Southern Hemisphere, as in every other quarter of the globe. So general a suffrage of almost the whole of the human race in favour of this opinion, is surely a very strong presumption of its truth. It proves it to be no less conformable to the natural apprehensions of the untutored mind, than to the soundest principles of philosophy; and it will, I apprehend, receive no small confirmation from considering some of the more remarkable operations of the soul itself.

It is evident that the intellectual part of our frame exercises a superintending and sovereign command over the body. It moves, directs, controls, supports, protects, and governs the whole corporeal system. Now, in other cases, we see that the moving power is something different from the machine it actuates. We are, therefore, led by analogy to conclude, that the soul is as distinct from the body as the force of gravity is from the clock which it sets in motion; or the wind that fills the sails, and the pilot that sits at the helm, from the vessel that the one steers and the other impels.

And, indeed, the soul itself gives, in various instances, very strong indications that this is actually the case. That power which it sometimes exerts, when immersed in profound thought, of abstracting itself, or being absent, as it were, from the body, and paying no regard to the impressions made upon it by external objects; that authority by which it corrects and over-rules the reports made to it by the senses, for which it immediately substitutes the conclusions of its own judgment; that facility, with which, by turning the mental eye inward, and contemplating itself and all its wonderful operations, in the management of its internal stores, it forms a new set of ideas, peculiarly its own, purely intellectual and spiritual; that vigour which it sometimes manifests in the most excruciating disorders, and even at the approach of death, when its earthly tenement is all shattered and decayed; the essential difference there is between the pains and pleasures of the body and of the mind; the emotions often raised in us, without any external impression, by the eminent virtues of great and good men, in distant ages and countries; the astonishing activity and vivacity, the fertility of invention, and rapidity of transition, which the soul frequently displays in dreams, when the

body and all its senses and powers are benumbed and locked up in sleep; the variety of unexpected scenes, which it then, by a kind of enchantment, raises up to view; the strange and unheard-of places, incidents, and conversations it sometimes creates, totally unconnected with any occurrences of the preceding day, and of which not the smallest traces are to be found in the memory; and, above all, that astonishing, yet well-attested phenomenon of sleep-walking, where, though the eyes are insensible to all external impressions, and sometimes entirely closed, yet the somnambulist directs himself, with the most unerring certainty, through the most intricate windings, and over the most dangerous precipices, and, without any apparent assistance from the organs of sense, has been known to read, write, and compose. All these circumstances taken together, must be allowed to form a very strong accumulation of evidence, that our thinking part is something more than mere organical mechanism, something, in short, distinct, and capable of acting separately from our corporeal frame. Bishop Porteus.

It is a most astonishing mystery to see heaven and earth married together in one person; the dust of the ground and an immortal spirit clasping each other with such dear embraces and tender love; such a noble and divine guest to take up its residence within the mean walls of flesh and blood. Alas, how little affinity, and yet what dear affection is found betwixt them!

The first thing which arrests our thoughts and requires their attention and exercise, is the nature of the soul, or what kind of being

it is.

Those that are most curiously inquisitive into all other beings, and put nature upon the rack to make her confess her secrets, are in the mean time found shamefully slight and negligent in the study of themselves. Few there are that can prevail with themselves to sit down and think close to such questions as these: "What manner of being is this soul of mine? whence came it? why was it infused into this body? and where must it abide, when death has dislodged it out of this frail tabernacle?" There is a natural aversion in man to such exercises of thought as these, although in the whole universe of beings in this lower world, a more noble creature is not to be found.

The soul is the most wonderful and astonishing piece of divine workmanship; it is no hyperbole to call it the breath of God, the beauty of men, the wonder of angels, and the envy of devils. One soul is of more value than all the bodies in the world.

The nature of it is so spiritual and sublime, that it cannot be perfectly known by the most acute and penetrating understanding, assisted in the search by all the aid philosophy can contribute.

It is not my design to treat of the several faculties and powers of the soul, or to give the rise, nature, or numbers of its affections and passions; but I shall confine myself to its general nature and original. And seeing " none can so well discover the nature of it, as he who is the author of it," as Tertullian speaks, I therefore justly expect the best light from his words, though I will not neglect any other aid he is pleased elsewhere to afford.

The soul is variously denominated from its several powers and offices, as the sea from the several shores it washes. I will not spend time about the several names by which it is known to us in scripture, but give that description of it, with which my understanding is most satisfied.

