it, and change it how you will, you can never make it see, feel, hear, or act vitally without a quickning and actuating foul: Yet we must still remember, that this active principle, the foul, though it hath this vital power in itself, it hath it not from itself, but in a conftant receptive dependance upon God, the first cause, both of its being and power.

III. It is a fpiritual fubftance.

All fubftances are not grofs material, visible and palpable fubftances; but there are fpiritual, and immaterial, as well as corporeal substances, difcernible by fight or touch. To deny this were to turn a downright Sadducee, and to deny the exiftence of angels and spirits, Acts xxiii. 8. The word substance, as it is applied to the foul of man, puzzles, and confounds, the dark understandings of fome, that know not what to make of an immaterial fubftance, whereas in this place it, is no more than fubftare accidentibus *, (i. e.) to be a subject in which properties, affections, and habits are feated and subjected. This is a fpiritual fubftance, and is frequently in fcripture called a pirit; "Into thy hands I commit my fpirit," Luke. xxiii. 46. "Lord Jefus receive my fpirit," Acts vii. 59. and fo frequently all over the fcriptures. And the fpirituality of its nature appears, (1.) By its defcent, in a peculiar way, from the Father of fpirits. (2.) In that it rejoiceth in the effential properties of a fpirit. (3.) That at death it returns to that great Spirit who was its efficient and former.

(1.) It defcends, in a peculiar way, from the father of fpirits, as hath been fhewn in the opening of this text: God stiles himself its Father, Heb. xii. 9. its former, Zech. xii. 1. 'Tis true, he giveth to all living things was any, life and breath, Acts xvii. 25. Other fouls are from him, as well as the rational foul; but in a far different way and manner. They flow not immediately from him by creation, as this doth. It is faid, Gen. i. 24, 27. "Let the earth bring forth the living creature "after its kind;" but "God created man in his own image:" Which feems plainly to make a fpecified difference betwixt the reasonable, and all other fouls.

(2.) It rejoiceth in the effential properties of a spirit: For it is an incorporeal fubftance, as fpirits are. It hath not partes extra partes, extenfion of parts; nor is it divifible, as the body is. It hath no dimenfions, and figures as matter hath; but is

* A fubftance in this use of the word, is that which depends not, in refpect of its being, upon any fellow creature as accidents and qualities do, whofe being is by having their in-being in another fellow creature as their fubject; but this being, the foul, exifts in itself,

a moll pure, invifible, and (as the acute and judicious Dr. More expreffeth it) indifcernible fubftance. It hath the principle of life, and motion in itfelf, or rather, it is fuch a principle itielf, and is not moved as the dull, and fluggish matter is, per aliud, by another. Its efficacy is great, though it be unseen, and not liable to the test of our touch, as no fpiritual substances are. "A fpirit (faith Chrift) hath not flesh and bones," Luke xxiv. 39. We both grant and feel, that the foul hath a love, and inclination to the body, (which indeed is no more than it is be ceffary it should have) yet can we no more infer its corporiety from that love to the body, than we can infer the corporiety of angels from their affection, and benevolent love to men. It is a fpirit of a nature vaftly different from the body in which it is immerfed. There is (laith a learned author *) no greater my ftery in nature, than the union betwixt foul and body: That a mind and fpirit should be fo tied and linked to a clod of clay, that while that remains in a due temper, it cannot by any art or power free itself! What fo much a kin are a mind and a piece of earth, a clod and a thought, that they shall be thus affixed to one another?

Certainly, the heavenly pure bodies do not differ fo much from a dunghil, as the foul and body differ: They differ but as more pure and lefs pure matter; but thefe, as material, and immaterial. If we confider wherein confifis the being of a bo dy, and wherein that of a foul, and then compare them, the mat ter will be clear.

