and sink them as much as possible in the estimation of mankind, is to do no real service (although there may have been a sincere intention of doing it) to the cause of Christianity; which has no need, in this or in any other instance, to rise on the ruins of human reason. On the contrary, it disdains not to receive reason as its friend and ally, and occasionally to elucidate and confirm both its doctrines and its precepts, by such collateral arguments as that faculty is capable of supplying. In the present case more especially, the consideration of a future state is a subject so full of comfort and satisfaction, that the mind of man must necessarily love to dwell upon it; must wish to contemplate it in every point of view; to examine it in every light, whether natural or revealed; to let in conviction from every quarter; and must be soothed and delighted to find, that so important an article of belief, on which so much depends both in this life and the next, is perfectly conformable to the natural sentiments of the human heart, and the justest conclusions of the human understanding.

cerest believers. But there are some also (as is but too well known) in every Christian country, who are not believers, and yet profess to receive, on the principles of natural religion, the doctrine of another life, and a day of recompense. Now, no one, I think, would wish to deprive even these of their persuasion, on whatever grounds it rests, that they are formed for immortality, and that they are responsible for their conduct here, at the bar of their Creator hereafter. There are other unbelievers (for they are divided into many different sects) who, though not yet convinced of a future state of existence, are willing to listen to the natural and moral evidences in its favour, and to no others. These, surely, it is of great importance, both to society and to themselves, to bring, if possible, to the acknowledgment of a future retribution. This acknowledgment will, even on their own principles, bind them down to a course of action very different from that which a contrary persuasion would have been apt to produce; and will, moreover, in all probability, pave the for their entire belief of a religion which

way

they will find so perfectly harmonizing with their favourite oracle, Reason, in this most interesting point, and which professes to give them the most authentic information concerning that unseen world, the reality of which they already admit to have been proved. *

Whereas if, on the contrary, with a view of converting the infidel to Christianity, and impressing him with a high sense of its dignity and importance, you set out with assuring him that reason gives us not the slightest hope of immortality; that soul and body perish together in the grave, but are both raised to life again at that general resurrection which the Gospel promises; he will assent probably, without scruple, to the former part of your proposition, but will never be persuaded, on the sole authority of a Revelation which he rejects, to listen to the concluding part.

It may therefore contribute not a little, both to the satisfaction of the Christian, and the conviction of the unbeliever, to state,

* That fundamental doctrine of religion (a future state) would, if believed, open and dispose the mind seriously to attend to the general evidence of the whole.-Butler's Anal. c. i.

in the first place, with as much brevity and perspicuity as the nature of the inquiry will admit, some of the plainest and most obvious of those proofs of a future existence, which our own reason is capable of suggesting to the mind, and then to proceed to those which arise from the Christian Revelation. *

The first question that naturally presents itself on this subject, is, whether that percipient and thinking agent within us, which

*The substance of this and the two following Sermons was written and preached several years ago. The discourse now before us is not, I confess, of that kind which I should have selected for publication. But the progress which the doctrine of materialism has already made on the Continent, and is now endeavouring to make in this Kingdom, induced me to think, that a compendious view of the most intelligible arguments for the immateriality and natural immortality of the soul, as well as of the other principal evidences of a future state, both moral and scriptural, would not be at this time either unseasonable or unuseful. The young reader, at least, for whose use these three discourses were principally intended, will here find (what can alone be expected, on so extensive a subject, in so short a compass,) some general and leading principles to direct his judgment on a question of no small importance; to guard him against too hasty a desertion of the received opinion concerning it; and to prepare him for a more profound and accurate investigation of it, if ever he should feel himself disposed to pursue the inquiry any farther.

we usually call THE SOUL, is only a part of the body, or whether it is something totally distinct from it? If the former, it must necessarily share the extinction of the body by death; and there is an end at once of all our natural hopes of immortality. If, on the other hand, the latter supposition of its distinct subsistence be the true one; it is plain that there will then be no reason to presume, that the intellectual and the corporeal part of our frame must perish together. That fatal stroke which deprives the latter of life and motion, may have no other effect on the former, than that of dislodging it from its present earthly tabernacle, and introducing it into a different state of existence in another world.

Now, whatever difference of opinion there may have been among speculative men, either ancient or modern, concerning the specific nature of the human soul; yet in this they have all, with very few exceptions, universally agreed, that it is a substance in itself, actually distinct and separable from the body, though in its present state closely united with it. This has been the invariable