in which he might behold, in the glorious characters of his residence, the dignity of his own nature, and the high and immortal career of virtue and of happiness which was before him!" Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."

What the nature of man is, its original glory and dignity, its properties and destination, we learn from the words of the Creator; "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:" and also from the historical fact afterwards mentioned, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul." In this language, I conceive, are implied the material frame, the intellectual and spiritual constitution, and the glorious and immortal destination of man. Man is composed of substances that have nothing in common, and that exhibit properties altogether distinct. The body, which was formed of the dust of the ground, is a structure of exquisite skill, fearfully and wonderfully made. Its erect form, the symmetry of its parts, the dignity and gracefulness of its motions, and the power of the countenance to express the emotions of the mind, are illustrative of the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator, and of the elevated rank which he has assigned to man. We should be still more deeply impressed with these views, did we consider the number, the nature, and the uses of its parts; the harmony with which they discharge their functions; the admirable order in which they are arranged into a

system; the organs of sensation, of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling attached to it; its susceptibility of enduring pain, or of enjoying pleasure; and its wonderful power of self-restoration. This corporeal frame is associated with a spiritual substance, and was originally incapable of decomposition or decay, and designed to live in youthful beauty, unaffected by disease or death through eternity.

The soul of man is an immaterial, spiritual substance, the seat of thought, intelligence, and volition. This is not only taught us by the language which refers to its creation, but throughout revelation. It is also necessarily involved in the exercise of those attributes which we know the mind of man to possess. Thought, affection, active power, are not the properties of matter in any of its forms or in any of its combinations. The attributes of the soul, or of that which thinks, and wills, and loves, in man, are not only dif ferent from the properties of matter, but they are so totally and absolutely different in kind as necessarily to imply, that the substances to which they respectively belong are also totally and absolutely different. It would be as just and philosophical to maintain that the body is a spiritual substance, as that the soul is material.

In entire accordance with this view are the statements and the assertions of revelation. The thinking and intelligent beings, concerning whom it gives us information, are declared to be spirits. No one has ever questioned that God is a spirit, and that his nature is the highest sense in spiritual. So obvious is it that. angels are immaterial beings, and so universally is

this truth admitted, that the celebrated advocate for materiality, Dr. Priestley, thought it easier to prove their non-existence, which he attempted, than to disprove their spirituality, which he did not attempt. The nature of the human soul is like the nature of angels, and though created and limited in its faculties, its substance, as spiritual and uncompounded, resembles the ever-blessed God. Whatever objection is brought against the immateriality of the soul, which thinks, and wills, may be brought with equal propriety and force against the immateriality of God or of angels. The circumstance of the soul's being associated with matter has no more force as an objection against its immateriality, than the acknowledged fact, that God and angels have power over matter, may be adduced to prove that their nature is material.

But the language of Scripture everywhere implies the immateriality of the soul. When the dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return to God who gave it. "Into thine hands," says David, “I commit my spirit." "Lord Jesus," says Stephen, "receive my spirit ;" language which implies, and which clearly teaches, that the soul is totally distinct from the material part of man. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were dead more than four hundred years, before God appeared unto Moses in the bush; and yet the declaration of God respecting them is quoted by our Lord, as evidence of the future and the separate existence of spirits; Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but

the God of the living." The same doctrine is taught in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus; and in the answer which our Lord gave to the prayer of the dying malefactor, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." The plain meaning of these words, the only meaning indeed which the person to whom they were addressed could attach to them, certainly is, that though his body should soon be in its grave, his soul would still live, and be with Christ in a state of everlasting blessedness. The same doctrine is maintained by the apostle Paul, when he says, "We are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. To me to live is Christ, and to die gain. I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." How could the Apostle, when absent from the body be present with the Lord; or how could his departure to be with Christ be deemed far better, if his soul was not distinct and different from the body, and if it was not to exist when separated from it?

Did not Moses and Elias actually exist when they appeared with Christ on the mount of transfiguration, and talked with him, and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem? Are we to believe that there was in reality no such thing when an inspired Apostle tells us that he beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and uniting with angels in

ascriptions of glory and praise? How minutely are their former condition, and their present employments and situation described! They came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; they are, therefore, before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and lead them to fountains of living waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Thus, the testimonies of reason, scripture, and common sense, in all ages, and in every country, prove that the soul is a substance totally distinct and different from that of the body, and that it is capable of living in the exercise of all its powers when the body is dissolved. This being considered as proved, the immortality of the soul is most conclusively inferred from it. There is in each of us an undying principle of thought, feeling, and intelligence, which alone imparts interest and beauty to the inanimate creation around us, which, according to its own emotions, clothes the heavens with light or with darkness, and which enjoys and interprets the glories of that universe in which we are placed. Not that I mean to assert, that it is physically and necessarily immortal because it is immaterial; since the highest archangel is as dependent upon God for his being as an insect. But the fact of its being spiritual and immaterial proves that it may exist, and exercise all its powers, though separated from the body. Revelation informs us that