1. It is a substance. That is to say, not a quality, or an accident inhering in another being, as whiteness doth in snow; but a being by itself. Qualities and accidents have no existence of their own, but require another being, or subject to their existence; but the soul of man is a substantial being of itself, which will evidently ap pear upon the following grounds:

Because it is, in a strict and proper sense, created by God: “He formeth, or createth the spirit in man," Zech. xii. 1. To him we are advised to "commit it, as to a faithful Creator," 1 Pet. iv. 19. The substantial nature of the soul is implied in the very notion of its creation; for whatsoever is created, is a substance, an ens par se. Accidents are not said to be created, but concreated; the crasis of humours and results of matter are not substances created, but things rising in a natural way from created substances. They flow from, and, as to their essence, depend upon pre-existent matter; but the soul was created out of nothing, and infused into the body after it was formed and organized; which evidenceth its substantial nature,

This evidenceth the soul to be a substance; that it can and doth exist, and subsist by itself alone, when separated from the body by death, (Luke xxiii. 43.)" To-day shalt thou, (i. e. thy soul) be with me in paradise;" and Matt. x. 20. "Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul." Were the soul but an accident, a quality, or a result, be that kills the body must needs kill the soul too: as he that casts a snowball into the fire, must needs destroy the whiteness with the snow, Accidents fail and perish with their subjects; but seeing it is plain, in these and many other scriptures, the sol doth not fail with the body, nothing can be more plain and evident, than that it is of a substantial nature.

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When the Spaniards came first among the poor Indians, they thought the horse and his rider to be one creature; as many ignorant ones think the soul and body of man to be nothing but breath and body: whereas indeed, they are two distinct creatures, as vastly different in their natures as the rider and his horse, or the bird and cage. While the man is on horseback, he moves according to the motion of the horse; and while the bird is incaged, he eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and hops, and sings in his cage. But if the horse fall and die under his rider, or the cage be broken, the man can go on his own feet, and the bird enjoy itself as well, yea better, in the open fields and woods, than in the cage; neither depend, as to being or action, on the horse or the cage.

Both scripture and philosophy consent in this, that the soul is the chief, most noble, and principal part of man, from which the whole man is, and ought to be denominated. So Gen.xlvi. 26. "All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt," i. e. all the persons; as the Latins say, tot capita, so many heads or persons. The apostle, in 2.Cor. v. 8. seems to exclude the body from the notion of personality, when he saith, "We are willing to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." That we, a term of personality, is here given to the soul, exclusive of the body, for the body cannot be absent from itself; but we, that is, the souls of believers, may be both absent from it, and present with Christ.

To this we may add 2 Cor. iv. 16. where the soul is called the

❝ man,” and the " inner man" too, the body being but the external

face or shadow of the man. And to this philosophers agree. The best philosophers are so far from thinking that the body is the substantial part of man, and the soul a thing dependant on it, that contrarily they affirm, that the body depends upon the soul, and that it is the soul that conserves and sustains it; and that the body is in the soul, rather than the soul in the body, and that which is seen is not the man, but that is the man which is invisible, that the body might be killed and the man not hurt; meaning the soul, which only deserves the name of man. Now if it be the chief part of man, and that which is only worthy the name of man, and from which, therefore, the whole is and ought to be denominated a man; if it be so far from depending on the body, that the body rather depends upon it, and is in it, then surely the soul must be, what we describe it to be, a substantial being.

It is past all controversy, that the soul is a substance, because it is the subject of properties, affections, and habits; which is the very strict and formal notion of a substance. All the affections and pas sions of hope, desire, love, delight, fear, sorrow, and the rest, are all rooted in it, and springing out of it; and for habits, arts and sciences, it is the soul in which they are lodged and seated. Having once gotten a promptitude to act, either by some strong, or by some fre quently repeated acting, they abide in the soul, even when the acts are intermitted; as in sleep, a navigator, scribe, or musician, are really artists, when they are neither sailing, or writing, or playing; because the habits still remain in their minds, as is evident in this, that when they awake, they can perform their several works, without learning the rules of their art anew.

II. The soul is a vital substance, i, e. a substance which hath an essential principle of life in itself—a living, active being; and by this it is distinguished from and opposed to matter or body. The soul moves itself and the body too; it hath a self-moving power or virtue in itself; whereas the matter or body is wholly passive, and is moved and acted, not by itself, but by this vital spirit. "The body without the spirit is dead." James ii. 26. It acts not at all, but as it is acted by this invisible spirit. This is so plain, that it admits of sensible proof and demonstration. Take mere matter, and