part of ourselves ftill remains the directing principle, always afferting its rights, and conftantly fupporting its native title to dominion.

Reconcile, if you can, to the laws of mechanism, to the cohesion of atoms, and to the motions of particles of matter,the infinite capacity of the foul, its ftrong defires after immortality, its power to infer conclufions from principles, in mathematical demonftrations, and logical arguments,-its arbitrary and voluntary. determinations, this shifting and changing,thofe ftrange and fudden returns, reflections, and tranfitions in thought, which, by experience, wę find it in our power to make,

We all agree, that matter touches in contact, and that whatever moves, is put in motion by another. We know, on the other hand, that, in reafoning, argumentations, demonftrations, &c. wherein we infer one thing from another, and another thing from that inference, and a third from thence, and fo on, there is an infinity of different modes of thought. If thofe different modes of thought be no more than the different tates of the folid, figured, divifible parts of matter, with respect to velocity and direction, it is neceffary that they should have been put into these different ftates, by the impulse of fame foreign mover.

If this mover, which is the cause of motion, be matter, it must be moved or acted on itself: for otherwise it could not produce a change of motion in other contiguous parts of matter. There must still be a mover prior to the former, and another prior to that, and fo on to infinity, in every act of reason and argumentation. But a progreffion to infinity is discarded by all philofophers, both ancient and modern.

To fpin out the fubject in metaphyfical arguments, were loss of time. Suffice it to fay, that we would contradict our reafon, and belye our hearts, in fuppofing that the troubles, agitations, importunate remorfes, we feel after the commiffion of fome horrid crime,-the fecret reproaches of a guilty confcience, which made the Athenian paricide cry out, twenty years after having murdered his father, that the crows upbraided him with his death--we would, I fay, only belye our hearts, in fuppofing fuch interior punishments, which tread in the heels of guilt, to be no more than an affemblage of little atoms, with hooked or rough furfaces. In fuppofing that patience and refignation in our afflictions, from an expectation of immortality and the fpiritual joys of future blifs, the diftant reward of our trials, are the refult of smooth atoms gliding through the brain; or that the horrors, which haunt the guilty, proceed from the fame

caufe

2

cause which produces a pain in the head, back, or ftomach.

Further: Under the dispensation of a just and powerful God, crimes must be punished, and virtue rewarded. What notion can we form of a God, who makes no diftinction between the wretch who ftrangles his father, in order to take poffeflion of his estate, and the just man who is difposed to prefer death to iniquity, from an apprehenfion of offending his Maker?

Yet the world has feen the greateft finners elated with profperity,-arrayed with crimes, as with a raiment of glory,-fwimming in an ocean of pleasures, which the fountains of extortion and injuftice fupply,-ftrangers to thofe miferies which, in this world, feem to be the inheritance of the righteous. How many illuftrious culprits, whose power and credit filence the authority of the laws, whilft the innocent victim is fufpended on the tree, upon the depofition of a perjurer, or from the corruption of a judge! The world has feen a Herod on the throne, after murdering the innocents, and a John the Baptift beheaded, in prison, for exclaiming against incest,—a Nero fwaying the fceptre of the world, after ripping open his mother's womb,-and a Paul bound with chains, for preaching justice, judgment, and chastity.

Virtue,

Virtue, then, being oppreffed in this life, and vice unpunished, the filence of a Juft and Allpowerful God,-points out a future ftate, where justice is to resume its rights, and reward each according to his works. And, if divine justice points out a future ftate, the foul muft furvive the body.

But you inform us that you believe in a future state, though the soul is nothing but a motion of the cerebrum, which perishes along with it: For, fays the Doctor, "God will change our bodies "into fpirits at the laft day, when the world "will perifh for want of vegetable food, on ac"count of the mould of the earth being washed 66 away into the fea; fo that nothing will re"main but the bare rocks;" ftill, he will not admit that the body will rife; but that God will create a spirit in the room of every body that ever appeared. This extraordinary creed runs through the whole courfe of his work; and event in his defence he does not retract it.

: ...

It is, certainly, the fittest time to change our mouths and ftomachs into fpirits, when we will have nothing to eat: for, after the refurrection, the hillocks will no longer fmile with the beauty of the vine; the fields will no longer curl with ears of corn. Our bodies then are useless.

Befides:

Befides: In this religious chemistry, we meet with an ample compenfation: for, as we are nothing but bodies now, we will be all fpirits hereafter and the gentleman, who grants us neither foul here, nor body hereafter, grants us both by turns,-bodies, when we have enough to eat, fpirits when we have no food. Pray, fir, between spirit and matter, is not there an infinite distance? Are not their properties fo distinct, as mutually to exclude each other? God, then, must destroy the nature of the one, before he can change it into the other. A new creation must enfue; and one being must be fubftituted in the room of another. A fpirit, then, thus created, and coming from the hands of God, whose works are pure, is it to fuffer for the crimes of a Nero or a Caligula, committed thousands of years before its exiftence? If thofe monsters of human nature, whofe names ftand for the moft odious crimes, are to be punished in a future ftate, is any part of the body, in which they committed the most abominable actions, to be joined to this pretended spirit? If so, spirit and body can be united together. If no part of the 'body is to be joined to this fpirit, then it is a spirit immediately created by the Almighty, and immediately punished, without any previous fin of its own. Reconcile this, if you can, to the juftice of God, who rewards or punishes every one according to his works,

Let