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Ng
ESSAY
TOWARD THE
(SECT.
Ir:
Let
this
matter,
I
say, be
determined
either
way,
yet
the great point
seems to be evident, even beyond
proba-
bility,
that
there
is
a
conscious being spoken
of,
which
is
very
distinct
from its tabernacle, or
house,
or cloth-
ing,
and
which exists
still,
whatever its clothing,
or
its
dwelling
be,
or whether
it
be
put
off,
or
put
on
;
and
that
when
the earthly
house,
or
vesture,
is dissolved,
or
put
off,
the
heavenly house,
or
clothing,
is
ready
'at
hand
to, be
put
on immediately, to
render
the
soul
of
the
Christian fit
to
be
present
with the
Lord.
2
Con
xii. 2,
3.
"
I
knew
a
man
in.
Christ, above
fourteen
years
ago,
whether
in the
body,
or out
of
the
body,
I
cannot
tell,
God
knoweth
:
how
that
he was
caught up into paradise,
and
heard unspeakable
words."
I
grant,
this ecstacy
of
the apostle, does
not actually
shew
the
existence
of a
separate
state,
after
death, till
the resurrection;
yet
it
plainly manifests
St.
Paul's be-
Iief,
that there
might
be
such
a state, and
that
the soul
Alight
be
separated
from
the
body, and might exist,
and
think, and
knów,
and act
in
paradise,
in
a
state
of
se-
paration,
and
hear,
and perhaps,
converse in
the
un-
speakable
language
of
that
world,
while
it
was
absent
from the
body.
J
And,
as
I
acknowledge,
I
am
one
of
those persons,
who do
not
believe,
that
the intellectual
spirit,
or mind
of
man,
is
the
proper
principle
of
animal
life
to the
body,
but that
it
is
another
distinct
conscious
being,
that
generally
uses
the
body as
a habitation,
engine,
or
in-
strument,
while
its animal
life
remains;
so
I
am
of
opi-
nion
it
is
a
possible thing,
for the intellectual spirit,
in
a
miraculous manner,
by
the
special
order
of
God, to
act, in a state
of
separation, without the
death
of
the
animal
body,
since the
life
of
the body depends
upon
breath, and
air,
and the
regular temper and
motion
of
the
solids and fluids
of
which
it
is
composed
*.
And
St,
*
It
would be
thought, perhaps,
a
little
foreign to my present purpose;
if
I
should stay
here
to
prove,
that
it
is
not
the
conscious
principle
in
man
that
gives or
maintains
the
animal life of
his
body.
It
is
granted,
that,
according
to
the
course
of nature, and
the
general appointment of God
therein, this
conscious
principle,
or spirit, continues
its
communications
with the
body, while
the
body
has
animal
life,
or
is
capable
of
its
natural
motions, and
able
to obey
the
volitions of
the
spirit;
and
6n this
ac
count, the
union
of the
rational spirit to the body, and the animal
life
of
the body,
are
often represented
as one
and the
sanie
thing.
5