but apt to perpetual duration: Ergo, he thereby declareth his will, that he intendeth it for perpetual duration : because he maketh nothing in vain, either for fubftance or quality. It may be fome other will think that this argument will inferre not only a probability but a certainty.

And if you go back to your objection of Materiality, I now only adde, that Aristotle and his followers, who think that the Heavens are corporeal, yet think that they are a quinta effentia and fimple, and incorruptible, and therefore that they fhall certainly be everlatting: And he taketh the the fouls of Bruits to be anal gous to the matter of the Starrs; and fo to be of that everlatting quinteffence: And can you in reafon fay lefs of Rational Souls?

2. It is fufficient, that I prove by natural evidence a Life of Retribution after this, which fhall fully make the miserable ungodly ones repent tormentingly of their fin, and fill the righteous with fuch Joyes as thall fully recompense all their labour and fuffering in a holy life: And that I moreover prove that duration of this life, and all the reft, by supernatural evidence.

OBJECTION XVI.

Both Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo; and we have not the fame fubftance this Week or Year as we had the last, there being a continual confumption or tranfition and accretion: Ergo, being not the fame, we are uncapable of a Life of future Ketribution. Wil you reward and punish the man that is, or the man that was?

Anfw. It is a foolish thing to carry great and certain Truths into the dark, and to argue againft them à minus notis, from meer uncertainties. As to your fimile, I confefs that the Oyl of your Candle is ftill wafting, fo is the wick; but not that new is added to make it another thing, unles it be a Lamp. I confess, that the lucid fume which we call the flame is ftill paling away. But whether the fiery Principle (in its effence, not vifible, but only in its Light) be not fill the fame till all the paffive matter be confumed, is more

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than you know. So alfo if you argue from the Vegetative life of a Tree: Whether the fame Principle of Vegetation (enlarging it felf) continue not to the end to individuate the Tree, though all the paffive Elements (Earth, Water, and Air) may be in fluxu and a tranfient state? It is certain, that fome fixed Principle of Individuation there is, from whence it must be denominated the fame. The water of the hasty River would not be called the fame River, if the Channel which it runs in were not the fame: Nor your Candle be called the fame Candle, if fome of the first Wick or Oyl at leaft did not remain, or the fame fire continue it, or the fame Candlestick hold it. And what is it in the Tree which is ftill the fame? or what in the Bird that flyeth about, which is ftill the fame? when you have fearched all, you will finde nothing fo likely as the vital Principle, and yet that fomething there must be.

2. But doth not the light of Nature, and the concurrent fenfe and practice of all the World confute you? and tell you that if you cannot underftand what the Individuating Principle is, yet that certainly fome fuch there is and doth continue. Why elfe will you love and provide for your own Children, if they be not at all the fame that you begat, nor the fame this year as you had the laft? Why will you be revenged on the Man that did beat you, or hang the Thief that robbed you, or do Juftice on any Murderer or Malefactor, feeing that it is not the fame man that did the deed? If he tranfpire as much as Sandorius faith, and his fubftance diminish as much in a day as Opicius faith, certainly a few dayes leave him not the fame as to thofe tranfitory parts. Surely therefore there is fomething which is ftill the fame. Elfe you would deny the King his title, and difoblige your felves from your subjection, by saying that he is not at all ↑ The fumm of their the fame man that you fwore Allegiance to, or that was Reafons, who thinke born Heir of the Crown. And you would by the fame reason that Bodies at the Refurrection are Identi- forfeit your own Inheritance. Why fhould uncertain Philofied only by the Souls fophical whimfies befool men into thofe fpeculations, which identity, you may fee the light and practice of all the world doth condemn as madin Thom. Whites nefs. But arguing ab ignotis will have no better fuccefs. Of Theolog.Inftitut.To. 2. li. 3. Le&. 4. P. the individuation of Bodies in the Refurrection I spake be239.340. foret.

OBJECT.

I'

OBJECTION XVII.

F the Soul be a fubftance, we must confefs it not annihilated: Read Plotinus in EnBut it is most like to proceed from feme Element of Souls, or nead. 4. pig. 374• Univerfal Soul, either the Anima Mundi, or rather the Ani- (Ed. Bafil.) de inma Solis, vel hujus fyftematis: And fo to be reduced to it a- rum. As also the fol gain, and lufe its individuation, and confequently to be unca- Lowing pages, proving pable of Retribution.

dividuatione Anima

that our Souls are not

pag. 377. Quomodo

Anfw. 1. That the Soul which we fpeak of is a fubftance, parts of the Anima is paft all controverfie: For though, as I have fhewed, there Mundi. Et fect. 8. is truely an order or temperament of the parts, which he that anime differant: & lifteth may call the form, the life, the foul, or what he pleafe; quomodo fint imyet no man denyeth but that there is alfo fome one part mortales in forma which is more fubtile, pure, active, potent, and regnant than propria reftances? the reft; and this is it (whatever it is) which I call the Soul. We are agreed of the Thing; let them wrangle de nomine who have nothing else to doe.

