As where he neither fees, hears, nor walks; but was to be introduced into a spacious world, where there is fcope fufficient for the exercise of all his faculties, and proper objects for their entertainment. foon as he is discharged from his lonesome prison, he begins to fee, move, and to perceive; by degrees he finds the use of all his limbs, and proper employment for all his senses; proper objects for his eyes, a variety of founds for his ears, and bodies for his touch:we find in man, moreover, a mind, or understanding, which makes use of the eyes, as windows, to look abroad for fome suitable entertainment. At first, indeed, though it may be agreeably amused with the multiplicity of objects which it beholds, and delighted with the contemplation of them, yet still it finds nothing more excellent than itself, and therefore as the infant struggling for its liberty, exerts itself to the last degree, so the foul even while confined to this body looks up to its Creator; contemplates his heavenly perfections, and in such exercises as these foars above the sphere of fenfe. Shall we not fay then, that this celeftial principle within us will not endure to be for ever imprisoned, but will one day seek its Maker face to face, and not darkly, as through a glafs; that it will hereafter lead a life fuitable to its nature, and free from the incumbrances of flesh and blood. In fhort, as the infant is prepared, and fitted in the womb for launching into another state; so in this world the foul is preparing for her journey to the next. We are filled with a thousand anxieties at the taking our farewell of this life; and we may conclude, that the infant too would be very loth to leave his dark cell, if nature did not oblige him to it. And, had he the power of speech, would he not call his birth by the name of death? While we were inhabitants of the womb, though we had eyes, we neither faw, nor enjoyed the light; and, for the most part, I presume, were motionless, unless when some extraordinary accident intervened; even when we did move, we were igmorant that we had either sense or motion:-Is it any matter of furprife surprise then, that in this life the eyes of our mind are so short fighted? That many never reflect on the immortality of their fouls, but when awakened by fome uncommon occurrence? Is not the infant, think you, as unwilling to make his entrance into this life, as we are to make our exit, and bid adieu to the flesh and fenfe, in which our fouls are imprisoned, or rather intombed? And had he but a small share of knowledge, would he not be as folicitous to preserve his existence in the womb, as we are of continuing in this world? And would he not have as much reafon to think the theatre on which our fenfes act, an idle dream and delufion as any sceptic amongst us can have to imagine that stage to be on which our fouls must act for ever? There is no doubt to be made but. that he would have equal foundation for such an uncomfortable conjecture. Then "bleft be that great power, which hath us bleft "With longer life than heaven, or earth can have, "Which hath infus'd into one mortal breaft "Immortal powers not fubject to the grave; "For, though the foul do feem her grave to bear, "We have no caufe, the body's death to fear, "For, when the shell is broke, out comes a chick. "For, as the foul's effential powers are three, "The quickning power, the power of fenfe, and reafon, "Three kinds of life to her defigned be, "Which perfect these three powers in their due season : "The first life in the mother's womb is spent, "Where "Where when she finds defect of nourishment, "This we call birth, but, if the child could speak, "And, in his paffage, pinch him with such pain: "Yet out he comes, and in this world is plac'd, "Where he finds flowers to fmell, and fruits to tafte, "When he hath pafs'd fome time upon this ftage, "Which, though she springs when sense doth fade with age, "Then doth the aspiring foul the body leave, "What life our fouls do by this death receive, "In this third life, reafon will be fo bright 86 Being ftill encreas'd by influence divine.” NOSCE TE IPSUM. Let us conclude then, with the before mentioned obfervation of Plato, namely," that there is an inward as well as an outward "man." The latter comprehends the being and harmony of all the parts of the world; the former the feveral degrees of life. A child child in the womb lives like a plant, but excels it, and is prepared for being an animal, by having both fenfe and motion. These he has in perfection in this world, and fome share of understanding, which prepares him for the other, in which his reafon will have ample room to entertain and folace itself. As the babe makes his entrance into this world, fo we launch out into the other. We fally out of our first world, if we may be allowed the expreffion, into this fecond, for want of proper nourishment; but our sense is quicker, and motion swifter: and from this into the third, growing defective in fenfe and motion; but daily improving in our underftandings. And if our paffage from the firft to the second, be called our birth, why should our paffage from the second to the third be called our death? And fince the acts of our mind have fuch a tendency to a future state, that it cannot rest in any present enjoyment, this world can be but like a caravansary where we lodge for a night, as we are travelling towards the heavenly Canaan. "Death is an equal doom "To good and bad, the common inn of reft; "But after death the trial is to come, "When beft fhall be to them that lived beft." SPENSER. SECTION VI. AS some objections may poffibly be adduced to what we have fet forth in relation to the NATURE OF THE SOUL; we flatter ourselves we shall in what follows not only meet, but be able to answer them to the fatisfaction of every ferious enquirer. First then, fome may fay, that the foul and the body are the "fame, because we fee nothing but the body; as they deny a Deity, because they cannot fee him." To this I anfwer, we fee God and the foul in their effects. A dead body has the fame parts parts that it enjoyed when living, but thofe parts do not perform the fame functions which they did before. The eye ceases to see, though the eye itself remains intire, and therefore the vifive faculty is not owing to the body. The moft piercing eye cannot fee itfelf; and if the foul were to be feen by the eye, it would lofe its nature, and be no longer a foul, but a body; for our eyes are capable of discerning nothing but bodies. But fay fome, " Though "we have a fenfitive power yet we have not a rational one; fince "what we call reafon, is nothing more than a quick fenfe, or "the refult of it, and when the fenfes decay, that perishes with "it." But this very argument of theirs is a plain demonstration that they have a faculty fuperior to fenfe. For the quickest fenfe can never draw a conclufion. It can perceive that there is fome fmoke but cannot reason thus; if there be smoke, there must be fire, and fomebody to kindle it. Brutes can hear mufic, but not judge of its harmony, and difcern the cause of difcords and concords, as men can, and of their pleasing or fhocking the fenfe. Our smelling of odours, tafting of favoury meats, and feeling of folid fubftances are, doubtless, the operations of our fenfes; but to judge of the internal virtue of a thing by the smell of it, of the wholesomeness, or pernicious quality of it by its tafte, and of the malignancy of a fever by feeling a perfon's pulfe, and to penetrate into his very bowels, which the quickest eye cannot, argues a power beyond that of fenfe. It is true, indeed, that fome brutes have quicker fenfes than fome men; but then they have not the faculty of comparing founds, or smells, &c. with their oppofites, or of making them fubfervient to each other, or to themselves. From whence it manifeftly follows, that there is, in man, a power fuperior to that of sense. No one fure would venture to say, that the most acute fenfe could ever make a man either a painter, a mafter of mufic, or a phyfician. Nay, how often do we run counter to the judgment of fenfe? Such a tower, at |