the body did not tempt to it. And this is particularly observable in the sins of adultery, drunkenness and gluttony, which the soul of itself cannot commit, neither would it ever consent to them, did not the prevalent humours of the body, as it were, force it to do so. For in these sins, the act that is sinful is wholly performed by the body, though the fulness of that act doth principally depend upon the soul.

Neither is the body only partner with the soul in these grosser sins; but even the more spiritual sins, which seem to be most abstracted from the temperature of the body, as if they depended only upon the pravity and corruption of the soul: I say, even these are partly to be ascribed to the body. For instance, an atheistical thought, which, one would think, was to be laid upon the soul, because the thought takes its rise from thence; yet if we seriously weigh and consider the matter, we shall find, that it is usually the sinful affections of the body that thus debauch the mind into these blasphemous thoughts; and that it is the pleasures of sense that first suggested them to us, and raise them in us. And this appears, in that there was no person that ever was, or indeed ever can be, an atheist at all times; but such thoughts spring up in the fountain of the soul, only when mudded with fleshly pleasures. And thus it is in most other sins; the carnal appetite having gotten the reins into its hands, it misleads the reason, and hurries the soul, wheresoever it pleaseth. And, what then can be more reasonable, than that the body should be punished, both for its usurping the soul's prerogative, and for its tyrannizing so much over that, which, at the first, it was made to be subject to?

But farther, it is the body that enjoys the pleasure, and therefore good reason that the body should likewise bear the punishment of the sin. Indeed, I cannot perceive, how it can stand with the principles of justice, but that the body, which both accompanies the soul in sin, enjoys the pleasures of it, and leads the soul into it, should bear a share in the miseries which are due to, and inflicted upon it. For what doth justice require, but to punish the person that offends, for the offence he commits? whereas if the soul only, and not the body, were to suffer, the person would not suffer at all, the body being part of the person; as well as the soul, and therefore the soul no person without the body.

Hence it is, that though the scriptures had been silent in this point, yet methinks I could not but have believed; how much more firm and steadfast, then, ought I to be in my faith, when truth itself hath been pleased so expressly to affirm it? For thus saith the Lord of hosts, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise,” "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." And thus saith the Saviour of the world, who is the way, the truth, and the life: "the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." The same hath it pleased his divine Majesty to assert and prove with his own mouth, Matt. xxii. 31, 32. and by his Spirit, 2 Cor. xv. and in many other places: from

all which, I may, with comfort and confidence, draw the same conclusion that holy Job did, and say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me."

And, as I believe my body shall be thus raised from the grave, so I believe the other part of me, my soul, shall never be carried to it; I mean it shall never die, but shall be as much, yea, more alive, when I am dying, than it is now; so much my soul shall be the more active in itself, by how much it is less tied and subjected to the body.

And farther I believe, that so soon as ever my breath is out of my nostrils, my soul shall remove her lodging into the other world, there to live as really to eternity, as I now live here in time. Yea, I am more certain, that my soul shall "return to God who gave it," than that my body shall return to the earth, out of which I had it. For I know, it is possible my body may be made immortal, but I am sure my soul shall never be mortal. I know, that at the first, the body did equally participate of immortality with the soul, and that had not sin made the divorce, they had lived together, like loving mates, to all eternity. And I dare not affirm that Enoch and Elias underwent the common fate: or, suppose they did, yet, sure I am, the time will come, when thousands of men and women shall not be dissolved and die, but be immediately changed and caught up into heaven, or, to their eternal confusion,

thrust down into hell; whose bodies, therefore, shall undergo no such thing as rotting in the grave, or being eaten up of worms, but, together with their souls, shall immediately launch into the vast ocean of eternity. But who ever yet read or heard of a soul's funeral? Who is it? Where is the man? Or, what is his name, that wrote the history of her life and death? Can any disease arise in a spiritual substance, wherein there is no such thing as contrariety of principles or qualities to occasion any disorder or distemper? Can an angel be sick or die? And, if not an angel, why a soul, which is endowed with the same spiritual nature here, and shall be adorned with the same eternal glory hereafter? No, no; deceive not thyself, my soul; for it is more certain that thou shalt always live, than that thy body shall ever die.

Not that I think my soul must always live, in despite of omnipotence itself, as if it were not in the power of the Almighty to take my being and existence from me; for I know, I am but a potsherd in the potter's hands, and that it is as easy for him to dash me in pieces now, as it was to raise it up at the first. I believe, it is as easy for him to command my soul out of its being, as out of its body; and to send me back into my mother's nothing, out of whose womb he took me, as it was at first to fetch me thence. I know he could do it, if he would, but himself hath said, he will not, and therefore, I am sure, he cannot do it; and that not because he hath not power, but because he hath not will to do it; it being impossible for him to do that which he doth not will to do. And that it is not his will or

pleasure even to annihilate my soul, I have it under his own hand, that my "dust shall return to the earth as it was; and my spirit to God that gave it." And if it return to God, it is so far from returning to nothing, that it returns to the Being of all beings; and so death to me, will be nothing more than going home to my father and mother; my soul goes to my Father, God; and my body to my mother, earth.

in

Thus, likewise, hath it pleased his sacred Majesty to assure me, that if "our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens:" so clearly hath the great God "brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." The light of nature shows the soul can never perish or be dissolved, without the immediate interposition of God's omnipotence, and we have his own divine word for it, that he will never use that power the dissolution of it. And therefore I may, with the greatest assurance, affirm and believe, that as really as I now live, so really shall I never die; but that my soul, at the very moment of its departure from the flesh, shall immediately mount up to the tribunal of the most high God, there to be judged, first privately, by itself, (or perhaps with some other souls that shall be summoned to appear before God the same moment ;) and then, from these private sessions, I believe that every soul that ever was, or shall be separated from the body, must either be received into the mansions of heaven, or else sent down to the dungeon of hell, there to remain till the grand assizes, the "judgment of the great day,