so fares it with the sluggish soul, as if it were lodged in an enchanted bed: it is so fast held by the charms of the body, all the glory of the other world is little enough to tempt it out, than which there is not a more deplorable symptom of this sluggish slumbering state, So deep an oblivion (which you know is also naturally incident to sleep) hath seized it of its own country, of its alliances above, its relation to the Father and world of spirits; it takes this earth for its home, where it is both in exile and captivity at once: and (as a prince, stolen away in his infancy, and bred up in a beggar's shed) so little seeks, that it declines a better state. This is the degenerous, torpid disposition of a soul lost in flesh, and inwrapt in stupifying clay; which hath been deeply resented by some heathens. So one brings in Socrates pathetically bewailing this oblivious dreaming of his soul, "which (saith he) had seen that pulchritude (you must pardon him here the conceit of its pre-existence) that neither human voice could utter, nor eye behold, but that now, in this life, it had only some little remembrance thereof, as in a dream; being both in respect of place and condition, far removed from so pleasant sights, pressed down into an earthly station, and there encompassed with all manner of dirt and filthiness." &c. And to the same purpose Plato often speaks in the name of the same person and particularly of the winged state of the good soul, (argua. In Phædro.) when apart from the body, carried in its triumphant flying chariot (of which he gives a large description, somewhat resembling Solomon's rapturous metaphor, "Before I was aware, my soul made me as the chariots of Amminadib ;" (Cant. 6. 12.) but being in the body, it is with it as with a bird that hath lost its wings, it falls a sluggish weight to the earth. Which indeed is the state even of the best, in a degree, within this tabernacle. A sleepy torpor stops their flight; they can fall, but not ascend; the remains of such drowsiness do still hang even about saints themselves. The apostle therefore calls upon such, to wake out of sleep; (Rom. 13. 11.) from that consideration (as we know men are not wont to sleep so intensely towards morning) that now their salvation was nearer than when they believed, that is (as some judicious interpreters understand that place, Aretius, Beza, &c.) for that they were nearer death and eternity, than when they first became christians, though this passage be also otherwise, and not improbably, interpreted. However.

(2.) The holy soul's release and dismission from its earthly body, which is that we propounded next to be considered, will excuss and shake off this drowsy sleep. Now is the happy season of its awaking into the heavenly, vital light of God; the blessed morning of that long desired day is now dawned upon it; the cumbersome night-vail is laid aside, and the garments of salvation and immortal glory are now put on. It hath passed through

the trouble and darkness of a wearisome night, and now is joy arrived with the morning, as we may be permitted to allude to those words of the Psalmist, (Psal. 30. 5.) though that be not supposed to be the peculiar sense. I conceive myself here not concerned operously to insist in proving, that the souls of saints sleep not in the interval between death and the general resurrection, but enjoy present blessedness. It being besides the design of a practical discourse, which rather intends the propounding and improvement of things acknowledged and agreed, for the advantage and benefit of them with whom they are so; than the discussing of things dubious and controversible. And what I here propound in order to a consequent improvement and application, should methinks pass for an acknowledged truth, among them that professedly believe, and seriously read and consider the Bible, (for mere philosophers that do not come into this account, it were impertinent to discourse with them from a text of Scripture) and where my design only obliges me to intend the handling of that, and to deliver from it what may fitly be supposed to have its ground there; unless their allegations did carry with them the shew of demonstrating the simple impossibility of what is asserted thence to the power of that God whose word we take it to be; which I have not found any thing they say to amount to. That we have reason to presume it an acknowledged thing, among them that will be concluded by Scripture,* 'That the soul

* It is true, that divers of the fathers and others have spoken, some dubiously, some very diminishingly of the blessedness of separate souls; many of those words may be seen together in that elaborate tractate of the learned Parker, de descens. lib. secund. p. 77. Yea, and his own assertion in that very page (be it spoken with reverence to the memory of so worthy a person) argues something gross, and I conceive, unwarrantable thoughts of the soul's dependance on a body of earth. His words are, Tertium vulnus (speaking of the prejudices the soul receives by its separation from the body) omnes operationes etiam suas, quæ sunt præsertim ad extra, extinguit: the third wound of the soul destroys all its operations especially those which are towards external objects. Where he makes it a difficulty to allow it any operations at all, as appears by the præsertim inserted. He first indeed denies it all operations and then more confidently and especially, those ad extra. And if he would be understood to exclude it only from its operations ad extra (if he take operations ad extra as that phrase is wont to be taken) he must then mean by it, all such operations as have their objects, not only those that have their terms to which without the agent, that is, not only all transient but all immanent acts that have their objects without them. As when we say, all God's acts ad extra are free; we mean it even of his immanent acts that have their objects without him, though they do not ponere terminum extra Deum: place their term out of God; as his election, his love of the elect. And so he must be understood to deny the separate souls, (and that with a præsertim too) the operations of knowing God, of loving him, and delighting in him; which are all operations ad extra, as having their objects extra animam, though their terminus ad quem be not so; which makes the condition of the separate souls of saints unspeakably inferior to what it was in the body, and what should occasion so dismal thought of that state of separation, I see not. Scripture gives no ground for thein, but evidently

