the mathematics; yet they could discover no contradiction in the fame body being in different places at the fame time, when once they supposed the interpofition of infinite power, and the pliancy of space and matter, to the irrefiftible will of omnipotence, which can either create or annihilate them.

Thus, after a laborious excurfion into the provinces of philofophy and theology, the philofophical divine must return back to the first elements of logic and grammar, that treat of the modes of fpeech; and, from the combination of time, place, circumstances, the nature of the teftament, or laft will of a man on the eve of his death (but a man who united in the fame perfon, the finless weakness of humanity, with the power and nature of the Godhead), determine whether he spoke in a literal or figurative fense. For place and body, matter and space, are incomprehenfible riddles which the greatest philofophers are at a lofs how to unravel. The fenfations of cold, hunger, thirst, pain, and pleasure, convince us fufficiently that we have bodies, whofe daily decay we are continually repairing with fleep and aliment. We are, in like manner, convinced that there is fuch a thing as place, when we remove from the firefide to bed, where, locked up in the close arms of fleep, we are for a while in an intermediate

state

ftate between life and death; dreaming fometimes that we are fovereigns, fwaying the fceptre of authority; and at other times, trembling under the hand of the executioner, who has the axe in his hand to fever the head from the body, or the rope to ftrangle us; alternately enjoying the grandeur of kings, and undergoing the punishment of criminals, without the reality of either. The different impreffions we receive from the fun, moon, and ftars, fcorching flames, and refreshing fprings, make us believe that there are other bodies in nature, befides thofe frail machines we carry about us.

In a word, fenfations from within, and impreffions from without, concur to convince us that there are places and bodies. The arguments of divines, and the feverity of human laws, in fupport of thofe arguments, configning thofe bodies to prifon, death, banishment, or hunger, are collateral proofs that we have those bodies, and that we feel their existence by means of painful fenfations. Yet the immortal Berkely, bishop of Cloyne, has proved by arguments hitherto unanswerable, that there is no demonftration for the existence of one fingle body in nature. He has reconciled the Catholic and Proteftant philofophers and divines, about the real prefence, by cutting off, at one blow, both body and place.

Our whole life, according to this fyftem, adopted by feveral learned men, is but one continual fcene of delufion. Objects we never faw, during the day-time, are prefent to us in our fleep, and make a deep and lafting impreffion. Who knows, then, but all the actions we perform, when we imagine ourselves awake, are real dreams? We are fpirits created millions of years before the Mofaic account.

In that pre-existent state, we gloried too much in our knowledge; and, as a just punishment, we are given up for a fhort time to dreams and deceptions, not on earth, or in corruptible bodies, for there are no fuch things, and whoever fays there are fuch things, can never prove his affertion: but the great theatre on which we play the fportive farce, is nothing elfe than God's immenfity, which can never fall within the reach of corporeal organs, eyes, ears, hands, &c for the exiftence of fuch organs is a mere delufion.

Origenes, the most learned of the fathers, who wrote fix thousand books, and was complimented by Porphyry, the heathen philosopher, was of opinion, that the fouls of men were angels, who, in the great conflict between the good and bad fpirits, observed a strict neutrality, and were doomed to corruptible bodies, in order to try their fincerity. Had Origenes

been

been as well verfed in philofophy, as our modern writers, he would have confined himself to fpirits, and granted bodies no existence in the clafs of beings.

Happy for millions were the philofophers fyftem founded in reality, and that we had no bodies! For the difputes of theologians have destroyed and famifhed a good part of the creation. We have every respect for the Chriftian religion and its minifters of all denominations, and without any doubt, for that system in which we have had the happiness of being reared up. But we are extremely forry that religion has ever been made a pretext for perfecution or oppreflion.

We have taken the liberty, in the course of this treatife, to glance at fome religious as well as philofophical fyftems, to fhew the weakness of reafon, and the impoffibility of establishing univerfal orthodoxy.

Should this treatise fall into the hands of any of our legislators, in whofe power it is to ease the necks of their inoffenfive fubjects from the galling yoke of oppreffion; we expect from their wisdom and feelings, that they will no longer confider difference in religion as a fufficient reafon for hindering the young gentleman from purchafing a pair of colours, and fighting

the

the battles of his king and country; the induf trious citizen from realizing the fruits of his labour, in getting landed fecurity for his money, and purchasing an estate, defcendible to his children; the phyfician, the opulent farmer, the man of property, from carrying a gun, a sword, a cafe of piftols, for their defence, from the attacks of the midnight affaflin or highwayman; the clergyman, who inftils the principles of good morals into the minds of the ignorant who would follow the fierce inftinct of favage and uncultivated nature if they were deprived of their pastors, from the protection of the laws, which now leave them exposed to the caprice and fury of every ruffian, in whose power it is to fhut up their chapels, and get them tranfported: When it is obvious that fuch restraints arife from speculative points difputed on a narrow ridge by the greatest men the world has ever produced,-when philofophers themselves are bewildered in their notions,-and when the learned are at variance, about matters far be-yond the reach of the bulk of mankind.

Should it be faid that these laws are feldom put in force; it can be answered that the liberty of the fubject, which is the birth-right of man, fhould not depend on the capricious benevolence of his neighbour. The law should be the common mother whofe arms fhould be open to

all: