cannot be just and equal: for we believe, according to the scriptures, that,

(1.) The actions which men perform in this life, are not tranfient, but are filed to their account in the world to come: Gal. vi. 7. " here we fow, and there we reap." Actions done in this world are two ways confiderable, viz. phyfically, or morally; in the firft confideration they are tranfient, in the laft, permanent and everlasting. A word is fpoken, or an act done in a moment, but though it be past and gone, and perhaps by us quite forgotten, God registers it in his book, in order to the day of account.

(2.) We believe that God hath appointed a day in which all men fhall appear before his judgment-feat, to give an account of all they have done in the body, whether it be good or evil, 2 Cor.

V. IO.

(3.) And that in order hereunto, the very fame perfons fhall be reftored by the refurrection, and appear before God, the very fame bodies and fouls, which did good or evil in this world: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Juftice requires that the rewards and punishments be then diftributed to the fame perfons that did good or evil in this world: which strongly infers the immortality of the foul, and that it certainly overlives the body, and muft come back from the refpective places of their abode, to be again united to them, in order to their great account.

By all which you see the clearest proof of the foul's immortality, and how the contrary fuppofition overthrows our faith, duties, and comforts. Yet notwithstanding all this, how apt are we to fufpect this doctrine, and remain ftill diffatisfied and doubting about it, when all is faid? Which comes to pass partly from the fubtlety of Satan, who knows he can never perfuade men to live the life of beafts, till he first perfuade them to think they fhall die as the beafts do. (2.) And partly from the influence of fenfe and reafon upon us, whereby we do too much fuffer ourselves to be swayed and impofed upon in matters of the greatest moment in religion. For thefe being proper arbiters and judges in other matters within their sphere, they are arrogant, and we eafy enough to admit them to be arbiters alfo in things that are quite above them. Hence come fuch plaufible objections as thefe:

Objet. 1. The foul feems to vanifh and die, when it leaves the body for when it hath struggled as long as it can to keep its poffeffion in the body, and, at last, is forced to depart, we can perceive nothing but a puff of breath, which immediately vanishes into air, and is loft.

Solut. We cannot perceive, therefore it is nothing but what we do and can perceive, viz. a puff of vanifhing breath. By this argument the being of the foul in the body is as queftionable as after its

departure out of the body; for we cannot difcern it by fight in the body: yea, by this argument we may as well deny the existence of God and angels as of the foul: for it is a fpiritual and invisible being as they are; our grofs fenfes are incapable of difcerning fpirits, which are immaterial and invisible substances.

Object. 2. But you allow the foul to have a rife and beginning, it is not eternal a parte ante; and it is certain, whatever had a beginning, must have an end.

Solut. Every thing which had a beginning may have an end, and what once was nothing, may by the power that created it, be reduced to nothing again, But though we allow it may be fo, by the abfolute power of God, we deny the confequence, that therefore it fhall, and must be fo. Angels had a beginning, but fhall never have an end. And indeed, their immortality, as well as ours, flows not fo much from the nature of either as from the will and pleasure of God, who hath appointed them to be fo. He can, but never will, annihilate them.

Object. 3. Put the foul depends upon matter in all its operations, nothing is in the understanding which was not first in the fenfes it ufeth the natural fpirits, as its fervants and tools in all its operations, and therefore how can it either fubfift or act in a ftate of feparation?

Sol. 1. The hypothefis is not only uncertain, but certainly falfe. There are acts performed by the foul, even whilft it is in the body, wherein it makes no ufe at all of the body. Such are the acts of felf-intuition and felf-reflection: and what will you fay of its acts, in raptures and extafies, such as that of Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 2. and John, Rev. xxi. 10. what ufe did their fouls make of the bodily fenfes or natural fpirits then?

Solut. 2. And though in its ordinary actions in this life, it doth ufe the body as its tool or inftrument in working, doth it thence follow that it can neither fubfift or act feparate from them in the other world? Whilft a man is on horfeback in his journey, he ufeth the help and fervice of his horfe, and is moved according to the motion of his horfe; but doth it thence follow, he cannot stand nor walk alone, when difmounted at his journey's end? We know angels both live and act, without the miniftry of bodies, and our fouls are fpiritual fubftances as well as they.

