehovah is described as the ‘God of Abraham,’ &c. it supposes Abraham at the same time to have actually some life and existence in some state or other, for “God is not a God of the dead but of the living,” for all that are dead and gone out of this world still live unto God, i. e. they have a present life in the invisible world of spirits as God is an invisible Spirit, as well as they expect a resurrection of their body in due time.

How could God in the days of Moses be called actually “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” who were long since dead, if there was no sense in which they were now alive to God, since our Saviour declares

2E

God is properly “the God only of the living, and not of the dead?” This part of the argument holds good in whatsoever sense you construe the whole debate, and by whatsoever medium or connection you prove the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; and this is obvious to the honest and unlearned reader, as well as to the men of learning.

IV. Luke xxiii. 42,43, “And he (that is, the penitent thief upon the cross) said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom: and Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The thief upon the cross believed that Christ would enter into paradise which he supposed to be Christ’s kingdom, when he departed from ‘this world’ which was ‘not his kingdom;’ and this he believed partly according to the common sentiment of the Jews concerning good men at their death, as well as it is agreeable to our Saviour’s own expressions to God, John xvii. 11 “Holy Father, I am no more in the world and 1 am come unto thee:” or as he had said to his disciples, John xvi. 28, “I leave the world and go to the Father.”

And according to these expressions, Luke, xxiii. 46, Christ dies with these words on his lips, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Our Saviour taking notice of the repentance of the thief, acknowledging his own guilt, thus, “we are justly under this condemnation and receive the due reward of our deeds;” and taking notice also of his faith in the Messiah, as a king whose “kingdom was not of this world,” when he prayed, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom:” Christ, I say, taking notice of both these, answers him with a promise of much grace, “Verily, I say unto thee: to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

The use of the word paradise in Scripture, and among ancient writers Jewish and Christian, is to signify the ‘happiness of holy souls in a Separate State;’ and our Saviour entering into that state at his death declared to the dying penitent, that he should be with him there immediately. It is certain that by the word paradise St. Paul means the place of happy spirits, into which h was transported, 2 Cor. xii. 4. And this sense is very accommodate and proper to this expression of our Saviour and to the prayer of the penitent thief, and it is as suitable to the design of Christ in his epistle to the church of Ephesus, Rev. ii. 7, “the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God,” which are the only three places where the New Testament uses this word.

I know there have been great pains taken to shew that the stops should be altered, and the comma should be placed after the word to-day, thus ‘I say unto thee to-«.lay, thou shalt be with me in paradise,’ i. e. some time or other hereafter. As though Christ meant no more than this, viz. ‘Thou askest me to remember thee when I come into my kingdom: and I declare unto thee truly this very day, that some long time hereafter thou shalt be with me in happiness at thy resurrection, when my kingdom shall be just at an end and I shall give it all up to the Father,’ as in 1 Cor. xv. 24. Can any one imagine this to be the meaning of our blessed Saviour in answer to this prayer of the dying penitent? I know also there are other laborious criticisms to represent these words (to-day) in other places of Scripture as referring to some distant time, and not to mean that very day of twenty-four hours: but rather than enter into a long and critical debate upon all these texts, I will venture to trust the sense of it in this place with any sincere and unlearned reader.

But if we consult the learned Dr. Whitby, he will tell us, that it was a familiar phrase of the Jews to say, on a just man’s dying, ‘to day shall he sit in the bosom of Abraham:’ and it was their opinion, that the ’ souls of the righteous who were very eminent in piety, were carried immediately into paradise.’ The Chaldee paraphrase on Solomon’s Song, iv. 12, takes some notice of the ‘souls of the just, who are carried into paradise by the hands of angels.’ Grotius, in his notes on Luke xxiii. 43, mentions the hearty and serious wish of the Jews concerning their friends who are dead, in the language of the Talmudical writers, ’ let his soul be gathered to the garden of Eden:’ and, in their solemn prayers when one dies, f let him have his portion in paradise, and also in the world to come,’ by which they mean the state of the resurrection, and plainly distinguish it from this immediate entrance into Eden or paradise at the hour of death. The Jews suppose Enoch to be carried to paradise even in his body; and that the souls of good men have no interruption of life, but that there was a ‘reward for blameless souls,’ as the book of Wisdom speaks, chap. ii. 22, “For God created man to be immortal, and to be an image of his own eternity,” which seems to suppose ’ blameless souls’ entering into this reward without interruption of their life. And, if this be the meaning of paradise among the Jews, doubtless our Saviour spake the words in such a known and common sense, in which the penitent thief would easily and presently understand him, it being a promise of grace in his dying hour, wherein he had no long time to study hard for the sense of it, or consult the critics in order to find the meaning.

We come now to consider the writings of St. Paul: and it is certain, that the most natural and obvious sense of his words in many places of his epistles, refer to a Separate State of the souls after death. For, as he was a Pharisee in his sentiments of religion, so he seems to be something of a Platonist in philosophy, so far as Christianity admitted the same principles.* Why then should it not be reasonably supposed, wheresoever he speaks of this subject, and speaks in their language too, that he means the same thing which the Pharisees and Platonists believed, that is, the immortality and life of the soul in a Separate State. But I proceed to the particular texts.

V. 2 Cor. v. 6, 8, “Therefore we are always confident, (or of good courage,) knowing, that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” The apostle ver. 4, seems to wish that he might be clothed upon at once with immortality in soul and body, without dying or being unclothed: but since things are otherwise determined, then, in the next place, he would rather choose ‘absence from the body,’ that he might be ’ present with the Lord.’ These words seem to be so plain, so express, and so unanswerable a proof of the spirits of good men existing in a Separate State, and being ’ present with the Lord, when they are 1 absent from the body’ at death, that I could never meet but with two ways of evading it.

* As Paul wrote by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I must protest against a practice becoming more and more prevalent, of imputing human theories, be it Platonism, or any other Ism, to him, or to any other of the inspired writers. — Ed.

The first is what a gentleman many years ago, who professed Christianity, acknowledged to me, viz. that he believed St. Paul did mean, in this place, the same sense in which I have explained him; but he thought St. Paul might be mistaken in his opinion, for he was not of the apostle’s mind in this point. I think I need not tarry to refute this answer: but I may make this remark upon it, viz. that the sense of St. Paul concerning the Separate State was so evident, in this place, that this man had rather differ from the apostle than deny this to be his meaning. All his prejudices against this doctrine could not hinder him from acknowledging that the apostle believed and taught it.

The second way of evading it is, that this text, with one or two others of like kind, do indeed speak of the happiness of souls in a Separate State, but it doth refer only to the apostles themselves, who had this peculiar favour and privilege granted them by Christ, to follow him to paradise and enjoy his presence there, while the souls of other Christians were asleep, unconscious and unactive till the resurrection.