We cannot come to an apprehension of their beings, but by confidering their primary paffions and properties, whereby they make difcovery of themfelves. The first, and primary affecti on of a body (as is rightly obferved) is that extension of parts whereof it is compounded, and a capacity of divifion, upon which, as upon the fundamental mode, the particular dimen fions (that is, the figures) and the local motion do depend.

Again, for the being of our souls, if we reflect upon ourfelves, we fhall find that all our knowledge of them refolves into this, that we are beings conscious to ourselves of feveral kinds of cogitations; that by our outward fenfes we apprehend bodily things prefent; and by our imagination we apprehend things abfent; and that we oft recover into our apprehenfion things past and gone, and, upon our perception of things, we find out felves variously affected.

Let these two properties of a foul and body be compared, and upon the first view of a confidering mind it will appear, that Mr. How's Fun. Serm. p. 9, 10, 2. p. 39:

+ Philofophical Effay, p.

divifibility is not apprehenfion, or judgment, or defire, or difcourle: That to cut a body into feveral parts, or put it into feveral fhapes, or bring it to feveral motions, or mix it after feveral ways, will never bring it to apprehend, or defire. No man can think the combining of fires, and air, and water, and earth, should make the lump of it to know or comprehend, what is done to it, or by it. We fee manifeftly, that upon the divifion of the body, the foul remains entire and undivided. It is not the loss of a leg, or arm, or eye, that can maim the understanding, or the will, or cut off the affections.

Understand it negative

Nay, it pervades the body it dwells in, and is whole in the whole, and in every part, which it could never do if it were material. Yea, it comprehends in its under franding, the body or matter in which it is lodged; and more than that, it can, and doth from conceptions of pure fpiritual and immaterial beings, which have no dimenfions or figures; all which fhews it to be no corporeal, but a fpiritual, and immaterial fubftance.

ly, that the foul is not in the parts of the body per partes, part in one part, and part in another, seeing it is indivifible, and hath no parts.

3

"

(3.) As it derives its being from the Father of Spirits, in a pe culiar way, and rejoiceth in its fpiritual properties: So at death it returns to that great Spirit from whence it came. It is not annihilated, or refolved into foft air, or fucked up again by the element of fire, or catched back again into the foul of the world, as fome have dreamed; but it returns to God who gave it, give an account of itself to him, and receive its jugmentfrom him, "Then hall the duft return to the earth as it was, and the fpirit "fhall return to God who gave it," Eccl. xii. 7. Each part of man to its like, duft to duft, and fpirit to fpirit. Not that the foul is refolved into God, as the body is into earth; but as God created it a rational fpirit, confcious to itfelf of moral good and eyil, fo when it hath finished its time in the body, it must ap. pear before the God of the fpirits of all flefh, its arbiter and final judge.

:

By all which we fee, that as it is elevated too high on the one hand, when it is made a particle of God himself; not only the creature, but a part of God, as Plutarch, and | Philo Judeas,

Anima autem mentis particeps facta, non folum Dei opus eft, verum etiam pars ; neque ab eo, fèd de eo et ex facta- Plut. de Qu. Platon.

Quomodo credibile videtur tam exiguam · mentem humanam”

mem

and others have term'd it; (spirit it is, but of another and infe• rior kind :) So it is degraded too low, when it is affirmed to be matter, though the pureft, fineft, and moft fubtile in nature; which approacheth nearest to the nature of spirit. A fpirit it is, as much as an angel is a fpirit, though it be a spirit of another Species. This is the name it is known by throughout the fcriptures. In a word, it is void of mixture and compofition; there are no jarring qualities, compound element, or divifible parts in the foul, as there are in bodies; but it is pure, fimple, invifible, and indivifible fubflance, which proves its fpirituality, and brings us to the fourth particular, viz.

