that he should not mean thefe Words in a larger fenfe than this of those who had heard of the Gospel.

Jews in

Age,

This, I conceive, worthy Sir, fufficient 7. to fhew that this Doctrine is not indeed fo This DoEtrine of Antifcriptural as you suppose. And no more deriving can be required according to the ufual ways Immortaof proving Doctrines Scriptural: But it ve- the Divine lity from ry much confirms me in my Reafonings of Spirit is this kind, when I find an Interpretation of perfectly a greeable the Scriptures not only agreeable to the to the NoWords of the Scriptures; but agreeable also tions receito the Notions and Significations of Words, ved by the and Reasonings then received. For that fenfe the Apowhich was moft likely to be then understood, ftolical was, in all likelihood the true sense intended by the Holy Ghost himself. * Other- vid-Prowife there could be no fecurity that his true leg. ApoSenfe could be conveyed to future Ages, Stearn. de log. ad D. if they had been themselves mistaken in it, Obftinato whose understanding the Holy Ghost was tione. then particularly concern'd to accommodate himself. I fay, if even they were mistaken, who were to be prefumed the most Authentick Originals, and who were neceffarily the only Perfons who could be intrusted with the faithful Conveyance of what themfelves had received for the ufe of their Pofterity. And indeed, I am not Confcious of any thing, in the Hypothefis now mentioned, that is not perfectly confiftent with the Sentiments of that Age wherein the Gospel was preached

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preached by the Apostles, and the Books of the Sacred Canon were written. The Rabbins mention their Nephesh, Ruach, and Nefhamah, answering the three Parts in Man in the New Teftament, of Body, Soul and Spirit. But I confefs, I am not confident of any thing delivered by them as a Tradition lo antient as the Apoftolical Age. But Plato is clear in the diftinction of Nes or A

from Yu, and allows it to be fo great that the former could be the product of none but the Supreme Being, who could make nothing mortal or corruptible: and and that the latter was left to the inferior Demiurgical Deities, who could make nothing immortal and incorruptible. So he in his Timaus. And it is very notorious how much that Philofophy was received in the Apoftolical Age, even among the Jews themfelves, and how many of their terms are alluded to, not only in Philo and Jofephus and the Apocryphal Hellenists, but in the New Teftament allo. The precarious fancy of Des Cartes, who makes every Caufe of Motion distinct from Matter to be properly what we call a Spirit, independent on Matter, and Immortal, was not (that we know of) thought of by any; and is therefore, at leaft very improper for explaining ReaJonings of Times, when it was not thought True, fo far they were then from Reasoning from it, and I pray, what difference is

there

there between those Platonical Notions, and thofe of the New Testament, but that the Sacred Writers more frequently call that TVEμa which the Platonifts call or Nos. The reafon of that difference is manifeft, because the Scripture afcribes that Superiour Power in Man to a Divine Breathing, Gen. ii. 7. Yet even that very name from breathing is own'd by the Heathens, when they call the Soul, Divinæ particulum auræ, and the very name of anima or animus is from aveu. And Seneca uses the very very word of the New Teftament for that which he calls a God in Man, as the Scripture does Eph.41. Philo,as nearer to the Apofles, whilft they were under the prejudices of their Jewish Education, comes also nearer to them in this very Expreffion. He diftinguishes clearly this Treuμa Seov infufed by God's Breathing, from the fenfible formed Man, which he makes to confist of Body and Soul, yet to be Mortals. His words concerning that lower part of Man are; ο με τη διαπλασθεῖς ἤδη αιθητὸς ἐκ σώ- De Mund. ματα και ψυχής συνεχώς, ανήρ ή γυνή, φύσει op. P. 30, θνητὸς ὤν. Yet by the benefit of that euμa Séov he owns that the more ignoble part alfo is made Immortal, He fays, it was sent hither, as to a Colony, ET QENÉα TO γένες μρι, ἵν' εἶναι θνητόν ἔτι κατὰ τὰ ὁρατ μερίδα, κατὰ ταν των αόρατον αθανατίζεται So far the Two Men, the Earthly and the Hea

μα

2

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31.

Heavenly are diftinctly exprefs'd; the Platanifts alfo are as plain. They make alfo all Earthly things to have their παραδείγματα their ideas,their exovas answering them in the Mundus vontos, the Intellectual Sun, the very fame with their Ady. And they own the fame difference between them, that the Geleftial Archetypes were fuppofed Incorruptible and Immortal: The Earthly Ectypes no otherwife than as they received their volwers their Heavenly Original, and, together with it, a participation of Immortality also. On the fame Principles the ἄνθρωποι κατὰ Hip were to receive together with their Twos, their Immortality alfo, from the αὐτοάνθρωπG οι άνθρωπο. εσιώδης, which they placed in the Ay, exactly as our Sacred Writers do of the New Testament. This gives a clear account how all Humane Immortality must be derived from our Blessed Lord, as the Ady; and that none can pretend to it, who cannot fhew their title to it, by their title to Him, as our New Teftament Writers fuppofe. Philo owns Alleg. 1.1. 2. 49, 50. the fame diftinction of the Two Men elle$6,57,&c. where. That is not all, He, as conver$.7.

fant in the Scripture, owns the very name of Adam as common to both thefe Men. And what does the Apostle more, excepting his application of it to our Chrift, whom Philo, as a Jew, did not acknowledge, either to be the Chrift, or the Af?

How

However, by this Philofophical Hypothefis, it was from the Aoy that these exiled minds, φυγάδες θεόθεν καὶ λήται, were fuppoled to fall. And it was accordingly thought the Office of the fame Aoy, to reftore them to their former dignity, by reftoring that Diviner Principle to which they had been entitled, as Defcendents from Adam, if Adam had not difabled himself for deriving it to them by lofing it himself. This Ay or Nes, was taken by Plato for the Wing of the Soul, which enabled it to mount above the fubceleftial Regions to Heaven, which whatfoever Soul wanted, it was thereby disabled to recover its for mer Station. And it was taken for the Of fice of the Ay to fend down those new Coloni, as Philo calls them, which added to well disposed Souls, might enable them to recover Heaven from whence they were fupposed to have fallen. This was therefore taken for a Divine Nature (as S. Peter himself calls it, 2 Ep. i. 4.) as it made them Immortal, and as it railed them to the place of the Gods in the lower fenfe of the Word. So those Gods are described by their Worshippers, that their dwelling is not with flesh, Dan. ii. 11. And by Homer, That they are Ὀλύμπια σώματ' έχοντες. And the λόγΘ. was then to take care of fending down this Celestial Colony, when he was to undertake the nanov (that is Plato's word) the

Helm