Jlnsiver 1. It is granted indeed, that several verses of this chapter, as well as in the former, have a peculiar reference to the ministers of Christ, and perhaps to the apostles who were his ambassadors; but there are many things in both these chapters that are perfectly applicable to every Christian, and the verses just before and just after this eighth verse, may belong to all good men as well as to the apostles or ministers. “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing,” i. e. for the happiness of the future state, “is God, who hath also given unto us the earnest of the Spirit,” at least as an enlightener and sanctifier, if not as the author of special gifts, for, Rom. viii. 9, “If any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” And ver. 6. “therefore we are always confident,” or of good courage, “knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith not by sight.” This is or should be the character of every Christian. And the 9th verse that follows it, belongs to all the saints. li Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him; for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Now why 45 2e2 should we suppose that St. Paul excludes all other Christians besides himself and his brethren the apostles from the blessing of the 8th verse, viz. that when they are “absent from the body ‘they’ shall be present with the Lord,” since the verses all round it are applicable to all Christians?

•Answer 2. These chapters were written with a design not only to vindicate and encourage the apostle himself under the sufferings and reproaches which he met with, but doubtless to give encouragementtothe Corinthians, and all Christians under any sufferings or reproaches they might meet with in the world; that (as he expresses it a little before) they might learn “to walk by faith and to look at the things which are unseen, which are eternal.” And indeed if this peculiar blessing of the happiness of a Separate State belongs only to the apostles, how much are the comforts of the New Testament narrowed and diminished, and the faith and hope of common Christians discouraged and enervated, and their motives to holiness weakened, when they are told, that they have nothing to do to lay hold upon such promised favours, such revelations of” grace, because they belong only to the apostles and not to them.

And indeed how shall common Christians ever know what part of the epistles they may apply to themselves for their direction and consolation, if they may not hope in such words of grace, where the holy writers use the word ’ we,’ and do not plainly intimate that they belong to preachers or apostles only?

JLnswer 3. When our Saviour prays for himself and his apostles in the beginning of the xviith of St. John, he comes in the 20th verse to extend the blessings he had prayed for to all believers. Ver. 20. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Ver. 24. “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.” Here it is evident that our Saviour prays that those that shall believe on him through the word of the Apostles may be present with him in his kingdom to behold his glory; and is not that a very considerable part of his glory, which the Father hath conferred upon him to be Lord and King and head of his church? But this peculiar glory reaches no further than the resurrection and judgment, and cannot be seen afterwards; for in 1 Cor. xv. 24, “then cometh the end, and Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to God the Father; the Son himself also shall be subject unto the Father, that God may be all in all,” ver. 28.

As for that final blaze of supreme glory wherein Christ shall appear at the day of judgment just before he resigns up his kingdom, and which perhaps is once called * his kingdom,’ 2 Tim. iv. 1; “when he shall come in the glory of his Father and of his holy angels as well as his own,” Mark viii. 38, the sight of it shall be public and common to all the world, and not any peculiar favour to the saints.

It seems therefore most probable that it is only or chiefly in the Separate State of souls departed, that the saints have a special promise of beholding this mediatorial glory of Christ in his kingdom; and this favour our Saviour entreats of his Father for others that shall believe on him, as well as for his Apostles.

I might here take occasion to enquire whether every text which promises to other Christians as well as to the Apostles, a dwelling with Christ ‘in his kingdom,’ must not have a more special reference to the glory of the Separate State; upon this very account, because this kingdom* of Christ ceases at the resurrection and judgment; and particularly that text in 2 Pet. i. 11, “so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:” which is often in Scripture called everlasting because it continues to the end of the world; and the ‘abundant entrance into it’ very naturally refers to our departure from this life.

Jlnsicer 4. I cannot find any text of Scripture where this blessing of being ’ present with the Lord’ after death in the Separate State is limited only to the Apostles. I read not one word of such a peculiar favour promised them by Christ; and therefore according to the current course of several other places of Scripture which have been here produced, I am persuaded it belongs to all true Christians, unless the Apostle in some plainer manner had limited it to himself and his twelve brethren, and secluded or forbid our hopes of it.

* I. e. his mediatorial kingdom. — E».

After all, if it be allowed that the Apostles may enjoy the blessedness of a Separate State before the resurrection, then there is such a thing as a ‘Separate State of happiness for souls.’ This precludes at once all the arguments against it that arise from the nature of things, and from any supposed impropriety in such a divine constitution; and since it is granted that there are millions of angels and several human spirits in this unbodied state, enjoying happiness, I see no reason why the rest of the unbodied spirits of saints departed should not be received to their society after death, unless there were some particular Scriptures that excluded them from it.

VI. Phil. i. 23, 24, “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” When the apostle speaks here of his “abiding in the flesh,” and his “departing from the flesh,” he declares the first was the more needful for the Philippians, to promote religion in their hearts and lives; but the second would be better for himself, for he should be with Christ, when he was departed from the flesh.

I would only ask any reasonable man to determine whether, when St. Paul speaks of his “being with Christ” after his departure from the flesh, he can suppose that the Apostle did not expect to see Christ till the resurrection, which he knew would be a considerable distance of time, though perhaps it has proved many hundred years longer than the Apostle himself expected it? No; it is evident he hoped to ’ be present with the Lord’ immediately as soon as he was ’ absent from the body;’ otherwise, as I have hinted before, death to him would have been but of little gain if he must have lain sleeping till the dead shall rise, and have been cut off from his delightful service for Christ in the gospel and all the blessed communications of his grace. The objection which may arise here also from supposing this to be a peculiar favour granted to the Apostles is answered just before.

VII. Heb. xii. 23, “Ye are come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written (‘or registered’) in heaven, to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New covenant,” i. e. The gospel or the

Christian state brings good men into a nearer union and communion with the heavenly world, and the inhabitants thereof, than the Jewish state could do: now the inhabitants of this upper world, this heavenly Jerusalem, are here reckoned up, God as the prime Lord or Head; Jesus the Mediator as the King of his church; ’ the innumerable company of angels’ as ministers of his kingdom; ’ the general assembly’ of God’s favourites or children who are called the first-born; perhaps this may refer in general to all the saints of all ages past and to come whose names are written in the book of life in heaven; and particularly to the ’ separate spirits of just men’ who are departed from this world, and are made perfect in the heavenly state. The criticisms that are used to put other senses upon these words seem to carry them away so far from their more plain and obvious meaning, that I can hardly think they are the meaning of the Apostle; for it would be of very little use for a common Christian to read these verses of divine consolation and grace, if he could take no comfort from them until he had learnt those critical and distant expositions of such plain language.

