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prefeTit with the Lord." Could fuch exprefilons have been 

 iifed by him, if he had held it impoffible to be with the 

 Lord, or indeed any where, without the body ; and that, 

 whatever the change was which was made by death, he 

 could not be in the prefence of the Lord, till he returned to 

 the body ? Abfence from the body, and prefence with the 

 Lord, were never, therefore, more unfortunately combined, 

 than in this illuftration. Things arc combined here as co- 

 incident, which, in the hypothefis of thofe gentlemen, are 

 incompatible. If recourfe be had to the original, the ex- 

 preffions in Greek are, if poffible, ilill ftronger. They are, 

 01 E»^>iju«i1i; f J Tw o-D/xali, thofe ivho dwell in the body, who are 

 £)tS)i(xKil£,- KTTo T« KufiK, at o dtflatice froTti the Lord; as, on 

 the contrary, they are oi sn^n/iavl!,- ix th a-wfuccKjf, thofe ivho 

 have travelled out of the body, who are oi tvJnjiav]!.; r^j; to» 

 Kffiov, thofe luho rejide, or are prefent 'With the Lord. In 

 the paflage to the Phihppians alfo, the commencement of 

 his prefence with the Lord is reprefented as coincident, not 

 with his return to the body, but with his leaving it, with 

 the diilolution, not with the reftoration, of the union. We 

 may here fubjoin an inquiry, how the apolUe could be in a 

 jlra'it helwtxt two (Philip, i. 23.), that o{ living in the Jlcjh, 

 and being with Chrijl, which he pronounces to be far better, 

 if the exercife of his powers of fervice and capacity of en- 

 joyment ceafed at death. A mind like his conld not hefi- 

 tate between living in the flefh, and thus ferving the Chrif- 

 tian caufe, and finking at death into a flate of total inaSion, 

 and of thus continuing for a long but indefinite period. 



Thit fourth remark made by Dr. Campbell on this fubjecl 

 is, that from the turn of the New Teftamcnt, the facred 

 writers appear to proceed on the fuppofition, that the foul 

 and the body are naturally diftinft and feparable, and that 

 the foul is fufceptible of pain or pleafure in a ftate of repa- 

 ration. It were endlefe to enumerate all the places which 

 evince this. The ftory of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke, 

 xvi. 22, 23.); the lail words of our Lord upon the crofs 

 (Luke, xxiii. 46.), and of Stephen when dying; Paul's 

 doubts, whether he was in the body or out of the body, 

 when he was tranflated to the third heaven and paradile 

 (2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 4.); our Lord's words to Thomas, to 

 fatisfy him that he was not a fpirit (Luke, xxiv. 39.) ; and 

 the exprefs mention of the denial of fpirits, as one of the 

 errors of the Sadducees (Afts, xxiii. 8.) : thefe are irre- 

 fragable evidences of the general opinion on this fubjedt, 

 both of Jews and Chriftians. By fpirit, it is obferved, as 

 diftinguiflied from angel, is evidently meant the departed 

 fpirit of a human being ; for that man is here, before his 

 natural death, poilelfed of a vital and intelhgent principle, 

 which is commonly called his foul or fpirit, it was never 

 pretended that they denied. It has been faid, that this 

 manner of exprefling themfelves has been adopted by the 

 apollles and evangelilts, merely in conformity to vulgar no- 

 tions. To me, fays Dr. Campbell, it appears a conformity, 

 which (if the facred writers entertained the fentiments of 

 our antagoniits in this article) is hardly reconcileable to the 

 known fimplicity and integrity of their charafter. 



Before the council of Florence, held in 1439, under pope 

 Eugenius IV., the ancient doftrine, both of the Greek and 

 Latin churches, is faid to have been, that the fouls of the 

 faints were in abditis receplaculis, or in exterioribus atriis, 

 where they expected the refurreiSion of their bodies, and the 

 glorification of their fouls ; and thoHgh the fathers behevcd 

 all of them to be happy, yet they did not think they would 

 enjoy the beatific vifioii before the refurreftion. But in 

 this council it was decreed, that the fouls of thofe, who, 

 after baptifm, have incurred no itain of fin, and alfo thofe 

 fouls, which having contrafted the llain of fin, whether in 



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their bodies or divclled of their bodies, hare been purged 

 by the facrifice of the raafs, prayer, and alms, are received 

 into heaven immediately, &c. 



