paration from the Body; what are it's Operations; where it refides; or how it exifts.-That it will exist is furely abundantly fufficient for us at prefent to know, nor is it worth our while to perplex ourfelves with a thousand nice Doubts and fubtle Pofitions, which may be raised upon thefe Articles at least, if they excite our Curiofity, they fhould not ftagger our Faith.

And yet, notwithstanding all this, fome among ourselves have affected to controvert the received Doctrines of the Refurrection of the fame Body, and of the Existence and Senfiblenefs of the Soul, (if I may fo fay) after it's Separation from the Body, which are unquestionably grounded in the Scriptures; and at the fame time to advance Principles and Theories not a whit more intelligible, or adequate to our natural Comprehenfions. Thus a late eminent Writer 2, whose System I have not Time minutely to difcufs, explains away the Doctrine of St. Paul in the 15th Chapter of the firft Epiftle to the Cor. and maintains that we are not warranted thereby to believe the Refurrection of the Body which was laid in the Grave, though he acknowledges the Difcourfe to have a Reference to a future State, and fuppofes it to import that we shall be invested with a Body, viz. a refined and glorified one in that State.―Thus Hypotheses are

fubftituted in the room of obvious Meanings.If a few Words will not confute fuch Theorists, I apprehend, whole Volumes will not.—St. Paul, in the Chapter before us, confeffedly refers to a future State. Now if he refers only to a future State in general, to what Purpose, or with what Propriety does he make Ufe of the Term Refurrection at all?—If by a Refurrection we are to understand our being invested with a new Body, &c. with what Shadow of Senfe is this ftiled a Refur rection? or, if there is Sense and Propriety in the Term, from whence is this Body to come? In short, if there is any thing more conceivable or comfortable in this Theory, than in the generally received one, I think, we may readily facrifice to it the Authority of St. Paul, and our Saviour himfelf. Again, other Authors effectually remove all Difficulties relative to the Nature of the intermediate State, &c. by denying in effect the Reality of it, and asserting that between the Day of Death and that of Judgment (when this System fuppofes our Bodies fhall be raised) we are in a State of Annihilation, at leaft of Sleep and Inactivity; which Doctrine is maintained to be more agreeable than the received one to the fcriptural Account of the Curfe of Death denounced against Adam, and our Redemption from it by Jefus Chrift.—Many Texts plaufible enough at first Sight, and confidered Dr. Law; Mr. Peckard.

b

independently

independently on others, and the whole Tenor of Scripture, may be cited in Defence of many extravagant Notions; as the following, among others, is produced in Support of this; As in Adam all die, even fo in Chrift fhall all be made alive. But furely a little Attention will overthrow this System likewife. For either Adam was endowed with an active Principle, an immortal Soul, at his Creation, or he was not; if he was not, in what Senfe did God create him after his own Image? or what are we to understand by his breathing into his Noftrils the Breath of Life AFTER he had formed him of the Duft of the Ground? (see Gen. ii. 7.)—We have a quite different Account of the Creation of other living Creatures; God faid, let the Earth bring forth the living Creatures, &c. God made the Beast of the Earth after his Kind, &c. &c. (fee Gen. i. 2.) But if Adam was endowed with a thinking or living Soul, how does it appear that this Soul was ever annihilated, or it's Operations fuperfeded? He made himfelf indeed and his Posterity liable not only to temporal Death, or the Separation of the Soul from the Body, but to eternal also, or the perpetual Separation of the whole Man from the Divine Prefence; &c. but the gracious Promife of Redemption from the latter, was given even before the Sentence of of the former was paffed upon him; And the Lord God faid unto the Serpent, because thou hast done this, &c. (fee Gen. iii. 14, 15, &c.) In Truth,

Death

Death no where in Scripture implies a total Extinction, or Annihilation of Thought, or Existence; and certainly, in point of Reason, nothing can be more chimerical than the Notion of a temporary Inactivity, or Ceflation of an intelligent and rational Being.

Again, the Scriptures affign to the Brutes a Spirit, or Principle of animal Life, which is common to them with Man; with respect to this Principle it is, that the Preacher obferves that one Thing befalleth them, viz. Man and Beast; that as the one dieth, fo dieth the other; that they have all one Breath, fo that a Man hath no Pre-eminence above a Beaft; for all is Vanity, &c. (Ecclef. iii. 19.) But then the Scriptures never attribute to the Spirits, or Souls, if you will, of Beafts the Faculties of Reason, or the Notion of Immortality. They evidently leave the whole animal World out of the question, when they tell us that God fhall judge the Righteous and the Wicked, (Ver. 17.) and that the Duft fhall return to the Earth as it was : and the Spirit return unto God who gave it. (Ch. xii. 7.) Now if we are to understand only by this latter Expreffion, that "God at Death takes away that Breath of Life which he breathed into Man," in Conformity to the Interpretation of Remarker on Mr. Steffè's Letters, anonymous

the

с

• See Monthly Review for May, 1757.

VOL. I.

K

why

why is not the Expreffion applied to Brutes? or, if it is inclufive of the Brutes, where is the Difference between the Soul of a Man, and the Soul of a Beaft? Indeed this Author's Conftruction of another Paffage in the present Book supposes no manner of Difference between them. Who knoweth the Spirit of Man that goeth upward, and the Spirit of the Beaft that goeth downward to the Earth? fays the Preacher, (Ch. iii. 21.) Which Paffage, according to this animated Commentary, fhould run thus. Who knoweth (what is the Difference betwixt) the Spirit of Man, who is formed upright, and the Spirit of a Beast, which inclineth it's Body to the Earth? But let us only criticise a little this uncomfortable Interpretation in it's Confequences. 'Tis plain then this Construction either denies the Rationality, or the Immortality of the human Soul, or both; if it denies both, it denies a known Axiom, an acknowledged Truth, viz. that Man is a rational Creature. If it allows the Rationality of the Soul, while it denies it's Immortality, it allows an effential Difference between the Soul of a Beast, and the Soul of a Man; for it is another known Maxim, that a Beast is not a rational Creature. But if there be an effential Difference between these, this diftinguishing Faculty, Virtue, Power, or what you please, may subsist, notwithstanding the Ceffation of a Principle common to both; confequently the Extinction of the Animal,

does