hiftered under a theocracy, and the confequences of fuch an ad miniftration."-This is certainly, a very ingenious interpretation, and what few commentators would have thought of; whether it is a juft and natural one, let thofe who have leisure for it, inquire. Many readers will, undoubtedly, think it far-fetched and unnatural; but they ought to confider, that a commentator scarcely deserves the name, who cannot make his author fpeak what language he pleases. But to proceed. His Lordfhip goes on to tell us, that even admitting the reality of an equal providence to particulars in the Hebrew state, the adminiftration of it must have been attended with fuch circumftances as fometimes to occafion thofe obfervations of inequality. For, 1. It appears, he fays, from the reafon of the thing, that this adminiftration did not begin to be exerted in particular cafes till the civil laws of the republic had failed of their efficacy. Thus where any crime, as for inftance difobedience to parents, was public, it became the object of the civil tribunal, and is accordingly ordered to be punished by the judge. But when private and fecret, then it became the object of divine vengeancet. Now the confequence of this was, that when the laws were remifsly or corruptly administered, good and ill would fometimes happen unequally to men. For we are not to fuppofe that providence, in this cafe, generally, interfered till the corrupt adminiftration itself, when ripe for vengeance, had been firft punished. 2. In this extraordinary administration, one part of the wicked was fometimes fuffered as a fcourge to the other. 3. The extraordinary providence to the ftate might fometimes clash with that to particulars, as in the plague for numbering the people. 4. Sometimes the extraordinary providence was sufpended for a feafon to bring on a national repentance: But at the fame time this fufpenfion was publicly denounced ‡. And a very fevere punishment it was, as leaving a flate which had not the fanction of a future ftate of rewards and punishments in a very difconfolate condition. And this was what occafioned the complaints of the impatient Jews, after they had been fo long accustomed to an extraordinary adminiftration . But the general and full folution of the difficulty is this, The common caufe of thefe complaints arofe from the gradual withdrawing the extraordinary providence. Under the Judges it was perfectly equal. And during that period of the theocracy, it is remarkable that we hear of no complaints. When the people had rebelliously demanded a king, and their folly was fo far complied with, that God fuffered the theocracy to be adminiftered by a viceroy, there was then, as was fitting, a great abatement in the vigour of this extraordinary providence; partly in natural confequence, God being now farther removed from the immediate administration; and partly in punishment of their rebellion. And foon after this it is that we firft find them beginning to make their obfervations and complaints of inequality. From hence to the time of the captivity the extraordinary providence kept gradually decaying, till on their full re-establishment, it entirely ceafed *. For what great reasons, befides punishment for their crimes; and what confequences it had on the religious fentiments of the people, will be occafionally explained as we go along.' His Lordship concludes his fifth book with the following addition in regard to the doctrine of the fleep of the foul between death and the refurrection. After enquiring into the fentiments of the early Jews concerning the foul, he goes on thus: But from this uninterefting ftate, in which the doctrine, concerning the foul, remained amongst the early Jews, the Sadducees concluded that their ancestors believed the extinction of the foul on death. Hence likewife came fome late revivers of this opinion, of the extinction of the foul; though maintained under the fofter name of its fleep between death and the refurrection: for they go upon the Sadducean principle, that the foul is a quality only, and not a fubftance. In fupport of this opinion, the revivers of it proceed on the fophifm, which polytheifts employ to combat the unity of the Godhead. All philofophical arguments (fays the reviver, after having quoted a number of wonderful things from Scripture, to prove the foul a quality, and mortal) drawn from our notions of matter, and urged against the poffibility of life, thought, and agency, being fo connected with fome portions of it as to conftitute a compound being or perfon, are merely grounded on our ignorance t. Juft fo the polytheift. "All arguments for the unity, from metaphyfics, are manifeftly vain, and merely grounded on our ignorance. You believers (fays he) must be confined to Scripture: now * I will only obferve at prefent, what the least