Certainly, the privilege of man doth not consist in reason, as abstracted from immortality. But in this, it properly consists, that he enjoys not only a reasonable, but also rejoiceth in an immortal soul, which shall over-live the world, and subsist separate from the bodv, and abide for ever, when all other souls, being but a material form, perish with that matter on which they depend. This is the proper dignity of man, above the beast that perisheth ; and to de- prive him of immortality, and leave him his reason, is but to leave him a more miserable and wretched creature than any that God hath put under his feet. For man is a prospecting creature, and raiseth up to himself vast hopes and fears from the world to come : by these he is restrained from the sensual pleasures, which other creatures freely enjoy, and exercised with ten thousand cares, which they are unacquainted with ; and to fail at last of all his hopes and expectations of happiness, in the world to come, is to fall many degrees lower than the lowest creature shall fall ; even so much lower as his expectations and hopes had lifted him higher. Argument VI.
The souls of men must be immortal, or else the desires of im- mortality are planted in their souls in vain.
* The bear excels man in hearing, the spider in feeling, the vulture in smelling, the lynx In seeing, and the ape in tasting.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 569
That there are desires of immortality found in the hearts of all men, is a truth too evident to be' denied or doubted*. Man can- not bound and terminate his desires within the narrow limits of this world, and the time that measures it. Nothing that can be measured by time is commensurate to the desires of man's soul. No motto better suits it than this, Non est mortale quod opto ; I seek for that which will not die, Rom. ii. 7. And his great relief against death lies in this, Non omuls moriar : That he shall not totally perish. Yea, we find in all men, even in those that seem to be most drowned and lost in the love and delights of this present world, a natural desire to continue their names and memories to posterity after death. Hence it is said, Psal. xlix. 11. " Their in- w ward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and " their dwelling places to all generations ; they call their lands after " their own names."
And hence is the desire of children, which is, as one saith, nodosa ceternitas, a knotty eternity ; when our thread is spun out and cut off, their thread is knit to it ; and so we dream of a con- tinued succession in our name and family.
Absalom had no children to continue his memory ; to supply which defect, he reared up a pillar, 2 Sam. xviii. 18. Now it cannot be imagined that God should plant the desire of immor- tality in those souls, that are incapable of it ; nor yet can we give a rational account how these apprehensions of immortality should come into the souls of men, except they themselves be of an im- mortal nature. For, either these notions and apprehensions of immortality are impressed upon our souls by God, or do naturally spring out of the souls of men : If God impress them, those im- pressions are made in vain, if there be no such thing as immortality to be enjoyed ; and if they spring and rise naturally out of our souls, that is a sufficient evidence of their immortality. For we can no more conceive, and form to ourselves, ideas and notions of im- mortality, if our souls be mortal, than the brutes which are void of reason, can form to themselves notions and conceptions of ration- ality. So then the very apprehensions and desires that are found in men's hearts of immortality, do plainly speak them to be of an immortal nature -f*.
* I beseech men, for God's sake, that if any time there arise in them a desire, or a wish that others should speak well of them rather than evil after their death, then at that time they would seriously consider Whether these motions are not from some spirit, to continue a spirit after it leaves its earthly habitation, rather than from an earthly spirit, a vapour, which cannot act, or imagine, or desire, or fear things beyond its con- tinuance. Hale de anima, p. 72.
f It forms conceptions of things spiritual and abstract from matter, and discerns objects which have no dimensions, figure, colour, or affection of matter. If the soul itself is the fountain or idea of immortality, it must be immortal ; because what ii
510 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
Moreover, the account given us in the scripture of the return of several souls into their own bodies again after death, and real sepa- ration from them, shews us that the soul subsists and lives in a se- parate state after death, and perisheth not by the stroke of death : For if it were annihilated or destroyed by death, the same soul could never be restored again to the same body. A dead body may in- deed be acted by an assisting form, which may move and carry it from place to place ; so the devil hath acted the dead bodies of many ; but they cannot be said to live again by their own souls, after a real separation by death, unless those souls over-lived the bodies they forsook at death, and had their abode in another place and state. You have divers unquestionable examples of the soul's return into the body recorded in scripture : As that of the Shuna- mite's son, 2 Kings iv. 18, 19, 20, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37. That of the ruler's daughter, Mat. ix. 18, 23, 24, 25. That of the widow's son, Luke vii. 12, 13, 14, 15. And that of Lazarus, John xi. 395 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. " These are no other * but the very same " souls, their own souls which returned to them again ; which, as " Chrysostom well observes, is a great proof of their immortality " against them that think the soul is annihilated after the death of " the body."
It is true, the scripture gives us no account of any sense or ap- prehension they retained after their re-union of the place or state they were in during their separation. There seemed to be a per- fect a&vrj&a, forgetfulness of all that they saw or felt in the state of separation. And indeed it was necessary it should be so, that our faith might be built rather upon the sure promises of God, than such reports and narratives of them that come to us from the dead, Luke xvi. 31. And if we believe not the word, neither would we believe if' one came from the dead.
Moreover, Eighthly, The supposition of the soul's perishing with the body, is subversive of the Christian religion in the principal doctrines and duties thereof: take away the immortality of the soul, and all religion falls to the ground. I will instance in
1. The doctrines ) 0 ,. .
2. The duties J OI rellSlon-
First, It overthrows the main principles and doctrines of the
momentary, cannot form an idea of an immortal nature, for the soul which is void of reason cannot form a conception of rationality. Stern on death, p. 198.