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SERMON XVII.

That the Soul lives in a State of Sepaparation.

ECCLES. xii. 7.

Then fhall the Duft return to the Earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it.

IN

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XVII.

N the Verses preceding this of my Text, SER M. Solomon defcribes the Infirmities of old Age and the Approaches of Death in all its Degrees, with a great deal of Pomp, and in many beautiful and lofty Figures; and having fhewn its several Steps, and the Wastes it gradually makes on our Body, he intimates at laft in the Words I have read to you what will be the Confequence when it totally prevails: Then fhall the Duft return to God who gave it.

The Truth of the firft Part of this Affertion, or the Fall of the Duft into Duft again, we have already feen and examined at large: We have traced the Subject

of

XVII.

SERM. of our Diffolution or Death both in its Cause and Effect, from the first Threat and Denunciation of it against Adam in Paradife, to the Execution of it upon him and his whole Pofterity to the Grave. But this left us in too melancholy a State for Man to acquiefce in, without carrying his Thoughts beyond it. Death, as gloomy a Profpect as it is now, would still be a much more melancholy View, if it put an End to the whole Man at once. For there is nothing we have fo much an Averfion to, as a total Annihilation: Nothing our Nature defires more than to continue and exist. It may therefore be an agreeable Profecution and Relief of the Subject I have begun, if after having contemplated that what is visible of us must soon have an End, I go on to prove that there is fomething invifible belonging to us which shall still remain.

For though we firmly believe that hereafter we shall live in our Bodies again; and that they fhall not for ever remain in the Grave; yet fince we know they must be Prisoners of the Grave for a certain Time; that during that Time they must rot into Duft, and lie there as infenfible as Duft can be; it must be fome Confolation to think that

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XVII.

the Soul, the mean while, is alive, and though SER M ftripped of its Cafe, can yet live and act without it. And therefore before I come to fpeak of that perfect Triumph over Death and the Grave, which the whole Man expects to obtain, hereafter, when his Body and Soul fhall be united again, and to which the Order of these Difcourfes will lead me; I think it expedient and neceffary too, to fhew first that during this intermediate Space it is but a partial Conqueft and Victory that Death gains over us: He cannot render it total and compleat; but whilst he feizes and lays hold of our Duft, is forced to leave our Soul untouched and still surviving. And this is so much the more neceffary to be done, because not only Atheists who deny any future State at all, but even Men who call themselves Chriftians, and profefs to believe a Refurrection and the World to come, are yet ready to dispute the Soul's Existence or Being in a feparate State. The Socinians, a Class of Men, whose Name and Opinions have been known too much and too well of late, have so far united and jumped in their Sentiments with Atheists themfelves, as to affert-the Soul to be a material Spirit, generated, growing and falling with the Body; though they ftill indeed have fo VOL. II. € c much

XVII.

SER M. much Modesty left as to affert that Body and Soul ftill rife again bereafter at the Sound of the Voice of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God. However, I fay, in the Opinion of the Nature and Existence of the Soul, Atheist and Socinian both agree: Both affirm without a Mafk, and without a Blush, that the Soul is only the Flame of Life, which is kindled in the Body at its Formation or Birth, and again extinguished when the Body dies: Wifer, it feems, than the wifeft of Men, that have lived before, who in the Words of my Text partly fuppofes, and partly affirms the direct contrary to what our prefent Sophifts advance. He fuppofes à Spirit in every Man distinct from the Duft, and affirms that this Spirit, when the Duft fhall return to its native Principle, to the Earth as it was, fhall continue to live and exift by itself, it shall then return to God who gave it. Now by the Spirit here which Solomon names in Oppofition to the Duft, it is plain he means the thinking part of Man or Soul. The Doctrine therefore which iffues from the Text, and which I defign for the Subject of this Discourse, in Oppofition to the Notions I have here laid down, branches of itfelf into thefe two Particu lars: viz.

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I. FIRST,

1. FIRST, That the Soul is a fpiritual Substance distinct from the Body: And

- II. SECONDLY, That it continues to livé and exist when the Body dies.

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SERM.
XVII.

I. In the Profecution of the FIRST of these Heads, which is to prove that the Soul is a fpiritual Substance, diftinct from the Body, I fhall not trouble you with the various Opinions of Philofophers and others concerning the Nature and Powers of the Soul, and in what particular Part of the Body her Throne is placed; nor fhall I needlefly inquire into her Origin or Source, as whether fhe is derived together with the Body down from the firft Man through our Ancestors to us; or whether she takes Poffeffion of the Body, after fhe had exifted many Ages before in a separate State, or whether laftly she is purposely created and infused at the fame Inftant into the Body by God himself? These are Questions I shall leave entirely unexamined; they being fuch as it is only in the Power of him that made them to folve; for the Soul muft tranfcend herself to judge of them, for no Circle can comprehend itself, or be comprehended

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