departure out of the body ; for we cannot discern it by sight in the body : yea, by this argument we may as well deny the existence of God and angels as of the soul ; for it is a spiritual and invisible being as they are ; our gross senses are incapable of discerning spi- rits, which are immaterial and invisible substances.
Object. 2. But you allow the soul to have a rise and beginning, it is not eternal a parte ante ; and it is certain, whatever had a be- ginning, must have an end.
Solid. Every thing which had a beginning may have an end, and what once was nothing, may by the power that created it, be re- duced to nothing again. But though we allow it may be so, by the absolute power of God, we deny the consequence, that therefore it shall, and must be so. Angels had a beginning, but shall never have an end. And indeed, their immortality, as well as ours, flows not so much from the nature of either as from the will and pleasure of God, who hath appointed them to be so. He can, but never will, annihilate them.
Object. 3. But the soul depends upon matter in all its operations, nothing is in the understanding which was not first in the senses ; it useth the natural spirits, as its servants and tools in all its opera- tions, and therefore how can it either subsist or act in a state of se- paration ?
Sol. 1. The hypothesis is not only uncertain, but certainly false. There are acts performed by the soul, even whilst it is in the body, wherein it makes no use at all of the body. Such are the acts of self-intuition and self-reflection : and what will you say of its acts, in raptures and extasies, such as that of Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 2. and John, Rev. xxi. 10. what use did their souls make of the bodily senses or natural spirits then ?
Solut. % And though in its ordinary actions in this life, it doth use the body as its tool or instrument in working, doth it thence follow that it can neither subsist or act separate from them in the other world ? Whilst a man is on horseback in his journey, he useth the help and service of his horse, and is moved according to the motion of his horse ; but doth it thence follow, he cannot stand nor walk alone, when dismounted at his journey's end ? We know angels both live and act, without the ministry of bodies, and our souls are spiri- tual substances as well as they.
Object. 4. But many scriptures seem to favour the total cessation of the soul's actions, if not of its being also, after separation, as that in 2 Sam. xiv. 14. We must needs die, and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up ; and Psal. Ixxxviii. 10, 11, 12. with Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19. The dead cannot praise thoe.
Solut. These words of the woman of Tekoah, are not to be un-
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derstood absolutely, but respectively : and the meaning is, that the soul is in the body as some precious liquor in a brittle glass, which being broken by death, the soul is irrecoverably gone, as the water spilt 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 resurrection, or what shall be done in the world to come, by the Almighty power of God, but of what is impossible to be done in this world by all the skill and power of man.
And for the expressions of Heman and Hezekiah, they only respect and relate unto those services their souls were now employ- ed about for the praise of God, with respect to the conversion or edification of others, as Psal. xxx. 8, 9- or at most, to that mediate service and worship 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 spirits of just men made perfect ; such was the sweetness they had found in these ordinances and duties, that they express themselves as loth to leave them.
The same answer solves also the objections grounded upon other mistaken scriptures, as that of Psal. lxxviii. 39. where man is called a wind that passeth away and cometh not again. It is only ex- pressive of the frailty and vanity of the present animal life we live in this world, to which we shall return no more after death ; it denies not life to departed souls, but affirms the end of this animal life at death : the life we live in the other world is of a different nature.
hif. 1. Is the soul immortal ? Then it is impossible for souls to find full rest and contentment in any enjoyments on this side heaven. All temporary things are inadequate, and therefore unsatisfying to our souls. What gives the soul rest and satisfaction, must be as durable as the soul is ; for if we could possibly find in this world a condition and state of things most agreeable in all other respects to our desires and wishes, yet if the soul be conscious to itself, that it shall, and must 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 prospect- ing creature, and can never be satisfied with this, that it is well with him at present, except he can be satisfied that it shall be so for ever. The thoughts of leaving our delightful and pleasant enjoy- ments embitters them all to us whilst we have them. All outward things are Jlu.ru continuo, passing 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
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out of its own substance, so doth that vanity that carries away all earthly enjoyments. This alone will spoil all contentment.