depends, for the fources of thofe innumerable ideas, which it is the vehicle of tranfmitting to the intel let: difturbed. But, univerfally, the difeafe could not be lodged in the foul itfelf: nor could the matter of the body affect it any other way, than by deadening (i. e. by impeding] its activity; which, I think, is never the cafe in thefe appearances. In short, the diforder of matter might make a man a ftupid idiot; fubject him to fleep, apoplexy, or any thing approaching to its own nature: but could never be the caufe of rage, diftraction, phrenfy, unless it were employed as an inftrument by fome other caufe: that is, it cannot of itself be If the inertia of matter inthe cause of these disorders of reafon. fers any thing, it infers thus much." Baxter's Enquiry into the Nature of the human Soul, vol. ii. p. 141, 142.-I no more doubt, that mad perfons, at this very day, are dæmoniacs, or influenced and agitated by incorporeal and invifible beings; than I can doubt, that fome people were fo poffeffed, at the time of our Lord's abode on earth. Such an affertion will, probably, found romantically ftrange, to a prejudiced, and to a fuperficial, ear. But (let the fact itfelf really ftand how it may), I think I can venture to pronounce, that the philofophy of the opinion, as stated and argued by Mr. Baxter, is irrefragable-Examine firft, and then judge. Unembodied fpirits, both friendly and hoftile (erfaspores, & nanodaμoves], holy and unholy, have more to do with us, in a way both of good and evil, than the generality of us feem to imagine. But they themselves are, all, no more than parts of that great chain, which depends on the firft caufe, or uncreated link: and can only act as minifters of his will. Luther relates feveral uncommon things, concerning his own converfe with fome of the fpiritual world: which, however fanciful they may, primâ facie, appear; are by no means philofophically inadmiffible. For fo faying, I am fure to incur a fmile of contempt, from pertlings and materialifts: the former of whom fneer, when they cannot reafon; and wifely confider a grin, and a fyllogifm, as two names for the fame thing. When it can be folidly proved, that the gums are the feat of intellect; I will then allow, that a laugher fhews his understanding and his wit every time he fhews his teeth. Was ridicule the legitimate teft of truth, there could be no fuch thing as truth in the world; and, confequently, there would be nothing for ridicule to be the teft of: as every truth may be, and in its turn actually has been, ridiculed, by fome infipid witling or other. So that, to borrow a lively remark from Mr. Hervey, "The whim, of making ridicule the test of truth, feems as fuitable to the fitnefs of things, as to place harlequin in the feat of lord chief justice." Moreover, ridicule itfelf, viewed as ridiculously ufurping the office of a philofophical touch-ftone, has been ridiculed, with much poignancy, and ftrength of fenfe, by the ingenious pen of the late Dr. Brown, in his Effay on Satire: C 2 "Come, lect and, without which tranfmiffion, the intellect, implunged in a mafs of clay, could have had no more idea of outward things, than an oyfter has of a tinder-box. An unactive consciousness of mere torpid existence would have been the whole amount of its riches, during its inclosure in a prifon without door, window, or crevice. The human body is neceffarily encompaffed by a multitude of other bodies. Which other furrounding bodies (animal, vegetable, &c.), fo far as we come within their perceivable fphere, neceffarily imprefs our nerves with fenfations correfpondent to the abjects themselves. These fenfations are neceffarily (and, for the moft part, inftantaneously) propagated to the foul: which can no more help receiving them, and being affected by them, than a tree can refift a ftroke of lightening. Now, (1.) if all the ideas in the foul derive their exiftence from fenfation; and, (2,) if the foul depend, abfolutely, on the body, for all thofe fenfations; and, (3.) if the body be both primarily and continually dependent, on other extrinfic beings, for the very fenfations which it [the body] communicates to the foul;-the confequence feems, to me, undeniable: that neither the immanent nor the tranfient acts of man (i. e. neither his mental, nor his outward operations) are felf-determined; but, "Come, let us join awhile this titt'ring crew, Truth in her gloomy cave why fondly feek? No more fhall reafon boaft her pow'r divine; n on the contrary, determined by the views with which an infinity of furrounding objects neceffarily, and almost inceffantly, imprefs his intellect. And on what do thofe furrounding objects themselves, which are mostly material (i. e. on what does matter, in all its forms, pofitions, and relations), depend? Certainly, not on itself. It could neither be its own creator, nor can it be its own conferver. In my idea, every particle of matter would immediately revert into non-existence, if not retained in being, from moment to moment, by the