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neceffary to preferve religion, to engage us to prayers, ART. praifes, and to a dependence on it, and a fubmiffion to it. Some have thought it was neceffary to carry this further, and fo they make God to be the firft and immediate caufe of every action or motion. This fome modern writers have taken from the fchools, and have dreffed it in new phrafes of general laws, particular wills, and occafional caufes; and fo they exprefs or explain God's producing every motion that is in matter, and his raifing every fenfation, and, by the fame parity of reafon, every cogitation in minds: this they think arifes out of the idea of infinite perfection, and fully anfwers thefe words of the Scriptures, that in God we live, move, and have our being. To others all this feems firft unneceflary; for if God has made matter capable of motion, and capable of receiving it from the ftroke or impulfe that another piece of matter gives it; this comes as truly from God, as if he did immediately give every motion by an act of his own will. It feems more fuitable to the beauty of his workmanship, to think that he has fo framed things that they hold on in that course in which he has put them, than to make him perpetually produce every new motion. And the bringing God immediately into every thing, may, by an odd reverse of effects, make the world think that every thing is done as much without him, as others are apt to imagine that every thing is done by him. And though it is true that we cannot diftinctly apprehend how a motion in our brain fhould raife fuch a thought as anfwers to it in our minds; yet it seems more reasonable to think that God has put us under fuch an order of being from which that does naturally follow, than that he himself fhould interpofe in every thought. The difficulty of apprehending how a thing is done, can be no prejudice to the belief of it, when we have the infinite power of God in our thoughts, who may be as easily conceived to have once for all put us in a method of receiving fuch fenfations, by a general law or course of nature, as to give us new ones at every minute. But the greateft difficulty against this is, that it makes God the first phyfical caufe of all the evil that is in the world: which as it is contrary to his nature, fo it abfolutely deftroys all liberty; and this puts an end to all the diftinctions between good and evil, and confequently to all religion. And as for those large expreffions that are brought from Scripture, every word in Scripture is not to be ftretched to the utmoft phyfical fenfe to which it can be carried: it is enough if a fenfe is given to it, that agrees to the scope of it: which is fully

anfwered

I.

ART. answered by acknowledging, that the power and providence of God is over all things, and that it directs every thing to wife and good ends, from which nothing is hid, by which nothing is forgot, and to which nothing can refift. This fcheme of providence fully agrees with the notion of a Being infinitely perfect, and with all that the Scriptures affirm concerning it; and it lays down a firm foundation for all the acts and exercises of religion.

:

As to the power and providence of God with relation to invifible beings, we plainly perceive that there is in us a principle capable of thought and liberty, of which, by all that appears to us, matter is not at all capable: after its utmost refinings by fires and furnaces, it is ftill paffive, and has no felf-motion, much lefs thought, in it. Thought feems plainly to arife from a fingle principle, that has no parts, and is quite another thing than the motion of one fubtle piece of matter upon another can be fuppofed to be. If thought is only motion, then no part of us thinks, but as it is in motion; fo that only the moving particles, or rather their furfaces, that ftrike upon one another, do think but fuch a motion must end quickly, in the diffipation and evaporation of the whole thinking substance; nor can any of the quiefcent parts have any perception of fuch thoughts, or any reflection upon them. And to fay that matter may have other affections unknown to us befides motion, by which it may think, is to affirm a thing without any fort of reafon: it is rather a flying from an argument, than an anfivering it: no man has any reason to affirm this, nor can he have any. And befides, all our cogitations of immaterial things, proportions, and numbers, do plainly fhew that we have a being in us diftinct from matter, that rises above it, and commands it: we perceive we have a freedom of moving and acting at pleasure. All these things give us a clear perception of a being that is in us diftinct from matter, of which we are not able to form a complete idea: we having only four perceptions of its nature and operations. 1. That it thinks. 2. That it has an inward power of choice. That by its will it can move and command the body. And, 4. That it is in a clofe and intire union with it, that it has a dependence on it, as to many of its acts, as well as an authority over it in many other things. Such a being that has no parts must be immortal in its nature, for every fingle being is immortal. It is only the union of parts that is capable of being diffolved; that which has no parts is indiffoluble. To this two objections are made : one is, that beafts feem to have both thought and freedom,

3.

though

I.

though in a lower order: if then matter can be capable of ART. this in any degree how low foever, a higher rectification of matter may be capable of a higher degree of it. It is therefore certain, that either beafts have no thought or liberty at all, and are only pieces of finely organized matter, capable of many fubtile motions, that come to them from objects without them, but that they have no sensation nor thought at all about them; or, fince how prettily foever fome may have dreffed up this notion, it is that which human nature cannot receive or bear; there being fuch evident indications of even high degrees of reafon among the beafts; it is more reafonable to imagine, that there may be fpirits of a lower order in beafts, that have in them a capacity of thinking and choofing; but that fo entirely under the impreffions of matter, that they are not capable of that largenefs, either of thought or liberty, that is neceffary to make them capable of good or evil, of rewards and punishments; and that therefore they may be perpetually rolling about from one body to another. Another objection to the belief of an immaterial fubftance in us is, that we feel it depends fo entirely on the fabric and ftate of the brain, that a diforder, a vapour, or humour in it, defaces all our thoughts, our memory, and imagination; and fince we find that which we call mind finks fo low upon a diforder of the body, it may be reasonable to believe, that it evaporates, and is quite diffipated upon the diffolution of our bodies: fo that the foul is nothing but the livelier parts of the blood, called the animal fpirits. In answer to this, we know that thofe animal fpirits are of fuch an evanid and fubtile nature, that they are in a perpetual wafte, new ones always fucceeding as the former go off: but we perceive at the fame time that our foul is a ftable and permanent being, by the fteadiness of its acts and thoughts; we being for many years plainly the fame beings, and therefore our fouls cannot be fuch a loose and evaporating fubftance as those spirits are. The fpirits are indeed the inward organs of the mind, for memory, fpeech, and bodily motion; and as these flatten or are wafted, the mind is lefs able to act as when the any other organ of fenfe is weakened, the fenfations grow feeble on that fide: and as a man is lefs able to work, when all those inftruments he makes ufe of are blunted; fo the mind may fink upon a decay or diforder in those fpirits, and yet be of a nature wholly different from them. How a mind fhould work on matter, cannot, I confefs, be clearly comprehended. It cannot be denied by any that

