If the actions of men are not spontaneous, and there be no such spontaneous actions in what passes on earth, we are only the more embarrassed to conceive what is the first cause of all motion. : If it be necessary to admit general laws, that have no apparent relation to matter, from what fixed point must that enquiry set out? Those laws, being nothing real, or substantial, have fome prior foundation, equally unknown and occult. Experience and observation have taught us the laws of motion; these laws, however, determine effects only without displaying their causes; and therefore, are not fufficient to explain the fystem of the uni verse. Descartes could form a model of the heavens and the earth with dice; but he could not give their mo. tions to those dice, nor bring into play his centrifugal force without the assistance of a rotatory motion... Newton discovers the law of attraction; but attraction alone would foon have reduced the universe into one folid mass: to this law, therefore, he found it necessary to add a projectile force, in order to account for the revolution of the heavenly bodies. Could Defcartes tell us by what physical law his vortices were put up and kept in moti. on? Could Newton produce the hand that first impelled the planets in the tangent of their respective orbits? The first causes of motion do not exist in matter; bodies receive from and communicate motion to each other, but they cannot originally produce it. The more I obferve the action and reaction of the powers of nature acting on each other, the more I am convinced that they are merely effects, and that we must ever recur to fome volition as the first cause; for to suppose there is a progression of causes to infinity, is to fuppose there is no first cause at all. In a word, every motion, that is not produced by fome other, must be the effect of a spontaneous, voluntary act: inanimate bodies have no action but motion; and there can be no real action without violation. Such is my first principle. I believe, therefore, that a 183 will gives motion to the universe, and animates all na ture. This is my first article of faith... 3333 33 ??? ? ? ???? ????? ?????????? In what manner volition is productive of physical and corporal action, I know not, but I experience with. in myself that it is productive of it. I will to act, and the action immediately succeeds; I will to move my body, and my body instantly moves; but, that an ina. nimate body, lying at rest, should move itself or produce motion, is incomprehensible and unprecedented. The will alfo is known by its effects, and not by its effence. I know it as the cause of motion; but, to conceive matter producing motion, would be evidently to conceive an effect without a cause, or rather not to conceive any thing at all. It is no more possible for me to conceive how the will moves the body, than how the sensations affect the foul. I even know not why one of these mysteries ever appeared more explicable than the other. For my own part, whether at the time I am active or passive, the means of union between the two fubstances appear to me absolutely incomprehensible. Is it not strange that the materialists have thrown off this incomprehensibility, merely to confound the two fubstances together, as if operations fo different could be better explained as the effects of one subject than of two, The principle which I have here laid down, is undoubtedly something obfcure; it is however intelligible, and contains nothing repugnant to reason or observation. Can we say as much of the doctrines of materialism ? It is very certain that, if motion be essential to matter, it would be inseparable from it; it would be always the same in every portion of it, incommunicable, and incapable of increase or diminution; it would be impossible for us even to conceive matter at rest. Again, when I am told that motion is not indeed essential to matter, but necessary to its existence, I see through the attempt to impose on me, by a form of words, which it would be more easy to refute, if more intelligible. For, whether the motion of matter arises from itself, and is therefore essential to it, or whether it is derived from some external caufe, it is no farther necessary to it than as the moving cause acting thereon: so that we still remain under the first difficulty. ed General and abstract ideas form the fource of our greatest errors. The jargon of metaphyfics never difcovered one truth; but it has filled philosophy with abfurdities of which we are ashamed, as foon as they are stript of their pompous expressions. Tell me truly, my friend, if, when you are told of a blind, unintelligent power being diffused throughout all nature, any precise idea is conveyed to your understanding? It is imagined that something is meant by those vague terms, Universal force and Neceffary motion; and yet they convey no meaning. The idea of motion is nothing more than the idea of pafsing from one place to another, nor cari there be any motion without fome particular direction; for no in lividual being can move feveral ways at once. In what manner, then, is it, that matter necessarily moves; Has all the matter of which bodies are composed, a general and uniform motion, or has each atom a particular motion of its own? If we give into the first motion, the whole universe will appear to be one folid and indivisible mass; and according to the second, it should constitute a diffused, and incoherent fluid, without a possibility that two atoms ever could be united. What can be the direction of this motion common to all matter? Is it in a right line upwards or downwards, to the right or to the left? (To be continued.. NEW-YORK: Printed and published by the Editor, No. 26, Chathamstreet, at Two Dollars per annum, one half paid in advance, levery six months. TH Christians. Exodus Chapter 3d. HE theism andmorality of this chapter may with much propriety be called in question; there is an evident incorrectness in both, and wherever this appears it must invalidate the supposed divine origin of any book whatever. Mofes who at this time was acting in the capacity of a shepherd to his father-in-law Jethro, faw a wonderful fight, a bush in flames, without being confum*ed. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not confumed. And Moses said, I will now turn afide and fee this great fight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord faw that he turned aside to fee, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and faid, Mofes, Moses! And he faid, here am I. And he faid draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Here is a strange confufion of ideas and fuch as represent the Jewish divinity in a contemptible point of light. First it is the Angel of the Lord that took his *feat in this flaming predicament; then it appears to be God himself. This case is fimilar to that of old Jacob, who wrestled all night with an Angel, and afterwards it turned out to be God himself. Do these inspired writers acknowledge no difference between Angels and the Supreme Creator of the universe? It seems not, and of course their views must be very limited concerning the splendid perfection of the eternal God. But Mofes marches up to this flaming bush to examine the fingular phenomenon of its not being confumed; when it appeared that God himself was there, and called out for Mofes. Moses made his responses and received the mandate of the most high, which confists in a folemn injunction that Moses should pull off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy. Very important command, fublime revelation indeed! that God should take the trouble to feat himself in a flaming bush for the fimple and foolish purpose of telling a man to pull off his shoes. Such degrading representations of the Supreme Being are strong evidences that he was not concerned in any shape whatever with these who fabricated this book. In the last verse of this chapter we find Ged directing his chosen people to rob the Egyptians of their property, under the fpecious name of borrowing, but without any intention of returning the things again, or any equivelent for them. But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of filver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your fons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians. How far fuch proceedings and directions are consistent with the principle of immutable justice, christian believers ought to explain. History silent in regard to Remarkable occurrences, related in the Bible. When Christ was baptised by John the Heavens were opened, and a voice was heard, declaring his divine origin. Such a prodigy must have awakened the attention of all Judea; yet we find the historians totally filent on the matter. It is strange, that the horrible massacre of the children, by the command of Herod, should be totally unnoticed by Josephus, and even by the evangelists, Mark, Luke, and John. Mathew alone mentions it; but his authority is sufficient to justify an interpolation into the text of others, who are defective in that parti |