will of him who upholds all things by the word of his power *, and through whom all things confist. Much lefs, does matter depend on the human mind. Man can neither create, nor exterminate, a fingle atom. There are cafes, wherein he can alter the modes of matter: fo as to form (for inftance) certain vegetable fibres into linen, linen into paper, and paper into books. He can alfo throw that linen, or paper, or books, into a fire; and thereby diffolve the prefent connection of their particles, and annihilate their modal relations. But, notwithstanding he has all this in his power (though, by the' way, he will never do either one or the other, except his will be neceffarily determined by fome effectual motive); ftill the feeming deftruction amounts to no more than a variation. Not an individual particle of the burnt matter is extermined: nor even its ef * Heb. i. 3. + Col. i. 17. To all her other antiphilofophical abfurdities, Arminianifm adds the fuppofed defectibility of faving grace: by giving as her opinion, that the holy principle in a renewed foul is not only a corruptible and perishable feed, but that it, frequently, and actually, does fuffer a total extinction and a final annihilation. Or, as Mr. Wesley and his fraternity vulgarly exprefs it, "He who is, to-day, a child of God, may be, to-morrow, a child of the devil." As if the principle of grace were lefs privileged than a particle of matter! and as if man, who cannot annihilate a fingle atom, were able to annihilate the moft illuftrious effect of the Holy Spirit's operation! Credat Judæus, &c. C 3 fential fential relation, to the universe, fuperfeded. There would be, precifely, the fame quantity of folid fubftance, which there now is, without the lofs of a corpufcular unit, were all the men, and things, upon the face of the earth, and the very globe itfelf, reduced to afhes. Confequently, matter is abfolutely and folely dependent on God himself. Thus have we, briefly, traced the winding current to its fource. The foul, or intellect, depends on its ideas, for the determinations of its volitions: elfe, it would will, as a blind man walks, at a venture and in the dark.-Thofe ideas are the daughters of fenfation; and can deduce their pedigree from no other quarter. The embodied foul could have had no idea of fo much as a tree, or a blade of grafs, if our diftance from those bodies had been fuch, as to have precluded their refpective forms from occurring to the eye. The fenfes, therefore, are the channels of all our natural perceptions. Which fenfes are entirely corporeal as is the brain alfo, that grand centre, to which all their impreffions are forwarded, and from whence they immediately act upon the immaterial principle.-Thefe corporeal fenfes receive their impreffions from the prefence, or impulfe, of exterior beings (for all our fenfations are but modes of mo, tion). And every one of thofe exterior beings is dependent, for exiftence, and for operation, on God Moft High. Such is the progreffion of one argument (and it is but one among many), for the great doctrine of philofophical neceffity: a chain, concerning which (and, especially, concerning the determination to action, by motives arifing from ideas) Mr. Wesley modeftly affirms, that "It has not one good link belonging to it." Sericufiy, I pity the fize of his understanding. And I pity it, because I verily believe it to be a fault which he cannot help: any more than a dwarf can help not being fix feet high. Lame indeed are all his commentations: "But "But better he'd give us, if better he had." I fhall close this chapter, with fubmitting a few plain and reasonable queries to the reader. 1. How is that fuppofition, which afcribes a felfdetermining will to a created fpirit, lefs abfurd, than that fuppofition, which afcribes felf-existence to matter? 2. In what refpect, or refpects, is the Arminian fuppofition of a fortuitous train of events, lefs atheistical, than the epicurean fuppofition of a fortuitous concourfe of atoms? 3. If man be a felf-determining agent, will it not neceffarily follow, there are as many firft caufes (i. e. in other words, as many gods), as there are men in the world? 4. Is not independence effentially pre-requifite to felf-determination? 5. But is it true in fact, and would it be, found philofophy to admit, that man is an independent being? 6. Moreover, is the fuppofition, of human independence and felf-determination, found theology? At least, does it comport with the fcriptural account of man? For a fpecimen of which account, only caft your eye on the paffage or two that follow.-The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his own fteps *.-Without me [i. e. without Chrift], ye can do nothing.-In him [i. c. in God] we live, and are moved (vela), and have our existence 1.-It is he who worketh all in all §.-It is God, who worketh in you both to will and to do |.-Of him, and to him, and through him, are all things ¶. * Jer. x. 23. §1 Cor. xii. 6. + John xv. 5. C 4 Acts xvii. 28. ¶ Rom. xi. 36. 7. May |