SECT. Iv.' PROOF O' A SEPARATE STATE. ifl ther there is any difference between them ? Yet it inti- mates 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. Objection II. is °taken from Psalm vi. 5. " In death there is no remembrance of thee ; in the grave who -shall give thee thanks ?" And Psalm exlvi. 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 stateofsouls. Answer. 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 pursuits of their present purposes, their present way and manner of divine worship, and their management orconsciousness of human affairs : But they do not exclude all manner of consciousness, knowledge, thought, or action, such as may be suited to the invisi- ble state of spirits. Thedesign of the writers in those places of scripture require no more than this, and there- fore the words cannot be construed to any farther sense, or to exclude the conscious and active powers of a sepa- rate spirit, from their proper exercise in that invisible world, though they have donewith all their actions in the present visible state. Objection III. is taken from John xiv. 3. If I gó and prepare a place for you, I will come again and re- ceive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also ;" which seems to determine the point, that the fol- lowers of Christ were not to be present with him, till he came again to this world to raise the d. ad, and to take his disciples to dwell with him. Answer 1. It hath been already granted by some`per- sons, 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 thisprivi- lege which they expected, vi,. that when they were " ab- sent from the body, they should be present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 8. x4
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