SLEEP. 



the thinking faculty, a retl from thofe labours, which re- 

 quire thought, memory, confeioufBefs, &c. during which 

 thofe faculties ;ire ufelefs. 



Bcfides, the fciiptural fylteni of immortality fuppofes, 

 that man had forfeited his original title to immortality, 

 and would never have received it, but for the interpofition 

 of a Redeemer. The confequence of this doftrine is, that 

 between the time of the forfeiture and the aftual appearance 

 of the Redeemer, the dead could have life in no fenfe at 

 all ; and that neither before nor after the appearance of the 

 Redeemer, dead men were, or would be reftored to life, 

 ■ntherwife than in the way revealed by him, namely, a re- 

 furreftion of the dead. 



On the other hand, the advocates of a feparate ftate 

 infill, that the foul, being an aAive, fimpie, uncompounded, 

 immaterial fubltance, is immortal in its own nature, and 

 capable of an adive and confcious exiftence, in a ftate of 

 difunion and feparation from the body ; that this natural 

 capacity of the foul was not impaired, or at all affefted by 

 any thing that happened upon the tranfgreffion of our firll 

 parents ; that the death, to which they were condemned, 

 was only the death of the body : hence they infer, that 

 there is, and would have been, a future immortal ftate ot 

 being beyond the prefent life, and (the moral attributes of 

 God prefuppofed) a juft retribution therein, independent 

 of the dodrine of a refurreftion of the dead ; and that in 

 the interval between death and the general refurreckion, 

 there is an intermediate ftate, in which the departed fouls 

 of good men are luppofed to have an imperfeft reward, and 

 the fouls of the wicked an imperfeft punilhment ; but that 

 every one, at the period of the reunion of the foul and 

 body, and of final judgment, will receive a full and com- 

 plete recompence for the deeds done in the body. 



In proof of this opinion, they allege a variety of paf- 

 fages both from the Old and New Tellament, the principal 

 of which we Ihall here enumerate ; feveral of which they 

 think cannot be confiftently explained on the other hypo- 

 thefis. Gen. ii, 7. xv. 15. xxxvii. 35. Exod. iii. 6. 



1 Sam. xxviii. 11 — 19. i Kings, xvii. 21, 22. Pf. xxxi. 5. 

 Ecclef. iii. 21. xii. 7. Matt. x. 28. xvii. 3. Luke, xvi. 

 19. XX. 38. xxiii. 43. xxiv. 39. Afts, i. 25. vii. 59. 



2 Cor, y. 8. xii. 2. Phil. i. 21 — 24. i Pet. in. J9. iv. 6. 

 Heb. xi. 40. xii. 23. Rev. vi. 9, 10. xiv. 13. 



To thefe authorities of fcripture, they add the tefti- 

 mony of the fathers of the church, who lived in or near 

 the time of the apoftles, who are faid to be unanimous in 

 this opinion, and perfuaded that the foul of every man upon 

 the diffblution of the body died not, but had a proper 

 place to go to, and that accordingly this doftrine is to be 

 found in the moil ancient Chriftian liturgies. 



Great ftrefs has been laid, in this controverfy, en the 

 meaning of the term death, as it occurs in fcripture, and 

 particularly in the fentence denounced againft the firft 

 parent of the human race. (See Death, in Theology.) 

 The bilhop of Carlifle obferves, that the word ileath, in its 

 original and obvious fenfe, implies a celTation of all natural 

 hfe, or a real diifoliition and dellruAion of the whole man. 