It has been indeed objected against the plain sense of this text, that the spirits of the just’ or good men are not yet made perfect in heaven, because the same Apostle, Heb. xi. 39, 40, says, “These all, (i. e. the saints of the Old Testament,) having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promises, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Now these had been dead for many generations, yet they received not the promises nor were made perfect. Thus saith the objection.

But the evident meaning of this text is, that they lived and died in the faith of many promises, some of which were to be fulfilled after their days here on earth, but were not fulfilled in their life-time: they did not enjoy the privileges and the blessings of the gospel of the Messiah in that perfect manner in which we do since the Messiah is actually come and has fulfilled these promises, and by his death, ’ or offering himself,’ as the same apostle expresses it, “for ever perfected them that are sanctified,” Heb. x. 14. But all this does by no means preclude their existence and happiness in a Separate State as ’ spirits made perfect,’ i. e. in a perfect freedom from all sin and sorrow; though it is probable this very state of comparative perfection might have several degrees of joy added to it at the ascension of Christ, and will have many more at. the resurrection from the dead.

VIII. 2 Pet. i. 13, “I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.” Here it is evident that the person who ‘thinks it meet to stir up’ Christians to their duty, has a tabernacle belonging to him, and which he must ’ shortly put off.’ The soul or thinking principle of the Apostle Peter, which is here supposed to be himself, is so plainly distinguished from the tabernacle of the body in which he dwelt for a season, and which he ’ must put off shortly,’ that it most evidently implies an existence of this thinking soul very distinct from the body, and which will exist when the body is laid aside. Surely the conscious being and its tabernacle or dwelling place are two very distinct things, and the conscious being exists when he puts off his present dwelling.

After all these arguments from Scripture, may I be permitted to mention one which is derived partly from reason and partly from the sacred records, which seems to carry some weight with it.

The doctrine of rewards and punishments in a Separate State of souls hath been one of the very chief principles or motives whereby virtue and religion have been maintained in this sinful world throughout all former ages and nations, and under the several dispensations of God among men, until the resurrection of the body was fully revealed. Now, it is scarce to be supposed that such a doctrine, which God, in the course of his providence, hath made use of as a chief principle and motive of religion and virtue, through all the world which had any true virtue, and in all ages before Christianity, should be a false doctrine. Let us prove the first proposition by a view of the several ages of mankind and dispensations of religion.

The Heathens, who have had nothing else but the light of nature to guide them, could have no notion at all of the resurrection of the body; and therefore, not only the wisest and best of them, but perhaps the bulk of mankind among the Gentiles, at least in Europe and Asia, if not in Africa and America also, who have been taught by priests, and poets, and the public opinions of their nation, and traditions of their ancestors, have generally supposed such a Separate State after this life, wherein their souls should be rewarded or punished, except where the fancy of transmigration prevailed; and even these very transmigrations into other bodies, viz. of dogs, or horses, or men, were assigned as speedy rewards or punishments of their behaviour in this life.

Now, though this doctrine of immediate recompences could not be proved by them with certainty and clearness, and had many follies mingled with it, yet the probable expectation of it, so far as it hath obtained among men, hath had a good degree of influence through the conduct of common providence, to keep the world in some tolerable order, and prevent universal irregularities and excesses of the highest degree; it hath had some force on the conscience to restrain the enormous wickedness of men.

The ’ patriarchs of the first ages,’ whose history is related in Scripture, had no notion of the resurrection of the body expressly revealed to them that we can find; and it must be the hope of such a state of recompence of their souls after death, that influenced their practice of piety, if they were not informed that their bodies should rise again.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had no plain and distinct promise of the resurrection of the body; yet it is said, Heb. xi. 14, “They received the promises,” that is, of some future happiness, “and embraced them, and confess sed they were strangers and pilgrims on earth, whereby they plainly declared, that they sought some other country, i. e. an heavenly, and God hath prepared a city for them.” What city, what heavenly country can this be, which they themselves sought after, but the city or country of Separate Souls or paradise, where good men are rewarded, and ‘God is their God,’ if they had no plain promises or views of a resurrection of the body? And indeed they had need of a very plain and express promise of such a resurrection, to encourage their faith and obedience, if t’hey had no notion or belief of a Separate State, or a ’ heavenly country,’ whither their souls should go at their death.*

JoL; seems to have some bright glimpses of resurrection

* Enoch prophesied of the day of judgment, Jude 14, 15, and Abraham knew that God could raise the dead, Heb. xi. 19. Moderns are apt to form mistaken notions concerning the knowledge of the ancients. — Ed.

in chap, xixth, but this was far above the level of the dispensation wherein he lived, and a peculiar and distinguishing favour granted to him under his uncommon and peculiar sufferings.

In the institution of the Jewish religion by Moses, there is no express mention of a resurrection, and we must suppose their hope of a future state was chiefly such as they could gain from the light of nature, and learn by traditions from their fathers, or from unwritten instructions. For, though our Saviour improves the words of God to Moses in the bush, “I am the God of Abraham,” &c. so far as to prove a resurrection from them, yet we can hardly suppose the Israelites could carry it any further, than merely to the happiness of Abraham’s soul, &c. in some Separate State; ;.nd thence came the notion of departed souls of good men “going to the bosom of Abraham.”

I grant that Davit; in his Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel in their prophecies, have some hints of the resurrection of the body; but this doth not seem to have been the common principle or support of virtue and goodness, or a general article of belief among the Jews in the early ages.

In the days of the later prophets, and after their return from Babylon, I confess the Jews had some notions of a resurrection; but they also retained their opinion of the “righteous souls being at rest with God” in a Separate State before the resurrection. See the book of Wisdom, chap. iii. 1 — 4, “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction; but they are in peace; for, though they be perished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality,” and iv. 7, “Though the righteous be prevented with death, yet they shall be in rest.”

That this was the most common doctrine of the Jews, except the Sadducees and their followers, in our Saviour’s time, and that it was the doctrine of the primitive Christians also, need not be proved here; though they also had the expectation of the resurrection of the body.

Now, if this be the chief or only doctrine which men could attain to under the dispensation of natural reason, as the most powerful motive to virtue and piety, if this be the chiefest doctrine of that kind that we know of, which the patriarchs and the primitive Jews enjoyed, if this also be a constant doctrine of later Jews, i. e. the wisest and best of them, and also of the ‘primitive Christians,’ which had so much influence on the good behaviour of all of them toward God and men, and by which God carried on his work of piety in their hearts and lives, and by which also he impressed the consciences of evil men, in some measure, and restrained them from their utmost excesses of vice and wickedness, is it not hard to be supposed that this doctrine is all mere fancy and delusion, and hath nothing of truth in it? And indeed, if this doctrine had been taken away, the Heathens would be left without any possible true notion of a future state of recompence, and the Patriarchs seem to have had no sufficient principle or motive to virtue and piety left them, and the principles and motives of goodness in the following ages among ‘Jews and Christians,’ had been greatly diminished and enfeebled.

