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fays Solomon [Ecclef. ix. 5, 6.] know that they fhall die: But the Dead know not any thing; neither have they any more a Reward, for the Memory of them is forgotten. Alfo their Love, and their Hatred, and their Envy is now perifhed, neither have they any more a Portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun. And again, [Ver. 10.] Whatever 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 thoy goeft. And much the fame Account do we find given by Hezekiah fome Ages afterwards, Ifaiah xxxviii. 18.] The Grave cannot praife thee, Death cannot celebrate thee; They that go down to the Pit cannot hope for thy Truth. And if we come down yet lower to the apocryphal Writers, we fhall find their Sentiments the very fame, as to instance in one deem'd the beft of them all, the Son of Sirach, [Eccluf. xvii. 27.] who shall praife the most High in the Grave, instead of them which Live and give Thanks? Thanksgiving perisheth from the Dead as from one that is not: The Living and Sound in Heart Shall praise the Lord.

It must appear, I think, from thefe and fuch like Paffages, that the most obvious Idea of Death these Words convey to us, is that of a State of infenfible Sleep, utterly

void of all Knowledge whatever, or any Capacity for Work of any Kind. Nor is there the leaft Intimation that is confin'd to the Body, or that the Reverfe of this is true of any Part of us, which if really the Cafe, one would think, fhould be fomewhere told us, instead of that which we all know already, and fhould have known as well without their Help as with it. It is, indeed, fo much debafing the Dignity of the sacred Writers, either to reprefent them as giving us fuch mean and trifling, or as view'd in this Light, fallacious Inflructions, that we may almost as well own at once, that we do not believe them, as to give them the Lie by fuch pitiful Interpretations.

The Old Teftament Writers, I readily grant you, fays CRITO, fpeak on this Head but very obfcurely, and as if they were utterly ignorant of that Immortality, which has been fince brought to Light by the Gospel.

The Old Teftament Writers, I am apt to believe, fays PHILANDER, will give you but little Thanks for this Conceffion: Nor will the Lady Theology be over-pleas'd with you for fetting Philofophy fo much above her. The poor ignorant Prophets knew you think no better, than that Death would reduce us to quite an infenfible State: But the more wife Philofophers could fee the Con

trary,

trary, and could inftruct their Votaries to look on Death as Milton's Serpent drest it up to Eve. [Paradife Loft, Book IX.]

So fhall ye die perhaps, by putting off
Human to put on Gods, Death to be wifht.

And yet thefe very Prophets, you think fo ignorant, feem to have known of a Refurrection to Immortality, and which feems indeed the only Scripture Sense of it, (though a sense Philofophy could never hit on,) in which we as Sinners are taught to expect it: And are fo far from speaking of Death, as you charge them, fo very obfcurely, that I think I have fhewn they fpeak of it very plainly.

I must confefs, fays THEOPHILUS, with regard to this Point, that Philander feems to have rather the upper Hand of us: And that if he goes on to acquit himself as he has done hitherto, I fhall more than fufpect that Philofophy here has deceiv'd us.

And had you not better do that, fays PHILANDER, than tax the Scriptures with either giving us needlefs, or very imperfe&t Descriptions, and fuch as are no way becoming the Source from which they Spring?

You begin, fays THEOPHILUS, to prefs very hard on us; nor am I very well able at present to find you an Anfwer.And

there

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therefore now, if you pleafe, go on with your further Evidence.

I go on then next, fays PHILANDER, to our Lord himself, that great Light of the World, that far greater than all the Philofophers, and who in his plaineft Discourses fpeaks of the State of Death as a State of very little, or no Significance, paffing it over in Silence as of no Importance, and leading our Thoughts directly to the Refurrection. For this, fays he, [John vi. 39, 40.] is the Father's Will that fent me, that of all which be bath given me, I should lofe nothing, but fhould raife it up again at the last Day. And this is the Will that fent me, that every one which feeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting Life: And I will raise him up at the laft Day. And again, [Ver. 44.] No Man can come to me, except the Father which hath fent me draw him: And I will raife him up at the last Day.

Is this fpeaking like one that was sent to corroborate Plato: Or the common receiv'd Opinion of Immortality? Or not rather like one fent to teach us a different Doctrine: And such as stands on a different Foundation?

Nor need we wonder the Night of Death hould be thus paffed over, it being a Night,

as this Teacher defines it, when no Man can work.

Agreeable to this, do we find his Account of the Death of Lazarus, as preserv'd by the Evangelist John in his xith Chapter, where his Death is all along represented as a Sleep, and his Return to Life as an awakening out of it: Nor is there the leaft Intimation of any thing feen in the Interim, though he had been dead for the Space of four Days. And when he fets himself to comfort his Apoftles, in the xivth Chapter, on account of his being shortly to be taken from them, it is from this Confideration he derives their Comfort, and not from that of any previous Happiness, that he would take to himself at the Time of his coming again.

In that most excellent Sermon of his, which he made on the Mount, he introduces the Day of Judgment in such a Manner, [Matt. vii. 22.] as not only plainly feems to exclude all prior Judgment, but any fenfible feparate State whatever. When he exhorts us rather to fuffer the Lofs of Life, than to feek to preferve it by any unchristian Compliance, he immediately backs it by this very Motive, [Matt. xvii. 27. that the Son of Man fhall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels, and fhall then reward every Man according to his Works. Nor do

we