the Body, we want repeated Affiftances < of the Holy Spirit, which is evident from every good Man's Experience. And, unless this be granted, Prayer for Increase of Grace is to no purpose.

Your charitable Affistance, to help me through fuch Difficulties, is earnestly defired.

In the fecond Letter he writes thus:

D. B.

Allow me to beg your Affiftance in a matter which not only nearly concerneth me, but also this poor afflicted Church and Clergy. It is evident that this vaft Defection from the Communion Epifcopal is, in a great part, owing to our ignorance of the true Notions both of a Church and Clergy. To rectify this popular and dangerous Error, fome late Writings had contributed, and many were coming over to the Communion of the Church, and confequently in the road of becoming ferious Chriftians. But

thefe our Hopes are very much damp'd by the oppofition that is made by the Bourignonifts, who make light of Order Civil and Ecclefiaftical. They bear it high, at S. Andrew's efpecially. And the rather, because the Students were like to come over to Church-Principles.

They

.

They boast as if Poirot had worsted Mr. Dodwell. I know not of any fuch thing done by Mr. Poirot. Yet this very Boaft ftaggers unfettled Youth.

It

< were therefore worth the while to vindicate the Church against the Cavils of thofe Enthusiasts, who are likely in a fhort time to prove more dangerous than the Presbyterians, the last not being fo much fupported by the Populace as by the fecular Arm.

'

Mr. Dodwell, in a Book upon Marriages, makes the Immortality of the Soul to be the effect of the Divine Spirit, · which he restrains to them within the Covenant, and by confequence all without the Chriftian Covenant (ordinarily) ' have no Principle of Immortality. This Affertion hath done much harm, it be ing confidered as a Notion advanced both against the Catholick Principles of the Soul's Immortality, and Antifcriptural. We are put hard to it in his De· fence. For it is told us, that the Children of the Kingdom, Matth. viii. 12. were the Jews, to whom Mr. Dodwell allows no more than a Title to the Spirit in reversion (except to fuch of them as were inspired) and yet they are faid to be caft into outer Darkness, which even he confeffes to fignify the Punithment of the after State. We are told . that

a

"

that the Day which is appointed for judging the World in Righteousness Ad. xviii. 31. is the Day of Judgment. And, if fo, thofe, with whom the Apoftle difputed, were to be judged. And if they were to be judged, they had a Principle of Immortality, even though without the Covenant. The Scripture tells us, that it's appointed for all Men once to dye, and after that the Judgment. And thence they infer that the Judgment must be æquè latè pa< tens as the Death. The Judgment threatened against Chorazin and Bethfaida, is faid to be more intolerable than that of Sodom and Gomorrba. And I do not think that the Calamity of Judea, when that Nation and Polity was deftroy'd, came up to that of Sodom. One would think that the refifting of the Holy Ghoft, at the rate the Jews did, was a Sin much more heinous than a wilful unrepented Immorality committed by a Chriftian, and that therefore the Righteous Judge of the World would not damn the latter to endless exquifite Torments, when the other fuffers no more than a temporal and bodily Punishment, &c.

April xxiv. 1705.

By

T

mistakes

be takes it

By these things the Reader will eafily 2. perceive how much this worthy Gentle- The Genman is mistaken, when, from the Doctrine tleman of the natural Mortality of Humane Souls, my Hypohe infers the actual Mortality of all that thefis,when are out of the Peculium by their own fault; to fuppofe or indeed of any one fingle Perfon, who is the actual concerned in this Cafe. That neither is of all who Mortality my Opinion, nor is any juft Confequence of are out of my Principles; as he will eafily find, when Peculium. when he has been pleased to confider my Thoughts delivered in the following Dif courfe. I do not think that any adult Perfon whatsoever, living where Chriftianity is profeffed, and the Motives of its Credibi lity are fufficiently propofed, can hope for the Benefit of Actual Mortality. On the contrary, I have proved all fuch Unbelievers liable to the Condemnatory Sentence of the General Judgment. I am therefore no more concerned for the Gentleman's Arguments of this kind, than himself. He is again mistaken, when he reckons all InSpired Perfons in the Old Testament as endued actually with the Principle of Immortality. That is precifely against the Revelations of the New Teftament, and of the Old Testament alfo, which relate to the Times of the New Testament. I must not now repeat what I have produced to this purpofe in this Difcourfe itself. The Spirit's moving on the Face of the Waters will

3.

talizing

no more make the Waters immortal, than his Omniprefence as GOD will make all things fo. If it would, there would be nothing mortal and corruptible, becaufe nothing can fubfift without the all fuflaining Spirit. Which if it had, it must be immortal, if its prefence, in any fenfe, had been alone fufficient for Immortality. But I need not here repeat what I have faid in the following Difcourfe, for proving, that the Immortalizing prefence of the Spirit is, in the current of the New Testament, fuppofed not to have been given to any, fince the lofs of it by the Fall of Mankind, till the Refurrection of our Lord, who had the difpofal of it, as being increafed with the fulness of the Spirit; of which fulness, all others are to receive their feveral Propertions refpectively, S. Job. i. 16. This is the Scripture-account of that Immortality, which may only feem to deferve the Name of Immortality; that is, of the Immortality of Happiness.

Perpetual Punishment, in the Scripture The actual Phrafe, is rather reckoned as a Death, ly immor- than a Life. That is the fecond, and most Souls to afflictive Death. And therefore the proPanish longing of the duration is not taken for a Foffibly be Life, nor a Favour. Nor is it accordingly better a afcribed to the Divine Spirit, which is fcribed to the Original of the Diviner Life, and of

ment, may

Plea

of God, than to the Divine Spirit.

thofe