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expect fome invifible Vengeance to pursue them; efpecially the least Approach of Death puts them into Agonies and Fears, and they go into the other World Self-condemn'd, expecting to find there the juft Recompence of all the Mifchiefs they have done here. If all this be Dream and Fancy, 'tis a ftrange Fairy Land and enchanted World we live in; we have not one true Notion of any thing; either thefe Principles, which we find ftick most close to us, are all falfe, or we know not how to draw one true Conclufion from them; Nature and our most natural Notions and Ideas are as mere Riddles, Mysteries, and Contradictions, as these Men pretend all Revelation to be.

Thus I have fhewn you, what natural and moral Proofs we have of the Immortality of the Soul, and a Future State: And now I fhall briefly Sum up the Evidence, and see what it amounts to. And if we have all the Evidence that Reafon and Nature can poffibly give us in fuch a Cafe, we have all the natural Evidence that any wife confidering Man can expect.

Let any reasonable Man then confider, what Evidence he would expect from mere Nature, of the Immortality of the Soul. Now it is certain, this Evidence muft be from within, not from without; we must find it in our felves, not in the vifible Creation: For the external Frame and Conftitution of the World cannot prove human Souls to be Immortal, as it proves the Being of a God, who made it. If Nature then can discover the Immortality of the Soul, it must be our own Nature; and if we must learn our own Immortality by reflecting upon our felves, there can be no other way of doing this, but by confidering what the Nature of the Soul is, or what its natural Notions, Ideas, and Paffions are.

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As for the first, I have fhewn you by all the fair Probabilities that Reafon and Philosophy can fur nifh us with, That the Soul is by Nature immor tal, and therefore cannot die with the Body, but muft furvive in a feparate State, for it is an immaterial Being, perfectly diftinct from the Body, and independent on it. For as far as we can judge, all that peculiarly belongs to the Saul, fuch as confcious Life, Senfe, and Underftanding, is not ef fential to Matter. There is no other thinking, living, reafoning Matter in the World; and therefore there can be no Reafon to fay, that the Soul, which is a thinkings understanding reafoning Being, is mere Matter. And if Life, Senfe, and Understanding be not effential to Matter, as it is certain they are not, because all Matter has not Life, Senfe, and Understanding; it is very unreafonable to think they fhould be in any Subject to which they do not effentially belong; for they are not tranfient mutable Accidents, but the most real effential Things in Nature: And yet if there be no Subject or Nature, to which they eflentially belong, they are mere perifhing Accidents, which might never have been, and may never be again.

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Befides this, there is no natural Connexion. be tween Matter, and the Affections of Matter, and Thinking; nay, as I have fhewn you, there is a natural Incapacity in Matter to think: For all Thoughts and Ideas are immaterial, and immaterial Thoughts and Ideas can never be lodged in Matter. Now, though I will not fay, that thefe are demonftrative Arguments of the immaterial and Ipiritual Nature of the Soul, because we can't pretend to fuch a perfect Knowledge of the, Nature either of Body or Spirit, as will amount to a Der monstration; yet I will fay, that the most visible Advantage is on that fide; that there are better natural Arguments to prove the Soul to be a Spirit,

than any that can be produc'd to prove it to be mere Matter: And if it be a Spirit, it may live when the Body dies.

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Nay, we have feveral moral Arguments to prove that the Soul can fubfift and be happy in a State of Separation from the Body: For the Soul has a Happiness proper and peculiar to it self, such as the Pleafures of Wifdom, and Knowledge, and Virtue, and Religion, which are immediately feated in the Mind, and have no relation to the Body, any otherwife than as the Soul lives and acts in the Body, and governs all its Motions: And yet thefe are the greateft and divineft Pleasures, and thefe the Soul is capable of in a feparate State. And if it have a Happiness independent on the Body, it must have a Principle of Life independent on the Body alfo. And yet our Souls never attain their juft Perfection of this intellectual and fpiritual Happinefs, while they live in thefe Bodies, but make a gradual Progrefs toward Perfection; which is a good Argument that this Life is only a State of Trial and Probation, for a more perfect Life. For can we think, that when the Soul has arriv'd to the greatelt Improvements it can make in this Body, it fhall immediately fall into nothing? Thefe are very fenfible Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul; and if they prove ho more, yet certainly they prove thus much, That the Soul cannot die as the Body does, but may live and be happy in a feparate State. And this alone is enough to confound the Philofophy, and to deftroy the unnatural Hopes and vain Security of Infidels.

But the next Argument, I think, carries this a little higher, That all Mankind have a natural Senfe and Perfuafion of their own Immortality.

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For it is not easy to conceive, were human Souls rhortal, how it should come to pass that all Men fhould agree in this Belief, That their Souls are immortal. But when we have fo many Arguments to prove that our Souls are immortal, the univerfal Confent of Mankind in this Belief is a very good Argument to prove it to be the Voice and Senfe of Nature: For it is reasonable to think, that if the Soul be immortal, it fhould have fome natural Senfe of its own Immortality.

Efpecially, if to this we add that univerfal Defire of Immortality, which confirms the univer fal Belief of it. That thefe Defires are univerfal, proves that they are natural and the Defires of Nature never rife above it felf. And therefore a mortal Nature cannot naturally defire Immortality: Nor can that Nature be mortal, which has a natural Senfe and Defire of Immortality. Thefe natural Defires of Immortality confirm our natural Senfe and Belief of it: For natural Defires must be founded in a natural Senfe and Knowledge; and the natural Belief and Perfuafion of Immortality confirms all the natural Arguments for it. And fuch a concurrent Teftimony as this, is all that we can defire or expect from mere Nature; especially when all this agrees with all thofe other Notions we find in our Minds concerning the Difference of Good and Evil, and the Juftice of the divine Providence, in rewarding good Men, and punishing the Wicked; and the natural Hopes and Fears of good and bad Men. I fay, laying all this together, if there be any fuch thing as a moral Demonftration, I think this may very fairly lay claim to it. I am not fenfible that any thing material can be objected against any of these Arguments, taken fingly; but as they are fupported by each other, there is fuch a Harmony and Confent, as can be owing to nothing but Natures

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and therefore I hope will be of fome Authority, with thofe who reject all other Means of Knowledge. I only defire they would believe with us, till they can produce as great and concurrent an Evidence of Nature on the other fide. And yet, Thanks be to God, we are in a much better State than this, and have greater and better Evidence, than mere Nature, can give us. As will appear from what follows.....

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What farther Evidence the Law of Mofes gives us of the Immortality of the Soul, and a Future State.

SECT. I.

The Mofaical Evidence for the Immateriality of the Soul.

Having thewn, what natural Evidence we

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have for the Immortality of the Soul, and a Future State; the next ftep is, to confider what farther Evidence the Mofaical, Revelation gives us of this. It is very certain that the whole Jewi Nation, except the Saducees, which was but a late Sect, and whom our Saviour himfelf confuted out of their own Law, did firmly believe another Life after this: And yet we do not find any exprefs literal Promife of immortal Life made to good Men under the Law. They

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