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law of God, fo* with the Flesh to serve the law of fin. And as fin is thus charged upon the Inordinate Appetites of the Body; fo thofe Bodies, in which fuch Depraved Appetites are fubdued and mortified, are called + the Temples of the Holy Ghoft. And this appears to be a sufficient reason for concluding, that in the Refurrection the Soul will have a much greater Congruity with the Body, which it hath inhabited, than with that matter, to which it was never before vitally united; because it seems very agreeable to God's Infinite. Juftice, that thofe Bodies which have been enslaved by Sin, fhould be configned to Misery; and that thofe, which have been conformed to the Laws of Right Reason, and the influence of God's Holy Spirit, fhould be made partakers of Happiness: Whereas other portions of Matter, which have not been united to the Soul, and therefore not endued with fuch Affections and Powers, as render'd them Capable of being Sharers in Virtue or Vice,

*. 25.

t Cor. vi. 19.

cannot

cannot with any colour of reafon be deem'd the Objects of Reward or Punishment.

But this Celebrated Master of Thought hath undertaken to fhew, by an Argument which he thinks unanswerable, that "the fame Body, in which man lives here, is not Neceffary to his Identity in the Refurrection. For, representing the Difparity between the Body of our Saviour when Raifed, and the Bodies of other men to be Raised, and endeavouring to prove, that though our Saviour did rife with the fame Body, it does not follow, that we fhall do fo too, he thus difcourfeth: His * Body faw not corruption, and therefore to give him another Body new moulded, mixed with other particles of matter, which were not contain'd in it as it lay in the grave, whole and entire as it laid there, had been to destroy bis Body, to frame him a new one without any need. But why with the remaining particles of a man's Body, long fince diffolv'd and moulder'd into duft and atoms

3d. Letter, p. 180, 181.

(whereof

(whereof poffibly a great part may have undergone variety of changes, and entred into other concretions even in the Bodies of other men) other new particles of matter mixed with them, may not ferve to make his Body again, as well as the mixture of new and different particles of matter with the old did in the compafs of his life make his body, I think no reafon can be given.

Now what is here faid would be true, and no reafon could be given against it, if by his body no more were meant than this, That whatsoever particles of matter fhould at the Refurrection be vitally united to a man's foul, might be faid to constitute his body at that time; but this does not come up to the purpose of this paffage, which is brought to prove, not only that new matter united to a man's foul may be faid to be his body, at that time Abfolutely, and without Reference to any other time, but that a Body thus made up of New matter may be his Body, fo as in conjunction with the foul to constitute him the fame man, that hath before exifted in this ftate; for that is the only defign of this paffage,

and

and this is the force of his Argument: The Body of the fame man in this life does at Different times confist of Different matter, and therefore his Body at the Refurrection may be made up of Different matter from what it confifted of in this life; and yet he will be the fame man that did exift in this State, as much as he is the fame man in the feveral periods of this life, though the Substance of his Body be Different at one time, from what it is at another.

But this Argument will not only admit of an Answer, but may also be Retorted as a very good Argument to prove, that to the conftitution of the fame man in the Refurrection, the fame Numerical Body, as well as the fame Soul, is neceffary; if it be true, as it is exprefsly affirmed by this Author, that the Identity of man confifts in nothing but a Participation of the fame continued life, by conftantly fleeting particles of matter, in fucceffion vitally united to the fame Organized body. From which this Argument may

*Ef. B. 2. ch. 27. §. 6.

be

2

be drawn: If New particles of matter, added to our Bodies, do become a part of us, folely by their Participation of the fame continued life; it hence follows, that if the fame man who lives here, shall rife from the dead, his Body in the Refurrection will not confift of any Matter, which did not become a part of it in this state, by a Participation of the fame continued life. Indeed the Continuance of life is not, as 'tis reprefented, neceffary to the Identity of man; for our Bleffed Saviour was the fame man, before his Death, and after his Refurrection. However, according to this Author's own account, a Body made up of New particles of Matter cannot confift with the Identity of man, unless that New matter hath partaken of the same continued life.

And this may be a good reason of rejecting other confequences urged, against the Identity of the Body at the Refurrection, from the change of particles in the Body here. Though the Body at the Refurrection may not confift of all the particles of matter, that have ever been vital

ly

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