Object. 4. But many fcriptures feem to favour the total ceffation of the foul's actions, if not of its being alfo, after feparation, as that in 2 Sam. xiv. 14. We must needs die, and are as water fpilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up; and Pfal. Ixxxviii. 10, 11, 12. with Ifa. xxxviii. 18, 19. The dead cannot praise

thee.

Solut. Thefe words of the woman of Tekoah are not to be un

derstood abfolutely, but refpectively: and the meaning is, that the foul is in the body as fome precious liquor in a brittle glafs, which being broken by death, the foul is irrecoverably gone, as the water fpilt on the ground, which by no human power or art of man can be recovered again. All the means in the world cannot fetch it back into the body again. She speaks not of the refurrection, or what fhall be done in the world to come, by the Almighty Power of God, but of what is impoffible to be done in this world by all the fkill and power

of man.

And for the expreffions of Heman and Hezekiah, they only refpect and relate unto thofe fervices their fouls were now employed about for the praife of God, with refpect to the converfion or edification of others, as Pfal. xxx. 8, 9. or at most, to that mediate fervice and worfhip which they give God, in and by their attendance upon his ordinances in this world, and not of that immediate service and praise that is performed and given him in heaven by the fpirits of juft men made perfect; fuch was the fweetness they had found in these ordinances and duties, that they exprefs themfelves as loth to leave them.

The fame answer folves alfo the objections grounded upon other mistaken fcriptures, as that of Pfal. lxxviii. 39. where man is called a wind that paffeth away, and cometh not again. It is only expreffive of the frailty and vanity of the prefent animal life we live in this world, to which we fhall return no more after death; it denies not life to departed fouls, but affirms the end of this animal life at death; the life we live in the other world is of a different nazure.

Inf. 1. Is the foul immortal? Then it is impoffible for fouls to find full reft and contentment in any enjoyments on this fide heaven. All temporary things are inadequate, and therefore unfatisfying to our fouls. What gives the foul reft and fatisfaction, must be as durable as the foul is; for if we could poffibly find in this world a condition and ftate of things moft agreeable in all other refpects to our defires and wifhes, yet if the foul be confcious to itself, that it fhall, and muft overlive and leave them all behind it, it can never reach true contentment in the greatest affluence and con.fluence of them. Man being an immortal, is therefore a profpecting creature, and can never be fatisfied with this, that it is well with him at prefent, except he can be fatisfied that it fhall be fo for ever. The thoughts of leaving our delightful and pleasant enjoyAll outward ments embitters them all to us whilft we have them.

things are fluxu continuo, paffing away as the waters, 1 Cor. vii. 31. Riches are uncertain, 1 Tim. vi. 17. "They fly away as an eagle "towards heaven, and with wings of their own making," Prov. xxiii. 5. i. e. As the feathers that enable a bird to fly from us, grow

E

out of its own fubftance, fo doth that vanity that carries away all earthly enjoyments. This alone will spoil all contentment.

Inf. 2. Then fee the ground and reafon of Satan's envy and enmity against the foul, and his reflefs defigns and endeavours to destroy it. It grates that fpirit of envy, to find himself, who is by nature immortal, funk everlaftingly and irrecoverably into mifery, and the fouls of men appointed to fill up thofe vacant places in heaven from which the angels fell. No creature but man is envied by Satan, and the foul of man much more than his body: it is true, he afflicts the bodies of men when God permits him, but he ever aims at the foul when he wounds the body. Heb. x. 37. This roaring lion is continually going about, "feeking whom he may devour," 1 Pet. v. 8. It is the precious foul he hunts after; that is the Morfus diaboli, the bit he gapes for, as the wolf tears the fleece to come at the flesh. All the pleasure thofe miferable creatures find, is from the fuccefs of their temptations upon the fouls of men. It is a kind of delight to them to plunge fouls into the fame condemnation and mifery with themfelves. This is the trade they have been driving ever fince their fall. By deftroying fouls he at once exercifes his revenge against God, and his envy against man, which is all the relief his miferable condition allows him.

