according to God in the Spirit; who are spiritually minded, and lead a holy Life. There are several other Interpretations of this difficult Text: which Consideration alone may serve to shew how unfit it is to prove any Doctrine, which is not agreeable to the Tenour of Scripture, or contain'd in some plain Passages thereof.

The Point before us is certainly not asserted in any one plain Text; and that it is not agreeable to the general Doctrine and Tenour of Scripture, is evident. For that uniformly teaches us that this World is our State of Trial, and the present Life the Time in which we are to work out our Salvation, without giving us any Hopes, that if we neglect it, we may retrieve things in Hades. There are several Passages in the Old Testament, which are inconsistent with any Expectations of this kind.-In Death there is no Remembrance of thee; in the Grave who shall give thee Thanks? Or, make Confession unto thee.1 The Dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.2-For the Grave cannot praise thee, Death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down to the Pit cannot hope for thy Truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day; the Fathers to

1 Psal. vi. 5. Τί γὰρ οἶδας ἄνθρωπε ἁμαρτήσας, εἰ ἡμέρας ζήσεις ἐν τῷδε τῷ βιῷ, ἵνα καὶ μετανοήσης ; ὅτι ἄδηλος ἡ ἔξοδός σου ἐκ τοῦ βίου ὑπάρχει, καὶ ἐν ἁμαρτίᾳ τελευτήσαντι μετάνοια οὐκ ἔσται· ὡς λέγει διὰ τοῦ Δαβίδ. Ἐν δὲ τῷ ᾅδῃ τίς ἐξομολογήσεταί σοι ; Constit. Apost. Lib. ii. Ch. xiii. Confer Menasseh Ben-Israel De Resurrect. Mort. Lib. i. Ch. xiv.

2 Psal. cxv. 17.

3 Isai. xxxviii. 18, 19. Idem dicit quod nos ante diximus. Hunc scilicet mundum esse, in quo virtus et vitium locum habent: In altero vero tantum operum Remunerationem locum habere. Menasseh Ben-Israel, ubi sup.

The

the Children shall make known thy Truth. meaning of which Passages, and many more to the same purpose, is not, as the Sadducees collected from them, that the Soul dies with the Body, and that there is no future State at all; but the Meaning of them is to the same purpose, with that of our Lord, (John ix. 4.) The Night cometh, when no Man can work: The same with this of Solomon, (Eccles. ix. 10.) Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no Work, nor Device, nor Knowledge, nor Wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest. And again, Ch. xi. 3. If the Tree fall toward the South, or toward the North; in the place where the Tree falleth, there it shall be: [See No. XLV.] And Iwith these Testimonies of the Old Testament the whole Tenour of the New agrees; which every where plainly supposes, that there is no Alteration of our moral State, as to the Nature and Kind of it, between Death and the Day of Judgment. When the Dead are raised, and appear at the great Tribunal,1 the Enquiry is what they have done in this World, that every one may receive the things done in his Body: 2 Cor. v. 10. It is appointed unto Men once to die, but after this the Fudgment; Heb. ix. 27. No reckoning, we see, is at all made of the Middle State; but it is pass'd over as if it really were, what it is sometimes call'd and compar'd to, a State of Sleep; or as if no such Period had intervened between the Day of each Man's Death, and the Day of the general Judgment. All which is utterly unaccountable, considering how vastly longer that Period is to the greatest Part of Mankind, than the Term of human Life, if that also like the present be a State of Moral Agency, in which Men may alter the Temper and Habits which they

1 See Matt. xxv.

contracted in this World, and with which they left it.1 There is as little Probability of Reason as Proof from Scripture for this Imagination. The very Nature of the separate State is ill suited to it. For new Habits must be acquir'd by Exercise, and a Repetition of the same Acts; and virtuous Habits. must proceed from free Choice. But what Scope or Opportunity will there be in Hades for the Acts and Exercise of several Virtues ? For Justice, Charity, Temperance, and many more? They will be restrain'd from committing the Acts indeed of Intemperance, and other Vices, by the very Nature of their Condition. But what Morality is there in this? Where is the Virtue that proceeds from free Choice?

