can. But the gospel of Jesus is completely different. It is a composition of faith, not precepts, and the remedy available under this law is free grace. The seed of the serpent is not necessarily intent upon evil. But its attempts to do good are ineffectual because it is motivated by self-conceit. "It was said of Scipio when a beautiful strumpet was tendered to him to abuse himself withall, I would willingly (said he) were it not for the great place I am in." The Mortality of the Soul "The common opinion of the world is that all men's souls are immortal and cannot, or do not die, but slip out of their bodies as out of a prison, into some other world, either of pleasure or misery." Muggletonians believe that man has body and soul all-of-a-piece and, since the fall, has reason added to this. With sin comes defilement and death, but there is also God's promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. This is taken to mean that the elect shall not die the second death, although the seed of the serpent most definitely will. It is a complete misunderstanding, says Tomkinson, to believe that with every birth a soul comes from God. "Body and soul of man is but one living and dying essence, proceeding from nature." Regarding the death of the soul, Christ is our example. Christ could not have redeemed the elect from their sins if he had died only in the body. The elect, "being dead whilst in the grave ... although alive in the memory of Christ, which is the Book of Life, and the white stone and their new name written in it." "Thus we see no going to heaven until Christ come again to gather his elect." In like manner, the reprobate will suffer both in body and soul but not until the great day when Christ returns to this earth to separate the sheep and the goats. The Devil's torments Tomkinson surveys what he regards as historical attitudes to hell. He says that the common manner of pagan writers was to see it as a place of cleansing and purifying rather than of punishment. A more modern view was that of Jacob Boehme that heaven and hell are within one another. Tomkinson jests, "but of late there is made a new discovery of another world