ESSAY XII. 483 ness with themselves : Or if through any disorder of nature a man should lose or change the true idea of himself and his own actions, or falsely ascribe the actions and personality of another man to himself, and should say, Ididthis, or I did not that, con- trary to plain truth and fact, there are generally witnesses enough among his fellow-creatures who are not thus disordered in their minds, to assure him thou didst not or thou didst according to plain fact and the truth of things : and they are able to make effectual proof to him, if he be capable of receiving it, that he is the same person with his former self, and that he is not another person, or that he is the same man and not another. By their senses they know his body is the same ; and they know that without a miracle his soul must be the same too, because it iscon- trary to the lawsof nature for a new soul to be united to that body. In matters of great or final importance the equity and good- nest of God will take care to prevent that one man shall not be rewarded for actions which he never did, and which he has no pretence to but by his own frenzy and disordered imagination And also that one man shall not ordinarily suffer any punishment, without reducing to his mind a consciousness of those actions for which he is punished. God, the judge of all, will effectually secure this matter in all his final recompences of mankind. If it be lawful for Mr. Locke to have recourse to the equity and good- ness of God to guard against any unhappy consequences which may attend his strange and novel opinion, it is as lawful for a meaner writer to have recourse to the same perfections of God to guard against any ill consequence that may attend an opinion which is so much plainer in itself, and so much more agreeable to thecommon sense of mankind. IV. Quest. If you enquire further concerning the separate state of human souls, what makes the personal identity of man there, it is sufficient to say, that it is the same individual spirit which was once united to a certain animal body, and performed goodor evil actions therein, and which has now commenced its state of recompence separate from the body ; and there is and will be a sufficient evidence of the sameness of personality for every separate soul during that time, in its real consciousness of its own former actions without forgetfulness or delusion, though its per- sonality may not becounted so complete till theresurrection of the body and its re-union to it. Then shall the whole man receive recompences according to his former behaviour in his complete person both soul and body. Personality and sameness ofpersons either in this world or the other must not stand upon such a shift- ing and changeable principle, as may allow either one man to be two persons, or two men to be one person, or any one man or person to become another, or to be really any thing but himself. THE CND OF THE ESSAYS. xh2
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