through grace, and maintained that those of the wicked fhall cease to be after they fhall have been tormented a long time. Dupin, vol. i, p. 60.

After this time we find that the doctrine of a direct materialism crept into the chriftian church, and it is not easy to say from what fource it came. Poffibly, however, those who used this language did not, at first, at least, differ from other philofophers; but confidering what their ideas of Spirit really were, thought (and it was certainly with reafon) that the term body was more justly applicable to it.

The most determined materialift in chriftian antiquity is Tertullian, who wrote his treatife De Anima, on purpose to explode the philofophical opinion of the defcent of the foul from heaven. He maintained that the foul is formed at the fame time with the body, and that as the body produces a body, fo the foul produces a foul. Dupin, vol. i. p. 79.

To what, fays Tertullian, did Chrift, when he died, defcend? To the fouls, I prefume, of the patriarchs; but why, if there be no fouls under the earth? If it be not a body, it is nothing. Incorporality is free from all confinement, from pain or pleasure. Alfo all the inftruments of its pain or pleasure must be body. Opera, p. 268. The foul of Adam, he fays, p. 284, came from the breath of God. But what is the breath of God but vapor, Spiritus?

1

Arnobius,

Arnobius, in oppofition to the philofophers, maintained that it was human vanity that gave the foul a defcent from heaven, that it is corporeal and mortal in its own nature; that the fouls of the righteous obtain immortality by the divine spirit which Jefus Chrift unites to them; but that those of the wicked are to be confumed by fire, and will be annihilated after long torments. Beaufobre, vol. ii, p.

413.

This writer argues much at large, that the foul is wholly incapable of fenfation or reflection without the body. After supposing the cafe of a child cut off from all communication with the world, and barely fed, in a hole, without light, he concludes that he would be deftitute of all knowledge, except of the very few ideas that he would neceffarily acquire by his fenfes in that confined fituation. And he concludes with faying, Where, then, is that immortal portion of divinity; where is that foul, which enters into the body, fo learned and intelligent, and which with the help of inftruction only recollects its former knowledge? Opera, p. 34.

Origen fays it was not determined by the church whether a foul was produced by another foul, whether it be eternal, or created for a certain time; whether it animates the body, or is only confined in it. But himself, being a Platonift, held that fouls had been from eternity, that they are fent into bodies as into a prison, for a punishment of their fins. Dupin,

vol. i, p. 110. Of course he believed the tranfmigration of fouls. Beaufobre, vol. ii, P. 452. So alfo did the Cabbalifts.

The

Jews, however, limited the tranfmigrations to three, which they feem to have taken from Plato, who admitted no fouls into heaven but those which had distinguished themselves by the practice of virtue in three incorporations. ib. p. 495. The Manicheans allowed five tranfmigrations; but the fouls of the elect, they said, went immediately into heaven. p. 499.

Among the later Fathers, we find three opinions relating to the origin of the foul. First, that fouls were created when the body was ready to receive them. ib. p. 353; another that they came from God, and are inclofed in the male feed; another that the first soul, viz. that of Adam, was made of nothing, and that all the reft came from this by ordinary generation. It was to this opinion that Auftin inclined. ib. P. 354.

He was, however, far from being determined in his opinion on this subject, and fometimes expreffes himself in such a manner as if he thought the foul to be no fubftance, but only a property. He faid that the foul has no corporeal dimenfions, but that reafon and the foul are one. Dupin, vol. iii, p. 131.

He exprefsly denied, however, that the foul is any part of God, p. 161, and fays that God's breathing upon Adam either was his foul, or that which produced it; but he does not de

termine

termine whether fouls are created daily, or

not.

Before his time Gregory Nyffenus held that fouls are formed at the fame moment with the body; and he firft, I believe, made use of an expreffion which was long retained in the christian schools, and was the fource of much metaphyfical subtlety, viz. that the foul is equally in all parts of the body. Dupin, vol. ii, P. 277. It was afterwards added more diftinctly, that the whole foul is in every part of the body.

The opinion of the immateriality of the foul does not seem to have tended to a fettlement before the fifth century, when the queftion feems at length to have been, in a manner, decided by Claudianus Mamertus, a priest of the church of Vienne, whofe opinions, and manner of treating the fubject, are much commended by Dupin.

In this century Æneas Gazoeus had maintained that fouls are sensible of nothing without the body. Dupin, vol. iv, p. 187. Gennadius had advanced that God only is incorporeal, ib. p. 185, and Fauftus Regienfis had fupported the fame opinion more largely, alledging the authority of Jerom and Caffianus, and urging that the foul is inclofed in the body, that it is in heaven or hell, and confequently in fome place, and that if it was not in place it would be every where, which is true of God only.

It is to this writer that Mamertus replies. But notwithstanding the exceffive applause he has met with, it will be seen that his ideas on the fubject would not be entirely approved by the more acute metaphysicians of the present age. In his reply to Fauftus, he fays, That every thing that is incorporeal is not uncreated, that the volitions of the foul have their effect in place, but are not made in place; that it has neither length, breadth, nor height, that it is not moved upwards or downwards, or in a circle; that it has neither inward nor outward parts; that it thinks, perceives, and imagines, in all its fubftance; that we may speak of the quality of the foul, but no man knows how to express the quantity of it. It is neither extended, nor in place. Dupin, vol.iv, p. 151.

In fome of his expreffions we find the peculiar opinions of Defcartes. For he fays the foul is not different from the thoughts, that the foul is never without thought, for it is all thought; and that heaven and hell are not different places, but different conditions. ib. P. 152.

But I queftion whether any modern metaphyfician will think him fufficiently accurate, or indeed, confiftent, in faying that the foul is the life of the body, that this life is equally in all and in every part of the body, and that therefore the foul is in no place. ib. 153. It seems to have been this confounding of the foul and the life, which is only a property, and not a fubftance, that gave rise to the

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