IV. It is an immortal fubftance.

The fimplicity, and fpirituality of its nature, of which I fpake before, plainly fhews us, that it is in its very nature, defigned for immortality; for fuch a being, or fubftance as this, hath none of the feeds of corruption, and death in its nature, as all material, and compounded beings have. It hath nothing within it tending to diffolution: No jarring elements, no contrary qualities are found in fpirits, as there are in other creatures of a mixed nature. Physicians, and Philofophers have difputed, and contended eagerly about the true caufes of natural death;

and whilft they have been contending about the way, they' "have come to the end." The ingrefs of the foul is obfcure, and its egrefs not clear. But this feems to be the thing in which they generally centre, that the expence, and destruction of the +natural moisture, or radical balfam, as others call it, which is as the oil that maintains natural heat, or the bridle that reftrains that flame of life from departing (as others express it ;) this is the cause of natural death: Others + affign the unequal re

membranula cerebri, aut corde, haud amplis fpaciis inclufam; ton tam cæli mundique magnitudinem capere, nifi illius divina fœlicifque animæ particula effet indivifibilis? Philo.

*Litigamus de via, interim ad terminum rapimur.

† Δε yap λαβεν οτι το ζωον επί φύσει ύργον και θέρμον, και τοζήν του Το 5 ληρας ψυχρον, και ξηρον και το τεθνηκός φαίνεται λαρ ετως. i. e. For we must understand, that the animal hath a natural moifture and heat; which makes it to live. But old age drying up that moisture, and changing that heat into coldness, occafions death. All this is very plain. Ariftotle, on long and short life.

Tum flammat et micat calidum nativum corporis noftri in humido primigenio, ejus humidi fubftantia confumitur, non aliter quam in lampade ileum a flamma exhauritur. Heurnius. Aphor. 1. Tam diu durat vigor vita, quam diu flat caladium na

tivum,

paration of the parts of the body, as the caufe of death. But be it one or another, 'tis evident the foul, which confists neither of contrariant qualities, nor of diffimilar parts, must be above the reach and firoke of death. For if the foul die, it must be either from fome feeds, and principles of death, and corruption within itfelf, or by fome deftructive power without itfelf. In itfelf you fee there is no feed, or principle of death; and if it be destroyed by a power without itself, it must be either by the stroke of fome creature, or from the hand of God that first formed and created it: But the hand, and power of no creature can destroy it; the creatures power reaches no further than the body, Mat. x. 28. "They cannot kill the foul." And tho' the almighty power of God, that created it out of nothing, can as eafily reduce it to nothing; yet he will never do fo. For befides the defignation for eternity, which is difcernible in its very nature (as before was obferved) and which speaks the intention of God to perpetuate his threatnings of eternal wrath, and promises of everlasting life, refpectively made to the fouls of men, as they shall be found in Chrift, or out of Chrift, puts it beyond all doubt that they shall never die; as will be more fully evidenced in the following difcourfe.

Well then, I hope fo far our way is clear, in the fearch of the nature of the foul, that it is a fubftance, a fpiritual fubftance, and being fo, it is also an immortal fubftance. No doubt remains with me as to either of thefe. Let us then proceed to the confideration of its faculties, and powers, by which it may be yet more fully known, and we shall find that,

It is a vital, fpiritual, and immorta' fubftance, endued with an understanding.

This is the noble leading faculty of the foul: We are not distinguished from brutes by our fenfes, but by our understand. ing. As grace fets one man above another, fo underflanding fets the meaneft man above the best of brutes. "Strange and wonder

tivum, donec ad mortem fuerit deventum. Et quantum à calido et bumido receditur, tantus ad mortem fit accessus. J. Bapt. Montan. Ortus noftri primordio, caloris et humoris nativi habent fùmmum complementum, &c. Fernelius liber de fpir. et cal. Vergente ætate, inæqualis admodum fit reparatio, aliæ partes reparantur fatis feliciter, fed aliæ ægre, et in pejus. Ut ab eo tempore cor pora humana fubiri incipiunt tormentum illud Mezentii, ut viva in amplex mortuorum immoriantur, Verulam. in additu Hift. vit. et