At the conclusion of this chapter, I cannot help taking notice, (though I shall but just mention it,) that the multitude of narratives which we have heard of in all ages of the ’ apparition of the spirits or ghosts’ of persons departed from this life, can hardly be all delusion and falsehood. Some of them have been affirmed to appear upon such great and important occasions, as may be equal to such an unusual event. And several of these accounts have been attested by such witnesses of wisdom, and prudence, and sagacity, under no distempers of imagination, that they may justly demand a belief; and the effects of these apparitions in the discovery of murders and things unknown, have been so considerable and useful, that a fair disputant should hardly venture to run directly counter to such a cloud of witnesses, without some good assurance on the contrary side. He must be a shrewd philosopher indeed, who, upon any other hypothesis, can give a tolerable account of all the narratives in ‘Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus,’ or ‘Baxter’s World of spirits and apparitions,’ &c. Though I will grant some of these stories have but insufficient proof, yet, if there be but one real apparition of a departed spirit, then the point is gained, that there is a Separate State.

And indeed, the Scripture itself seems to mention such 46 2 F sort of ghosts or appearances of souls departed, Matth. xiv. 26. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they “thought it had been a spirit:” and, Luke xxiv. 36, after his resurrection they saw him at once appearing in the midst of them, “and they supposed they had seen a spirit;” and our Saviour doth not contradict their notion, but argues with them upon the supposition of the truth of it, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me to have.” And Acts xxiii. 8, 9. The word spirit seem to signify the ’ apparition of a departed soul,’ where it is said “the Sadducees say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit,” and ver. 9, “If a spirit or an angel hath spoken to this man,” &c. A spirit here is plainly distinct from an angel, and what can it mean but an apparition of a human soul which has left the body?

§ IV. Objections answered.

Having pointed out so many springs of argument to support this doctrine, from the word of God as well as from reason and tradition, I proceed now to answer some particular objections which are raised against it.

Object. I. The Scripture is so far from supposing that the soul of man is immortal, or that there is any such thing as the life of the soul continuing after the death of the body, that it often speaks of the “death of the soul,” if the words were translated exactly according to the original. Numb. xxxi. 19, “Whosoever hath killed any person,” Hebr. any soul. 1 Sam. xxii. 22, “I have occasioned the death of every soul of thy father’s house.” Judges xvi. 30, “And Sampson said, Let my soul die with the Philistines.” Ezk. xviii. 20, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Psal. lxxxix. 48, “What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” 1 Kings xix. 4, “Elijah requested for himself that he might die,” Hebr. that his soul might die.*

tfinsw. The word soul in English, Nephesh in Hebrew, Psyche in Greek, and Anima in Latin, &c. signifies not only the conscious and active principle in man, which thinks and reasons, loves and hates, hopes and fears, and which is the proper agent in virtue or vice, but it is used

* The simple answer to this objection is, that in the Hebrew idiom soul, as denoting the more excellent part of man, is commonly used for the whole person: “Let my soul die,” means, “let me die,” &c. — Ed.

also to signify the principle of animal life and motion in a living creature. And, though these two in themselves are very distinct things, yet, upon this account, the word soul is attributed to brutes as well as to men. For the Jews as well as some Heathens, in their mistaken philosophy, supposed the same ‘soul of man,’ which gives natural life to the body, to be also that very intellectual principle, which thinks and reasons, fears and loves; and, upon this account, they gave both these principles, how distinct soever in themselves, one common name, and called them 1 the soul.’

Now, the soul, or the principle of animal life and motion, being the chief or most valuable thing in an animal, it came to pass that the whole animal was called a soul: therefore, even birds and fishes are called “living souls,” Gen. i. 20, and anv animals whatsoever in Scripture are called souls’ or ‘living souls.’ And then, for the same reason, i. e. because the ’ soul of man’ is his chief part, the whole person of man is called l his soul,’ Gen. ii. 7, “Man became a living soul,” i. e. a living person. So Exod. i. 5, “All the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls,” i. e. all the persons were seventy.

And this is not only the language of the Jews, but even of other nations. In our country we use the word souls to signify perso?is. So we say ’ a poor soul,’ when we see a person in misery; we use the word e a meagre soul,’ for a thin man; we say, ’ there were twenty souls lost in the ship,’ i. e. twenty persons,’ &c.

Now, the word soul among the Jews being so universally used to signify the ’ person of man, they used the same word to signify ’ the person’ when he was dead as well as when he was alive. Numb. vi. 6, “He shall come at no dead body,” in the Hebr. no dead soul, i. e. no dead man or woman, or perhaps no dead animal.

Since the word soul is taken so often and so commonly to signify the person of a man or woman, no wonder that there is so frequent mention of souls dying in the Scripture, when human persons die.

And, if the soul signify a man or woman when they are dead as well as when living, here is a fair account why the Scriptures may speak of the il souls going down to the grave,” or being “delivered from the grave,” &c. Psal lxxxix. 48, “Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” This may either denote his principle of animal life, or his person, i. e. himself.

Now this account of things is very consistent with the scriptural doctrine of the distinction of the ’ intelligent soul’ of man from his body, and the ’ intelligent 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 i’ 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 the word ‘death’ means a loss of happiness, or living in misery; but this implies natural ‘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 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 °-hc in Greek, signify.

Here it may be observed also, that the word which signifies ‘spirit, ruach, pnouma, 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 Ecclesiastes 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.

Jlnsw. 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 2 f 2 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, 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.

Jlnsw. 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.

Jlnsw. 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.’

Ansiu. 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 coining 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?*

Jinsw. 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 resurrection, or resurrection of the martyrs and most eminent saints, which would be long before the general resurrection of all the dead, according to the visions of St. John, Rev. xx. 4 — 7. But as I am not sufficiently acquainted with the sense of that prophecy to determine my opinion on this side, I proceed to other answers.

Jlnsiv. 2. What if the words of St. Paul in this place to the Philippians, should mean no more than this, as ver. 13, 14, “I forgot the things that are behind,” as though I had gained so little already as not to be worth my notice; “and I reach forth unto those things which are before,” i. e. further degrees of holiness to be obtained, ’ pressing towards the mark’ of perfection, ‘if by any means I might be made so conformable to the death of Christ,’ as to be entirely dead to sin, and ’ if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead,’ i. e. to such a perfection of holiness as is represented by the resurrection of Christ, Rom. vi, or as that in which the ’ dead saints shall be raised;’ for I know ‘I have not already attained it, nor am already perfect.’