Inf. 3. Do the fouls of men out-live their bodies? Then it is the height of madness and spiritual infatuation, to destroy the foul for the body's fake; to caft away an immortal foul for the gratification of perifhing flesh; to ruin the precious foul for ever, for the pleasures of fin which are but for a moment: yet this is the madness of millions of men. They will drown their own fouls in everlasting perdition, to procure unneceffary things for the body, 1 Tim. vi. 9. "They that will be rich," &c. Every cheat and circumvention in dealing, every lie, every act of oppreffion, is a wound given the immortal foul, for the procuring fome accommodations to the body.

O what foul-undoing bargains do fome make with the devil! Some fell their fouls out-right for the gratification of their lufts, 1 Kings xxi. 20. Many pawn their fouls to Satan in a conditional bargain; fo do all that venture upon fin, upon a prefumption of pardon and repentance. The devil is a great trader for fouls, he hath all forts of commodities to fuit all men's humours that will deal with him. He hath profits for the covetous, honours for the ambitious, pleasures for the voluptuous: but a foul is the price at which he fells them; only he will be content to fell at a day, and not require prefent pay; fo that it be paid on a death-bed, in a dying hour, he is fatisfied. But oh! what an undoing bargain do finners make, to part with a treafure for a trifle! Mat. xvi 26, the precious foul for ever, " for the pleasures of fin, which are but

Prov. IX. 17.

Prov. xxiii. 31, 32. Job xx. 12, 13. Jam. i. 15.

for a feafon! Heb. xi. 25. We are charmed with the prefent pleasure and fweetnefs there is in fin but how bitter will the after-fruits thereof be !-See the texts in the margin. You will fay hereafter as Jonathan did, 1 Sam. xiv. 31 "I tasted but a little honey, and I "muft die."

Infer. 4. Then the expofing of the body to danger, yea, to certain deStruction, for the prefervation of the foul, is the dictate of fpiritual wisdom, and that which every Chriftian is bound to chufe and practife, when both interefts come in full oppofition, Heb. xi. 35. Dan. iii. 28. Rev. xii. 11. No promises of preferment, no threats of torments, have been able to prevail with the people of God to give the least wound, or do the leaft wrong to their own fouls. When Secundus was commanded to deliver his bible, he answered, Chriftianus fum, non traditor: I am a Christian, I will not deliver it: then they defired him to deliver aliquam ecvolam, a chip, a ftraw, any thing that came to his hand in lieu of it: he refufed to redeem his life by delivering the leaft trifle on that account to fave it.

That is a great word of our Lord's, Luke ix. 24. "He that will "fave his life, fhall lofe it: and he that loleth it for my fake "shall find it." Chriftians, this is your duty and wifdom, and must be your resolution and practice in the day of temptation, to yield your bodies to preferve your fouls, as we offer our arm to defend the head. Oh! better thy body had never been given thee, than that it should be a fnare to thy foul, and the inftrument of cafting it away for ever. Oh! how dear are fome perfons like to pay for their tendernefs and indulgence to the flesh, when the hour of temptation fhall come ! mortify your irregular affections to the body, and never hazard your precious immortal fouls for their fakes. It is the character of an hypocrite to chufe fin rather than affliction, Job xxxvi. 21. But if ever thou haft been in the deeps of spiritual troubles for fin, if God have opened thine eyes to fee the evil of fin, the immenfe weight and value of thy foul, and of eternity, "Thou wilt not count thy life dear to thee, to finish thy "courfe with joy," Acts xx. 24.

Inf. 5. If the foul be an immortal being, that shall have no end, Then it is the great concern of all men to frive to the utmost for the falvation of their fouls, whatever become of all leffer temporary interefts in this world, Luke xiii. 24. There is a gate, i. e. an introductive means of life and falvation: This gate is ftrait, i. e. there are a world of difficulties to be encountered in the way of falvation: but he that values and loves his never-dying foul, muft, and will be diligent and constant in the use of all thofe means that have a tendency to falvation, be they never fo difficult or unpleasant to flesh and blood. There be difficulties from within ourselves, fuch