We should next examine how it is that Dr. Coward concludes the generation and individuality of Soul and body.-Thus then I argue, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but the Soul as well as the body is generated and comes of flesh: Ergo, the Soul is a material and not an immaterial intelligent Spirit. The major of these propofitions is apparently agreeable to the course of nature; and Joh. iii. 6. fufficiently supported by our Lord's own affertion. The minor I prove by Gen. v. 3. Adam begat a fon in his own likeness, after his image. but he could not be a living perfon without a Soul or Spirit. Jam. ii. 26. the body without the spirit is dead: and nature agrees, viz. that one cannot be a living perfon, unless he have the two effential parts, which conftitute the fame; viz, body and Soul.a This is a chain of fyllogiftical reasoning, one would not have expected from a perfon of fo much fagacity, penetration and learning: fince the very first authority lies level against him, viz. John iii. 6. which declares, that that which is born of the flesh, is flesh in manifeft contradiftinction to a Ib. part II. p. 165. that that which is born of the fpirit, which is fpirit. For I presume to understand both these propofitions, as what, at the fame time, are affirmed concerning the fame identical man. And if they be, the conclufion of the Soul's being a material, and not an immaterial intelligent fpirit, is unjust.-And yet, we allow, that this fpirit is not the effect of generation by the earthy parent; but the production or fruit of the intelligent Soul's converfing with truth and conforming to its directions. See Job. i. 13. Whatever therefore are the abilities of the propagated faculties, which become capable of improvement and enlargement from moral cultivation; we must be conftrained, by this divine authority to own, is wholly contradiftinct from that which is born of flesh: and can be no other than an immaterial, intelligent fpirit. The other text in James, does not afford any thing like a proof of the Soul's materiality, neither does it intimate its derivation. from flesh but rather imports, the fubordination of the body, whofe vitality is fub fervient to the Soul, in its present operations; the body without the Soul is dead. Yet, Yet, the abfolute diftinction and final feparation of Soul and body, feems expreffly to have been taught by ASAPH; my flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the ftrength, the rock of my heart, and my portion for ever. Pf. lxxiii. 26. And our Lord plainly teacheth us to diftinguifh with precifion between the Soul and the body, where he fhews, that all fuccours or fupplies of the bodily life, are, upon quite a different principle to what concerns the man, in the great article of moral, fpiritual purity and defilement. Matth. xv. 17, 18. Do ye not un→ derftand, that whatsoever entreth in at the mouth, goeth into the belly, and is caft out by the animal or bodily fecretions. But those things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, and they defile the man. Here is a most precife and determinate idea given of man; which does not greatly encourage us to confider this organized body, as an effential of his exiftence. Another paffage might be mentioned, that will as little favour the materialist's opinion, viz. 3 Job. 2. Beloved, I pray, above all things, that thou mayeft profper and be in bealth, even even as thy Soul profpereth. Do but allow me to suppose there is any obvious sense or meaning in these words, they will at least prove, that a Soul may be healthy and vigorous, with a diftempered, fickly body. Which fingle confideration will fhew, that our author has affirmed too much, when he has made the human Soul fo abfolutely dependent on the body, as we have seen he has done. He, all along, seems to mistake the animal, vegitative Soul or life, and to confound it with the intellectual and rational: though there is not any thing more certain, than that the offices and functions of the merely animal Soul, are not a fubject either of the perception, difcernment, or volition of the intellectual and rational. But much pains has been taken, in this Search after Souls, to prove the rationality of brutes, by way of illuftration to the materialist's argument. We have faid, that beafts do know by fingle intellect, and are taught to remember duty, and deny their appetites, and obey their teachers and other men, in things which they have learned, and ufe both both obedience, and a rational fubtilty in them.a Again, I conceive, that by an education among men, and a converfation with them; Some beafts may attain, and have obtained to fuch confcient faculties, as are agreeable to the low degrees of their understanding.-He infanceth, in the maftiff-dog, fhewing figns of fhame and guilt, having worried a sheepand in the fetting dog, whofe confcient power fmités him, for fpringing too soon at his game, from an over eagerness. Admit of all this, what does it, what can it prove, more than the fagacity which is fuited to the fenfible condition of brutes ? confeffed indeed by this writer, to be only agreeable to the low degrees of their underftanding. But are there in them any fort of faculty or power, that would determine their being only probationers, and certain candidates for immortality. This Philofopher fhall reply, where he enumerates the qualities which are emanent from life-the first, is motion; the fecond, nutrition; the third, growth or vegetation; the fourth, is affective paffion; the fifth, a Search after Souls, p. 139. * Part II. p. 185. |