of past actions, as we find our minds always are of a great part of ours, and fometimes of them all; the union or feparation of such a spiritual substance would make no variation of perfonal identity, any more than that of any particle of matter does. 'Any fubftance, vitally united to the present thinking being, is a part of that very fame felf which now is any thing united to it by a consciousness of former actions, makes alfo a part of the fame felf, which is the fame both then and now.

$26. Perfon a Forenfick Term.

PERSON, as I take it, is the name of this felf. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there I think another may fay is the fame perfon. It is a forenfick term appropriating actions and their merit; and fo belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a law, and happiness and mifery. This personality extends it felf beyond prefent existence to what is past, only by consciousness, whereby it becomes concerned and accountable, owns and imputes to it felf past actions, juft upon the fame ground, and for the fame reafon that it does the prefent. All which is founded in a concern for happiness, the unavoidable concomitants of confcioufnefs; that which is conscious of pleasure and pain, defiring that that felf that is confcious fhould be happy. And therefore whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that prefent felf by confcioufnefs, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done : and to receive pleasure or pain, i. e. reward or punishment, on the account of any fuch action, is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without any demerit at all. For fuppofing a man punished now for what he had done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what difference is there between that punishment, and being created miferable? And therefore conformable to this the Apostle tells us, that at the great day, when every one fhall receive according to his doings, the fecrets of all hearts fball be laid open. The fentence fhall be juftified by the consciousness all perfons fhall have, that they themselves, in what bodies foever they appear, or what fubftance fo

ever that confcioufnefs adheres to, are the fame that committed those actions, and deferve that punishment for them.

$27.

I AM apt enough to think I have, in treating of this fub-
ject, made fome fuppofitions that will look ftrange to
fome readers, and poffibly they are fo in themselves. But
yet, I think, they are fuch as are pardonable in this ig-
norance we are in of the nature of that thinking thing-
that is in us, and which we look on as our felves. Did
we know what it was, or how it was tied to a certain
fyftem of fleeting animal fpirits; or whether it could or
could not perform its operations of thinking and memo
ry out of a body organized as ours is; and whether it
has pleafed God, that no one such spirit shall ever be
united to any but one fuch body, upon the right con
ftitution of whofe organs its memory fhould depend;
we might fee the abfurdity of fome of those fuppofitions
I have made. But taking, as we ordinarily now do (in
the dark concerning these matters) the foul of a man, for
an immaterial fubftance, independent from matter, and
indifferent alike to it all, there can, from the nature of
things, be no abfurdity at all to fuppofe that the famé
foul may, at different times, be united to different bodies
and with them make up, for that time, one man as
well as we fuppofe a part of a fheep's body yesterday
fhould be a part of a man's body to-morrow, and in
that union make a vital part of Melibaus himself, as
well as it did of his ram.

$28. The Difficulty from the ill ufe of Names.

To conclude: whatever fubftance begins to exift, it must, during its exiftence, neceffarily be the fame : whatever compofitions of fubftances begin to exift, during the union of thofe fubftances, the concrete must be the fame: whatsoever mode begins to exift, during its exiftence it is the fame and fo if the compofition be of diftinct fubftances and different modes, the fame rule holds. Whereby it will appear, that the difficulty or obfcurity that has been about this matter, rather rifes from the names ill ufed, than from any obfcurity in

things themselves. For whatever makes the fpecifick idea to which the name is applied, if that idea be fteadily kept to, the diftinction of any thing into the fame, and diverfe, will eafily be conceived, and there can arife no doubt about it:

$29. Continued existence makes Identity. FOR fuppofing a rational spirit be the idea of a man, it is eafy to know what is the fame man; viz. the fame fpirit whether feparate or in a body, will be the fame man. Suppofing a rational fpirit vitally united to a body, of a certain conformation of parts to make a man, whilft that rational spirit, with that vital conformation of parts, though continued in a fleeting, fucceffive body, remains, it will be the fame man. But if to any one the idea of a man be but the vital union of parts in a certain fhape; as long as that vital union and shape remain, in a concrete no other wife the fame, but by a continued fucceffion of fleeting particles, it will be the fame man. For whatever be the compofition, whereof the complex idea is made, whenever existence makes it one particular thing under any denomination, the fame exiflence, continued, preferves it the fame individual under the fame denomination. (1)

