Part I. and the fpirit, or mind, which is the rational and immortal part*. --- Each of these three parts

* This doctrine, I think, is established beyond all difpute, not only by experience, but by authority. It was received by almost all the antient philofophers. The Pythagoreans; as we learn from Jamblicus, vid. Protrept. p. 34, 35. The Platonifts; as appears from Nemefius, Salluft, and Laertius, vid. Di. Laertius, lib. 3. p. 219. The Stoics; as appears from Antoninus, who faith exprefsly, There are three things which belong to a man; the body, foul, and the mind. And as to the properties of the divifion, fenfation belongs to the body, appetite to the foul, and reafon to the mind,' σωμα, ψυχή, νος, σώματος αισθήσεις, ψυχης οιμαι, 18 Sozuala. lib. 3 § 16. lib. 2. § 2. lib. 12. § 3. It appears alfo to have been the opinion of most of the fathers, vid. Irenæus, lib. 5. cap. 9. lib. 2. cap. 33. Ed. Par, Clem. Alex. Strom. 3. p. 542. Ed. Oxon. Origen. Philocal. p. 8. Ignat. Ep. ad. Philadelph. ad. calcem. See alfo Jofeph. Antiq. lib. 1. cap. 2. p. 5. Conftitut. Apoftol. lib. 7. cap. 34.- But above all thefe, is the authority of Scripture, which, speaking of the original formation of man, mentions the three diftin&t parts of his nature. Gen. ii. 7. viz. My the duft of the earth, or the body: 'n the living foul, or the animal and fenfitive part and the breath of life,

:

In like manner

i. e. the fpirit or rational mind. the apostle Paul divides the whole man into (TO πνευμα, η ψυχή, και το σωμα) the fpirit, the foul, and the body, 1 Thef. v. 23. and what he calls (aveμa) here, he calls (ves) Rom. vii, 24. the word which Antoninus ufes to denote the fame thing. They who would fee more of this may confult Nemefius de Natura Hominis, cap. 1. and Whif ton's Prim Cliniḥ, vol. 4. pag. 262.

All

parts have their refpective offices affigned them. And a man then acts becoming himfelf, when he keeps them duly employed in their proper functions, and preserves their natural fubordination.---But it is not enough to know this merely as a point of speculation ; we must pursue and revolve the thought, and urge the confideration to all the purposes of a practical felf-acquaintance.

tures.

We are not all body, nor mere animal creaWe find we have a more noble nature than the inanimate, or brutal part of the creation. We can not only move and act freely, but we obferve in ourselves a capacity of reflection, study and forecaft; and various mental operations, which irrational animals discover no symptoms of. Our fouls, therefore, must be of a more excellent nature than

C 2

All the obfervation I fhall make hereupon is, that this confideration may ferve to foften the prejudices of fome against the account which Scripture gives us of the mysterious manner of the exiftence of the divine nature; of which every man (as created in the image of God) carries about him a kind of emblem, in the three-fold diftin&tion of his own; which, if he did not every minute find it by experience to be fact, would doubtlefs appear to him altogether as mysterious and incomprehenfible as the Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity.

Homo habit tres partes, fpiritum, animam, et corpus; itaque homo eft imago S. S. Trinitatis.' Auguft. Tractat. de Symbolo.

than their's; and from the power of thought with which they are endowed, they are proved to be immaterial fubftances; confequently, in their own nature, capable of immortality. And that they are actually immortal, or will never die, the facred Scriptures do abundantly teftify (m).---Let us hereupon seriously recollect ourselves in the following foliloquy.

O my foul, look back but a few years,

and thou waft nothing!-And how didst thou fpring out of that nothing ?-Thou couldft not make thyfelf:-that is quite impoffible :- moft certain it is, that that Almighty, felf-exiftent and eternal power, 'which made the world, made thee also out of nothing: Called thee into being when thou waft not; gave thee these • reafoning

(m) As nature delights in the most easy tranfitions from one clafs of beings to another, and as the nexus utriufque generis is obfervable in feveral creatures of ambiguous nature, which feem to connect the lifelefs and vegetable, the vegetable and animal, the animal and rational worlds together. (See Nemefius de Nat. Hom. cap. 1. p. 6.) Why may

not the fouls of brutes be confidered as the nexus between material and immaterial fubstances, or matter and spirit, or fomething between both? The great diffimilitude of nature in these two fubftances, I apprehend, can be no folid objection to this hypothefis, if we confider (befides our own ignorance of the nature of spirits) but how nearly they approach in other inftances, and how clofely ted in man. they ar

reasoning and reflecting faculties, which thou art now employing in fearching out the end and happiness of thy nature.It was He, O my foul, that made thee ⚫ intelligent and immortal. It was He that placed thee in this body as in a prifon; where thy capacities are cramped, thy defires debased, and thy liberty loft. 6 -It was He that fent thee into this world, which by all circumstances appears to be a state of short discipline and • trial. And wherefore did He place thee • here, when He might have made thee a more free, unconfined and happy spi

6

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rit ?-But check that thought;-it looks ⚫ like a too presumptuous curiofity. A more needful and important enquiry is; what did he place thee here for? And what 'doth he expect from thee, whilft thou 'art here ?-What part hath he allotted

me to act on the flage of human life; where He, angels and men, are spectators of my behaviour? The part He hath given me to act here is, doubtless, a very important one; because it is for eternity (n). And what is it, but to live

(n) It is faid when the prince of the Latin poets was afked by his friend, why he ftudied so

_much accuracy in the plan of his

poem,

the

pro

priety

up to the dignity of my rational and intellectual nature; and as becomes a 'creature born for immortality?

And tell me, O my foul, (for as I am now about to cultivate a better acquaintance with thee, to whom I have 'been too long a ftranger, I must try thee and put many a close question to thee,) tell me, I fay, whilft thou confineft thy defires to fenfual gratifications, wherein doft thou differ from the beafts that perifh? Captivated by bodily appetites, doft thou not act beneath thyself? Doft thou not put thyfelf upon a level with the lower clafs of beings, which were made to ferve thee, offer an indignity to thyfelf, and defpife the work • of thy Maker's hands? O remember thy heavenly extract; remember thou art a fpirit. Check then the folicitations of the flesh; and dare to do nothing that may diminish thy native excellence, difhonour thy high original, or degrade thy

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priety of his characters, and the purity of his diction he replied, in æternum pingo, I am writing for eternity. What more weighty confideration to juftify and inforce the utmoft vigilance and circumfpection of life, than this, in æternum vivo, I am living for eternity?