eye or

I.

ART. is not a direct atheist, that the thoughts of the Supreme Mind give impreffions and motions to matter. So our thoughts may give a motion, or the determination of motion to matter, and yet rife from fubftances wholly different from it. Nor is it inconceivable, that the Supreme Mind fhould have put our minds likewife under fuch a fubordination to fome material motions, that out of them peculiar thoughts fhould arife in us. And though this union is that which we cannot diftinctly conceive; yet there is no difficulty in it, equal to that of our imagining that matter can think or move itself. We perceive that we ourselves and the rest of mankind have thinking principles within us; fo from thence it is eafy enough to us to apprehend, that there may be other thinking beings, which either have no bodies at all, but act purely as intellectual fubftances; or if they have bodies, that they are fo fubtilized as to be capable of a vaft quickness of motion, fuch in proportion as we perceive to be in our animal fpirits, which, in the minute that our minds command them, are raising motions in the remoteft parts of our bodies. Such bodies may also be fo thin as to be invifible to us; and as among men fome are good and fome bad, and of the bad fome feem to be determinedly, and, as to all appearance, incurably bad; fo there may have been a time and state of liberty, in which thofe fpirits were left to their choice, whether they would continue in their innocency, or fall from it; and fuch as continued might be for ever fixed in that ftate, or exalted to higher degrees in it and fuch as fell from it might fall irrecoverably into a ftate of utter apoftafy from God, and of rebellion against him. There is nothing in this theory that is incredible: therefore if the Scriptures have told us any thing concerning it, we have no reason to be prejudiced against them upon that account: befides that, there are innumerable. hiftories in many feveral countries and ages of the world, of extraordinary apparitions, and other unaccountable performances, that could only have been done by invisible powers. Many of thofe are fo well attefted, that it argues a ftrange pitch of obftinacy, to refufe to believe a matter of fact when it is well vouched, and when there is nothing in reafon to oppose it, but an unwillingness to believe invifible beings. It is true, this is an argument in which a fabulous humour will go far, and in which fome are fo credulous as to fwallow down every thing; therefore all wife men ought to fufpend their belief, and not to go too faft: but when things are fo undeniably attefted, that

there

1.

there is no reason to question the exactnefs or the credit ART. of the witneffes, it argues a mind unreasonably prepoffeffed to reject all fuch evidence.

All those invifible beings were created by God, and are not to be confidered as emanations or rays of his effence, which was a grofs conceit of fuch philofophers as fancied that the Deity had parts. They are beings created by him, and are capable of paffing through various fcenes, in bodies more or lefs refined. In this life the state of our minds receives vaft alterations from the ftate of our bodies, which ripen gradually and after they are come to their full growth, they cannot hold in that condition long, but fink down much fafter than they grew up; fome humours or diseases difcompofing the brain, which is the feat of the mind, fo entirely, that it cannot ferve it, at least so far as to reflex acts. So in the next ftate it is poffible that we may at first be in a lefs perfect condition by reafon of this, that we may have a lefs perfect body, to which we may be united between our death and the general refurrection; and there may be a time, in which we may receive a vaft addition and exaltation in that ftate, by the raifing up of our former bodies, and the reuniting us to them, which may give us a greater compafs, and a higher elevation.

These things are only propofed as fuppofitions, that have no abfurdity in them: fo that if they fhould happen to be the parts of a revealed religion, there is no reason to doubt of it, or to reject it, on fuch an account.

The laft branch of this Article is, the affertion of that great doctrine of the Christian Religion concerning the Trinity, or Three Perfons in one divine effence. It is a vain attempt to go about to prove this by reafon: for it must be confeffed, that we should have had no caufe to have thought of any fuch thing, if the Scriptures had not revealed it to us. There are indeed prints of a very ancient tradition in the world, of three in the Deity; called the Word, or the Wisdom, and the Spirit, or the Love, befides the fountain of both thefe, God: this was believed by thofe from whom the moft ancient philofophers had their doctrines. The author of the Book of Wifdom, Philo, and the Chaldee paraphrafts, have many things that fhew that they had received thofe traditions from the former ages; but it is not fo easy to determine what gave the first rife to them.

It has been much argued, whether this was revealed in the Old Teftament or not; fome from the plural termination of Elobim, which is joined to fingular verbs, and from that of the Lord raining fire from the Lord upon Sodom,

(Jeboval

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