Jlnsw. 3. Suppose the soul of St. Paul to be present with Christ after death in heaven in the Separate State, yet this is not the ultimate or highest ’ happiness of the saints,’ and therefore he aimed at something higher and

* Paul refers to the ’ resurrection to eternal life,” of which he speaks in v. 20, 21, of the same chapter, with glowing energy. — Ed.

further, namely, the more complete happiness which he should enjoy at the resurrection of the dead.

Object. V. is borrowed from several verses of 1 Cor. xv. where the Apostle is imagined to argue thus, “If there be no resurrection of the dead,” ver. 18, “Then they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished,” ver. 19; “then we have hope only in this life,” and nothing else to support us. Then ver. 32, “what advantage” do I get by all my sufferings for Christ, if the dead rise not? We had better comply with the appetites of the flesh and enjoy a merry life here, “Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die:” whereby it is evident that the Apostle places the blessed expectation ’ of those that are fallen asleep in Christ’ only and entirely upon their being ’ raised from the dead, which he would not have done if there had been such a Separate State: he extends ‘our hope in Christ’ beyond ‘this life,’ and raises his own expectation of advantage or reward for his sufferings on the account of the gospel entirely and only upon the ’ resurrection of the dead,’ having no notion of any happiness in a Separate State of souls: for if he had any such opinion or hope, this expectation of the happiness of the soul in a Separate State might have been a sufficient proof that those who died or slept in the faith of Christ, are ’ not perished,’ and he had abundant reward for his sufferings in that world of separate souls without the resurrection of the body.

Answ. 1. It must be granted that the Scripture, in order to support Christians under present trials, chiefly refers them to the day of the resurrection and final judgment, as the great and chief season of retribution: the reason of this will appear under my answer to a following objection. Now the Apostle may be supposed to argue here only on this foot, neglecting or overlooking the Separate State, as though this final retribution at and after the resurrection of the body were comparatively the whole, because it is far the chief and most considerable part, being much the most sensible, and conspicuous, and of the longest duration. The chief part of any thing is often taken for the whole; and if there were no resurrection of the dead, i. e. if there were no state of retribution at all, then the Epicurean reasoning would be good, * Let us eat and drink for to-morrow Ave die.’

And, to confirm this exposition, we may take notice, that in other places of Scripture, where the i resurrection of the dead’ is mentioned, this anastasis includes the whole state of existence after death, both the Separate and the resurrection State. This seems to be the sense of it in that famous place, Luke xx. 35, where Christ argues with the Sadducees, who denied the Separate State as well as the resurrection of the body. Now if you take away this anastasis, this whole state of existence and retribution, then they that suffer for Christ have no advantage or recompence, and the Epicurean doctrine is plainly preferable, at least in the common sense and reasoning of men, and in such seasons of trial and persecution.

Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that there might be some of these principles of Sadducism begun to be instilled into some of the Corinthians, viz. that there were rewards and punishments at all in any future state; for he tells them, ver. 34. that some of them ’ had not the knowledge of God,’ i. e. as a righteous rewarder of them that diligently seek him, “I speak this,” says he, “to yourshame.” xlnd ver. 5, 8, he encourages them to be “steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord;” i. e. there is certainly a future state of recompence for piety, and the discovery of it at the resurrection of the dead is the most public and glorious part of it, and therefore he insists upon this alone.

tflnsw. 2. But we may give yet a more particular answer to this objection: for if we take in the whole scheme of the Apostle’s argument in this chapter, we shall find there is no sufficient ground for this objection against a Separate State. He begins, ver. 12, 13, &c. and argues thus, “If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen,” for he rose as the i first fruits,’ and his followers shall be the harvest, ver. 23, but if there be no harvest there were no first-fruits: and “if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain;” ver. 14, “then we are found false witnesses in matters that relate to God,” ver. 15. mere impostors, who preach a wicked falsehood, and lead you to hope for a happiness which ye shall never obtain: for “if Christ, who died for our sins,” ver. 3, “be not raised for our justification,” as in Rom. iv. ult. “then are ye yet in your sins,” ye lie yet under the guilt of sin; and if so, “then also they which have fallen asleep in Christ,” or have died in the faith of Christ, are perished, ver. 18, they must either be condemned, or be utterly lost both soul and body, having no ground for hope of eternal life, or any life or happiness at all hereafter. Then ’ the hope of Christians would be in this life only,’ and we are ‘miserable creatures’ who suffer so much for Christ’s sake, ver. 1 9: it would be better for us who have senses and appetites as well as other men, to indulge these senses and appetites, and ‘eat and drink for to-morrow we die,’ and there is an end of us: there can be no future state of happiness of any kind for us to expect, either in soul or body, if we have deceived you in the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, and all our gospel be false. We are then such sort of impostors and wicked cheats as can have no belief of a future state of rewards or punishments, and we had better act Tike ourselves, and like mere Epicureans, give ourselves up to all present pleasures than expose ourselves to perpetual sufferings for the sake of a man, who (if there be no resurrection) died and never rose again, and therefore cannot make us any recompence. Now this sort of arguing does not at all preclude the Separate State of happiness, but rather establish it.

I might add here a further answer to this objection, viz. the Apostle is representing the ‘sufferings of the body’ for Christ’s sake, ver. 30 — 32, and therefore he thinks it proper to encourage Christians with the recompence of the ‘resurrection of the body,’ without taking any particular notice of the happiness of the Separate State of the soul: and in this view of things his argument stands good. If there be no resurrection of the body, there is no recompence for sufferings in the body; let us then give the body its pleasures of sense; ‘Let us eat and drink’ while we live, for there is an utter end of us in death. But (saith he, ver. 33,) such ‘evil traditions corrupt all good manners,’ and therefore they are not, they cannot be true: there must be a resurrection of the body to encourage sufferings in the body for the sake of virtue and religion.*

* There are several pages of just and pertinent answers to this objection by my learned and ingenious friend Mr. Henry Grove, in his ‘Thoughts concerning the Proof of a Future State from Reason,’ which confirm the replies I have here made. ‘Then they,’ saith he, ’ who are fallen asleep in Christ (by whom the martyrs seem to be more especially intended) are

Object. VI. Doth not the New Testament constantly refer the rewards and punishments of good and bad men to the time of the resurrection of the dead, or the second coming of Christ? Is it not with this prospect it terrifies the sinner? Is it not with this it comforts the good man, and supports him under his present sufferings? It would be endless to cite all the particular texts on this occasion. That one text, 1 Thess. iv. 14, speaks the sense of many others, and is sufficient to be cited here. The Apostle persuades Christians not to “mourn for the dead as those that sorrow without hope,” and gives this reason, “for those who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him,” when he comes to raise the dead, and then ‘they shall be for ever with the Lord;’ and he bids them ’ comfort one another with these words:’ whereas their comforts had been much nearer at hand if he could have told them of the Separate State of happiness which the departed souls of their friends at present enjoyed; and if there had been any such state he had the fairest opportunity here to introduce it.

