find they were very uncertain and various : For, to pass by the common Stories about the Elyfian Fields, which were fung by the Poets, and fpread among the Vulgar; but which were fo blended with Follies, that they met with little Credit or Regard among the better Sort; I fay, to pass by thefe, many of the Wifeft and moft Learned among them held, "That the Souls "of Men, after leaving their Bodies, paf"fed into the Bodies of other Animals in "Earth, Sea, or Air; and, after various "Revolutions of this Kind, returned into "human Bodies again." Thus the ancient Egyptians (as Herodotus informs us) who were greatly admired for their Wifdom and Science. Pythagoras and others of the most celebrated Greek Philosophers went into the fame Notion of the fucceffive Tranfmigration of Souls from Body to Body, with this Difference between the Souls of the Good and Bad, that they went into different Kinds of Bodies, according to their different Temper and Behaviour. This Notion feems to have prevailed over a great Part of the Eaft, as it doth among the Indian Bramins, at this Day. Many fuppofed that the Soul, after it's Departure from the Body, goes through feveral Stages of Purgation, and at laft shall be abforbed into the Soul of the World, of which

+

it is a Part, and from which it was taken: But, of all the Ancients, none faid nobler Things concerning the State of departed Souls, than Plato, or Socrates, as reprefented by him. In one of his celebrated Dialogues, he introduceth Socrates as expreffing his Hope, "That, at Death, he "Thould go to the Gods, and to good Men, "better than those that are here on Earth; "and that the Soul, that had kept itself " pure from the Influence and Defilement "of the Body, fhould, upon it's leaving "the Body, go to fomething like itself

divine, immortal, wife; to which when "it arrives, it becomes happy, free from

$

Error, Madness, Fears, and irregular "Loves, and other human Evils." And again, "That thofe that were fufficiently

purged by Philofophy fhould live their "whole Time without Bodies, and should " dwell in a pure Region, and in beautiful "and delightful Habitations, which it is "not eafy to defcribe." But not to urge, that, in the fame Difcourfe, he faith,' "That he would not take upon him to "affirm that thefe Things are as he had "reprefented them, and that it did not "become any Man of Understanding to "do fo;" he seems to confider that future Happiness, concerning which he indulgeth fuch fine Speculations, as a special Privi

lege

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lege referved for fome Souls of peculiar Eminency for Wisdom and Virtue, and who had taken great Care to cultivate and improve their Minds by Philosophy; but that the common Kind of good Men were to pass through feveral Changes, and, after many and long Revolutions or Tranfmigrations, were to return to this Life in other Bodies. Speaking concerning those that practifed the popular and civil Virtues, which they call Justice and Temperance, having acquired it by Habit and Exercise, not by Wisdom and Philofophy; he faith, "That they should be much happier " and in a better State than the Wick

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ed and Injurious; for they should go "into Animals of a Nature resembling their own; not the fierce, the cruel, " and rapacious, but the mild and fociable, " and that had fome Kind of Polity among "them, as the Bees, Ants, and the like; and afterwards fhould pafs again into the " human Kind, and become Men of like "Difpofitions." But he expreffly declares, That none but thofe that, having a "Defire of Knowledge, addicted them"felves to Philofophy and the Study of "Wisdom, and departed hence altogether pure, would be admitted to the Society "of the Gods *." And it deferves to be

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*See Plato's Phadon.

remarked

remarked, that, notwithstanding the noble Things that Socrates is fometimes reprefented as faying concerning the Happiness of departed Souls, yet, when he himself was within a near View of Death, fo uncertain was he about the Nature of that future State that he declares, in his Apology to his Judges, "That God only knew

whether he that was going to die, or *those that should continue in Life, fhould "be in a better State."

Such were the Sentiments of the greateft Lights in the Heathen World, concerning the Nature of that future Happiness.

If we proceed from the Heathens to the Jews, as there are not many Paffages in the Old Teftament that plainly relate to the Happiness prepared for good Men in a future State, fo there are ftill fewer that tend to give us a Notion of it's Greatness and Excellency: But yet it must be acknowledged, that there are some that give noble Hints this Way. Of this Kind is that Paffage, Pf. xvi. 11. Thou wilt hew me the Path of Life; in thy Prefence is Fulness of Joy, at thy right Hand are Pleafures for evermore; which, though principally to be understood of the Glory and Felicity prepared for the Meffiah, relates, in a fecondary Senfe, to the Happiness to which good Men fhall be admitted in the heavenly VOL. IV. State:

Gg

State. Another remarkable Paffage to this Purpofe is in P. xvii. 15. As for me, I will behold thy Face in Righteousness; ball be fatisfled, when I awake with thy Likeness ; which Words lead our Thoughts to that future Blefedness, as confifting in the beatific transforming Vision of the Deity! To this may be added Dan. xii. 3, where, after mentioning the Refurrection of the Dead, it is declared, that they that be wife fal Jhine as the Brightness of the Firmament, and they that turn mary to n many to Righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever, which seems plainly to relate to the Splendor and Glory with which the Saints fhall then be arrayed. But, notwithstanding this," the Jews, at the Time of our Saviour's Coming, feem hot to have had very clear and just Notions of the Nature of that future Happiness. The Effenes, a Sect among the Jews that profeffed a great Abstraction from the World (though not particularly mentioned in the New Teftament) held, as Jofephus informs us, That the Souls of good Men, after Death, being freed from their Bodies as from a Bondage, rejoice and mount up"ward; and that they have their Habi"tations affigned them beyond the Ocean, in a Region which is never molested with Storms of Rain, or Snow, or intense Heat, but is ever refreshed with "gentle