by ftill preferving them in being. If they were created by infinite Wisdom, the fame infinite Wisdom will alfo preferve tkem: If you doubt or deny this, you must unavoidably fall into the other Side of the Dilemma, and fay that they were not the Effects of infinite Wif dom; that they were not made to serve any End, or anfwer any Purpofe; that they contributed nothing to the Beauty and Harmony of the Syftem; that many of them are not only useless and unneceflary, but noxious and mifchievous, and had better either not have been created at all, or immediately ftruck out of the Lift of Beings, to prevent their doing more Mischief: In short, that they were a Sort of By-blows, Excrefcencies, or fortuitous Productions, with which infinite Wisdom had no manner of Concern, either in their Formation or Preservation. Does not fuch a Thought as this ftrike you with a Kind of religious Horror? Is not the Blafphemy as fhocking to your Piety, as the Nonfenfe to your Understanding? Yet one of these must be maintained to fupport the other Side of the Queftion. I will therefore venture to conclude, that whatfoever Creatures infinite Wisdom faw fit to produce in the firft Creation, will be preferved by the fame infinite Wisdom so long as the Syftem itself fhall continue, which is as certain a Conclufion, as that the Parts fhall continue as long as the Whole, the Materials fhall fubfift as long as the Fabric; and this not only with regard to the Speciés, but to all the Individuals of the feveral Species, which, as Religion and Philosophy affure us, were actually exifting in their firft Caufe or Parent, when the divine Benediction, to increafe and multiply, was pronounced upon them, and they were declared, by God himfelf,

to be very good. Whatever Arguments have or may be produced in Vindication of the Wisdom and Goodnefs of God in the Works of the Creation, will (I. humbly conceive) more ftrongly conclude for their Immortality: And if fo much as the Shadow of a Reason can be alledged for their Annihilation or utter Extinction of their Being after Death, it will as ftrongly conclude againft the Wisdom of their first Creation. And whether fuch a Conceffion might not have a fatal Influence upon weak and irreligious Minds, deferves well to be confidered, whether they might not from hence be induced to believe, or to hope at leaft, that they might receive the fame Indulgence as the reft of their Fellow-Brutes, and be no more accountable for the Sins of a long Life, the Abuse of nobler Faculties, the Defiance of the highest Authority, the Contempt of the plaineft Duties, and a Violation of the moft reafonable Commands, than the poor Brutes, who have no Sin to answer for, and would never have known either Pain or Sorrow, Suffering or Death, had our firft Parents but continued as innocent as they: What then should hinder their Continuance in being after the Diffolution of their Bodies? Why may not the immaterial Form be difpofed of in its proper State, waiting for the Time of the Reftitution of all Things, Acts iii. 21.. When the whole fuffering Creation fhall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God, Rom. viii. 21. The wife Preacher feems to have expreffed his Thoughts very plainly upon this Queftion, Ecclef. iii. 21. where he mentions the Spirit af a Man, and the Spirit of a Beast, however different in their Specific Dignity and Qualities, yet both equally im

material

material and immortal; both returning, after the Disfolution of the Bodies, to their proper State or Center: The Spirit of the Man going upwards, and the Spirit of the Beaft going downwards; that is, the former afcending, the other descending, to their proper Rank or Sphere in the invisible World.-And, after all, where is the Difficulty of comprehending, or the Danger of afferting, this proper Affortment of the feveral Species of Beings, according to their original State in the Order of Creation? What Need is there of fo much philofophical Refinement and Caution in explaining so obvious a Question? What poffible Danger can there be in afferting a Truth too plain to be denied, or what Purposes of Religion can be served in concealing or difguifing a certain Truth, in order to establish an uncertain, I had almost faid an impoffible, Conjecture? Tell me ingenuously, Madam, can you hefitate a Moment how to determine upon this Question? Some learned Men have ftarted a Difficulty, how these separate Effences, or Brute-Souls, are to be difpofed of after Death. Thus, particularly, the pious, learned, and Right Reverend Author of The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of human Understanding, expreffes his Doubts and Fears, pag. 173, 174. They who hold fenfitive Perception in Brutes to be an Argument of the Immateriality of their Souls, find themselves under a Neceffity of allowing thofe Souls to be naturally immortal likewife, and they are fo embarraffed how to difpofe of those irrational immortal Souls after the Diffolution of their Bodies, and what Sort of Immortality to conceive for them, that they imagine them all to return to the great Soul or Spirit of the World, or, by a Metempfuchofis, to pass into the Bodies of fucceeding Animals, and then, when they have

done

done their Work at the End of the World, they are to be difchared out of Being, and again reduced to their primitive Nothing Again-If thofe Souls are once granted to be immaterial, it is utterly inconceivable that they should not naturully have the fame Immortality with those that are human; fince we cannot, with any Senfe or Confiftency, diftinguish two different Kinds of Immortality for created Spirits, if the Souls of Brutes be immortal, that cannot, when feparate, be thought to remain altogether in a State of Inactivity or Infenfibility, which communicated Senfe and Activity to Matter, while in Conjunction with it; and, if so, they must be fenfible of Happiness or Mifery, and, in fome Degree, liable to Rewards and Punishments as eternal as their Souls. He concludes, What heightens the Abfurdity of this Way of Thinking is, that, in imagining the Souls of Brutes to be immaterial, Men must neceffarily diftinguish a great Variety of them, both in Nature and Degree, one Sort for Birds, another for Beafts and another for Fishes; and these must be all fubdivided again into very different Species of immaterial Souls, according to the different Sorts there are under each of these general Heads. Nay, every Fly and Infect muft, on this Suppofition, have fome Sort of immaterial Soul, even down to the Cheefe-mites; and what is yet more abfurd, is, that there must be an infinite Variety of Immaterialities imagined, to fuit the Rank and Condition of every individual, living, fenfible Creature, What a Rhapfody is here! Can there be a more lively Picture of a puzzled Imagination, terrified with Spectres, and combating with Difficulties of his own creating? If the Premifes be juft, the Conclufion must be fo too; they must stand or fall together: If the Evidence be ftrong for the Immateriality of Brute Souls, as I believe you think it

is, their Immortality muft, in my Opinion, be the natural Consequence: And how are we concerned to inquire what fhall become of them in their feparate State? What is it to us to know how they shall be difpofed of after the Diffolution of their Bodies? Cannot infinite Power, which formed them without our Advice and Affiftance, difpofe of them in the fame Manner? This, I think, is certain, that if they are immaterial, and confequently immortal, if their Souls animated certain Bodies in this Life, and were the proper Principles of their Action, they cannot cease to be active after they are in a separate State, and muft have a peculiar Sphere of Life and Action without their Bodies, as well as they had on them. Can you, Madam, conceive what would have become of the numerous Defcendents of the feveral Species of Beings, (whofe peculiar Bleffing from God was to increafe and multiply) if Adam had not finned, nor. by confequence, Sin and Death entered into the World? Can we fuppofe that he who made them to increase and multiply, had not made a proper Provifion for their Reception? And will not (think you) the fame Wisdom and Power continue the fame Provifion for them ftill? Can any Man pretend to tell me what is the State of feparate Souls? Where, or what, or how many are the different Mansions and Receptacles of the Dead? These are idle Inqui- · ries, unanswerable Questions; yet does any reafonable Man doubt whether there are fuch Manfions, fuch proper Habitations, for separate Spirits; and, if for one Rank of Beings, why not for all? And is it not a monstrous Prefumption in us, who are ignorant ef the plainest Things, and can hardly judge aright of

the