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 mechanifm,-to the cohefion 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,those ftrange and fudden returns, reflections, and transitions in thought, which, by experience, we 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 those different modes of thought be no more than the different ftates of the folid, figured, divifible parts of matter, with respect to velocity and direction, it is neceffary that they fhould have been put into these different ftates, by the impulse of fame foreign mover.

If

If this mover, which is the cause of motion, be matter, it must be moved or acted on itfelf: 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 reafon and argumentation. But a progreffion to infinity is difcarded by all philo fophers, both ancient and modern.

To fpin out the fubject in metaphyfical arguments, were lofs 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 ery 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 supposing 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 spiritual joys of future bliss, the distant 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

cause

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

Further: Under the difpenfation of a juft 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 strangles his father, in order to take poffeffion of his eftate, and the juft man who is disposed to prefer death to iniquity, from an apprehenfion of offending his Maker?

Yet the world has feen the greatest 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 free, 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 Baptist beheaded, in prifon, for exclaiming against inceft,-a Nero fwaying the fceptre of the world, after ripping open his mother's womb,-and a Paul bound with chains, for preaching juftice, judgment, and chastity.

Virtue,

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

But you inform us that you believe in a future ftate, though the foul 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

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count of the mould of the earth being washed

away into the fea; fo that nothing will remain 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 even in his defence he does not retract it.

It is, certainly, the fittest time to change our mouths and stomachs 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 of corn. Our bodies then are useless.

ears

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 fpirit and matter, is not there an infinite diftance? Are not their properties fo diftinct, as mutually to exclude each other? God, then, muft deftroy 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, whofe 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 monfters of human nature, whose names ftand for the most odious crimes, are to be punished in a future ftate, is any part of the body, in which they committed the moft abominable actions, to be joined to this pretended fpirit? If fo, fpirit and body can be united together. If no part of the body is to be joined to this fpirit, then it is a fpirit immediately created by the Almighty, and immediately punished, without any previous fin of its own. Reconcile this, if you can, to the juf tice of God, who rewards or punishes every one according to his works.

Let