Secondly, I shall urge other arguments for the immortality of the soul.
1. The capacity of the soul argueth the immortality of it. Now it is capable — (1.) Of civil arts ; (2.) Of owning the distinction between good and evil; (3.) Of knowing immortality and matters of everlasting consequence; (4.) Of knowing God and his attributes; (5.) Of the divine nature, which consists in the knowledge and love of God ; (6.) Of a sweet familiar communion with him. Let us see how all these capacities will pi'ove the matter in hand.
[1.] The being capable of civil arts will prove the soul's spiritual substance, far excelling the beasts in dignity ; for it is capable of all kind of learning and witty inventions ; as grammar, and the knowledge of tongues and rhetoric, to form and polish our speech ; logic, to refine
SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES XII. 7. 71
our reason ; ethics, to order our manners ; medicine, to cure the dis- tempers of our bodies ; by physics, or by natural philosoi)hy, it knoweth all kind of things, all ranks of beings, from God and angels to the smallest worm ; yea, it acquireth such skill as to make use of all creatures for its own benefit : James iii. 7, ' For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind.' The power and skill of man is large, and reacheth through the whole creation ; by one means or other man mastereth them. Now what doth this signify but that man hath a soul different from the souls of the beasts? Job xxxv. 11, 'He teacheth us more than the beasts of the field, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven.' And that Avill contribute much to the matter in hand. Solomon puts the question, Eccles. iii. 21, ' Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of a beast that goeth downward to the earth ? ' Mark, there he asserts that the spirit of the man goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast goeth downward ; there is an ascent ascribed to the one, and a descent to the other ; upward implieth heaven and heavenly things ; downward, the earth and earthly things. The human soul ascendeth to God, the universal judge of all the world, whose throne is in heaven; but the soul of the beasts taketh its lot among all earthly things, which are at length resolved into earth, water, and air. In the creation, God is said to breathe into man the spirit of life ; not so of the beast. So in the dissolution ; the one returneth to God, the other leaveth off to exist, and when they die, they are no more.
[2.] It is capable of owning the distinction between moral good and evil. He that doth not acknowledge it is unworthy the name of man ; for to love or hate God is not indifferent ; nor to kill a neighbour, or hunt an hare in the woods ; to use lawful matrimony, or for a man to pollute himself either with promiscuous or incestuous embraces. Now, if our souls differed not from the soul of a beast, they could have no such apprehension or conception. The beasts know pain and pleasure, but they have no knowledge of virtue and vice, as is sensible to every one that considereth them; but man hath: Eom. ii. 14, 15, 'For when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts.' Well, then, man hath a life beyond this, a further end of his actions than a beast, which is to approve himself to God, to whom he must give an account, whether he hath done good or evil ; for a conscience supposeth a law, and a law supposeth a sanction both of reward and punishment, and a sanction a judge, to whom a man is accountable. And if man were but an higher and wiser sort of beast, he would but differ gradually from a dog or a swine. Now no man woidd be used as a beast, and made a slave to any one that can master and tame him, and sold in the market as a beast ; if this be his lot by his infelicity in the world, he would look upon it as an uncouth thing, and that it would be to sin before God to use him so. Therefore there is a distinction between men and beasts ; men die not as the beasts die.
[3.] They are capable of the knowledge of immortality, and can frame curious disputes and accurate debates thereof, which showeth they are
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not altogether incapable of the thing itself ; for the beasts know no other life beyond what they enjoy, and mind no other, and care for no other ; and therefore the estate of man will be different from theirs.
[4.] Man is capable of knowing God and his attributes, which the beasts are not, because they were never made to enjoy him : ' He hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true,' 1 John V. 20. Tliey are capable of knowing their relation to God as his creatures and subjects, and so are obnoxious to his judgment, and that nothing here can make them happy, and that God alone can do it : Ps. iv. 6, 7, ' There be many that say, Who will show us any good ? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.' That happiness lieth not in what men ordinarily seek it in, riches, honours, and pleasures, but in the favour of God ; that here we do not enjoy him to the full, and that therefore we must seek after another life ; here we seek God, in the world to come we find him, and therefore cannot rest in this partial enjoyment. Man is ever seeking after an immortal blessedness. Now this capacity is not in vain ; the soul is restless till it find him.