299 / 674
SECT.
I.]
ESSAY,
&C.
27çt
And
Solomon
teaches
us
the
same
truth,
Eccles.
viii.
}
1,
Because sentence
against
an
evil
work
is
not executed
speedily
;
therefore
the
heart
of
the sons
of
men
is
fully
set
in
them
to
do evil."
And even the
good servants, in
this imperfect state,
the
sons
of
virtue and
piety, may
be too much
allured
to
indulge sinful
negligence,
and
yield to
temptations too
easily, when
the terrors of an-
other
world
are
set
so,
far
off,
and
their hope
of
happiness
is
delayed
so
long.
It
is
granted, indeed,
that
this
sort
of
reasoning
is
very
unjust;
but
so
foolish
are our na-
tures,
that
we
are
too ready
to
take up
with it,
and
to
grow
more
remiss
in
the cause
of
religion.
Whereas,
if it
can be made to
appear,
from the
word
of
God, that,
at
the
moment
of
death,
the
soul
enters
into
an
unchangeable
state,
according to
its
character
and
conduct
here
on
earth,
and
that the
recompences
of
vice
and virtue
are, in some measure, to begin
immedi-
ately upon the end
of our state
of
trial
;
and
if,
besides
all this,
there
be
a
glorious and
a dreadful resurrection
to
be
expected,
with
eternal
pain
or
eternal
pleasure,
both
for
soul
and
body,
and
that
in
a more intense
degree,
when the
theatre of
this world
is
shut
up,
and Christ
Jesus
appears
to
pronounce
his
public
judgment
on.
the
world, then
all those
little subterfuges
are precluded,
which
mankind would
form
to
themselves;
from the
un-
known distance
of
the day
of recompense:. Virtue
will
have
a
nearer
and
stronger guard;
placed
about
it,
and
piety
will be
attended
with
superior
motives,
if
its
initial
rewards are
near
at
hand,
and
shall
commence
as
soon
as this
life
expires
;
and the vicious and
profane
will
be
more
effectually affrighted,
if
the
hour
of death
must
immediately
consign them to a
state of
perpetual
sorrows,
and
bitter
anguish of conscience,
without
hope,
and
with a fearful expectation
of
yet
greater
sorrows
and
anguish.
.
I
know
what the opposers of the separate state reply
-here,
viz,
that
the
whole
time
from
death, to the
resur-
rection,
is
but
as
the
sleep
of
a
night, and the dead
shall
awake out
of
their
graves,
utterly ignorant
and
insensi-
-hie
of
the long
distance of
time
that
hath past
since
their
death. One
year;
or one
thousand
years,
will be
the
satne
thing
to-
them
;
'and
therefore
they should be as
careful=
to
-
prepare fur the
day
ofjudgmet
t,-
and the re-
T4