promised to raise us up, did raise himself from the Dead; which is a Security for us that he will make his Word good.

Q. What do you mean by the Soul?

A. An immaterial Principle in Man, distinct from the Body, which is the Cause of those feveral Operations, which by inward Senfe and Experience we are confcious to ourselves of. It is that whereby we think and remember, whereby we reafon and debate about any Thing, and do freely chufe and refufe fuch Things ast are prefented to us.

Q. What do you mean by the Immortality of the Soul?

A. That this immaterial Principle in Man, called the Soul, is fo created by the Divine Wifdom and Goodness, as not to have in itself any Compofition or Principles of Corruption; but that it will naturally, or of itself, continue. for ever, and will not, by any natural Decay or Power of Nature, be diffolved or destroyed. That when the Body falls into the Ground, this Principle will ftill remain and live feparate from it, and continue to perform all fuch Operations towards which the Organs of the Body are not neceffary, and not only continue, but live in this feparate State, fo as to be fenfible of Happiness and Mifery. But yet nevertheless it depends continually upon God, who hath Power to deftroy and annihilate it, as he can all other Creatures, if he fhould fo think fit.

Q. What Proof bave we of the Soul's Immortality?

A. That there is an immaterial Principle in Man diftinct from the Body, which fhall continue for ever, capable of Happiness and Mifery,

hath

10.

hath great Probability from the Evidence of Reason, and natural Arguments incline us to believe it: But that which giveth us the great Affurance of it, is the Revelation of the Gospel, whereby Life and Immortality is brought to Light. 2 Tim. 1. This is the only fure Foundation of our Hopes, and an Anchor for our Faith; because the Authority of God is above all Reason and Philofophy; other Arguments may be disputed, but this leaves no Place for Doubt, having in a Manner made it visible to us by our Saviour's rifing from the Dead.

Q. What are the Arguments from Reason, in their own Nature, apt to perfuade us that the Soul is immortal?

A. The Arguments from Reafon may be taken from the Nature of the Soul itself, and thofe feveral Operations, which we are confcious to ourfelves of, and which cannot, without great Violence to Reafon, be afcribed to Matter. From the univerfal Confent of Mankind, which fheweth it to be a natural Notion and Dictate of the Mind. From thofe natural Notions we have of God, and of the effential Difference of Good and Evil: And from the natural Hopes and Fears of Men. These are fuch Arguments as in Reafon the Nature of the Thing will bear; for an Immortal Nature is neither capable of the Evidence of Senfe, nor of -Mathematical Demonftration; and therefore we fhould content ourselves with thefe Arguments in this Matter, fo far as to fuffer ourfelves to be perfuaded, that it is highly probable; the thorough Belief of it can only be fixed upon Revelation.

Q. How doth it appear that the Soul is Immortal from the Nature of the Soul itself?

A. Because those several Actions and Operations which we are confcious to ourselves of, fuch as Liberty, or a Power of chufing or refufing, and the feveral Acts of Reafon and Understanding, cannot without great Violence be afcribed to Matter, or be refolved into any bodily Principle, and therefore we must attribute them to another Principle different from Matter, and confequently immortal and incapable in its own Nature of Corruption. It is by this Principle in us, that we abstract, compare, infer, and methodize, and by which we conceive many Things, which no material Phantafms can reprefent tous, as Relations, Proportion, and Proportionality, as the Geometricians call the Relation of one Proportion to another. In like Manner the Notions we have of Truth and Falfhood, Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, which nothing that comes into our Minds by the Senfes can represent to us.

Q. But cannot the infinite Power of God endow Matter with a Capacity of Thinking?

A. The Extent of infinite Power, and of the Capacities of material Nature, are fuch Secrets to us, that it is hard to pretend to strict Demonftration against either of them. But this is not fairly urged by the Men of Reason and Philofophy, which fhews their Cause very indefenfible; because if Men will reafon about fuch Matters, all fuch Appeals fhould be laid afide, and they fhould only argue from their own Senfations, and from the known Appearances of Nature; for though it is difficult to pretend to fay what infinite Power can or cannot

do,

do, yet, according to the known Principles of Philofophy, there is no Relation between Matter and Thought; nay, as far as we can judge, an utter Incapacity in Matter to think; and it feems not intelligible, how God fhould fuperadd to Matter this Faculty of Thinking, unless he changed the Nature of Matter. And it may as well be maintained, that God by his Omnipotence may super-add to immaterial Beings the Faculty of Extenfion and Divifibility, which would be to make them quite other Things than they are. When we feek for natural Evidence, we must be content with fuch Evidence as Sense and Reason, and the Philosophy of Nature afford; and at the fame Time there is not any Pretence of Reafon against the Poffibility of an immaterial Principle in Man diftinct from Body.

Q. But what do feveral of the antient Fathers of the Church mean, when they affert that the Soul is not properly immortal?

A. Their Expreffions are not to be taken in a rigorous Senfe; for they fpake not in Oppofition to the Christian Opinion of the Soul's Immortality, but in Oppofition to the extravagant Notions of fome pretended Platonifts, who taught fuch an Immortality of the Soul as implied Neceffity of Existence: For the Reason they give why Souls ought not to be called immortal, is, because they had a Beginning, and de- Juft.Mart. pend continually upon God for the Prefervation of Dial.com, their Being, in which Senfe neither are the Angels themselves immortal, but God himself, who, as St. Paul expreffes it, only bath Immortality. And 1 Tim. 6. the Paffages wherein they affirm, that Immorta- 16. lity is not the necessary Condition of our Nature,

bur

Tryph.

but the Reward of our Virtue, are all plainly meant not of Perpetuity of Duration, but of the eternal indefectible Happiness of Heaven, in which Senfe the Word Immortality is used by Lact. lib. them, as alone deferving that glorious Title, 7. §. 7. notwithstanding that they affirm the oppofite State to be of equal Duration and Perpetuity.

Q. But if whatever bath a Principle of fenfitive Perception is immaterial, and confequently immortal, will it not follow that the Souls of Brutes must be immortal?

A. That there is a Spirit in a Beast distinct from its Body, and separated from it by Death, Eccl.3.21. we learn from Solomon; and that they are not

mere Machines and Engines, without real Senfation, is as evident to us, as that other Men have Sensations; for the brute Beafts appear to have all the five Senfes as truly and exactly as any Man in the World. But yet it will not follow, that their Souls are immortal in the Sense we attribute Immortality to the Souls of Men, because they are not capable of the Exercife of Reason and Religion. For the Immortality of Mens Souls confifts not only in a Capacity of living in a feparate State, but living fo in that State as to be fenfible of Happiness and Mifery; for they are not only endowed with a Faculty of Senfe, but with other Faculties that do not depend upon, or have any Connexion with Matter. Tho' therefore it fhould be allowed, that the Souls of Brutes remain when feparated from their Bodies; yet, being only endowed with a fenfitive Principle, the Operations of which depend upon an organical Difpofition of the Body, when that is diffolved, it is probable they lapfe into an infen