fifth, is fenfation; the fixth, is understanding or intellect.-Motion, nutrition and growth, are competent to plants as well as brutes. Thence we rife to the brutal nature, to which are competent, the actings of paffion and senSation. From thence we afcend to the rational nature and perfon, to whom are competent human affections and rationality. A plant cannot naturally attain to thofe qualities of a brute, nor a brute to those of a man.a

Here we are shewn the disparity. The brute is left behind in the clafs of brutes: and man is distinguished by affections and rationality only competent to humanity. But after all, how fanciful and vague is such reafoning, in an argument of fo much weight and dignity?

There is indeed a capital diftinction acknowledged between the Soul of man, and that of the brute, in a citation before made, where the Doctor fais, that the contest rifes most often in man from the nearness or distance of what they contend about, whether present or future. Only allow this its proper scope and compass, and we do at once apprehend,

a Search after Souls, Vol. II. obfervations on Nicholls, P. 54.

that a preference given, by the human Soul, to the final approbation of God, when the temporal or fenfible object would allure or terrify; will evidently ftretch the operation of the intellect far beyond any supposable bounds of the brutal ability. Which abfolutely forbids any equality between the powers of a creature, that looks only at the things feen, and not at all at the things that are unfeen; and the being that diftinguishes the motive, and can and will préfer the one to the other; because the one is only temporal, but the other is eternal.-If this will not fufficiently diftinguish between the faculty and attainment of the human Soul, and the faculty and attainment of the brute, under its best education, and moft advantageous converse with man, I do readily own myself unable to offer any thing on the fubject that can be conclufive. But who can fuppofe the maftiff-dog, however ftrong his confcient faculty, is ever once afraid of any higher cenfure than that of his mafter? or will the fetting-dog dread a diftant divine tribunal ?

It is a good obfervation, made upon the guidance of inftinct, that in the feveral most fagacious

fagacious animals, it is uniform and invariable. As the Beaver forms his cells alike, and builds his appartments in different ftories by the water. So the Bee proceeds by one rule or plan, in all his operations. And there is a perfect fimilitude in nefts of birds of the fame fpecies, every where. No deviations, no improvements in this provifion for their young. Wonderful indeed in the contrivance and scheme of the architecture! but invariably confined to that plan of operation. Whereas the exercises of the human intellect, do exprefs liberty, freedom, fpontaneity.

It may not be amifs for us next to inquire, how far the facred fcriptures will speak of brutes as having Souls equally immaterial and immortal with ours. When Job would reprove, with poignancy, the ignorance, or feverely expofe the absurdity of his friends, who amazingly mistook the scheme of providence, he thus expreffes himself, afk now the beafts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air and they fhall tell thee; and the fishes of the fea fball declare unto thee. Job. xii. 7. 8. Which fo much provokes Bildad, that he thus

G 2

thus remonstrates, wherefore are we account

and

ed as beafts reputed VILE in your fight? ch. xiii. 3. And when the proud, avaricious worldling has his vanity exposed, he is faid, not to abide; he is like the beafts that perish. Pf. xlix. 12. Or when Solomon would paint the difference, in the most striking contrast, he does it in this interrogatory,-who knoweth the Spirit of a man that goeth upward, and the Spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Eccl. iii. 21.

Our author fais, that Solomon here owns,

he knows not what to think of it, whether it go upward or be extinguished with the life, as thofe of the beafts are.

former times had known it,

And again, if

Solomon could
Ariftotle, who

not have doubted as he did. lived about feven hundred years after Solomon, and doubted, and fearched in this point, as that wife King did; yet he could not refolve, but hath left pofterity under the fame doubts that Solomon did. Who knows the difference, or that there is a real difference between the natures or Souls of men and beafts, in point of their feparate fubfiftences after death.

But

a Ibid. p. 122.

e P. 166.

But alafs! the Doctor is not only uncertain about the difference of the future fubfiftences of Souls, and the difference in nature between thofe of men and brutes; but I find him openly confeffing his uncertainty, even as to the materiality of the human Soul itself; notwithstanding all the arguments he has used, with so much attention, labour, pomp of evidence, and hew of demonstration. For thus he addreffes his friend,But you fay, I cannot be fure that the MATERIALITY is a truth : I grant that I am not fure; but I would be fure if I knew how to be fo; and therefore I applied to you, for obtaining your chief arguments against it: and I am ready to do So, to any other likely person, capable to affift me in fearching the truth concerning it.

With respect to the feparate existence, when he confiders its comparison with the church-article of the refurrection, he thinks it has fome evidence of truth; these are his exprefs words,myself do grant and believe, that the Separate fubfiftence is more agreeable to man's reafon working upon nature, than our article of the refurrection is G 3

a Part II. p. 84.

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in