SECT'. t1.] PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. /S3 than I can of a blue motion, or a sweet-smelling sound, or of fire, air, or Water reasoning or rejoicing : and I áo not affect to.speak of things, or.words, when I can forta no correspondent ideas of what is spoken: So for as I can judge, the sotìl of .man; in its otvn na- ture, 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 ho 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 teinper of this being, when absent from matter or body, will become a pleasure or a pain to the conscience of a sepa- rate spirit. I am well aware, that this is a subject, which has em- ployed the thoughts ofmany philosophers; and I dobutjust 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 philoso- phical 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, arid ap- ply myself immediately to consider the proofs, that may be drawn from scripture, for the sours existence in a separate state after death, and before the resurrection. SECTION IL Probable Arguments far 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 evi=
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