doth not sleep when it ceases to animate its earthly body, many plain texts do evince, which are amassed together by the reverend Mr. Baxter; in his Saint's Rest, p. 2. c. 10. some of the principal whereof I would invite any that waver in this matter seriously to consider: as the words of our Saviour to the thief on the cross, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23. 43.) That of the apostle, we are willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. (2. Cor. 5. 8.) And that, I am in a straight, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ. (Phil. 1. 23.) that passage, the spirits of just men made perfect, &c. (Heb. 12. 23.) Which are expressions so clear, that it is hard for an industrious caviller to find what to except to them; and indeed, the very exceptions that are put in, are so frivolous, that they carry a plain confession there is nothing colorable to be said. Yea, and most evident it is from those texts; not only that holy souls sleep not, in that state of seperation; but that they are awaked by it (as out of a former sleep) into a much more lively and vigorous activity than they enjoyed before; and translated into a state, as much better than their former, as the tortures of a cross are more ungrateful than the pleasures of a paradise; these joys fuller of vitality, than those sickly, dying, faintings; as the immediate presence, and close embraces of the Lord of life are more delectable than a mournful disconsolate absence from him (which the apostle therefore tells us he desired as far better, and with an emphasis which our

enough speaks the contrary. Reason and philosophy offer nothing, that can render the sense we put upon the fore-mentioned plain scriptures, self-contradictions or impossible. Yea, such as had no other light or guide, have thought the facility of the soul's operations, being separate from its earthly body, much greater by that very separation. And upon this score doth saint Augustine, with great indignation, inveigh against the philosophers (Plato more especially) because they judged the separation of the soul from the body necessary to its blessedness. Quia videlicet ejus perfectam beatitudinem tunc illi fieri existimant cum omni prorsus corpore exuta, ad Deum simplex, et sola et quodammodo nuda redierit: because indeed they think that its perfect blessedness takes place, when having completely put off the body, it returns in its simple, separate, and as it were naked form to God. De civit. Dei 1. 13. c. 16. unto which purpose the words of Philolaus Pythagoricus, of Plato, of Porphyrius, are cited by Ludovicus Vives, in his comment upon that abovementioned passage. The first speaking thus, Deposito corpore hominem Deum immortalem fieri: that when the body is laid down man becomes the immortal God. The second thusTrahi nos a corpore ad ima, et a cogitatione superarum rerum subinde revocari, ideo relinquendum corpus, et hic quantum possumus et in altera vita prorsum, už liberi et expediti, verum ipsi videamus et optimum amemus: that we are borne down by the body to the earth, and are continually recalled from the contemplation of higher things: the body must therefore be relinquished as much as possible even here, and altogether in another life, that free and unincumbered, we may discern truth and love goodness. The third denies Aliter fieri beatum quenquam posse, nisi relinquat corpus et effigatur Deo: that any one can otherwise become happy, but by relinquishing the body, and being absorbed in God. I conceive it by the way not improbable, that the severity of that pious father against that dogma of the philosophers, might proceed upon this ground, that what they said of the impossibility of being happy in an earthly body, he understood meant by

English too faintly expresses; for he uses a double comparative woλλy μäλλov xgɛiodov by much more better) and, as a perfected, that is a crowned triumphant spirit, that hath attained the end of its race (as the words import in the agonistical notion*) is now in a more vivid joyous state, than when, lately, toiling in a tiresome way, it languished under many imperfections. And it is observable, that in the three former scriptures that phrase, of being with Christ, or, being present with him, is the same which is used by the apostle, (1 Thes. 4. 17.) to express the state of blessedness after the resurrection; intimating plainly, the sameness of the blessedness before and after. And though this phrase be also used to signify the present enjoyment saints have of God's gracious presence in this life (which is also in nature, and kind the same ;) yet it is plainly used in these scriptures (the two latter more especially) to set out to us such a degree of that blessedness, that in comparison thereof, our present being with Christ is a not-being with him; our presence with him, now, an absence from him: While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, and, I am in a strait betwixt two, desiring to depart (or having a desire unto dissolution) and to be with Christ, &c. How strangely mistaken and disappointed had the blessed apostle been, had his absence from the body, his dissolution, his release, set him further off from Christ, or made him less capable of converse with him, than before he was? And how

