3i3 THE PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE belongs to the body as well as the soul, it is very properly set be- fore the eyes of men in the holy writings, as done at the resur- rection, because corporeal and sensible things work more power- fully on their imagination, and more sensibly and effectually strike the consciences of men than the notion of mere spiritual rewards and punishments in the separate state. 5. The state of rewards and punishments after the resurrection, will be far the longest and most durable recotnpence of the good and the bad; and, therefore it is called eternal so often in scripture; everlasting life, and everlasting fire; Mat. xxvi. 48. Whereas the retributions of the separate state, are comparatively but of short duration ; and this is another thing that makes a sen- sible impression on the hearts of men, viz. the eternal con - tinuance of the joys and sorrows that follow the last judgment. Perhaps it will be replied here, that in the beginning of this essay, I represented the separate state as a more effec- tual motive to the hopes and fears of men, because the joys and sorrows of it were so much nearer at hand than those of the resurrection : And why do I now represent the recom- pences of the resurrection under such characters as are fit to have the strongest influence, and become the most effectual motive? Answer. It is granted, that the recompences after the resurrection, have several circumstances that carry with them some peculiar and most powerful motives to religion and virtue ; but that awful day may still seem to want this one motive, viz. the nearness of it, which belongs eminently to the recompences of the separate state. Now, if the scripture does really reveal the doctrine of rewards and punishments of souls immediately ,after death, and of soul and body together at the resurrection, then all those circumstances of effectual motive to piety, are col- lected in our doctrine, viz, the immediate nearness of them in the separate state, and the public appearance, the universality, the completeness, the sensibility, and the ditration of them after the great rising -day.. I might yet take occasion from this objection to give.a fur- ther reason why the apostles more frequently draw their motives of hope and fear from the resurrection and the great judgment ; that is, that even that day of recompence was generally then sup- posed to be near at hand, and so there was less need to insist upon the joys and sorrows of the separate state. As the patriarchs and the Jews of old, after the Messiah was promised, were constantly expecting his first coming almost in every generation, till he did appear, and many modes of pro - phetical expression in scripture, which speak of things long to come, as though they were present, or just at hand, gave them some occasion for this expectation ; so the Christians of the first age, did generally expect the second coming of Christ to judg-
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