mankind know it by an inward consciousness, SER M. which is the fureft evidence, that the motion II.

takes its rise from, being conftantly and uniformly produc'd by, a self-determining power within.

Here then is a plain familiar example, directing us to form an idea of a mind acting upon matter, a percipient, felf-determining principle, moving bodies only by a volition. By this the fupreme first Mover has left us a witness within ourselves, which confounds the cavils of Atheism. Shall it be faid, that the whole fyftem of the universe, and all it contains, is to be refolv'd into mechanifm, without a directing immechanical principle: that the being of fuch a principle, which is the fpring of thought and active operations on unthinking matter, is unintelligible, and that no motion can be conceiv'd to be effected but by a material impulfe? All this, which Atheists call abfurd, is exemplified in that little system, a fingle animal. Shall we not acknowledge that he who form'd this percipient felf-determining power, the ruler of the body which it inhabits, yet unknowing how it exercises its dominion; that he, I say, is poffess'd of superior intelligence and power? And is it not eafily conceivable, that fuch intelligence and power may have a command over large ma

SERM.terial fyftems? This animal life, tho' far more yet is none of it without the characters of the author's perfections stampt upon it, gives us but a faint notion of the Deity: Let us rife to fomething higher, and which carries in it a brighter and more illuftrious image of the divine understanding.

II. excellent than inanimate nature, which

What I mean, are the intellectual powers of the human nature, far tranfcending the fenfitive, both in the excellence of their kind, and the extent of their exercife. When fenfe and understanding perceive the fame object, it is after a very different manner. The former discerns what we call the fenfible qualities of material objects; that is, those objects, by effluvia from them, or by the intervention of fome corporeal medium, make fuch impreffions on our organs, as are the occafion of exciting certain ideas in the mind; and here the capacity of sense terminates, it can go no further. But we are conscious of another power which can review thofe ideas, examine their nature and relations, and, by comparing them together, discover truths concerning them, which the merely animal capacity does not reach to. For example; when a coloured object is prefented to us, the idea of red, white, black, or any other colour is rais'd: Here the report of fenfe ftops,

II.

flops, and many unattentive perfons, too hafti- SER M. ly forming a judgment upon it, conclude that these are qualities really inherent in the bodies. themselves. But upon a more close attention and careful enquiry, others are fatisfied that they are really no more than our own fenfations, caused by some particular disposition of parts in the surface of the coloured body, giving fuch a determination to the rays of light, that they form thofe images in the organs of fight, which are the nearer object of our perception. Our reasoning in this and many other inftances upon fenfe, fhows a power fuperior to it in the mind, which apprehends the fame objects after a quite different manner. We have thoughts concerning them, which fense could never have fuggefted; we confider their relations, their fimilitude and diffimilitude; we form general notions, wherein the mind abstracts from individual exiftence,which the fenfitive faculty is not capable of; we difcern the agreement or difagreement of our own ideas, their connexion and dependence; we form propofitions upon them, affirming and denying, distinguishing between truth and falshood, and having clearly perceiv'd fome truths, we proceed in our search after more, by confideration and arguing. Now, tho' the occafion of all these and other modes of think

D 4

SERM.thinking, may be introduc'd by the fenfes,

II.

every one who attends, must be convinced,
that the exercise of the mind in them is very
different from sensation.

But there are other objects of the under-
standing, not deriv'd either immediately or re-
motely from the fenfes. Confciousness is no
image or reprefentation of any thing without;
That clear intuitive knowledge we have of our
being and our own powers, with all their va-
rious exercifes and acts, (fuch as perceptions
of every kind, fenfations, reflections, remem-
brance, judgment, reafoning, felf-determina-
tions, affections, defire, fear, hope, forrow,
joy;) all these are accompanied with a con-
fcioufnefs in the mind, which does not nor
poffibly can proceed from any eternal object; ex
for an external object can only imprint some-
thing of itself, nothing at all of the inward
active difcerning felf. Befides, the fenfation
we are now confidering, as different from, and
inferior to understanding, still takes in thẹ
qualities of paffive matter, extenfion, divifi-
bility, figure, &c. but there are other ideas
in the mind as real and distinct, which do not
reprefent extended, figured, divifible fub-
ftance, nor have the leaft relation to any of its
properties or modifications; fuch as the ideas
of virtue, of honefty, benevolence, gratitude,
justice,

2

juftice, compaffion, which have no manner SER M. of affinity with fenfible qualities, yet are of II. great importance to the purposes of our being, the objects of strong affection, and a confciousness of them yields the most solid and subftantial pleasure to the foul. We reason upon them as clearly, perceive truths concerning them, and draw confequences, in which the mind refts as much fatisfied of their evidence, as in its knowledge of the figures, gravity and other affections of matter. And thus it plainly appears, that there are in the human foul intellectual powers, fuperior to, and different from the fenfitive, both in refpect of the objects about which they are converfant, and the nature and manner of their exercise, when the objects are the fame.

If it be fo, we have a more clear discovery than the animal powers can give us, of selforiginal intelligence in the universe. For, either the understandings we find ourselves poffefs'd of must be eternal and unoriginated, which no mortal ever imagined, or they must be originally derived from an intelligent Author, to whom these characters belong.

The reasoning of Socrates on this fubject seems to be very ftrong and convincing, as it is related by Xenophon*. After he had endeavoured

*Memorab. Socrat. Lib. 1.