32 THE PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. knowledge, thought or action, such as may be suited to the invi- sible state of spirits. The design of the writers in those places of scripture require no more than this, and therefore the words cannot be construed to any farther sense, or to exclude the con- scious and active powers of a separate 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 go and pre - pare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to my- self, that where I am, there ye may be also; which seems to determine the point, that the followers of Christ were not to be present with him, till he came again to this world to raise the dead, and to take his disciples to dwell with him. Answer 1. It bath been already granted by some persons, :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 pre- clude this privilege which they expected, viz. that when they were absent from the body, they should be present with the lord ; 2 Cor. v. 8. 2. Christ came again to his disciples at his own resurrection from the dead, and taught them the things of the other world, and better prepared them for the happiness of heavers and his own presence : He came again also by the destruction of the Jewish state, and called his own people thence before -hadd, sw- an emblem of their salvation when the world should be destroyed. Ije also came again at their death, when he that path the keys of death and the invisible world let them out of the prison of the body, into the separate state, that they might dwell with him : The coming of Christ has many and various senses in the New Testament, and need not to be referred only to his coming at the day of judgment. 3. But suppose in this place, the words of Christ be con- strued, concerning his great and public coining, to raise the dead and judge the world ; it is certain, that in that day the disciples shall be received to dwell with him, in a much more complete and glorious manner, when both soul and body shall be made the inhabitants of heaven : But this does not preclude or forbid that the separate souls of Isis followers should be far Poured with his presence in paradise, before his public coming to judge the world. Though the last and greatest blessing be only mentioned here, it does not exclude the former. Objection IV. St. Paul, in Phil. iii. 10, 11, says, that lie desired to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, $r. if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead : Now what need had the apostle to be so solicitous about the
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