they will find fo perfectly harmonizing with their favourite oracle, Reafon, in this most interesting point, and which profeffes to give them the most authentic information con→ cerning that unfeen world, the reality of which they already admit to have been proved *.

Whereas if, on the contrary, with a view of converting the Infidel to Christianity, and impreffing him with a high sense of its dignity and importance, you fet out with affuring him, that reafon gives us not the flightest hope of immortality; that foul and body perish together in the grave, but are both raifed to life again at that general refurrection which the Gospel promifes; he will affent, probably, without fcruple, to the former part of your propofition, but will never be perfuaded, on the fole authority of a Revelation which he rejects, to listen to the concluding part.

It may therefore contribute not a little, both to the fatisfaction of the Chriftian, and

* That fundamental doctrine of religion (a future state) would, if believed, open and difpofe the mind seriously to attend to the general evidence of the whole. Butler's Anal. c. 1.

the

the conviction of the unbeliever, to ftate, with as much brevity and perfpicuity as the nature of the enquiry will admit, fome of the plainest and most obvious of those proofs of a future existence, which our own reason is capable of fuggesting to the mind *

The first question that naturally prefents itself on this subject, is, whether that percipient and thinking agent within us, which

The fubftance of this and the two following fermons was written and preached several years ago. The difcourfe now before us is not, I confefs, of that kind which I fhould naturally have selected for publication. But the progrefs which the doctrine of materialifm has already made on the continent, and is now endeavouring to make in this kingdom, induced me to think, that a compendious view of the most intelligible arguments for the immateriality and natural immortality of the foul, as well as of the other principal evidences of a future ftate, both moral and fcriptural, would not be at this time either unfeasonable or unufeful. The young reader, at least, for whofe ufe these three difcourfes were principally intended, will here find (what can alone be expected, on fo extenfive a fubject, in fo short a compafs) fome general and leading principles to direct his judgement on a queftion of no fmall importance; to guard him against too hafty a defertion of the received opinion concerning it; and to prepare him for a more profound and accurate investigation of it, if ever he fhould feel himself difpofed to purfue the enquiry any far

we ufually call THE SOUL, is only a part of the body, or whether it is fomething totally distinct from it? If the former, it must neceffarily share the extinction of the body by death; and there is an end at once of all our natural hopes of immortality. If, on the other hand, the latter fuppofition of its distinct fubfiftence be the true one; it is plain that there will then be no reason to prefume, that the intellectual and the corporeal part of our frame must perish together. That fatal stroke which deprives the latter of life and motion, may have no other effect on the former, than that of diflodging it from its present earthly tabernacle, and introducing it into a different ftate of existence in another world.

Now, whatever difference of opinion there. may have been among speculative men, either antient or modern, concerning the fpecific nature of the human foul; yet in this they have all, with very few exceptions, univerfally agreed, that it is a fubftance in itself, actually diftinct and feparable from the body, though in its prefent ftate closely united with it. This has been the invariable opi

nion of almost all mankind, learned or unlearned, civilized or favage, Christian or Pagan, in every age and nation of the world. There is fcarce any one truth that can be named, which has met with fo general a reception as this. We difcover it in the earlieft authors extant, both poets and hiftorians; and it was maintained by every philofopher among the antients (except by Anaximander, Democritus, and their followers *) as well as by all the primitive Chriftian writers, without, I believe, a fingle exception. Even they who fuppofed the foul to be material (which was undoubtedly fuppofed by several Pagan philofophers, as well as by two or three of the Chriftian fathers)

* See Cudworth's Intellectual Syftem, vol. i. b. i. c. i. and ii. and c. v. p. 836-841.

Cicero (Tufc. Quæft. 1. i. c. 22.) mentions no more than two philofophers, Dicæarchus and Ariftoxenus, who maintained that man had no foul; and he gives their reafon for this opinion-quia difficilis erat animi quid & qualis fit intelligentia. This principle, if carried to its full extent, would, I am afraid, prove equally that we have no bodies; because, as the greatest of our philofophers, Newton, Locke, &c. have repeatedly afferted, it is full as difficult to comprehend the nature of a corporeal as of an incorporeal fubftance. Yet this principle feems ftill to have no fmall weight with the patrons of Materialism.

yet

yet uniformly held it to be a substance diftinct from the body. They fuppofed it to be air, or fire, or harmony, or a fifth effence, or fomething of a finer, purer, more ætherial, texture than grofs matter; and many of them conceived it also to be immortal, or capable of becoming fo. Nor was it only the polished and enlightened nations of Greece and Rome, of Egypt and Afia, that believed man to be a compound being, confifting of two sepa rate fubftances, but even the rudeft and most barbarous tribes, of whom history has preferved any traces. And it is well known, that wherever curiofity, commerce, or the fpirit of adventure has extended modern discoveries, this notion has been found exifting. It has been found as prevalent throughout the vaft continents of India and America, and the various islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the southern hemisphere, as in every other quar ter of the globe *. So general a fuffrage of almoft the whole human race, in favour of this opinion, is furely a very strong prefumption of its truth. It proves it to be no

• See all the late voyages to those parts, by Captain Cook and other navigators.