are, I know not what characters of divinity deeply impressed upon it, are also evident testimonies of its immortality. For the instinct of brutes is limited to their bodies, or extends no farther than the objects which present themselves to their sensuality. But the activity of the human spirit, which traverses heaven and earth, penetrates into the secrets of nature, and after having embraced all the varieties of the universe in its understanding and memory, disposes each of them in its order, and according to its rank, and ascertains things future, from those which are passed, shews evidently that there is in man a secret and hidden quality distinct and different from his body. By our understanding, we conceive of God, and of angels, who are spiritual and invisible substances, which in no respect applies to the body. We distinguish what is right, just, and honest, from what is not so, which our corporal senses are incapable of; the mind must, therefore, be the seat where this intelligence resides. Even sleep itself, the emblem of death, is an express witness of the immortality of the soul. For it not only suggests thoughts and conceptions of what has never taken place, but affords also presentiments and presages of things yet to come. I briefly touch these subjects, which profane writers have set off with magnificence, and exquisite eloquence;

but it is sufficient simply to indicate them to christian readers.

"Besides which, if the soul, separated from the body, had no subsistence, the scriptures would not teach us as they do, that we dwell in houses of clay, and that man at death is unclothed of mortality, and will receive at the last day, that which is due to the good or bad actions done in the body. Now these passages, and others of the same kind, which are very numerous, not only distinguish the soul from the body, but in attributing to him the name of man in general, they also declare the soul to be the principal part. St. Paul, exhorting the faithful to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and of spirit, refers without hesitation to two subjects, in which the pollutions of sin reside. St. Peter also, calling Jesus Christ the Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, would have spoken unadvisedly if there were no souls towards whom he exercised such a function.

"What he says also of the salvation of our souls, would be ill founded, as well as what he commands us As strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.' The same remark applies to what we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that,

pastors watch for our souls as they that must give account, which would in no respect be suitable, if souls possessed no existence proper to them.

"This is more fully and more clearly expressed in those words of Jesus Christ, in which he commands us to fear him, who, after having killed the body, is able also to cast soul and body into hell. Add to this, that, if souls delivered from the fetters of the body, had no subsistence after that separation, it is with great impropriety that Jesus Christ represents the soul of Lazarus as enjoying repose and felicity in Abraham's bosom; and on the contrary, that of the rich man as plunged in the torments of hell. But not to insist any longer upon a thing so little doubtful, I shall only add that St. Luke places it amongst the errors of the Saduceans, that they believed, that there was no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit."*

* Instit. lib. i. cap. 15.

SECTION V.

The sentiments of Calvin on the Moral Law.

THE sentiments of Calvin, with reference to the law, having in modern times been considerably perverted; it may answer a useful purpose to produce his own words on the subject; which, as they will appear decidedly opposed to the Antinomian heresy, will deprive its abettors of the sanction of his name. On the dignity and use of the law, no writer can have more just sentiments, as will fully appear by extracts from his writings on the subject.

"It will not be difficult," he observes, "to judge, to what end the law ought to be referred, which is that of a perfect righteousness; that man may take the purity and holiness of God for the rule of life. For God has so pourtrayed his nature in the law, that if any person were to accomplish all that it commands, his life would be an image of the Divinity. On which account, Moses, desirous of impressing the minds of the Israelites with the remembrance of the commandments of God, thus

addresses them: And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but, to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul?' Nor did he fail to repeat the same thing whenever he wished to shew them the tendency of the law. The end, therefore, of the law, is to unite man by holiness of life to his Creator; and, as Moses in another place expresses it, to induce him to cleave unto him. The perfection of this holiness consists in two things, which have been already noticed; that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength-and our neighbour as ourselves. The first implies then, that our soul be filled with the love of God; from whence will naturally flow charity towards our neighbour. In this sense I understand the apostle, where he says, that the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. Where we see that a good conscience and faith, that is to say, piety, and the fear of God, is placed in the first rank, from whence springs charity.

"It is, therefore, absurd to imagine that the law teaches only the rudiments of righteousness, and gives men only the first elements, without directing them to the perfection of