(1). The doctrine of identity and diverfity contained in, this chapter, the bishop of Worcester pretends to be inconfiftent with the doctrines of the Chriftian faith, concerning. the refurrection of the dead. His way of arguing from it, is this; He fays, The reafon of believing the refurrection of the fame body, upon Mr. Locke's grounds, is from the idea of identity. To which our author* anfwers: Give me leave, my lord, to fay, that the reafon of believing any article of the Chriftian faith (fuch as your lordfhip is here fpeaking of) to me, and upon my grounds, is its being a part of divine revelation: upon this ground I believed it, before I either writ that chapter of identity and diverfity, and before I ever thought of thofe propofitions which your lord.:: fhip quotes out of that chapter; and upon the fame ground I believe it ftill; and not from my idea of identity. This

* In his 3d letter to the bishop of Worcester.

faying of your lordship's, therefore, being a propofition neither felf-evident, nor allowed by me to be true, remains to be proved. So that foundation failing, all your large fuperftructure built thereon, comes to nothing.

your

But, my lord, before we go any farther, I crave leave humbly to reprefent to your lordship, that I thought you undertook to make out that my notion of ideas was inconfiftent with the articles of the Chriftian faith. But that which

your lordship inftances in here, is not, that I yet know, an article of the Chriftian faith. The refurrection of the dead I acknowledge to be an article of the Chriftian faith; but that the refurrection of the fame body, in your lordShip's fenfe of the fame body, is an article of the Christian faith, is what, I confefs, I do not yet know.

In the New Teftament (wherein, I think, are contained all the articles of the Chriftian faith) I find our Saviour and the apostles to preach the sefurrection of the dead, and the refurrection from the dead, in many places: but I do not remember any place where the refurrection of the fame body is fo much as mentioned. Nay, which is very remarkable in the cafe, I do not remember in any place in the New Teftament (where the general refurrection at the laft day is fpoken of) any fuch expreffion as the refurrection of the body, much lefs of the fame body.

I fay the general refurrection at the laft day: because, where the refurrection of fome particular perfons, presently upon our Saviour's refurrection, is mentioned, the words are,* The graves were opened, and many bodies of faints, which flept, arofe, and came out of the graves after his refwrrection, and went into the Holy City, and appeared to many of which peculiar way of fpeaking of this refur. rection, the paffage itself gives a reafon in these words, appeared to many, i. e. thofe who flept appeared, fo as to be known to be rifen. But this could not be known, unless they brought with them the evidence, that they were those who had been dead; whereof there were these two proofs, their graves were opened, and their bodies not only gone out of them, but appeared to be the fame to thofe who had known them formerly alive, and knew them to be dead and buried. For if they had been those who had been dead fo long, that all who knew them once alive, were now gone,

those to whom they appeared might have known them to be men; but could not have known they were rifen from the dead, because they never knew they had been dead. All that, by their appearing, they could have known, was, that they were fo many living ftrangers, of whose refurrection they knew nothing. It was neceffary therefore, that they should come in fuch bodies, as might in make and fize, &c. appear to be the fame they had before, that they might be known to those of their acquaintance, whom they ap peared to. And it is probable they were fuch as were newly dead, whofe bodies were not yet diffolved and diffipated; and therefore, it is particularly faid here (differently from what is faid of the general refurrection) that their bodies arofe; because they were the fame that were then lying in their graves, the moment before they rofe.

But your lordship endeavours to prove it must be the fame body and let us grant that your lordship, nay, and others too, think you have proved it must be the fame body: · Will you therefore say, that he holds what is inconfiftent with an article of faith, who having never feen this y *your lordship's interpretation of the feripture, nor your reafons for the fame body, in your fenfe of fame body; or, if he has feen them, yet not understanding them, or not perceiving the force of them, believes what the fcripture propofes to him, viz. That at the last day the dead fhall be raised, without determining whether it fhall be with the very fame bodjes or no?

I know your lordship pretends not to erect your particu-lar interpretations of fcripture into articles of faith. And if you do not, he that believes the dead fhall be raised, be lieves that article of faith which the fcripture proposes; and cannot be accused of holding any thing inconfiftent with it, if it should happen, that what he holds, is inconsistent with another propofition, viz. That the dead fhall be raised with the fame bodies, in your lordship's fenfe, which I do not find propofed in Holy Writ as an article of faith.

But your lordship argues, It muft be the fame body; which, as you explain fame body,* is not the fame individual particles of matter, which were united at the point of death; nor the fame particles of matter, that the finner had at the time of the commiffion of his fins: but that it must be the fame material substance which was vitally united to

* 2d Anf.