Ansio. This very text I have mentioned before as a proof of the Separate State, and it is plain the Apostle seems to hint it, though he doth not insist upon it, when he supposes the soul of the deceased to be with Christ already; for he saith, “God will bring them with him,” i. e. from heaven when he comes to raise their bodies.

But to give a more general answer to the objection, as drawn from the silence of Scripture, in many places, about this doctrine of the Separate State.

There are good reasons why the New Testament more sparingly mentions the Separate State of souls, and doth most frequently (but not constantly) refer both rewards and punishments to the resurrection.

perished, for any thing that Christ can do for them, who will never reward them for their sufferings, never restore that life which they lost for his sake.’ And particularly Ms exposition on those words, ‘we are most miserable of all men,’ is very agreeable to the place. ‘The Greek ihaiwrtpoi signifies that we are ’ more to be pitied’ than any men, as wanting the common understanding of men to suffer death for Christ’s sake, who would never be able to recompence us for it, if he be not risen from the dead. And it is (saith he a little afterward) for want of observing the intermediate links of the Apostle’s argument (which he there represents), that some have been at a loss for his meaning, while others have quite mistaken it.’ See p. 124, &c. — Watts.

( 1. ) Because the Heathens themselves (at least the wisest and best of them) did believe some sort of future state of happiness or misery, into which the souls of men should be disposed when they departed from these bodies, according to the vices or virtues they had practised in this life; and they derived this doctrine from their reasonings upon the foot of the light of nature. The writings of Plato and his followers, and the sentiments of Socrates conveyed to us in Plato’s writings, are full of this opinion, viz. of the existence of the souls of good men in a happy state, when they depart from the body. Cicero sometimes speaks of it as his opinion, his desire and his hope, nor were other heathen writers ignorant of this doctrine; but the New Testament speaks less of this point, because it is the evident design of Christ and his Apostles to lead their disciples to the more ‘peculiar doctrines of revelation,’ rather than to treat them with sentiments derived from the light of nature. And this doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, and the eternal rewards and eternal punishment* that attend it, are more abundantly mentioned in the New Testament, because they stand so much more connected with the gospel of Christ, and with his own resurrection, from the dead, which is the chief evidence of its divinfauthority. It is Christ who rose from the dead, who if appointed to raise and to judge all mankind; and therefore it is natural for the Apostles in their writings, whe desire to keep the death and resurrection of Christ always in the view of their converts, to point to the awful events of that day, when their Saviour, risen from the dead, shall appear in the execution of his glorious commission and judge the world. Thus St. Paul preaches to the Athenians, Acts xvii. 30. “God now commands all men every where to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance to all men, in that, he hath raised him from the dead.” And in many other places he connects our resurrection and future recompences with the resurrection of Christ.

And in this respect, as well as in some others, the doctrine of rewards and punishments after the resurrection, seems to carry such superior force in it, especially upon those who believe the gospel, that it is no wonder the New Testament more frequently refers to this great day of resurrection, and the apostle derives the chief part of his consolations or terrors from it.

(2.) Then will be the ‘public and universal retributions’ of vice and virtue in a more solemn manner exhibited before all the world, whereas the entrance cf mankind into the recompences of the Separate State is more private and personal.

(3.) Then will be the day of ‘complete rewards and punishments’ of man in both parts of his nature, soul and body. All the Separate State belongs only to the soul, and even those recompences are but imperfect in comparison of what they will be when body and soul are united.

(4.) Then will be the most glorious, visible and sensible distinction made between the good and bad; and since this belongs to the body as well as the soul, it is very properly set before the eyes of men in the holy writings as done at the resurrection: because corporeal and sensible things work more powerfully on their imagination, and more sensibly and effectually strike the consciences of men, than the notion of mere spiritual rewards and punishments in the Separate State.

(5. ) The state of rewards and punishments after the resurrection, will be far the longest and most durable recompence of the good and the bad: and therefore it is called ’ eternal’ so often in Scripture, ’ everlasting life, and ’ everlasting fire,’ Matth. xxv. 41. Whereas the retributions of the Separate State are comparatively but of short duration; and this is another thing that makes a sensible impression on the hearts of men, viz. the eternal continuance’ of the joys and sorrows that follow the last judgment.

Perhaps it will be replied here, that in the beginning of this essay I represented the Separate State as a ’ more effectual motive’ to the hopes and fears of men, because the joys and sorrows of it were so much ‘nearer at hand’ than those of the resurrection: and why do I now represent the recompences of the resurrection under such characters as are fit to have the strongest influence, and become the most ’ effectual motive?’

Jinsw. It is granted that the recompences after the resurrection have several circumstances that carry with them some peculiar and most powerful motives to religion and virtue; but that awful day may still seem to want this

2G one motive, viz. ’ the nearness of it,’ which belongs eminently to the recompences of the Separate State. Now, if the Scripture does really reveal the doctrine of rewards and punishments of souls immediately after death, and of soul and body together at the resurrection, then all those circumstances of effectual motive to piety are collected in our doctrine, viz. the ’ immediate nearness of them’ in the Separate State, and the ‘public appearance,’ the ’ universality,’ the ’ completeness,’ the ‘sensibility, and the ’ duration’ of them after the great rising-day.

I might yet take occasion, from this objection, to give a further reason, why the Apostles more frequently draw their motives of hope and fear from the resurrection and the great judgment, i. e. that even that day of recompence was generally then supposed to be ‘near at hand,’ and so there was less need to insist upon the joys and sorrows of the Separate State.

As the patriarchs and the Jews of old, after the Messiah was promised, were constantly expecting his t’ first coming,’ almost in every generation till he did appear, and many modes of prophetical expression in Scripture (which speak of things long to come, as though they were present or just at hand) gave them some occasion for this expectation, so the Christians of the first age did generally expect ’ the second coming’ of Christ to judgment, and the resurrection of the dead, in that very age wherein it was foretold. St. Paul gives us a hint of it in 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2. They supposed the ‘day of the Lord was just appearing.’ And many expressions of Christ concerning his ’ return’ or ’ coming again’ after his departure, seemed to represent his absence as a thing of no long continuance. It is true, these words of his may partly refer to his coming to destroy Jerusalem; and the coming in of his kingdom among the Gentiles, or his coming by his messenger of death, yet they generally, in their supreme and final sense, point to his ‘coming’ to raise the dead and judge the world. And from the words of Christ also concerning John, chap. xxi. 22, “If I will that he tarry till I come;” it is probable that the Apostles themselves at first, as well as other Christians, might derive this apprehension of his speedy coming.

