(1.) We that live under the gospel-light, are come to a clearer apprehension, sight, and knowledge of the blessed and happy estate of the souls of the righteous after death, than ever they had, or or- dinarily could have, who lived under the types and shadows of the law, Eph. iii. 4, 5. And so we are come to them in respect of clearer apprehension.
(2.) We are come to those blessed spirits in our representative, Christ, who hath carried our nature into the very midst of them, and whom they all behold with highest admiration and delight. By Christ, who is entered into that holy place where these spirits of just men live, we are come into a near relation with them : for he being the common head, both to them in heaven, and to us on earth, we and they consequentially make but one body or society, Eph. ii. 10. Whereupon (notwithstanding the different and re- mote countries they and we live in) we are said " to sit down with them in heavenly places," Eph. iii. ]5. and ii. 6.
(8.) We are come.^ That is, we are as good 'as come, or we are upon the matter come ; there remains nothing betwixt them and us but a puff of breath, a little space of time, which shortens every moment: We are come to the very borders of their country, and there is nothing to speak of betwixt them and us : And by this ex- pression, ive are come^ he teacheth us to account and reckon those things as present which so shortly will be present to us, and to look upon them as if they already were, which is the highest and most comfortable life of faith we can live on earth. Hence the
Doct. That righteous and holt/ souls, once separated Jrom their bodies hy death, are immediately perfected in themselves ; and associated with others alike pei'Ject in the kingdom of God.
That the spirits of just men at the time of their separation from their bodies do not utterly fail in their beings, nor that they are so prejudiced and wounded by death, that they cannot exert their own proper acts in the absence of the body, hath been already cleared in the foregoing parts of this treatise, and will be more fully cleared from this text.
But the true level and aim of this discourse is at a higher mark, viz. the far more excellent, free, and noble life the souls of the just begin to live immediately after their bodies are dropt off from
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OP MAX. 25
them by death, at which time they begin to hve Uke themselves, a pleasant, free, and divine life. So much at least is included in the apostle's epithet in my text, spirits of just men made perfect ; and suitable thereto are "his words in 1 Cor. xiii. 10, 12. " When " that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be " done away. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then " face to face ; now I know in part, but then I shall know, even " as also I am known."
These two adverbs, now and then, distinguish the twofold state of gracious souls, and shew what it is whilst they arc confined in the body, and what it shall be from the time of their emancipation and freedom from that clog of mortality. Now we arc imperfect, but then that which is perfect takes place, and that which is imper- fect is done away, as the imperfect twilight is done away by the opening of the perfect day.
And it deserves a serious animadversion, that this perfect state doth not succeed the imperfect one after a long interval, (as long as betwixt the dissolution and resurrection of the body) but the imperfect state of the soul is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one. The glass is laid by as useless, wlien we come to see face to face, and eye to eye.
The waters will prove very deep here, too deep for any line of mine to fathom ; there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come, a gloom and haziness upon that state : Fain we would, with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge, penetrate this cloud, and dispel this gloom and haziness, but cannot. We think seriously and closely of this great and awful subject, but our thoughts cannot pierce through it : we reinforce those thoughts by a sally, or thick succession of fresh thoughts, and yet all will not do, our thoughts return to us either in confusion, or without the expected success. For alas ! how little is it that we know, or can know of our own souls now whilst they are embodied ! much less of their unembodied state. The apostle tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 9. " That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into " the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them " that love him." And another apostle adds, " It doth not yet " appear what we shall be," 1 John iii. 2.
Yet all this is no discouragement to the search and regular en- quiry into the future state ; for though reason cannot penetrate these mysteries, yet God hath revealed them to us, (though not per- fectly) hi^ his Spirit. And though we know not particularly, and circumstantially what we shall be, yet this we know, that " we " shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." And it is our privilege and happiness, that we are come to the spirits of just men made perfect, i. e. to a clearer knowledge of that state than was ordinarily attainable by believers, under former dispensations,
g4 A TKEATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX.
These things premised, I will proceed to open my apprehensions of the separate state of the spirits of just men made perfect, in Uvelve propositions : whereby, as by so many steps, we may orderly advance as far as safely and warrantably we may, into the know- ledge of this great mystery, clearing what afterwards shall remain obscure, in the solution of several questions relating to this subject, and then apply the whole, in several uses of this great point : And the first proposition is this :
Proposition 1. There is a twofold separation of the soul from the body : viz. one mental, the other real : Or,
1. Intellectual, by the mind only.
2. Physical, by the stroke of death.
1. Of intellectual, or mental separation *, I am first to speak in this proposition ; and it is nothing else but an act of the under- standing, or mind, conceiving, or considering the soul and body, as separate and parted from each other, whilst yet they are united in a personal oneness by the breath of life. This mental separa^ tion may, and ought to be frequently and seriously made, before death make the real and actual separation ; and the more fre- quently and seriously we do it, the less of horror and distraction will attend that real and fatal stroke, w^henever it shall be given. For hereby we learn to bear it gradually, and, by gentle essays, to acquaint our shoulders with the burden of it. Separation is a word that hath much of horror in the very sound, and useth to have much more in the sense and feelino- of it, else it would not deserve that title. Job viii. 14. " The kind of terrors," or the most terrible of all terribles : But acquaintance and familiarity abates that hor- ror, and that two w^ays especially.