SECTION L i, begin;" Thus the force of divine terrors are greatly enervated by this, delay of punishment. I will not undertake to determine, when the soul is dismissed from the body, whether there be any explicit divine sentencé passed, concerning its eternal state of happiness or misery, ac- cording to its works in this life ; or whether the pain or pleasure, that belongs to the separate state, be not chiefly such as arises, by natural consequence, from a life of sin, or a life of holiness, and as being under the power of an approving, or a condemning conscience : But it seems to me more probable, that, since the spirit returns to God that gave it ; Eccles. xii. 7. to God, the judge of all; with whom the spirits of the just made perfect dwell ; Heb. xii. 24. and since the spirit of a christian when absent from the body, is present with the Lord, that is, Christ ;" 2 Cor. v. 8. I am more inclined to think, that there is some sort of judicial determination of this important point, either by God himself, or by Jesus Christ, into whose hands he has committed all judgment ; John v. 22. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; Heb. ix. 27. whether immediate or more distant, is not here expressly declared, though the immedi- ate connexion of the words, hardly gives room for seventeen hundred years to intervene. But if the solemn formalities of a judgment be delayed, yet the conscience of a separate spirit, reflecting on a holy, or a sinful life, is sufficient to begin a heaven or a hell, immediately after death. Amongst those who delay the season of recompence till the resurrection, there are some, who suppose the soul to exist still, as a distinct being from the body, but to pass the whole interval of time, in a state of stupor, or sleep, being altogether uncon- scious and inactive. Others again imagine, that the soul itself has not a sufficient distinction from the body, to give it any pro- per existence when the body dies ; but that its existence shall be renewed at the resurrection of the body, and then be made the subject of joy or pain, according to its behaviour in this mortal state. I think there might be an effectual argument against each of these opinions, raised from the principles of philosophy : I shall just give ahint ofthem, and then proceed to search what scrip- ture has revealed in this matter, which is of much greater im- portance to us, and will have a more powerful influence on the minds of christians. I. Some imagine the soul of man to be his blood, or his breath, or a sort of vital flame, or refined air or vapour, or the composition and motion of the fluids and solids in the animal body. This they suppose to be the spring and principle of his intellectual life, and of all his thoughts and consciousness, as well as of his animal life. And though this soul of man dies together with the body, and has no manner of separate existence
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