SECT. v.] PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. 325 beheaded heretofore, shall rise again in the world, and the professors of it, in that day, shall be in flourishing circumstances, for a thousand years, or avery long sea- son : So that, in prophetic language, these words do not signify the same individual martyrs or confessors, but their successors in the same faith 4nd practice. Or, if there shouldbe any resurrection of good men to an animal life in this world, foretold by the prophets, and intended by the great andblessed God, I doubt not but they would be here so far separated from the wicked world, where sins and sorrows reign, that it would be a gradual advance of their happiness beyondwhat they en- joyed before in the separate state. Objection XI. Though man is often said to be a compoundcreature of soul and body, yet in scripture he is represented as one being : it is the man that is born, that lives, that dies, that sleeps, or wakes, and that rises from the dead. This is evident, in many places of scripture, where these things are spoken of : and it seems to be the law of our nature or being, that we should al- ways act and live in such a state, as souls united to bodies, and never in a state of separation. Answer. Though there are several scriptures, which represent man as one being, viz. soul and body united, yet there are many other scriptures, which 'have been cited in the former parts of this essay, wherein the souls and the bodies of men are represented as two very dis- tinct things: The one goes to the grave at death, and the other, either into Abraham'sbosom, or to a place of tor- ment; either to dwell with God, to be present with Christ the Lord, and to become one of the spirits of the just made perfect, or to goto their own place, as Judas did. Now, those texts, where man is represented as one being, may be explained with very great ease, consider- ing man as made upof two distinct substances, viz. body and spirit, united into one personal agent, as we have shewn before : But the several texts, where the soul and body are so strongly and plainly distinguished, as has been before represented, there is no possible way of re- presenting these scriptures, but by supposing a separate state of existence for souls after the body is dead, which makes it necessary, that this exposition should take place. x3
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