Ogil. I thought that all distinctions between mistresses and maids, lairds and tenants, had been done away at death.
Cool. True it is, but you do not take up the matter.
Ogil. This is one of the questions you won’t answer.
Cool. You are mistaken, for the question I can answer, and after you may understand it.
Ogil. Well then, Cool, have you never yet appeared before God, nor received any sentence from Him as a Judge?
Cool. Never yet.
Ogil. I know you was a scholar, Cool, and ’tis generally believed there is a private judgment, besides the general at the great day, the former immediately after death. Upon this he interrupted me, arguing.
Cool. No such thing, no such thing! No trial; no trial till the great day! The heaven which good men enjoy after death consists only in the serenity of their minds, and the satisfaction of a good conscience; and the certain hopes they have of eternal joy, when that day shall come. The punishment or hell of the wicked, immediately after death, consists in the stings of an awakened conscience, and the terrors of facing the great Judge, and the sensible apprehensions of eternal torments ensuing! And this bears still a due proportion to the evils they did when living. So indeed the state of some good folks differ but little in happiness from what they enjoyed in the world, save only that they are free from the body, and the sins and sorrows that attended it. On the other hand, there are some who may be said rather not to have been good, than that they are wicked; while living, their state is not easily distinguished from that of the former; and under that class comes a great herd of souls—a vast number of ignorant people, who have not much minded the affairs of eternity, but at the same time have lived in much indolence, ignorance, and innocence.
Ogil. I thought that their rejecting the terms of salvation offered was sufficient ground for God to punish them with eternal displeasure; and as to their ignorance, that could never excuse them, since they live in a place of the world where the true knowledge of these things might have been easily attained.
Cool. They never properly rejected the terms of salvation; they never, strictly speaking, rejected Christ; poor souls, they had as great a liking both to Him and heaven, as their gross imaginations were capable of. Impartial reason must make many allowances, as the stupidity of their parents, want of education, distance from people of good sense and knowledge, and the uninterrupted applications they were obliged to give to their secular affairs for their daily bread, the impious treachery of their pastors, who persuaded them, that if they were of such a party all was well; and many other considerations which God, who is pure and perfect reason itself, will not overlook. These are not so much under the load of Divine displeasure, as they are out of His grace and favour; and you know it is one thing to be discouraged, and quite another thing to be persecuted with all the power and rage of an incensed earthly king. I assure you, men’s faces are not more various and different in the world, than their circumstances are after death.