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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 fresh, 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 powerful and glorious 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.

Answ. 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 union, 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 a 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 immor

M

tality of the soul is not particularly found or taught

in Scripture.

Answ. 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 Scrip ture 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 Apos. tles some other way; or he must acknowledge that these expressions are somewhat uncautious 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 of 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 inconveniencies, 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.

DISCOURSES

ON THE

WORLD TO COME.

DISCOURSE I.

THE END OF TIME.

REV. x. 5, 6. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, that there should be time no longer.

THIS is the oath and the solemn sentence of a mighty angel who came down from heaven, and by the description of him in the first verse, he seems to be the "angel of God's presence, in whom is the name of God," even our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who pronounced and sware that "Time should be no longer;" for all seasons and times are now put into his hand, together with the book of his Father's decrees, Rev. v. 7, 9. What special age or period of time in this world the prophecy refers to, may not be so easy to determine; but this is certain, that it may be happily applied to the period of every man's life; for whensoever the term of our continuance in this world is finished, 'our Time,' in the present circumstances and scenes that attend it, shall be no more :'

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