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We are not all body, nor mere animal creatures. We find we have a more noble nature than the inanimate or brutal part of the creation. We cannot only move and act freely, but we observe in ourselves a capacity of reflection, study, and forecast, and various mental operations, which irrational animals difcover no fymptoms of. Our fouls, therefore, muft be of a more excellent nature than theirs; and from the power of thought with which they are endowed, they are proved to be immaterial fubftances, and confequently in their own nature capable of immortality. And that they are actually immortal, or will never die, the facred fcriptures do abundantly testify *.

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*As nature delights in the most easy transitions 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, (fee Nemefius de Nat. Hom. cap. I. p. 6.), Why may not the fouls of

be confidered as the nexus between material and material fubftances, or matter and fpirit, or fomething between both? The great diffimilitude of nature, in these two substances, I apprehend, can be no folid objection to this hypothefis, if we confider (befide our own ignorance of the nature of fpirits) but how nearly they approach in other inftances, and how clofely they are united in man.

Let us then hereupon seriously recollect ourselves in the following foliloquy.

"O my foul, look back but a few years, " and thou waft nothing! And how didft "thou spring out of that nothing? Thou "couldft not make thyfelf; that is quite "impoffible. Moft certain it is, that that "Almighty, felf-existent, and eternal "power, which made the world, made "thee alfo, out of nothing, called thee "into being when thou waft not; gave "thee these reasoning and reflecting fa"culties, which thou art now employing "in searching out the end and happiness "of thy nature. It was he, O my foul, "that made thee intelligent and immor"tal. It was he that placed thee in this "body as in a prifon; where thy capaci"ties are cramped, thy defires debafed, "and thy liberty loft. It was he that "fent thee into this world, which by all "circumftances appears to be a state of "fhort difcipline and trial. And where"fore did he place thee here, when he "might have made thee a more free, "unconfined, and happy fpirit? But "check that thought; it looks like a too "prefumptuous curiofity. A more need"ful and important inquiry is, What did "he place thee here for? And what doth

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he expect from thee whilst thou art "here? What part hath he allotted me "to act on the stage of human life, "where he, angels, and men, are spec<< tators of my behaviour? The part he "hath given me to act here is, doubtless, " a very important one, because it is for "eternity*. And what is it, but to live << 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 acquaintἐσ ance with thee, to whom I have been "too long a ftranger, I must try thee, and "pu many a clofe queftion to thee), tell "me, I fay, whilft thou confineft thy de"fires to sential gratifications, wherein " doft thou differ from the beafts that pe"rib? Captivated by bodily appetites, "doft thou not act beneath thyfelf? Doft "thou not put thyself upon a level with the

*It is faid, when the prince of the Latin poets was afked by his friend, why he ftudied fo much accuracy in the plan of his poem, the propriety 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 enforce the utmost vigilance and circumfpection of life, than this; in æternum vivo, I am living for eternity?

19 "the lower clafs of beings, which were "made to ferve thee? Offer an indignity "to thyfelf, and despise the work of thy "Maker's hands? O remember thy hea"venly extract; remember thou art a fpi"rit. Check then the folicitations of the "flesh; and dare to do nothing that may "diminish thy native excellence, difho"nour thy high original, or degrade thy "noble nature*-But let me ftill urge it. "Confider (I fay), O my foul, that thou "art an immortal fpirit. Thy body dies;

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but thou, thou muft live for ever, and "thine eternity must take its tincture from "the manner of thy behaviour, and the " habits thou contracteft, during this thy "fhort copartnership with flesh and blood. "O! do nothing now, but what thou "mayeft with pleasure look back upon a "million of ages hence. For know, O << my foul, that thy felf consciousness and "reflecting faculties will not leave thee "with

Major fum, et ad majora natus, quam quod fim corporis mancipium: quod equidem non aliter afpicio quam vinculum libertati meæ circumdatum. Sen. Ep. 66.

"I am too noble, and of too high a birth" (faith that excellent moralift), " to be a flave to my body, " which I look upon only as a chain thrown upon "the liberty of my foul."

"with thy body; but will follow thee "after death, and be the instrument of "unspeakable pleasure or torment to thee "in that feparate state of existence *."

(2.) In order to a full acquaintance with ourselves, we must endeavour to know not only what we are, but what we Shall be.

And O! what different creatures fhall we foon be, from what we now are! Let us look forward then, and frequently glance our thoughts towards death; though they cannot penetrate the darkness of that paffage, or reach the ftate behind it. That lies vailed from the eyes of our mind; and the great God hath not thought fit to throw fo much light upon it, as to fatisfy the anxious and inquifitive defires the foul hath to know it. However, let us make the best use we can of that little light which

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* As it is not the defign of this treatife to enter into a nice and philofophical difquifition concerning the nature of the human foul, but to awaken men's attention to the inward operations and affections of it (which is by far the most neceffary part of felf-knowledge); fo they who would be more particularly informed concerning its nature and original, and the arious opinions of the ancients about it, may confult Temef. de Nat. Hom. cap. I. and a treatife called the Jovernment of the Thoughts, chap. 1. and Chambers's clopædia, under the word SOUL.

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