its operations: yet is not this mafs of flesh and visible structure the inftrument and proper corps of the foul, but rather of fenfe, and that the hand of reafon. In our ftudy of anatomy there is a mass of myfterious philofophy, and fuch as reduced the very * Heathens to divinity; yet, amongst all thofe rare discoveries, and curious pieces I find in the fabrick of man, I do not fo much content myself, as in what I find not, that is, no organ or instrument for the rational foul for in the brain, which we term the feat of reafon, there is not any thing of moment more than I can discover in the crany of a beaft: and this is a fenfible and no inconfiderable argument of the inorganity of the foul, at leaft in that fenfe we ufually fo receive it. Thus we are men, and we know not how; there is fomething in us that can be without us, and will be after us,

tho'

tho' it is ftrange that it hath no history what it was before us, nor can tell how it entered into us.

SECT, XXXVII.

Now for thefe walls of flesh, wherein the foul doth feem to be immured before the refurrection, they are nothing but an elemental compofition, and a fabrick that may fall to afhes; All flesh is grafs, is not only metaphorically, but literally true; for all thofe creatures we behold, are but the herbs of the field, digefted into flesh in them, and more remotely carnified in ourfelves. Nay further, we are, what we all abhor, anthropophagi and cannibals, devourers not only of men, but of our felves; and that not in an allegory, but a pofitive truth for all this mafs of flefh, which we behold, came in at our mouth's: this frame we look upon, hath been

1 Pet. i. 24.

moral meaning

ons,

been upon our trenchers; in brief we have devoured ourselves. *I cannot believe the wisdom of Pythagoras did ever pofitively, and in a literal fenfe, affirm his metempsychofis, or impoffible tranfmigration of the fouls of men into beasts: of all metamorphofes or tranfmigratiI believe only one, that is of Lot's wife; for that of Nebuchadnezar proceeded not fo far; in all others I conceive there is no further verity than is contained in their implicit fenfe and morality. I believe that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and is left in the fame state after death, as before it was materialed unto life; that the fouls of men know neither contrary nor corruption; that they fubfift beyond the body, and outlive death by the privilege of their proper natures, and without a miracle; that the fouls of the faithful, as they leave earth, take poffeffion

of

of heaven; that thofe aparitions, and ghofts of departed perfons, are not the wandring fouls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and fuggefting us unto mifchief, blood, and villainy, by inftilling, and stealing into our hearts; that the bleffed fpirits are not at reft in their graves, but wander follicitous of the affairs of the world: but that thofe phantoms appear often, and do frequent cemiteries, charnel-houses, and churches, is, because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an infolent champion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory over Adam,

SECT. XXXVIII.

This is that difmal conqueft we all deplore, that makes us fo often cry, O Adam, quid fecifti? I thank God I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to

the

the world, as to dote on life, or be convulfed and tremble at the name of death: not that I am infenfible of the dread and horror thereof; or that by raking into the bowels of the deceased,by the continual fight of anatomies,fkeletons, or cadaverous reliques, like vifpilloes, or grave-makers, *I am become ftupid, or have forgot the apprehenfion of mortality; but that, marshalling all the horrors, and contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not any thing therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much lefs a well + refolved Chriftian, And therefore I am not angry at the error of our first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate, or, like the beft of them, to die, that is, to ceafe to breathe, to take a farewel of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a moment, to be within one inftant of a fpirit. When I take a full view and