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SER M. fary motion. The admiffion of fpirit would IV. ruin the Atheistic fcheme: for fpirit is fuppos'd to be effentially distinct from body, being by its nature active and intelligent; and if that be once allow'd to have an existence feparate from, and independent on matter, by what pretence of reason fhall counsel and design be excluded out of the formation and government of the world, or any part of it? Nay, where can a barrier be fixed against infinite perfection, or the Deity? Now that fpirit must be admitted, will appear from this confideration; that attending carefully to the obvious common properties of matter, we shall find it impoffible, without having recourse to the agency of fpirit, to account for the motion, the changes of the fituation, and of the magnitude, figure and other qualities of corporeal beings, it is the neceffary condition of all bodies, the very law of their nature, to continue in the ftate wherein they are, and to refift any alteration, until it be effected, and the resistance conquered, by an external force. If this neceffarily belongs to all matter, its smallest and its greatest quantities, how shall the beginning of motion and the most common appearances in material nature itself, fuch as the changes of its form which depend upon motion, be explained without an external agent? Thofe

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Those who have ftudied the powers of mat- SERM. ter with the greatest exactness, find that there IV. is establish'd among all the bodies a law of mutual attraction and gravitation; and by the help of this one obfervation, attending to it closely and pursuing it through all its confequences, they have made the greatest improvements in natural philosophy, and given the most fatisfying explication which has yet appear'd, of the constant motions and other great phænomena in the visible heavens and the earth. But they do not pretend to tell us the cause of attraction and gravitation, whereby all bodies tend towards each other, with a force greater or leffer according to their distances: Only 'tis certain, this active moving force is not in bodies themselves. For all which can be call'd their action on each other, or their impulfe, is by the contact of their furfaces; whereas the force of gravity operates at a distance, and is always in proportion to the folid content of the gravitating and attracting bodies; and therefore the immediate Cause must be something which pervades the intire mafs of them, even to their very centers, and makes an impreffion upon every particle. In vain should we fly for a fatisfying solution of this appearance, to a fubtle fluid matter, which penetrating folid bodies and filling their in

terstices,

SERM. terftices, impels them towards each other. For
IV. befides that this is but an arbitrary supposition,

it ought to be confidered that fubtle matter is
matter ftill, paffive and undefigning, not act-
ing but acted upon. The difficulty will re-
main, and the question, as chang'd by this
hypothefis, be as hard to answer as the question
concerning the cause of gravitation without
it. What is it that determines and gives a force
to the (effentially unactive) fubtle matter of
the fun, and the fubtle matter of the earth,
whereby they impel those bodies towards each
other with a force proportionable to the quan-
tity of folid extended fubftance they contain,
when other bodies which contain a leffer quan-
tity of the like extended solid substance, but are
as open to the impreffions of the undistinguish-
ing fubtle matter, do not fo gravitate? In
fhort, if we should heap material caufes upon
material causes to infinity, we shall never be
fatisfied in that way: there must be a beginning
of operation from an active principle, which
we call spirit, effentially distinct from matter.
The ideas of it and its properties, namely,
activity and consciousness, are as different from
extenfion, folidity, divifibility and figure,,
which belong to all bodies, as any ideas in
our minds can poffibly be. The more we con-
fider, the more we shall be convinc'd that

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matter

matter of itself, and without spirit, can pro-SER M. duce nothing even in itself, none of its own IV. appearances, neither motion, gravity nor form; it is capable of being variously compounded and divided; it is capable of various figures and fituations; but it can neither compound nor divide itself, neither change its figure nor fituation.

If it be fo, we must conclude there is such a thing in the world as fpirit, effentially different from, but intimately present with all bodies which we fee, and continually operating upon them for it; is the efficient cause of their most common and conftant appearances. Mechanism itself cannot be without fpirit, for the mechanical powers of matter, commonly fo called, depend upon it, fince gravity is owing to its influence. It is true all this does not directly prove understanding in the cause of motion, gravity, and other common appearances in the material world; but it proves activity effentially different from matter, which forms it and produces the most important effects that appear in it. And this is fufficient to overturn the grounds of Atheifm, showing that matter is not the fole being or fubftance in the univerfe, and the fole origin and cause of all things. Besides, as we find by experience in ourselves, and other agents

SERM. agents as far as we know, activity is ftill acIV. companied with thought and perception.

There can be no rational pretence for denying understanding to the great active forming principle of the corporeal fyftem, without which, matter, if it could poffibly have existed, muft have remain'd an eternal chaos devoid of motion, and confequently of vari ous figure, or any kind of regular appearance. What limits can be fet to the intellectual perfection of that mighty Agent, who is independent of the material world, on whom it neceffarily depends, prior in nature: For he is the author of its form, and has moulded its parts into their different fhapes, with all the diversity of their different qualities, and given it those laws by which it is still govern'd? Rather indeed what we call its laws, are his own continued uniform and regular operations. And tho', as I obferv'd before, fome who believ'd a Deity, weakly imagin'd him to be corporeal, not conceiving any fubstance diftinct from matter; this was only an inconsistency in their notions which proceeded from not attending to the irreconcileable difference between the ideas of material qualities and intelligence. If they had fully confidered their own acknowledg'd principle of an eternal, all-wife and powerful mind, comparing

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