It is certain, that when Christ speaks of his ’ coming, in general and promiscuous and parabolical terms, whether with regard to the destruction of Jerusalem or the judgment of the world, he saith, Matth. xxiv. 34, “Verily I say unto you this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” And the Apostles frequently told the world, the coming of the Lord was near, Phil. iv. 5, “The Lord is at hand,” Heb. x. 25, “Exhorting one another, so much the more as you see the day approaching.” And that this is the day of the “coming of Christ,” ver. 37, assures us, “For yet a little while, he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Rom. xiiL 12, “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” 1 Pet. iv. 5, “To him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead.” Ver. 7, “The end of all things is at hand.” James v. 8, 9, “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Behold the judge standeth at the door.” Rev. xxii. 10, “Seal not up the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.” Ver. 12, “And behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work shall be.” And the sacred volume is closed with this assurance, ver. 20, “Surely I come quickly,” and the echo and the expectation of the Apostle or the church, Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.’

It is granted, that in prophetical expressions, such as all these are, some obscurity is allowed: and it may be doubtful, perhaps, whether some of them may refer to Christ’s coming by the destruction of Jerusalem, or his coming to call particular persons away by his messenger of death, or his appearance to the last judgment. It is granted also, it belongs to prophetical language to set things far distant, as it were, before our eyes, and make them seem present or very near at hand. But still these expressions had plainly such an influence on primitive Christians, as that they imagined the day of resurrection and judgment was very near: and, since the prophetical words of Christ and his Apostles seemed to carry this appearance in them, and to keep the church under some uncertainty, it is no wonder that the Apostles chiefly referred the disciples of that age to the clay of the resurrection lor comfort under their sufferings and sorrows. And, though they never asserted that Christ would come to raise the dead and judge the world in that age, yet, when they knew themselves that he would not come so soon, they might not think it necessary to give every Christian, nor every church, an immediate account of the more distant time of this great event, that the uncertainty of it might keep them ever watchful. And even when St. Paul informs the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord was not so very near as they imagined it, 2 Thess. ii. 2, yet he does not put it off beyond that century by any express language.

Thus we see there is very good reason why the New Testament should derive its motives of terror and comfort chiefly from the ’ resurrection’ and the ’ day of judgment;’ though it is not altogether silent of the Separate State of souls, and their happiness or misery, commencing, in some measure, immediately after death, which has been before proved by many Scriptures cited for that purpose.

Here let it be observed, that I am not concerned in that question, Whether human souls separated from their bodies have any other corporeal vehicle to which they are united, or by which they act during the intermediate state between death and the resurrection? All that I propose to maintain here, is, that that period or interval is not ’ a state of sleep,’ i. e. utter unconsciousness and unactivity: and, whether it be united to a vehicle or no, I call it still the Separate State, because it is a state of the soul’s separation from this body, which is united to it in the present life.

§ V. More Objections answered.

Since this book was written I have met with several other objections against the doctrine here maintained; and, as I think they may all have a sufficient answer given to them, and the truth be defended against the force of them, I thought it very proper to lead the reader into a plain and easy solution of them.

Object. VII. Is not long life represented often in Scripture, and especially in the Old Testament, as a blessing to man? And, is not death set before us as a curse or punishment? But, how can either of these representations be just or true, if souls exist in a Separate State? Are they not then brought into a state of liberty by death, and freed from all the inconveniences of this flesh and blood? By this means death ceases to be a punishment, and long life to be a blessing.

Jinsw. It is according as the characters of men are either good or bad, and according as good men know more or less of a Separate State of rewards or punishments, so a long life, or early death, are to be esteemed blessings or calamities in a greater or a less degree.

‘Long life’ was represented as a blessing to good men, in as much as it gave them opportunity to enjoy more of the blessings of this life, and to do more service for God in the world: and especially since, in ancient times, there was much darkness upon this doctrine of the future state, and many good men had not so clear a knowledge of it. Long life was also a blessing to wicked men, because it kept them in a state wherein there were some comforts, and withheld them, for a season, from the punishments of the Separate State.

Death was doubtless a punishment and a curse when it was first brought into human nature by the sin of Adam, as it cut off mankind from the blessings of this life, and plunged him into a dark and unknown state: and if he were a wicked man, it plunged him into certain misery.

But since the blessings of the future state of happiness for good men are more clearly revealed, ‘long life’ is not so very great a blessing, nor death so great a punishment to good men; for death is sanctified by the covenant of grace to be an introduction of their souls into the Separate State of happiness, and the curse is turned in some respect into a blessing.

Object. VIII. Was it not supposed to be a great privilege to Enoch and Elijah when they were translated without dying? But, what advantage could it be to either of them to carry a body with them to heaven, if their souls could act without it?

I answer, when Enoch and Elijah carried their bodies to heaven with them, it was certainly a sublime honour and a peculiar privilege which they enjoyed, to have so early an happiness both in flesh and spirit conferred upon them so many ages before the rest of mankind. For though the soul can act without the body, yet as a body is part of the compounded nature of man, our happiness is not designed to be complete till the soul and body are united in a state of perfection and glory: and this happiness was conferred early on those two favourites of heaven.

Object. IX. Was it not designed as a favour when persons were raised from the dead under the Old Testament 48 2G2 or the New, by the Prophets, by Christ, and by his Apostles? But what benefit could this be to them, if they had consciousness and enjoyment in the other world? Was it not rather an injury to bring them back from a state of happiness into such a miserable world as this?

Ansio. 1. Since these souls were designed to be soon restored to their bodies, and the persons were to be raised to a mortal life again in a few days, it is probable they were kept just in the same state of immemorial consciousness, as the soul is in while the body is in the deepest sleep; and so were not immediately sent to heaven or hell, or determined to a state of sensible happiness or misery. Then when the person was raised to life again, there was no remembrance of the intermediate state, but all the consciousness of that day or two vanished and were forgotten for ever, as it is with us when we sleep soundly without dreaming.

Jinsw. 2. If those who were raised by Christ, or the Prophets, or the Apostles, were pious persons, they submitted by the will of God to a longer continuance in this world, amidst some difficulties and sorrows, which submission would be abundantly recompenced hereafter. If they were not good persons, their renewed life on earth was a reprieve from punishment. So there was no injury done to any of them.

As for those who were ’ raised at the resurrection of Christ,’ and were ’ seen by many persons in the holy city,’ there is no doubt but they were raised to immortality, and ascended to heaven when Christ did, as part of his triumphant attendants, and went to dwell with him in the heavenly state.

Object. X. If the martyrs and confessors were to be partakers of the first resurrection in Rev. xx. 4, 5, would not this be a punishment instead of a blessing, to be called from the immediate presence of God and Christ and angels, to be re-united to bodies on earth and- dwell here again with men? Therefore it seems more probable, that the souls of these holy martyrs had no such separate existence or enjoyment of happiness.

