butes, and evidently correfponds with the other parts of his creation.

I know not how to account for this abfurd turn of thought, except it proceed from a want of other employment, joined with an affectation of fingularity. I fhall, therefore, inform our modern Freethinkers of two points, whereof they seem to be ignorant. The firft is, that it is not the being fingular, but being fingular for fomething that argues either extraordinary endowments of nature, or benevolent intentions to mankind, which draws the admiration and esteem of the world. A mistake in this point naturally arises from that confufion of thought, which I do not remember to have feen fo great inftances of in any writers, as in certain modern Freethinkers.

The other point is, that there are innumerable objects within the reach of a human mind, and each of these objects may be viewed in innumerable lights and pofitions, and the relations arifing between them are innumerable. There is, there

fore,

fore, an infinity of things, whereon to employ their thoughts, if not with advantage to the world, at least with amusement to themselves, and without offence or prejudice to other people. If they proceed to exert their talent of Freethinking in this way, they may be innocently dull, and no one take any notice of it. But to fee men without either wit or argument pretend to run down divine and human laws, and treat their fellow-fubjects with contempt for profeffing a belief of those points, on which the present as well as future intereft of mankind depends, is not to be endured. For my own part, I fhall omit no endeavours to render their perfons as defpicable, and their practices as odious, in the eye of the world, as they deserve.

THE following letter comes to me from that excellent man in holy Orders, whom I have mentioned more than once, as one of that Society who affift me in my speculations. It is a thought in sickness, and of a very ferious nature, for which reason I give it a place in the paper of

this day.

Po Jed 5 balot 'SIR, Imoɖw▸ THE indifpofition, which has long hung upon me, is at laft grown to fuch a head, that it must quickly make an end of me, or of itself.

You may imagine, that whilst I am in this bad state

of health, there are none of

your works

won

'which I read with greater pleasure than

575 903 your

your Saturday's papers. I fhould be very glad if I could furnish you with any hints for that day's entertainment. • Were I able to dress up several thoughts of a serious nature, which have made great impreffions on my mind during a long fit of fickness, they might not be ' an improper entertainment for that oc• cafion.

6

Among all the reflections, which ufually rife in the mind of a weak man, who has time and inclination to confider his approaching end, there is none "more natural than that of his going to appear naked and unbodied before him who made him. When a man confiders, that as foon as the vital union is diffolved, he fhall fee that fupreme Being whom he now contemplates at a diftance, and only in his works; or, to fpeak more philofophically, when by fome faculty in the foul he shall apprehend the Divine Being, and be more fenfible of his prefence than we

prefence of any object which

the eye beholds; a man must be loft in

'careleffness and stupidity, who is not 'alarmed at fuch a thought. Dr. Sher'lock, in his excellent treatise upon 'Death, has represented in very strong ' and lively colours the state of the soul in its firft feparation from the body, 'with regard to that invifible world which every where furrounds us, though we are not able to discover it through this 'groffer world of matter, which is ac'commodated to our senses in this life. "His words are as follow:

"That Death, which is our leaving "this world, is nothing else but our put"ting off these bodies, teaches us, that "it is only our union to these bodies, "which intercepts the fight of the other "world. The other world is not at fuch "a distance from us as we may imagine: "the throne of God indeed is at a great "remove from this earth, above the third "heavens, where he difplays his glory "to those bleffed Spirits which encom "pafs his throne: but as foon as we step "out of these bodies, we step into the "other world, which is not fo properly ❝ another