them of an impossibility to be happy in any body at all; when it is evidently the common opinion of the Platonists, that the soul is always united with somebody or other, and that even the dæmons have bodies (aerial or ætherial ones ;) which Plato himself is observed by St. Augustine to affirm whence he would fasten a contradiction on him, ibid. not considering (it is likely) that he would much less have made a difficulty, to concede such bodies also to human souls after they had lost their terrestrial ones, as his sectators do not; who hold they then presently become dæmons. In the mean time it is evident enough, the doctrine of the separate soul's present blessedness, is not destitute of the patronage and suffrage of philosophers. And it is indeed the known opinion of as many of them as ever held its immortality (which all of all ages and nations have done, a very few excepted) for inasmuch as they knew nothing of the resurrection of the body, they could not dream of a sleeping interval. And it is at least a shrewd presumption that nothing in reason lies against it, when no one instance can be given, among them that professedly gave up themselves to its only guidance, of any one, that granting the immortality of the soul, and its separableness from its terrestrial body, ever denied the immediate blessedness of good souls in that state of separation. Nor (if we look into the thing itself) is it at all more unapprehensible that the soul should be independent of the body in its operations than in its existence? If it be possible enough to form an unexceptionable notion of a spiritual being, distinct and separable from any corporeal substance (which the learned Doctor More hath sufficiently demonstrated in his treatise of the immortality of the soul) with its proper attributes, and powers peculiar to itself; what can reasonably withhold me from asserting, that being separate from the body, it may as well operate alone, (I mean exert such operations as are proper to such a being) as exist alone? That we find it here, de

See Dr. Hammond's annot. in. loc.

absurd would it be to say, the spirits of the just are perfected, by being cast into a stupifying sleep; yea, or being put into any state not better than they were in before? But their state is evidently far better. The body of death is now laid aside, and the weights of sin, that did so easily beset, are shaken off; flesh and sin are laid down together; the soul is rid of its burthensome bands and shackles, hath quitted its filthy darksome prison (the usual place of laziness and sloth,) is come forth of its drowsy dormitory, and the glory of God is risen upon it. It is now come into the world of realities, where things appear as they are, no longer as in a dream, or vision of the night. The vital quickening beams of divine light are darting in upon it on every side, and turning it into their own likeness. The shadows of the evening are vanished, and fled away. It converses with no objects but what are full themselves, and most apt to replenish it with energy and life. This cannot be but a joyful awaking, blessed season of satisfaction and delight indeed, to the enlightened, revived soul. But,

2. It must be acknowledged, the further and more eminent season of this blessedness will be the general resurrection-day, which is more expressly signified in Scripture by this term of awaking; as is manifest in many plain texts, where it is either expressly thus used, or implied to have this meaning in the opposite sense of the word sleep. Dan. 12. 2. John. 14. 12. 2 Cor.

facto, in fact, in its present state, acting only with dependance on a body, will no more infer, that it can act no otherwise, than its present existence in a body will that it can never exist out of it, neither whereof amounts to more than the trifling exploded argument a non esse ad non posse, that because a thing is not it cannot be, and would be as good sense as to say, such a one walks in his clothes, therefore out of them he cannot move a foot. Yea, and the very use itself which the soul now makes of corporeal organs and instruments, plainly evidences, that it doth exert some action wherein they assist it not. For it supposes an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them. Nothing can be the instrument which is not first the subject of my action; as when I use a pen, I act upon it in order to my action by it, that is, I impress a motion upon it, in order whereunto I use not that or any other such instrument; and though I cannot produce the designed effect, leave such characters so and so figured, without it; my hand can yet, without it, perform its own action, proper to itself, and produce many nobler effects. When therefore the soul makes use of a bodily organ, its action upon it must needs at last be without the ministry of any organ, unless you multiply to it body upon body in infinitum. And if possibly, it perform not some meaner and grosser pieces of drudgery when out of the body, wherein it made use of its help and service before; that is no more a disparagement or diminution, than it is to the magistrate, that law and decency permit him not to apprehend or execute a malefactor with his own hand. It may yet perform those operations which are proper to itself; that is, such as are more noble and excellent, and immediately conducive to its own felicity. Which sort of actions, as cogitation for instance, and dilection, though being done in the body, there is conjunct with them an agitation of the spirits in the brain and heart; it yet seems to me more reasonable, than as to those acts, the spirits are rather sub