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SECT.
III1
PROOF
OF
A
SEPARATE
STATE.
305
try of separate
souls
or paradise; where good
men
are
re-
warded, and
God
is
their
God,
if
they
had
no
plain pro
-
mises
or
views
of
the
resurrection of
the body
?' ArId,
in-
deed, they had need
ofa
very
plain and express promise
of
such
a
resurrection,
to
encourage their faith
and
obe-
dience,
if
they
had'no notion or belief
of
a
separate
state,
or a
heavenly country, whither
their
souls
should
go
at
their
death.
Job
seems to have some
bright
glimpses
of
a
resurrec-
tion, in chap.
xix.
625
-27.
but
this
was
far above
the
level of
the dispensation wherein
he lived,
and
a peculiar
and distinguishing favour
granted
to
him
under
his
un-
common and peculiar
sufferings.
In
the institution
of
the jewish religion
by
Moses,
there
is
no express mention
of
a resurrection, and
we
must
suppose
their hope
of
a
future
state,
was chiefly
such as
they could gain from the light
of
nature, and learn
by
tra-
ditions from
their
fathers,
or
from
unwritten instructions.
For
though
our
Saviour improves
the
words
of
God
to
Moses
in
the
bush;
Erod.
iii. 6.
"
I
am
the
God of Abra-
ham,"
&c.
so
far
as
to
prove a resurrection
from them,
yet
we
can hardly suppose the
Israelites
could
carry
it
any
further,
than merely
to
the happiness
of
Abraham's
soul,
&c.
in some
separate
state
;
and thence
came
the
notion of departed
souls
of
good men going
to
the bosom
of
Abraham.
I
grant that
David,
in
his
Psalms,
Isaiah
and
Daniel,
in their prophecies, have
some
hints
of
the
resurrection
of
the body
:
but
this
cloth
not
seem
to have been
the,
common principle
or
support
of
virtue and
goodness,,
or
a general
article
of
belief among the Jews,
in the
early
ages.
In
the
days
of
the
later
prophets,
and.
after their return
from Babylon,
I
confess,
the
Jews
had
some
notion
of a
resurrection;
but
they
also
retained their opinion
of the
righteous
souls being
at rest
with
God,
in
a
separate
state
before the
resurrection:
See
the book
of
Wisdom,
chap.
iii.
1
-4.
The
souls
of
the righteous are
in
the
band
of
God.
And
there
shall no
torment
touch them.
In
the sight
of
the
unwise, they seemed to die,
and
their
departure
is
taken for
misery,
and their
going from
us
to
be
utter
destruction
;
but
they
are
in
peace
;
for though
they
iae
perished in the sight
of
men,
yet
is
their
hope
VOL.
I.