 But Mr. Farmer, a well-known and excellent writer, in the 

 introduftion to his learned work of the " General Preva- 

 lence of the Worfhip of Human Spirits, &c." 1783, has 

 taken fome pains to afcertain the meaning of the word 

 death, in the threatening denounced againll Adam. To 

 this purpofe, he fays, that if human fpirits were worfhipped 

 in the age of Mofes, particularly in Egypt and Phoenicia, 

 the word death could not at that time, and in thofe coun- 

 tries, denote more than the deftruclion of bodily life ; for, 

 if this term had farther included in it the infenfibility or 



extinftion of the foul, the dead would not have been 

 honoured as gods. And if Mofes had ufed it in this ex- 

 tenfive fenfe, he would have been mifunderftood by the 

 Egyptian,', who afterted the immortality of the foul, and 

 by the Hebrews, who dwelt among them, and had adopted 

 their fyftem of religion. 



This learned writer, in confirmatien of this interpreta- 

 tion of death, obferves, that although one great defign of 

 Mofes, in giving an account of the introduClion of death 

 into the world, was to guard againft the worlhip of de- 

 parted fpirits, and though nothing could have anfwered 

 this defign more effectually than reprefenting the foul of 

 Adam as a mere quahty, or as the refult of the peculiar 

 ftruclure and organization of his body, yet, fo far is he 

 from fuppofing this to be the cafe, that according to him, 

 after the body of the firtl man was perfectly organized by 

 the immediate hand of the Almighty, he did not become a 

 living foul or pcrfon, till God breathed into his noftrils 

 the breath of life ; a prmciple dillinA from the duft out 

 of which his body was formed, and, therefore, capable of 

 fubfilling in a ftate of feparation from it. Nor does 

 Mofes ufe the fame language in relating the formation 

 of any other living creatures ; which proves that the prin- 

 ciple of life in man is of a fuperior kind to that in brutes. 



BeCdes, the ancient patriarchs did not believe that the 

 foul of man periihed witli his body. Agreeably to the 

 raoft ancient opinion concerning departed fpirits, the facred 

 writers fuppofed the fouls of the dead to exift mjheol, or 

 hades, a place invifible to human fight, and that, in the 

 diftribntion of them, regard was had to the former relation 

 in which they ftood to one another. Moreover, Mofes 

 himfelf believed the feparate fubfiilence of the foul, and 

 has even given it a divine fanClion. Gen. xv. 15. 



Nor do any of the facred writers ever defcribe death in 

 terms different from thofe ufed by perfons, who certainly 

 acknowledged the continuance of the foul after it. 



Sleep, by which it is defcribcd, is not a ftate of non- 

 exiftence, but of relt ; and it is well known, that this foft 

 image of death was commonly ufed to exprefs the thing 

 itfelf, by thofe who afferted the exiftence of fouls in hades. 

 Silence, oblivion, darknefs, and corruption, by which the 

 ftate of the dead is defcribed, refer only to the body, or 

 to the fuppofed ftate of the foul, while it wa ; in fheol, and 

 are not peculiar to the facred writers, but were common in 

 all countries, where both the popular belief, and the efla- 

 blifhed worfhip, were inconfiitent with the notion of the 

 foul's perifhing with the body. 



And many of the terms, by which death was defcribed 

 in all countries, clearly imply, and are built upon, a belief 

 of the diftinclion between foul and body, and of their be- 

 ing feparated at death. 



According to the Greeks, to die was to, depart, to go 

 away ; and the <vriters of the New Teftam.ent defcribe 

 death by a departure, (Luke, ix. 31.) that is, of the foul 

 from the body to another ftate. To all which it may be 

 added, that the Jews, from the time of their return from 

 Babylon, alferted the feparate exiftence of the foul after 

 death ; as appears from their im.itation of the heathen idola- 

 try, from their evocation of the dead, and from the early 

 references in fcripture to the receptacle of departed fouls, 

 and many other proofs. This was the opinion, not only of 

 a few eminent individuals, fuch as Philo, but of the learned 

 feftc, the EiTenes and Pharifees, and of the whole body of 

 the people, almoll without exception, in the time of our 

 Saviour. To this principle the Pharifees, whofe doArine 

 formed the popular creed, added another, vi-z. the refur- 

 reftion of the dead. The Sadducces believed the extinc- 

 tion 



