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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
do
butjust
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=