2. That this fubftance (no fubftance elfe) is not annihilated, as I have faid, is paft difpute.

3. Therefore there is nothing indeed in all this business which is liable to Controverfie, but this point of Individuation, which this Objection mentioneth; and that of action and operation following.) And I must confefs that this is the only particular, in which hereabouts I have found the temptation to error to be much confiderable. They that fee how all waters come from the Sea, and how Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, have a potent inclination of union, and when the parts are feparated, have a motus aggregativus, may be tempted to think it a probable thing, that all Souls come from, and return unto a univerfal Soul or Element of which they are but particles. But concerning this, I recommend to the fober Reader thefe following Confiderations.

1. There is in Nature more than a probability that the Read the Note in the Universe hath no Universal Soul (whatever particular Sy- Margin of the last ftems or Globes may have). For we finde that Perfection Leaf. lyeth fo much in Unity, and as all things are from One, fo as they go out from One, they go into Multiplicity, that we have great caufe to think, that it is the Divine Prerogative

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to be Unicus Univerfalis. He is the Unicus Univerfalis in Entity, Life, Intelligence, &c. As he hath made no one Monarch of all the Universe (no nor of all the Earth) nor no one Head of all the Church, that is not God (whatever the Roman Vice-god fay) nor hath given any one a fufficiency hereto; (whatever a felf-Idolizer may imagine of himself;-) fo he hath not given away or communicated that Prerogative, which feemeth proper to the Deity, to be an Univerfal Minde, and confequently an Univerfal Parent, and King yea more, to be Omnia in Uno. Having no fort of proof that there is any fuch thing, finding it fo high and Divine a Prerogative, we have little reafon to believe that there is any fuch thing at all in being.

2. If you mean therefore no more than an Univerful Soul to a particular Syfteme, or Vortex in the World, that Univerfal will be it self a particular Soul, Individuated, and diftinct from other Individuals. And indeed those very Elements that tempt you, might do much to undeceive you. There is of Fire a specifical Unity, by which it differeth from other Elements; but there is no univerfal aggregation of all the parts of Fire. The Sun which feemeth most likely to contend for it, will yet acknowledge, individual Starrs and other parts of Fire, which fhew that it is not the whole. The Water is not all in the Sea: we know that there is much in the Clouds, whatever there is elsewhere (above the Clouds). We have no great caufe to think, that this Earth is Terra Univerfalis: I confefs, fince I have looked upon the Moon through a Tube, and fince I have read what Galileus faith of it, and of Venus, and other Planets, I finde little reafon to think that other Globes are not fome of them like our Earth. And if you can believe an Individuation of Greater Souls, why not of Leffer? The fame reasons that tempt you to think that the Individuation of our Souls will cease, by returning into the Anima Syftema tis vel Solis, may tempt you to think that the anima fyftematum may all ceafe their Individuation by returning into God (and their existence too.)

3. If this were left as an unrevealed thing, you might take fome liberty for your Conjectures. But when all the Twenty Arguments which I have given, do prove a con

tinued Individuation and Retribution, it is deceitful and ab- . furd to come in with an unproved dream againft it, and to argue, ab ignoto, against fo many cogent arguments.

4. And we have proved fupernatural revelation to fecond this, which is evidence more than fufficient to bear down your unproved conjectures.

5. If it had been doubtful whether the fouls individuation ceafe, (and nothing of all the reft is doubtful) yet this would not make fo great a difference in the cafe as fome imagine; for it would confefs the perpetuity of fouls, and it would not overthrow the proof of a Retribution, if you confider thefe four things.

1. That the parts are the fame in union with the whole, as when they are all feparated. Their nature is the fame, and as Epicurus and Democritus fay of their atoms, they are still diftinguishable, and are truly parts, and may be intellectualy feparated the fame individual water which you caft out of your bottle into the fea, is fomewhere in the fea still; and though contiguous to other parts, is difcernable from them all by God. The Hecceity, as they fay, remaineth.

2. That the love of individuation, and the fear of the cealing of our individuation, is partly but put into the. creature from God pro tempore, for the prefervation of individuals in this prefent life. And partly it is inordinate, and is in man the fruit of his fall, which confifteth in turning to SELFISHNESS from GOD. And we know not how much of our recovery confifteth in the cure of this felfishness; and how much of our perfection in the ceffation of our individuate affections, cares and labours, Nature teacheth many men by Societies, to unite as much as poffible, as the means of their common fafety, benefit, and comfort: and earth, water, air, and all things, would be aggregate. Birds of a feather will flock together. And love, which is the uniting affection, especially to a friend who is fit for union with us in other refpects, is the delight of life. And ifour fouls were fwallowed up of one common foul, (as water caft into the fea is ftill moift and cold, and hath all its former proper ties, fo) we should be ftill the fame; and no man can give a juft reason why our forrows or joys fhould be altered ever the more by this.

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3. And