The works of George Bull - v. 1 Author:George Bull Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. CONCERNING THE MIDDLE STATE OF HAPPINESS OR MISERY, ALLOTTED BY GOD TO EVERY MAN PRESENTLY AFTER DEATH, ACCORDING AS HE HAS BEEN GOOD OR BAD IN HI... more »S PAST LIFE, INCONSISTENT WITH THE POPISH DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY. Acts i. 25. That he might go to his own place. IN my former discourse on this text, having gathered two propositions from it, I fully despatched 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. Observ. 2. 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 text tells us, that the soul of Judas, immediately after his death, had not only a place to be in, but also Tov Tovov Tov itiiov, 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 Vol. I. E 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 o...« less