compofed fpirit, and commit ourselves to his defence, with a rational decorum and religious dignity.

VII. The doctrine of an immediate refurrection-body, upon the diffolution of this, together with an admiffion into the presence of the one Lord; has an apt tendency to infpire us with a love and veneration of him, and will preserve our caution and circumfpection. There is but a thin, precarious partition between us. the next flying moment may remove the distance, and bring us into the prefence. Stephen faw this would be the cafe. and St. Luke kindly informs us of his deportment, the better to inftruct and direct our own, in the departing hour: Lord Jesus receive my Spirit, into thy hands I commend it ; whom I know to be appointed of God, the refurrection and the life. and who has the keys of bell and of death. Dread and difmay should not hover about the pillow of the dying chriftian, becaufe bleffed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth fais the Spirit, for they reft from their labours, and their works do follow with them. τα δε έργα αυτών ακολουθεί μετ' αυτων. their works do ac

company them. They carry with them the fruits and effects of heavenly wisdom, in the graces and virtues of their minds. They have the testimony of their own confciences, that in fimplicity and godly fincerity they have had their converfation in the world; and not according to the wisdom of the flesh, or the lead of its lufts. and because their hearts do not condemn them, therefore have they confidence towards God. they look and wait for their Lord's coming; and have their loins girt and their lights burning fully prepared to receive his orders, of a final dismission from these labours of mortality. a like expectation did undoubtedly support the martyrs, under their endurance of pain, and conflict with anguish and torture. And there is furely in it, a relief and fuccour, not so easily imagined in the tardy scheme of fleeping for ages.

VIII. The extravagance of fuperftition, either in the departments of Papists or Proteftants, is expofed in our interpretation. How extremely filly and ridiculous the vifits made to fepulchres? the crowded devotions frentickly paid at the tomb of this, and of the other faint; who have no more refidence

X 2

dence there, than they can be fuppofed to have in the center of the globe, or on fome of the rocks in the moon. Their bodies, however pious they had been, are refolved into common duft, and, we think, bave no more for ever any concern with their fpirits. which ever way this be confidered, more vertue cannot be in their bones, than may be found in the bones of any brute animal. If they were real faints, and are introduced into the prefence of their Lord; they must abhor the mad reverence paid to their vile and contemptible dust.

And though it is faid, an honeft Papift will confefs, if you deny an intermediate ftate, there will be an end of our worship, even of the Virgin Mary. And indeed the whole Popish doctrine of purgatory, maffes for the dead, adoration of faints, worship of images, limbus patrum, infantum and all the fenfeless trumpery, which depend on the doctrine of an intermediate ftate. Yet all this trumpery will have full as little countenance from the scheme of interpretation contended for, as it can have from the fleeping hypothefis. for we difcern, that the whole Gospel is a perfect ftranger

to

Peckard's obfervations, p. 27.

:

to an after-state of purgation. the fate of the dead is final. the good and the bad, have between them a gulph unpaffable, an absolute fixednels of condition, as is evident from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. from the definitive sentence of the judge. from the very nature of the finner and the faint be that is holy will be holy ftill. and be that is filthy will be filthy ftill. And although the papift would plead, 1 Cor. iii. 15. but he himself fhall be faved, yet fo as by fire there is no fure ground for his confidence; fince that does manifeftly affirm, the man's total deftruction. as may be seen by comparing ver. 17. he shall be faved, yet fo as by fire is the fame thing as to say, he fhall be deftroyed.

Purgatory has no foundation any where, but in the cunning of the priest, and in the credulity of the ignorant people. a deplorable proof of the depravity begat by fuperftition. It is a contrivance to gain money for maffes to be faid for fouls. when, with as much reafon and fuccess, they might employ these forcerers, to pray their Souls back again into their bodies. It is difficult to fay, whether the wickedness of the priests, or the weakness

and

and ftupidity of the people, be more deplo

rable.

The proteant fhould correct himself, in all the fuperftition he has indulged about the future condition of his body. vaft numbers imagine, fome greater fecurity will arife, from having their bodies placed in the cemetries, and by the bodies of good perfons. whether in the church-yard, the church, or near the communion-table. And much

ftrefs is laid on the funeral obfequies and folemnities. All the while, we have no reason, either to defire or expect a farther connexion with the corruptible, mortal, natural body. which we seldom quit, but under some shocking diftemper, and with the ftrongest marks of its vile condition.

And yet, there confeffedly will be a decency due to the human body. Some deference should be fhewn, by the very difpofition of humanity, to the mortal bodies of our deceased fellow creatures. All nations have agreed in this, and at all times. And fuch diftinction is properly paid to the human body, as it ferves to keep alive and invigorate fome of the moft ufeful, focial principles in the breast of man. The reverence;

shewn,