In the Lateran council, held under Leo X., in 1513, it 

 was decreed, that the foul is not only truly, and of itfelf, 

 and elletitially the form of the human body, as is exprelfed 

 in the canon of pope Clement V., publilhed in the general 

 council of Vienne, but likewife immortal, and according to 

 the number of bodies into which it is infufed, is Angularly 

 multipliable, multiplied, and to be multiplied. 



However, Peter Pomponatius, a philofopher of Mantua, 

 pubhfliel a book in 15 16, on the immortality of the foul, 

 in which, after ftating the moral arguments againft the mor- 

 tahty of the foul, and endeavouring to Ihew that they are 

 weak and inconclufive, infers upon the whole, that the im- 

 mortality of the ioul, being a problematical queftion, we 

 can have no affurance of it but from revelation ; and that 

 they who would build immortality upon any other founda- 

 tion, only verify the character given, to certain felf-fufficient 

 reafoners by the apoftle, viz. profefling themfelves wife, 

 they became fools. 



In I J 20, Luther, in the defence of his propofitions, 

 which had been condemned by a bull of Leo X., ranks the 

 natural immortahty of the foul among the monftrous opinions 

 of Popery ; and he afterwards made ufe of the doftrine of 

 the flecp of tlie foul a? a confutation of purgatory and 

 faint-worfhip, and he is faid to have continued in that belief 

 to the lalt moment of his life. 



William Tyndall alfo, the famous tranflator of the bible 

 into Englifh, in defending Luther's doftrine againil fir 

 Thomas More's objections, confiders the fleep of the foul 

 as the doftrine of the Proteftants in his time, and founded 

 on the fcriptures : though, in confequence of the oppofition 

 given to this doctrine by Calvin, in his Pfychopannychia, 

 publifiied in 1534, and the turn hereby given to the fenti- 

 ments of the Reformed in general, he feems to have re- 

 canted his opinion. Calvin, however, feems to have been 

 embarrafled with the fouls of the wicked, and fays, he 

 would only be refponfible for the faithful. 



The firil exprefs condemnation of the doftrine of the 

 fleep of the foul, in a Proteltant confeflion, occurs in the 

 fortieth of king Edward's Articles, compofed in 1552. 



After the long prevalence of the doctrine of the inter- 

 mediate fi:ate, that of the ileep of the foul has of late years 

 been revived, and, as one of its zealous advocates affirms, 

 gains ground, not fo much from confiderations of philo- 

 fophy, as from a clofe attention to the fenfe of the fcrip- 

 tures. 



We fhall clofe this article with obferving, that a fingular 

 hypotheiis was advanced a few years ago by Dr. Caleb 

 Fleming, and of late vindicated by an anonymous writer ; 

 and this is, that the relurreftion takes place immediately 

 after death. On this fubjeft, fee Law's Appendix and 

 Poilfcript to his Confiderations on the Theory of Religion, 

 Sec. 1774. Hiiforical View of the Controverfy concerning 

 an intermediate State, &c. 1772. Prieltley's Difquifitions 

 on Matter and Spirit, 1777. Correfpondence between Dr. 

 Price and Dr. Priellley, 1778; and the publications of 

 Steffe, Warburton, Goddard, Coward, Peckard, Jortin, 

 Sec. on both fides of the quelHon, cited by the author of the 

 Hiftorical View, &c. Fleming's Search after Souls. 



SLEEPERS, in Natural Hijlory, a name given to fome 

 animals which fleep all the winter : fuch as bears, marmots, 

 dormice, bats, hedge-hogs, &c. Thefe do not feed in 

 winter, have no fenfible evacuations, breathe little, or not 

 at all, and moft of the vifcera ceafe from their fuiiftions. 

 Some of thefe creatures feem to be dead, and others to re- 

 turn 



