tion promised in the Gospel, do yet deny the subsistence of man's soul in the interval between death and that resurrection. That faith and this denial cannot well stand together; the resurrection of the body necessarily supposing the immortality and permanence of the soul, as I have evidently shewn you. They, therefore, that deny the latter, lay a sure foundation for the denial of the former too, which is the great article of our religion, the subversion whereof renders our whole faith vain, as the apostle tells us, 1 Cor. xv. 16, 17.

But much more are we to beware of those who deny this truth with a direct design to destroy all our hopes or fears of any life to come. Let not the sophistry of these men, who study to shake off their Christianity and the religion of mankind at once, in the least unsettle our persuasion and belief of this established verity. It is here, if any where, certain, that Vox populi (or rather populorum) est vox Dei; the voice of all people and nations, howsoever distant in place, however otherwise differing in religion from each other, yet all here singing the same song, must needs be the voice of God; or at least an echo of that voice, by which God spake to holy men in the infancy of the world, and revealed to them the doctrine of a future life; a voice once so strongly and convincingly uttered, that it went through all the earth, and to the end of the world;

and there is no speech nor language, no people or nation, where the same voice is not still heard; to allude to the words of the Psalmist, Psal. xix. 3, 4. This was sufficient to arm us against the cavils of those few self-opinionated men, that in every age (especially in this of ours) have made it their business to molest and disturb the common faith of the world. But when we have the consent of nations confirmed by a new divine revelation, a revelation proved to be such by the most undeniable arguments, what madness were it to doubt? Let us not, therefore, give any ear to the voice of the Epicurean, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" that is, let us live like beasts, because we are to die as such, 1 Cor. xv. 31. But rather let us resolve to " live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;" because though as to our bodies we may die to-morrow, and must die shortly, yet our souls are certainly to live and subsist after death, in order to a future doom of happiness or misery. Let us hearken to the wisest of men, Solomon, who having asserted the soul's immortality, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it*," presently after, ver. 13, 14, concludes, and his conclusion shall be mine, in these words:

* Eccles. xii. 7.

S

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." In the day of which dreadful judgment God shew mercy to us all, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

CHAPTER XIII.

BULL.

In his next sermon Bull considers the Doctrine of the Middle State as subversive of the Romanist doctrine of Purgatory. He continues his subject thus :

In my former discourse, having gathered two propositions from it, I fully dispatched the first of them, concerning the subsistence and permanence of man's soul after the death of his body. I am now to proceed, with God's assistance, to the other proposition or observation, which was this.

Observation II. The soul of every man presently after death, hath its proper place and state allotted by God, either of happiness or misery, according as the man hath been good or bad in his past life.

For the Scripture tells us, that the soul of Judas immediately after his death, had not only a place to be in, but also τὸν τόπον τὸν ἴδιον, his own proper place, a place fit for so horrid a betrayer of his most gracious Lord and Master. And I have shewn you that the apostolic writers were wont to express the different place and state of good and bad men presently after death, by this and the like phrases, that they went to their own proper, due, or appointed places; that is, to places agreeable to their respective qualities, the good to a place of happiness, the wicked to a place and state of misery. If there were one common receptacle for all departed souls, good and bad, as some have imagined, Judas could not be said presently after death to "go to his own proper place," nor Peter to his; but the same place would contain them both: but Judas hath his proper place, and Peter his. And here what avails the difference of place, unless we allow also a difference of state and condition? If the joys of Paradise were in hell, hell would be Paradise; and if the torments of hell were in Paradise, Paradise would be hell: Judas, therefore, is in misery, and Peter in happiness. And what happiness or misery can be there, where there is no sense of either? If presently after death one common gulph of insensibility and oblivion swallowed up the souls of good and bad alike, the state of Judas and Peter would be the same. The result of all which is manifestly this, that the souls of men do not only subsist and remain after the death of their bodies, but also live