quently that the resurrection, which we Christians profess to believe in our creed, is of the whole man both soul and body. Out of the abundance of texts of Scripture, that refute this error, I shall make choice of some few, that do it most clearly and expressly.

And first even in the Old Testament, we have a full testimony given to this truth, that the soul subsists after the death of the body, by Solomon, Eccles. xii. 7. where, describing man's death and dissolution, he saith, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave itp. The plain and evident sense of which words is this: Whereas man consists of two parts, body and soul, the condition of these two, when a man dies, will be very different: for the body being at first taken out of the dust of the earth, and so of a corruptible constitution, shall go back into the earth again, and moulder into dust; but the soul, as it is of another and more excellent original, (as being at first inspired immediately by God himself into the body,) shall not perish with the body, but return to that God, from whom it came; in whose hands it shall continue safe and inviolate, according to that of the author of the Book of Wisdom, chap. iii. 1. But the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them. For Solomon seems to speak of the end of man according to God's first intention and ordination, which was, that the soul of man, after

P [The whole of this passage," The plain and evident sense"universal judgment, ver. 13, 14." is repeated with little variation in Sermon VIII., which appears to have been written first.]

death, should go to God and the heavenly beings; and not of the accidental event of things, happening through man's sin and wickedness, whereby it comes to pass, that the souls of many men, when they die, instead of going to God, go to the Devil and the infernal regions. Though it is true also, that the spirit of every man after death, good or bad, in some sense goes to God, either as a Father, or as a Judge, to be kept somewhere under the custody of his almighty power, in order to the receiving of his final sentence at the last judgment, either of happiness or misery. And accordingly the Wise Man a little after subjoins the article of a future universal judgment, ver. 13,

14.

But if any man yet doubt what Solomon intends here by the soul's returning to God, and not to the earth with the body, let him consult the third chapter of this Book of Ecclesiastes. Where he first declares his thoughts of an impartial judgment of God, that shall happen at a certain determinate time, both to the righteous and the wicked, according to their different works and actions, ver. 17. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. And then in the following verses to the end of the chapter, he expresseth another thought or suggestion, that sometime came into his mind, opposite to the former; or rather he represents the thought of the profane person, viz. that there is no such future judgment; that religion is a vain thing; that there is no difference between the soul of a man and a brute, but that they both perish together with their bodies; and consequently, that it is a man's best course, freely to enjoy what this

present life affords him, and that it is a vain thing to expect any better estate in another world. In which discourse he introduceth the Epicurean (if I may be allowed so to call him by an anticipation). thus deriding the notion of the soul's immortality, ver. 21. Who knoweth the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? As if he had said, As for the talk of man's soul being immortal, who can demonstrate that problem? Who can discern any sign of difference betwixt the soul of a man and a brute, that shall prove that the one goes upward to the region of permanent and eternal beings, the other downwards, that is, perisheth together with its body, that moulders in the earth. Certainly hence it is most clear, that the phrase of man's spirit going upward, signifies, in Solomon's sense, something directly opposite to the condition of the soul of a beast, that dies together with its body; that is, that it signifies the immortality of man's soul, and its subsistence after the death of the body. Now what Solomon doth here in the beginning of this book question in the person of the Epicurean, whether the spirit of man when he dies doth thus go upward, he doth clearly in the text before cited, towards the end of the same book, (where he expresseth his own most serious and resolved thoughts,) peremptorily determine in these words: Then shall the dust return to the earth: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

The matter is plain and evident. The New Testament very often and most expressly delivers the same doctrine. Our Saviour, Matt. x. 28. thus exhorts his disciples: Fear not them which kill the

body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. What can be more clear? If the soul had such a necessary dependence on the body, that when this dies, itself must needs die with it; then he that kills the body would with the same stroke murder the soul too. But our Saviour tells us, that this is impossible for man to do; the soul remaining even after the death of the body, and being out of the reach of any created power that is able to destroy it. If it be said, that this is meant only of the utter destruction of the soul, which no man is able to effect, God having promised a resurrection to life again; this will appear to be only a wretched shift, to avoid the force of the plainest text. For in this sense our Saviour might have as well denied, that it is in the power of a man to kill the body of another man, that is, to destroy it utterly and finally, because God will raise it again at the last day. But our blessed Lord grants, that the body may be killed by man in the same sense, wherein he denies, that the soul can be destroyed by him; and therefore speaks not this only with reference to the resurrection.

The same our blessed Saviour assures our belief of this truth by his own example, when, being at the point of death, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, Luke xxiii. 46.

He believed that he had a spirit, a superior soul, that after the death of his body, and the extinction of his animal soul, should still remain; and this he recommends to the gracious and safe custody of his Father. And lest we should think that this was a peculiar privilege of the soul of the Messias, St. Stephen, when dying, after the same manner com

mits his spirit to Christ himself, then exalted at the right hand of the Father, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, Acts vii. 59.

Again, how express are those words of Christ to the penitent thief on the cross; Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise? Luke xxiii. 43. This certainly is a plain promise to the thief, that on the very same day, wherein he died with Christ, his soul (for his body was to be taken down from the cross, and buried in the earth) should be with Christ in paradise. His soul therefore died not with his body, but, immediately after death, went with Christ's soul to paradise, eis tòv idiov tótov, to the proper place, for so great and illustrious a penitent. The subterfuges and shifts of heretics to evade this text are so perfectly ridiculous, that I must make. myself ridiculous if I should mention them, much more if I should go about seriously to refute them.

Of

Farther, we read expressly in the New Testament of separate spirits of men, both good and bad. the spirits of good men departed, the divine author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks, when he tells us, that we Christians are joined not only to an innumerable company of angels, but also to the society of the spirits of just men made perfect, or that have finished their course, Heb. xii. 23. Of the spirits and souls of wicked men remaining after death St. Peter as expressly speaks, 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison; which sometimes were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, &c. How and when Christ preached to those spi4 [τετελειωμένων.]

T

[For the opinion of the Ante-Nicene Fathers concerning this VOL. I.

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