ftance. We have Immediate, fimple, original Ideas of the Qualities of corporeal Subftance, by Impreffion from outward Objects; but there are No Ideas within us of the Operations of the Mind; fo that the Operations Themfelves are difcerned, and not any Ideas inftead of them: And that too no otherwife than by a Confcioufnels of the Mind's operating from the firft upon Ideas of Senfation; and afterwards upon those Compound Ideas and Complex Notions which it raises up to itself out of them.

BUT what is yet more abfurd, granting that we had As clear and Diftinct Ideas of the Qualities or Operations of our Mind, fuch as Thinking, Knowing, Doubting, and Power of Moving, as of Corporeal Qualities; yet this would give us no Idea either of the Qualities or Subftance of a Spirit: For in Man thefe are all the joint Operations of Spirit and Matter in effential Union and Conjunction; which can give us no Ideas of the Qualities and Operations of a Subftance Purely immaterial, and intirely Independent of Matter. And what is yet worst of all is, that if mere Matter is capable of having the Powers of Thinking, Willing, Knowing, Doubting, as the aforefaid Author contends; then Thefe Properties can give us no Ideas or diftinguishing Marks of things which are Not Matter; and which must confequently be endued with Knowledge without that Thinking, which (upon this Suppofition of his) muft

either be a Quality Effential to Matter, or else Change the very Effence of Matter, whenever it is Superinduced.

I SHALL take this Opportunity of remarking here, that I fuppofe what led the Author abovementioned into this profound Error of a Poffibility that Thinking may be fuperadded to Matter; was his not rightly diftinguishing between our being capable of Abstractedly confidering the Properties of a Subftance, without confidering or regarding at the fame time the Substance Itself in which they are, which is very poffible: And the having an Actual Perception or Idea of any Effential Properties feparately and Abstractedly from the Substance itself, which is impoffible; because they cannot in Their Nature exist separately from it.

We

cannot difcern, or form an Actual Idea of the effential Properties Without the Substance; but according to common Sence we are faid to dif cern those Properties In the Substance, or a Substance With fuch Properties: This is fo evident that a plain Man would laugh at you, if you fhould tell him that he did neither tafte nor feel the Subftance of the Morfel of Bread he was eating; and that for ought he knew he was chewing only a parcel of Properties, or Qualities. This abfurd Notion, I fay, of an Abstraction utterly Impoffible (of which this Author is every where full) led him into an Opinionof the Poffibility of an Actual Separation

of an Effential Property, from the Effence or Subftance itself; and into a Belief that Thinking could become a Superadded Property of Matter, without fuperadding at the same time the fpiritual or thinking Subftance.

IT is for want of any Clear and Diftinet, or even Obfcure and Confufed Idea of Spirit, that we are forced to conceive it by framing to our felves the best Complex Notion we can of an human Mind, and then transferring it by Analogy to an unknown Being. We do not, as the aforefaid Author defcribes it, form an Idea of Spirit by putting together many Simple Ideas of the Operations of our Mind, fuch as Thinking, Willing, Knowing, and Power of beginning Motion, and then by joining these in their Firft and Original Acceptation, and as differing in Degrees of Perfection only, to a Substance of which we have as Clear and Diftinct an Idea as we have of Body: But we firft frame to our felves the best and most perfect Complex Notion we can have of an human Mind, from a Consciousness of its various Operations upon material Objects and their Ideas, or its own Conceptions; and then we Subftitute this Notion to reprefent Analogicaly a Being whose Subftance and Properties are of a quite Different Kind from ours; and utterly imperceptible and inconceivable, as they are in their Own Nature. The very Reason of which proceeding of the Understanding is, because it is Necessary; for

we can have no Idea either of the Real Properties or True Substance of Angel or Spirit; and if it were not for this way of Procefs we could neither Think nor Speak of them.

FOR this fame Reafon it is, that when Men Attempt to conceive an Angel by any Simple Idea, they do it by that of the most Spirituous Parts of Matter, or more vulgarly by that of a Flying Boy, or a Winged Head; to which they add the beft Conception they have of the Properties of an human Mind: And this they do for want of any Idea either of its Subftance, or of its inconceivable Manner of Knowledge, without any neceffary Concurrence of material Organs; which is therefore no more performed by Thinking, than it is expreffed or communicated by Speaking. And accordingly the Language of Revelation often falls in with this more Vulgar way of conceiving Angels and Spirits; and fpeaks figuratively of the Tongue, and Voice, and Food, and Mouth, and Face, and Hand of an Angel; and the very Denomination itfelf is taken from the manner of one Man's Sending another about Business, and originaly denotes a Meffenger.

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CHAP.

From the Existence of Things material and human, is infer'd the neceffary Existence of God."

FRO

ROM thus inferring the Probable Exiftence of immaterial Beings in General, which we call Substances from our grofs Idea of Matter; the Intellect by a natural Gradation. proceeds to infer the Neceffary Exiftence of one immaterial Supreme Being, the First Canfe of all things. Because the Mind perceives it to be a flat Contradiction that the Beings which have been Produced, taken all together or fingly, fhould produce Themfelves; or that they fhould poffibly be produc'd or preferv'd as they are, otherwife than by the infinite Power and Wifdom of an Intelligent Agent: Which firft Caufe must be Without Beginning; fince it is likewife flat Contradiction that he fhould have made himself.

WITH this plain, and neceffary, and obvious Inference it is, that after the utmoft Reach of the Understanding in the Knowledge of things Natural and merely Human, the Mind enters upon a glorious Scene of Action intirely New; and upon a very Different manner of exerting and exercising all its Operations over again.

Not