Jinsw. Perhaps neither that text nor any others in the Bible foretell the resurrection of any number of persons to an animal earthly life again in this world. Perhaps that prophecy means no more, than that the cause of Christ and religion, for which men were martyred and beheaded A SEPARATE STATE. 379

heretofore, shall rise again in the world, and the professors of it in that day shall be in flourishing circumstances for a thousand years, or a very long season. So that in prophetic language these words do not signify the same individual martyrs or confessors, but their successors in the same faith and practice.

Or if there should be any resurrection of good men to an animal life in this world, foretold by the prophets, and intended by the -great and blessed God, I doubt not but they would be here so far separated from the wicked world where sins and sorrows reign, that it would be a gradual advance of their happiness beyond what they enjoyed before in the Separate State.

Object. XI. Though man is often said to be a compounded creature of soul and body, yet in Scripture he is represented as one being. It is the man that is born, that lives, that sleeps or wakes, and that rises from the dead. This is evident in many places of Scripture, where these things are spoken of; and it seems to be the law of our nature or being, that we should always act and live in such a state as souls united to bodies, and never in a state of separation.

tdnsiv. Though there are several Scriptures which represent man as one being, viz. soul and body united, yet there are many other Scriptures which have been cited in the former parts of this essay, wherein the souls and the bodies of men are represented as two very distinct things. The one goes to the grave at death, and the other into Abraham’s bosom, or to a place of torment; either to dwell with God,’ to ’ be present with Christ the Lord,’ and to become one of the spirits of the just made perfect, or to go to their own place as Judas did. Now those texts where man is represented as one being, may be explained with very great ease, considering man as made up of two distinct substances, viz. body and spirit united into one personal agent, as we have shewn before. But the several texts where the soul and body are so strongly and plainly distinguished, as has been before represented, there is no possible way of representing these Scriptures but by supposing a Separate State of existence for souls after the body is dead, which makes it necessary that this exposition should take place.

Object. XII. How comes death to be called so often in Scripture a sleep, if the soul wakes all the while?

jlnsw. Why is the repose of man eveiy night called sleep, since the soul wakes, as appears by a thousand dreams? But as a sleeping man ceases to act in the husi nesses or affairs of this world, though, the soul be not dead or unthinking, so death is called sleep, because during that state men are cut off from the businesses of this world, though the soul may think and act another.

Object. XIII. The Scripture speaks often of the general judgment of mankind at the last great day of the res- ‘urrection, but it does not teach us the doctrine of a particular judgment, which the soul is supposed to pass under when every single man dies; why then should we invent such a supposition, or believe such a doctrine of a particular judgment in a Separate State?

Jlnsw. It is evident in many Scriptures, as we have shewn before, that the souls of men after death are represented as enjoying pleasure or punishment in the Separate State. The soul of Lazarus in heaven, the soul of Dives in hell, the soul of Paul as being ‘present with the Lord, which is far better,’ than dwelling in this flesh, or being present with this body, &c. therefore there must be a sort of judgment or sentence of determination past upon every such soul by the great God, whether it shall be happy or miserable: for it can never be supposed that happiness or misery should be given to such souls without the determination of God the Judge of all. And perhaps that text Heb. ix. 27, refers to it, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” i. e. immediately after it.

Or suppose that in the Separate State the pleasures or sorrows, which attend souls departing from the body, should be only such as are the necessary consequents of a life spent in the practice of vice or of virtue, of religion or ungodliness, without any formalities of standing before a judgment-seat, or a solemn sentence of absolution or condemnation: yet the very entrance upon this state, whether it be of peace or of torment, must be supposed to signify, that the state of that soul is adjudged or determined by the great Governor of the world: and this is all that is necessarily meant by a particular judgment of each soul at death, whether it pass under the solemn formalities of a judgment and a tribunal or not.

Object. XIV. If the saints can be happy without a body, what need of a resurrection? Let the body be as refined, as active, as it can be, still it must certainly be a clog to the soul; and this was the objection that the heathen philosophers made to the doctrine of the resurrection, which the Christians profess; for the philosophers told them, this resurrection, which they called their highest reward, was really a punishment.

Jlnsw. The force of this objection has been quite taken away before, when it has been shewn that man, being a creature compounded of body and spirit, was designed for its highest happiness, and the perfection of its nature in this state of unio.i, and not in a state of separation. And let it be observed, that when the body shall be raised from the grave, it shall not be such flesh and blood as we now wear, nor made up of such materials, as shall clog or obstruct the soul in any of its most vigorous and divine exercises; but it shall be a “spiritual body,” 1 Cor. xv. 44, a body fitted to serve a holy and glorified spirit in its actions and its enjoyments, and to render the spirit capable of some further excellencies, both of action and enjoyment, than it is naturally capable of without a body. What sort of qualities this new -raised body shall be endued with, in order to increase the excellency or the happiness of pious souls, will be, in a great measure, a mystery or a secret, till that blessed morning appears.

Object. XV. Is not our immortality in Scripture described as built upon the incorruptible state of our new-raised bodies? 1 Cor. xv. 53, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality:” but the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not particularly found or taught in Scripture.

J2nsw. It is granted that the immortality of the ‘new raised body’ is built on that incorruptible sort of materials of which it is to be formed, or which shall be mingled with it, or the incorruptible qualities which shall be given to it by God himself: but the soul is immortal in itself, whether with or without a body: and he that can read all those texts of Scripture which have been before made use of. in this essay, wherein the existence of the spirit after the death of the body is so plainly expressed, and cannot find the ’ immortality of the soul* in them, or the ‘spirit’s capacity of existence in a Separate State from the body,’ must be left to his own sentiments to explain and verify the expressions of Christ and his Apostles some other way; or he must acknowledge that these expressions are somewhat untautious and dangerous, since it is evident they lead thousands and ten thousands of wise and sober readers into this sentiment of the soul’s immortality.

Whether the soul in its own nature be necessarily immortal, is a point of philosophy, and not to be sought for directly in Scripture: But whether the great God, the Governor of the world, has not appointed souls to exist in a Separate State of happiness or misery after the bodies are dead, seems to me to be so plainly determined in many of the Scriptures which have been cited, as leaves no sufficient reason to doubt the truth of it.

To conclude, though I think the doctrine of the Separate State of souls to be of much importance in Christianity, and that the denial of it carries great inconveniences, and weakens the motive to virtue and piety, by putting off all manner of rewards and punishments to such a distance as the general resurrection, yet I dare not contend for it as a matter of such absolute necessity, that a man cannot be a Christian without it. But this must be confessed, that they who deny this doctrine seem to have need of stronger inward zeal to guard them against temptation, and to keep their hearts always alive and watchful to God and religion, since their motives to strict piety and virtue are sensibly weakened, by renouncing all belief of this nearer and more immediate commencement of heaven and hell.