But the Deficiency in the Nature of the separate State in this respect, may perhaps be supplied by Advantages of another kind; and what it wants in Virtue, may be compensated by Punishment. For the Fire or Flame of Gehenna extends into such parts of Hades as wicked Men, who are not in"curably so, are forced into, long before the Day of "Judgment." And "this preliminary Eruption of "that Fire or Flame is intended as a Punishment "necessary for the Repentance and Recovery of

1 Quod si alia interveniat vita ante Judicium; eaque talis, ut bene aut male agendi, virtutis et vitii, æquè capax sit ac hodierna, eâque multo longior sit et diuturnior: nullam video rationem, cur ab hodierna vita sola, breviuscula, incommoda, et innumeris tentationibus obnoxia, pendeat totum pondus æternitatis, vel sortis futuræ; alterâ illâ, multo majoris momenti, neglecta Burnet De Stat. Mort. p. 98. penitus, vel pro nihilo habita.

See also Sherlock on Death, Sect. vii. That Death translates us to an unchangeable State.

"lesser Offenders."1 Of which Expedients I need only say, that if the Hypothesis of Repentance in Hades be so weak as to totter with its own Weight, it is not likely to support this additional Heap of Absurdities with which Mr. Whiston has loaded it. It is hard to say, how this material Fire can affect immaterial Substance: Or, if it could, how it is calculated to produce real Virtue. All Punishment, it is certain, has not this Effect; for then that of Gehenna would not terminate, as Mr. W. supposes, in Annihilation.

2

But want of Proof, or Probability, is not the worst Circumstance in this Affair. It has an ill Aspect on practical Religion; and may for that reason be justly suspected to be no part of that Gospel, which contains. only the Doctrine which is according to Godliness. The great Argument for working out our Salvation in the present Life, while it is called to-day, is, because the

1 Mr. Whiston's Discourse, p. 115.

2 If it should be said, that the Soul is not immaterial, it should be remember'd on the other hand, that the Contrary has been prov'd by several excellent Writers, Dr. Clarke, the Author of the Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, &c. The only Refuge then I conceive must be in some material Vehicle, or aërial Body: And this an Author I have been concerned with before says, is demonstrable from Philosophy and Apparitions. [Letter, &c. concerning Origen, p. 65.] But as he has not explain'd his Argument from Philosophy, and as the other from Apparitions is too slippery to build any thing upon, I may dismiss this Doctrine of Vehicles with the Censure of Mr. Locke; "Should aërial and atherial Vehicles come once, by the Preva"lency of that Doctrine, to be generally received any where, no "doubt those Terms would make Impressions on Men's Minds, so as to establish them in the Persuasion of the Reality of "such things, as much as Peripatetick Forms and Intentional Species have heretofore done." Essay, vol. 2. p. 96. 8vo.

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Night cometh, when no Man can work. But if Men are once taught to believe that there will be another Day, that will answer their purpose as well; it is natural to think, that they will be too apt to trust to that Resource, and so live and die without Repentance. I don't say that this Conduct would be reasonable, but that it is likely to be Fact, considering how strongly Men are attach'd to their old and favourite Sins. It is from a Sentiment of this kind that Bishop Bull1 expresses himself with so much warmth, with regard to the Popish Doctrine of Purgatory; which he calls "a gross Imposition, that hath been, "he is persuaded, the eternal Ruin of thousands of Souls, for whom our Blessed Lord shed his most "precious Blood, who might have escaped Hell, if "they had not trusted to a Purgatory." This makes a material Difference between Mr. W's Doctrine, and that of some of the early Writers of the Church. Their Opinion, though groundless perhaps, was however harmless; was matter of Speculation, which had no ill Influence on Christian Morality, nor was of ill Consequence to the Souls of Men. For what if Christ, or his Apostles, preach'd in Hades to the old pious Patriarchs,2-or to all the holy Men of old, who in their respective Ages believed in a Messiah to come, -or even to the good Men in the Heathen World, who had cultivated the Principles of Virtue;-what is this to the Case of Christians? Don't the same

1 English Works, Vol. I. p. 115.

2 See Cyril. Hieros. Edit. Mills. p. 53. Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 762. Cum Not. Reverendissimi And Cotelerius, Not. in Herm. Past. Lib. iii. Sim. ix. Quinetiam ad omnes solosque eos ex mortuis pertinuisse prædicationem et salutem, qui dum viverent, crediderant in Christum venturum, virtutique operam navaverant, Doctrina quoque est multorum.