1D THE PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. 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 ? SECT. III. Some firmer or more evident Proofs of a Separate State. I come now to consider those texts, which do more ex- pressly 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 de- clare, that there is a separate state of souls. And such, in my opinion, are these that follow. 1. Matt. 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 de- stroy both body and soul in hell." Every common reader, as well as every man of learning, who reads this text with a sin- cere 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 of writers to say, that the Greek word 441x+1, which we translate soul here, doth, in other places in scripture, and even in the 39th verse of this very chapter, signify life, and consequently here it may also signify the animal life, or the person of the man ; for it is manifest, that in this place it must signify some immortal principle in man that cannot die ; whereas, when the body is killed, the animal life dies too, and does not exist till the body is raised again : But the soul is a principle in this place, which men cannot kill, even though they destroy the life of the body : And whatsoever other senses the word ,41xn, 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 méans 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 bekilled, 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
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=