Spirit of life in man and beaft is that which we ufually call the life-blood of the creature, by which, and the free and brifk circulation thereof, a life of animals is acted and maintained. a The spirit of life in man and beast is indiscriminately the life-blood. We might allow this without any inconvenience, did the Doctor only mean the animating, mechanical principle. But we are constrained to understand him, as taking a much wider compass; and by the life-principle, or spirit of life he intends to comprehend the whole of the intellectual system. For, this Philofopher proceeds to make the growth of the Soul to depend upon the augmentation and increase of the body; according to the Supplement continually made by meats and drinks to the blood, accretion to parts is likewife continually made, or the parts of the body continually augment and increafe, and because the blood is in perpetual circulation and receives continual additions of nutritious juice, the ideas imprefed on the fpirits (the finer part of the blood) cannot but fuffer various alterations, and when they ought to be fixed a See Second Vol. of Search, &c. Obfervations on Dr. Nicholls, p. 44. fixed and fettled, (fuppofe in the brain) a new Alux of nutritious juice blots out the former ideas, and inclines man continually to think and act according to the impreffions the prefent ideas make on him.-Which he illuftrates, by the inconftancy of youth, the mere machinery of Infants, and the difabilities of old age. To much the fame purpose, all those operations reasoning, intellection, volition and memory are but refults or neceffary confequences of life, or matter fo animated and enlivoned. No fpecific difference allowed between the Soul of man and that of the brute: It does not appear that there is in reality any more than a gradual difference in man from brute.i - for they have confcioufnefs, memory, and will common to both. And yet, The foul is not made out of matter, as its conflituent principle, but made, as it were, in the lap and bofom of matter. materiae gremio." Ex It is not a perishing substance: Life or Soul cannot properly be faid to be mortal or "Second thoughts p. 109.• P. 171. e P. 115. i ■ P. 137. corrup i P. 162, corruptible, but it truly returns to God who gave it, Eccl. xii. 7. that is, that power which God implanted in material man at his creation, centers again in God; and as be was the fountain of life in this world, so will be after the refurrection, again re-implant that power, or life, in the fcattered atoms of man, then reunited, to endure to all eternity. -The very notion of life, fo centered in God, muft infer immortality. For our life is bid in God until the refurrection, when it shall again Spring from him, as an emanant ray of omnipotence, and enliven dead matter to endure to all eternity. e I do fay, not that any thing called a Quid humanum, or perfoneity, was, or will be raifed, or a fomething will remain, or furvive the carcass: but I do aver confidently, and am verily perfuaded I am in the right, according to the teftimony of holy fcriptures, that at the refurrection (at any time) a body, To Σwμa, as St. Paul expresses it, such as God is pleased to give, is raised and made spiritual out of the corrupt body of the deceased. i Yet the Doctor tells us, we may expec to quit many of the prefent conftituent * P. 209, 210. e P. 211. i P. parts parts of our frame;-for the lungs, beart, ftomach and inteftines, and indeed the whole inward frame of man, which are now the instruments of continuation and propagation of this present mortal life, can be of no use to a glorified, fpiritualized body. Befides the change of the inward frame of man, which I justly prefume will be useless and infignificant at the refurrection. So I think I may fafely profefs, that I believe the very flesh and blood we now enjoy will be changed alfo.* To this fame purpose: - Therefore, if man shall be endowed with an angelical nature after the refurrection, as undoubtedly be will be, what grounds from reafon or religion can we have to imagine he will be raised with the individual particles of his compofition, feeing the fimilitude of the fame man, composed of Spiritualized flesh, feems to be fufficient to denominate the fame man to be raised from the dead." e One would wonder how this ingenious writer could retain his opinion of the mechanifin, the materiality and mortality of the human Soul, with these conceffions of its centering in God, and with such express P. 438. acknow e P. 434 兽 acknowledgement of its immortality. Or how it was, that he could not distinguish more than he has done, between the powers of man and of the brute. Muft there not be a specific difference acknowledged by him, when he fais,-The Gospel bath affured us, man fhall rife again, and beafts wholly perish3. e And yet, what is his principal aim, but to prove, that the whole man dies, and has no fort of being? The human Soul will ceafe to be when the body dies. i.e. Life and Soul are the fame thing in fcripture. And as we have feen, life is only the continued circulation of the blood. Yet, even this blood or life, or Soul will have no place in the refurrection! This seems very unaccountable; for here is not only a circumftantial, but obviously an effential change of the man! Nor can we be less furprized at his so ftrenuously denying the doctrine of a conscious existence immediately fucceeding this, he thinks he has with evidence exploded; at the fame time, his express conceffions conclude as much as his opponents can reasonably defire of him. We are, fais he, and can be affured but of very few perfons actually |