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SECT.
Iv.'
PROOF
O'
A
SEPARATE
STATE.
ifl
ther
there
is
any
difference
between them
?
Yet
it inti-
mates thus
much,
that
men who
pretended to
wisdom in
that
age,
supposed such
a
difference between
the spirit
of
man and the spirit
of
a brute.
Objection
II.
is
°taken
from
Psalm
vi. 5.
"
In
death
there
is
no remembrance
of
thee
;
in the grave who
-shall
give
thee thanks
?"
And
Psalm
exlvi. 4.
"
His
breath
goeth forth, he
returneth
to
his
earth;
in
that
very
day
his
thoughts
perish?
And
Eccles.
ix.
5.
"
The
living know
that
they shall.
die,
but
the dead
know
not
any thing."
From
all which words some would infer,
there
is no such
thing
as
a separate state
of
souls.
Answer. Both
David and
his son Solomon
exclude
all
such
sort
of
thoughts and actions, both religious and
civil,
from
the-state
of
death,
as are practised
in
this
life;
all the
pursuits
of
their
present
purposes,
their
present
way
and manner
of
divine worship,
and
their
management orconsciousness
of
human
affairs
:
But they
do
not
exclude
all
manner
of
consciousness, knowledge,
thought,
or action,
such as
may
be
suited
to
the
invisi-
ble state
of
spirits.
The
design
of
the writers
in
those
places
of
scripture require no
more
than
this,
and
there-
fore the words
cannot
be construed
to
any
farther
sense,
or to
exclude the conscious and
active
powers
of
a sepa-
rate spirit,
from
their proper
exercise
in
that
invisible
world, though
they have done
with all
their
actions
in
the
present
visible
state.
Objection
III.
is
taken
from
John
xiv. 3.
If
I
gó
and prepare
a
place for
you,
I
will
come
again and
re-
ceive you
to
myself,
that
where
I
am,
there
ye may
be
also
;"
which seems
to
determine the point,
that
the fol-
lowers
of Christ
were
not
to
be
present
with
him, till
he
came again to this
world
to raise
the
d.
ad,
and
to
take
his disciples
to
dwell with him.
Answer
1.
It
hath been already granted
by
some`per-
sons,
who
doubt
of
the
separate state
of
all
souls,
that
the apostles had this special favour allowed them to
be
received into the presence
of Christ,
when they
departed
from
this body
Now
these words were spoken to the
apostles, and
therefore
they
cannot
preclude
thisprivi-
lege which they
expected,
vi,. that
when
they were
"
ab-
sent from the
body, they
should
be
present
with the
Lord,"
2
Cor.
v.
8.
x4