"[T]wo assumptions which are favorable to the case for survival" (P 309a):

1. truth of dualism
"that a person is a body and a mind in a sense in which the mind cannot be identified with any bodily processes or behavior" (P 309a)

2. falsity of coporealism
"bodily continuity is not an essential ingredient in what we mean [by personal identity]" (P 309a)

Edwards assumes these not because he holds them to be true, but if these assumptions were false, the claim that people do not survive death would be far less plausible from the start.