depends, for the sources of those innumerable ideas, which it is the vehicle of transmitting to the intel disturbed. But, universally, the disease could not be lodged in the soul itself: 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 case in these appearances. In short, the disorder of matter might make a man a stupid idiot; subject him to sleep, apoplexy, or any thing approaching to its own nature: but could never be the cause of rage, distraction, frenzy, unless it were employed as an instrument by some other cause: that is, it cannot of itself be the cause of these disorders of reason. If the inertia of matter infers any thing, it infers thus much." Baxter's Enquiry into the Nature of the human Soul, vol. ii. p. 141, 142.-1 no more doubt, that mad persons, at this very day, are dæmoniacs, or influenced and agitated by incorporeal and invisible beings; than I can doubt, that some people were so possessed, at the time of our Lord's abode on earth. Such an assertion will probably sound romantically strange to a prejudiced, and to a superficial ear. But let the fact itself really stand how it may), I think I can venture to pronounce, that the philosophy of the opinion, as stated and argued by Mr. Baxter, is irrefragable.-Examine first, and then judge. Unembodied spirits, both friendly and hostile [adaLoves, and xxxodanoves], holy and unholy, have more to do with us, in a way both of good and evil, than the generality of us seem to imagine. But they themselves are all no more than parts of that great chain, which depends on the first cause, or uncreated link; and can only act as ministers of his will. Luther relates several uncommon things, concerning his own converse with some of the spiritual world: which, however fanciful they may, primâ facie, appear; are by no means philosophically inadmissible. For so saying, I am sure to incur a smile of contempt, from pertlings and materialists: the former of whom sneer, when they cannot reason; and wisely consider a grin, and a syllogism, as two names for the same thing. When it can be solidly proved, that the gums are the seat of intellect; I will then allow, that a laughter shows his understanding and his wit every time he shows his teeth. Was ridicule the legitimate test of truth, there could be no such thing as truth in the world; and, consequently, there would be nothing for ridicule to be the test of: as every truth may be, and in its turn actually has beon, ridiculed, by some insipid witling or other. So that, to borrow a lively remark from Mr. Hervey, "The whim, of making ridicule the test of truth, seems as suitable to the fitness of things, as to place harJequin in the seat of lord chief justice." Moreover, ridicule itself, viewed as ridiculously usurping the office of a philosophical touchstone, has been ridiculed, with much poignancy, and strength of sense, by the ingenious pen of the late Dr. Brown, in his Essay on Satire: lect: and, without which transmission, the intellect, implunged in a mass of clay, could have had no more idea of outward things, than an oyster 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 prison without door, window, or crevice. The human body is necessarily encompassed by a multitude of other bodies. Which other surrounding bodies (animal, vegetable, &c.) so far as we come within their perceivable sphere, necessarily impress our nerves with sensations correspondent to the objects themselves. These sensations are necessarily (and, for the most part, instantaneously) propagated to the soul: which can no more help receiving them, and being affected by them, than a tree can resist a stroke of lightning. Now, (1.) if all the ideas in the soul derive their existence from sensation; and, (2.) if the soul depend absolutely on the body for all those sensations; and, (3.) if the body be both primarily and continually dependent, on other extrinsic beings, for the very sensations which it [the body] communicates to the soul;-the consequence seems to me undeniable: that neither the immanent nor the transient acts of man (i. e. neither his mental, nor his outward operations) are self-determined; but, "Come, let us join awhile this titt'ring crew, We therefore see a fool, because we smile. Truth in her gloomy cave why fondly seek? on the contrary, determined by the views with which an infinity of surrounding objects necessarily, and almost incessantly, impress his intellect. In And on what do those surrounding objects themselves, which are mostly material (i. e. on what does matter, in all its forms, positions, and relations), depend? Certainly, not on itself. It could neither be its own creator, nor can it be its own conserver. 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 (a), and through whom all things consist (b). Much less does matter depend on the human mind. Man can neither create nor (c) exterminate, a single atom. There are cases, wherein he can alter the modes of matter: so as to form (for instance) certain vegetable fibres into linen, linen into paper, and paper into books. He can also throw that linen, or paper, or books, into a fire; and thereby dissolve the present 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 necessarily determined by some effectual motive); still the seeming destruction amounts to no more than a variation. Not an individual particle of the burnt matter is extermined: nor even its es (b) Col. i. 17. (a) Heb. i. 3. (c) To all her other antiphilosophical absurdities, Arminianism adds the supposed defectibility of saving grace: by giving as her opinion, that the holy principle in a renewed soul is not only a corruptible and perishable seed, but that it frequently and actually does suffer a total extinction and a final annihilation. Or, as Mr. Wesley and his fraternity vulgarly express 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 less privileged than a particle of matter! and as if man, who cannot annihilate a single atom, were able to annihilate the most illustrious effect of the holy Spirit's operation! Credat Judæus, &c. sential relation to the universe, superseded. There would be precisely the same quantity of solid substance which there now is, without the loss of a corpuscular unit, were all the men, and things, upon the face of the earth, and the very globe itself, reduced to ashes. Consequently, matter is absolutely and solely dependent on God himself. Thus have we briefly traced the winding current to its source. The soul, or intellect, depends on its ideas, for the determinations of its volitions: else it would will, as a blind man walks, at a venture and in the dark. Those ideas are the daughters of sensation; and can deduce their pedigree from no other quarter. The embodied soul could have had no idea of so much as a tree, or a blade of grass, if our distance from those bodies had been such, as to have precluded their respective forms from occurring to the eye. The senses, therefore, are the channels of all our natural perceptions. Which senses are entirely corporeal as is the brain also, that grand centre, to which all their impressions are forwarded, and from whence they immediately act upon the immaterial principle.-These corporeal senses receive their impressions from the presence, or impulse, of exterior beings (for all our sensations are but modes of motion). And every one of those exterior beings is dependent, for existence, and for operation, on God Most High. Such is the progression of one argument (and it is but one among many), for the great doctrine of philosophical necessity: a chain, concerning which (and, especially, concerning the determination to action, by motives arising from ideas) Mr. Wesley modestly affirms, that "It has not one good link belonging to it." Seriously, I pity the size 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 six feet high. Lame indeed are all his commentations: "But better he'd give us, if better he had." I shall close this chapter, with submitting a few plain and reasonable queries to the reader. 1. How is that supposition, which ascribes a selfdetermining will to a created spirit, less absurd, than that supposition, which ascribes self-existence to matter? 2. In what respect, or respects, is the Arminian supposition of a fortuitous train of events, less atheistical, than the epicurean supposition of a fortuitous concourse of atoms? 3. If man be a self-determining agent, will it not necessarily follow, there are as many first causes (i. e. in other words, as many gods), as there are men in the world? 4. Is not independence essentially pre-requisite to self-determination? 5. But is it true in fact, and would it be sound philosophy to admit, that man is an independent being? 6. Moreover, is the supposition of human independence and self-determination, sound theology? At least, does it comport with the scriptural account of man? For a specimen of which account, only cast your eye on the passage or two that follow.The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps (a).-Without me [i. e. without Christ], ye can do nothing (b). -In him [i. e. in God] we live, and are moved (a), and have our existence (c).-It is he who worketh all in all (d).-It is God who worketh in you both to will and to do (e).-Of him, and to him, and through him, are all things (ƒ). (a) Jer. x. 23. (b) John xv. 5. (c) Acts xvii. 28. |