have on the contrary rendered the plaineft Truths Myfterious and Unintelligible: To fuch I mean who will ftrictly keep within their Method and Rules of refolving even all that Knowledge which confifts in Complex Notions and Conceptions, indifferently and promiscuously into Ideas of Senfation and Reflection, as qualy Simple and Original.

TAKE an Instance of this truth in one Point of Knowledge; God is to be worshiped by Man. In this Propofition there are three Complex Notions or Conceptions exprefs'd: that of God, which is a Conception or Notion not only very Complex, but made up of the utmost Perfections of our own Nature Analogicaly attributed to an infinite Being who is Incomprehenfible, that is, of whom we have no Proper or Direct Idea; and this is a Conception the plaineft Man is capable of forming to himself, according to the Measure of his Understanding. Divine Worship is a complex Notion, formed by putting together the outward Pofture of the Body, the Intention of the Mind, all thofe Paffions and Affections which are the Ingredients of Devotion. in the Soul; together with the Invisible Object to which all these are directed. Man is likewife a very complex Notion or Conception, including the outward Figure of the Body, the immaterial Spirit with the pure Intellect and Will, and all the Paffions and Affections of the inferior Soul; and every one puts as many of thefe

thefe together as he can to make up his Notion of a Man. Thus that Propofition is Plain and Intelligible to every Capacity; and if this Point of Knowledge fhould come to be Refolved Analyticaly, it would be found to have taken its first Rife from our fimple original Ideas of Senfation: From whence the Intellect, proceeding gradualy thro' all its own Obfervations and Deductions, came at length to form that Propofition which is of fo much Confequence in Religion. So that it evidently appears this Affertion may very well be granted to our Freethinkers as true, That we can have no Knowledge without Ideas, nay even without Ideas of Senfation; and yet be very false in Their Sence of it, which is That we can have no Knowledge of things, whereof we have no Ideas.

BUT according to the modern Affectation of refolving all our Knowledge into Ideas, nay Original Simple Ideas, tho' Not of Senfation; fee what a long Chain of Ideas must be Drawn out before you can arrive at a true Knowledge of this Propofition. You must have an Idea of God, of whom you can have no Idea; and of all his Attributes, every one of which are Incomprehenfible. You must have an Idea of Worship, whereof you can have no Idea farther than of the bodily Pofture, or of the Elements and outward Materials ufed in Worship; all the other main Ingredients of Divine Worship

added

added to these make up a Complex Notion, not an Idea of it. Nay you must have distinct and feparate Ideas of all the Operations of the Intellect; and of all thofe Paffions and Affections which are the Ingredients of Devotion in the Mind, by Reflection: And by joining all those Ideas of Reflection, to the Ideas of Senfation which you have from the bodily Pofture and outward Materials, you make up, in their way,

a very Clear and Diftinct Idea of Divine Worship. You must have the Idea of an human and Rational Creature or intelligent Agent of whom you can have no other Idea but that of his outward Bodily Figure and Motion. Nay before you can lay down that Propofition for a fundamental Principle of Religion, you must have an Idea of Thinking, of Reasoning, and Deduction; the Idea of a Law; the Idea of Sanction; the Idea of Obedience and of Tranfgreffion; the Idea of Pleasure and Reward; the Idea of Punishment and Pain; the Idea of Power to give Reward, and to inflict Punishment; and all these must be Simple Original Ideas either of Senfation or Reflection. And thus if you go about to refolve any other Inftance of plain and obvious Knowledge into its firft Originals according to this New Method, it will be intirely loft in a confused Jumble and Rout of Ideas.

THUS far are our tedious modern Syftems, which run altogether upon the Doctrine of

Ideas, from contributing any Real Help and Improvement to the Understanding; infomuch that when you have read them over with the greatest Attention, your Head only Chimes and Tingles with a continued inceffant Repetition of the Word Idea: And you are fo far from any true Advancement of Knowledge, that you have been fo long wandering out of your way; and can make no Progrefs till you come into the plain and open Road again. But what is yet worse, you are, by that confused and indiftinct Method of Proceeding, infenfibly drawn into an Opinion, That you can have no Knowledge of any thing but what you have a direct and immediate Idea of; which is a Propofition fataly false, and the great fundamental Principle of all thofe, who fet up for Reason and Evidence in Oppofition to Revelation and Myflery.

CHAP. V.

The Intellect's Consciousness of its own Operations. Its complex Notions and Conceptions.

WHE

HEN the Imagination is ftored with fuch an immense Fund of Simple Ideas, and with its own manifold Compofitions out of them; the Intellect naturaly proceeds to a Confideration of thofe feveral Operations of its own which it exerts and exercises upon them; but not to a View of any Ideas we have of them

either Direct, or by Reflection: And therefore I would choose to say, it begins to mark and obferve its own Operations from an inward and immediate Consciousness it hath of them; and not by the Mediation of any Ideas.

AN Idea of Reflection is an empty Sound, without any intelligible and determinate Meaning. It hath been used in Oppofition to our Direct Perception of fenfible Objects, from whence we have Ideas of Senfation; and the Mind is prepofteroufly fuppofed to come by Ideas of its own Operations, from a Reflex Act or looking back upon itself. But as the Eye is incapable of furveying its Internal Frame by any Direct or Reflex Act; fo is the Mind utterly unable to know its own Operations by any Direct or Reflex Ideas: Or to have any other Knowledge of them than an immediate SelfConsciousness, obtained while it is employed on the Ideas of External Objects. It is by those Operations upon fuch Ideas, that the Intellect at firft comes to the Knowledge even of a Power within itself of exerting fuch a Variety of Operations. It would not perceive that it had even an Existence, or a Faculty of Thinking or Willing, were it not for fome Idea or Notion of the Object which it actualy thinks upon, or defires and choofes. The Intellect firft operates either upon fome original Ideas of Senfation; or upon fome Compofitions and Combinations made out of them; or upon fome Com