Catholic communion defended against both extremes, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…Catholick communion defended against both extreams, and unnecessary division confuted in five parts ...…

6. But (as La•iantius and Arnobius plead against the Platonists for the Souls Mortality by Nature) I do confess that there is nothing in Nature that will prove that God cannot annihilate it, as he can do any Angel; nor that it is immortal without dependence on God, nor that will prove infallibly that God will annihilare no Soul: But all that we pretend to prove by Nature is, 1. That there is nothing in the Nature of the Soul that hath a tendency to annihilation or dissolution of it. 2. That God, who maketh all things suitable to their use, seemeth to intimate, that he will not dissolve or annihilate it, by making it of such a durable Nature. 3. And his Government affords us yet stronger moral Arguments.

6. But (as La•iantius and Arnobius plead against the Platonists for the Souls Mortality by Nature) I do confess that there is nothing in Nature that will prove that God cannot annihilate it, as he can do any Angel; nor that it is immortal without depend•nce on God, nor that will prove infallibly that God will annihilare no Soul: But all that we pretend to prove by Nature is, 1. That there is nothing in the Nature of the Soul that hath a tendency to annihilation or dissolution of it. 2. That God, who maketh all things suitable to their use, seemeth to intimate, that he will not dissolve or annihilate it, by making it of such a durable Nature. 3. And his Government affords us yet stronger moral Arguments.

7. As God made Adam's Soul of an immortal Nature, so sin changed not his Essence, but his Quality and Relation. And tho it made him mortal in the dissolution of his humanity or composition, and liable to pain, it did not turn him into an Animal of another species, nor acquit him from all future suffering. God having made his Soul naturally durable or immortal, man's merits were but to determine whether it should be immortal happiness or immortal misery. God was not bound to change man's Essence to shorten his suffering, because man vitiated it.