15. What will become of changelings in a future state?
But, Secondly, I answer, The force of these men's question
(viz.) Will you deprive changelings of a future state?) is founded on one of these two suppositions, which are both
false. The first is, That all things that have the outward shape and appearance of a man must necessarily be
designed to an immortal future being after this life: or, secondly, That whatever is of human birth must be so.
Take away these imaginations, and such questions will be groundless and ridiculous. I desire then those who think
there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and changelings, the essence in both being
exactly the same, to consider, whether they can imagine immortality annexed to any outward shape of the body;
the very proposing it is, I suppose, enough to make them disown it. No one yet, that ever I heard of, how much
soever immersed in matter, allowed that excellency to any figure of the gross sensible outward parts, as to affirm
eternal life due to it, or a necessary consequence of it; or that any mass of matter should, after its dissolution here,
be again restored hereafter to an everlasting state of sense, perception, and knowledge, only because it was
moulded into this or that figure, and had such a particular frame of its visible parts. Such an opinion as this,
placing immortality in a certain superficial figure, turns out of doors all consideration of soul or spirit; upon
whose account alone some corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and others not. This is to
attribute more to the outside than inside of things; and to place the excellency of a man more in the external shape
of his body, than internal perfections of his soul: which is but little better than to annex the great and inestimable
advantage of immortality and life everlasting, which he has above other material beings, to annex it, I say, to the
cut of his beard, or the fashion of his coat. For this or that outward mark of our bodies no more carries with it the
hope of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a man's suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never
wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be said, that nobody thinks that the shape makes
anything immortal, but it is the shape is the sign of a rational soul within, which is immortal. I wonder who made
it the sign of any such thing: for barely saying it, will not make it so. It would require some proofs to persuade one
of it. No figure that I know speaks any such language. For it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of
a man, wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than there is in a statue, has yet
nevertheless a living soul in it, because of its shape; as that there is a rational soul in a changeling, because he has
the outside of a rational creature, when his actions carry far less marks of reason with them, in the whole course of
his life, than what are to be found in many a beast.
