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not to be endured. For my own part, I fhall omit no endeavours to render their perfons as defpicable, and their practices as odious, in the eye of the world, as they deserve..

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SECT. XI.

DEATH and JUDGMENT.

•Afflata eft numine quando

Fam propiore Dei

T

Virg.

HE following Letter comes to me from that excellent man in Holy Orders, whom I have mentioned more than once as one of that fociety who affift me in my fpeculations. It is a thought in fickness, and of a very ferious nature, for which reafon I give it a place in the paper of this day.

SIR,

THE indifpofition which has long hung upon me, is at laft grown to fuch a head, that it muft quickly

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make an end of me, or of it felf. You may imagine, that whilft I am in this bad ftate of health, there are none of your works which I read with greater pleasure than your Saturday's papers. I fhould be very glad if I could fur"nish you with any hints for that day's "entertainment. Were I able to drefs. up feveral thoughts of a ferious na ture, which have made great impref fions on my mind during a long fit • of fickness, they might not be an improper entertainment for that occa • fion.

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Among all the reflections which u fually rife in the mind of a fick man, • who has time and inclination to confider his approaching end, there is none more natural than that of his going to appear naked and unbodied before Him who made him. When a man confiders, that as foon as the vital union is diffolved, he fhall fee that Supreme Being, whom he now con templates at a distance, and only in his works; or, to fpeak more philofophically, when by fome faculty in the Soul he fhall apprehend the DiPS

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vine Being, and be more fenfible of his Prefence, than we are now of the • Prefence of any object which the eye beholds, a man must be loft in careleffness and ftupidity, who is not aarmed at fuch a thought. Dr. Sherlock, in his excellent treatife upon death, has reprefented, in very ftrong and lively colours, the ftate of the Soul in its first feparation from the Body, with regard to that invifible world which every where furrounds us, tho' we are not able to discover it through this groffer world of matter, which is • accommodated to our fenfes in this life. His words are as follow.

• That death, which is our leaving this world, is nothing else but our putting off thefe bodies, teaches us, that it is only our union to thefe bodies, which intercepts the fight of the other world: The other • world is not at fuch a distance from us, as we may imagine; the throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this • earth, above the third heavens, where he difplays his glory to thofe bleffed Spirits which encompass bis throne; but as foon

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as we step out of thefe bodies, we step into the other world, which is not fo properly another world, (for there is the fame heaven and earth ftill) as a new ftate of life. To live in thefe bodies is • to live in this world; to live out of them is to remove into the next: For while our Souls are confined to thefe bodies, and can look only through thefe material cafe⚫ments, nothing but what is material can 'affect us; nay, nothing but what is fo grofs, that it can reflect light, and convey the shapes and colours of things with it to the eye: So that though within this vifible world, there be a more glorious fcene of things than what appears to us, we perceive nothing at all of it; for this • veil of flesh parts the visible and in• vifible world: But when we put off

thefe bodies, there are new and surpri•zing wonders prefent themselves to our views; when thefe material fpectacles are taken off, the Soul, with its own naked 6 eyes, fees what was invifible before: And then we are in the other world, when we can fee it, and converse with it: Thus • St. Paul tells us, That when we are at ⚫ home in the body, we are absent from

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