SECTION IL 13 Moses, and Elias appeared at the transfiguration, and which some suppose to have belonged to Adam in innocency ; or whether it signify only a state of happy immortality, superinduced, or brought in upon the departing soul at death, or upon the soul and body united, as in this life, and with which those saints shall be clothed, who are found alive at the coming of Christ, accord- ing to 1 Cor. xv. 52 -54. -which will not kill the body, but swal- low up its mortal state in immortal life. Let this matter, I say, be determined either. way, yet the great point seems to be evident, even beyond probability, that there is a conscious.being spoken of, which is -very distinct from its tabernacle, or house, or clothing, and which exists still, what- ever 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 Cor. xii. 2, 3. " I knew a man in Christ, above four- teen 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 ecstasy of the apostle, does not actually spew the existence of a separate state, after death, till the resurrection; yet it plainly manifests St. Paul's belief, that there might be-such a state, and that the soul might be separated from the body, and might exist, and think, and know, and act in paradise, in a state of separation, and hear, and perhaps, converse in the unspeakable language of that world, while it was absent from the body. . 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 habi- tation, engine, or instrument, while its animal life remsins; so I am of opinion 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 regu- lar temper and motion of the solids and fluids of which it is composed*. And St. Paul seems here to be of the same mind, * -It would be thought, perhaps, a little foreign to my present purpose, if I should aíay 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 ita natural notions, and able to obey the volitions of the spirit; and on this account, the uoion of a rational spirit to the body, and the animal life of. the body, are often represented as one and the same thing. But if we enter into a philosophical aoasideration of things, we should re -.
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