THE PROOF OF A SEFARATE STATE. be too much allured to indulge sinful negligence, and yield to temptations too easily, when the terrors of another 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 natures, 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 un- changeable state, according to its character and conduct here on earth, and that the recompences of vice and virtue are, in some measure, to begin immediately 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 them- selves, from the unknown distance of the day of recommence : Virtue will have a nearer and strongerguard placed about it, and piety will be attended with superior motives, if its initial re- wards 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 sor- rows and anguish. I know what the opposers of the separate state reply here, viz, that the whole time from death, to the resurrection, is but as the sleep of a night, and the dead shall awake out of their graves, utterly ignorant and insensible of the long distance of time that bath past since their death. One year; or one thou- sand years, will be the same thing to them ; and therefore they should be as careful to prepare for the day of judgment, and the rewards that attend it, as they are for their entrance into the separate state at death, if there were any such state to receive them. I grant, men should be so in reason and justice : But such is the weakness and folly of our natures, that men will not be so much influenced, nor alarmed by distant prospects, nor so solicit- ous to prepare for an event, which they suppose to be so very far off, as they would for the same event, if it commences as soon as ever this mortal life expires. The vicious man will indulge his sensualities, and lie down to sleep in death with this comfort, " I shall take my rest here for a hundred, or a thousand years, and, perhaps, in all that space my offences may be forgotten, or some- thing may happen that I may escape ; or, let the worst come that can come, I shall have a long sweet nap before my sorrows
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