SECT. IV.} PROOF OF A SEPARATE- STATE. 3O7 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 narra-. fives in Glanvill's " Sadducismus triumphatus," or Bax- ter'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 de- parted spirit, then the point is gained, that there is a separate state. And, indeed, the scripture itself seems to mention such sort of ghosts, or appearances of souls departed; Matt. xiv. 26. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they " thought it had been a spirit;" And Luke xxiv. 37. 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 bath not flesh and bones as ye see me to have." And, Acts xxiii. 8, 9. the word " spirit" seems to signify the " ap- parition of a departed soul," where it is said, " The sadducees say, there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit," and, verse 9. " If a spirit, or an angel bath spoken to this man," &c. A spirit here is plainly dis- tinct from an angel, and what can it mean but an appa -- sition of a human soul which has left the body ? SECTION IV. Objections answered. HAVING pointed out so many springs ofargument, 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. Objection I. The scripture is so far from supposing, that the soul ofman 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 origi- nal. Numb. xxxi. 19. " Whosoever bath. killed any person," hebrew" 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 x ,
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