reflection on this matter fo naturally fuggefts, that this complaint of inequality never could have come from good men, as it did even from Jeremiah himself, who thus expoftulates with the Almighty: Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: jet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the awicked profper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? [Chap. xii. ver. 1.] It never, I fay, could have come from fuch men, had they been at all acquainted with the doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments; or had they not been long accuftomed to an extraordinary providence. tConfiderations on the Theory of Religion, p. 398. Ed. 3d. L 3 Scripture Scripture affures us, there are Gods mary," which, by the way, I think a forger text, certainly a directer, against the unity of the Gedhead, than any this learned writer has produced for the Sep of the ful. But what fay believers to this? They fay, that Scrip ure takes the unity, as well as the exilence of the deity, for granted; takes them for truths, demonftrable by natural light. Juft fo it is with regard to that immaterial fubftance, the foul. Scripture fuppoes men to be fo far informed of the nature of the foul, by the fame light, as to know that it cannot be destroyed by any of those caufes which bring about the extinction of the body. Our dreamers are aware of this, and therefore hold with unbelievers, that the foul is no jublance, but a quality only; and so have taken effectual care indeed, that its repose shall not be disturbed in this, which we may emphatically call, the fleep of death. We can never prove, (lays another of these fleepers †) that the foul of man is of fuch a nature that it can and muft exist and live, think, act, enjoy, &c. feparate from, and independent of, the body. All our prefent experience fhews the contrary. The operations of the mind depend conftantly and invariably upon the ftate of the body, of the brain in particular.” If fime dying perfons have a lively ufe of their rational faculties to the very laft, it is because death has invaded fome other part, and the brain remains found and vigorous ‡. This is the long-exploded trash of Coward, Toland, Collins, &c. And he who can treat us with it at this time of day, has either never read Clarke and Baxter on the fubject, (in which, he had been better employed than in writing upon it) or never understood them.So far as to the abftract truth. Let us confider next the practical confequences. Convince the philofophic libertine that the foul is a quality arifing out of matter, and vanishing on the diffolution of the form, and then fee if ever you can bring him to believe the Chriftian doctrine of the reJurrection? While he held the foul to be an immaterial fubftance, exifting, as well in its feparation from, as in its conjunction with, the body, and he could have no reason, arifing from the principles of true philofophy, to ftagger in his belief of this revealed doctrine.Th u feel, that which thou foweft is not quickened except it die, is good philofophy [indeed!] as well as good divinity for if the body, inftead of its earthly nature were to have a heavenly, it must needs pafs through death and corruption to qualify it for that change. But when this body died, what occafion was there for the foul, which was to fuffer no change, to fall afleep? Spirit. But their fleep of the foul is mere cant: and this brings me St. Jude's filthy dreamers only defiled the flesh. Thefe defile the I lb. p. 401. St. Paul.' to to the laft confideration, the sense and confiftency of fo ridiculous a notion. They go, as we obferved, upon the Sadducean principle, that the foul is a quality of body, not a fubftance of itfelf, and fo dies with its fubftratum. Now fleep, is a modification of existence, not of non-existence; fo that though the fleep of a fubftance hath a meaning, the fleep of a quality is nonfenfe. And if ever this foul of theirs re-exerts its faculties, it must be by means of a reproduction, not by a mere awaking; and they may as well talk of the fleep of a mushroom turned again into the substance of the dunghill from whence it arose, and from which, not the fame, but another mushroom fhall, in time, arife. In a word, neither unbelievers nor believers will allow to thefe middle men that a new exifting foul, which is only a quality resulting from a glorified body, can be identically the fame with an annihilated foul, which had refulted from an earthly body. But perhaps, as Hudibras had difcovered the receptacle of the ghosts of defunct bodies, fo these gentlemen may have found out the yet fubtiler corner, where the ghosts of defunct qualities repofe.' [To be continued.] Improvements in the Doctrine of the Sphere, Aftronomy, Geography, Navigation, &c. deduced from the Figure and Motion of the Earth; and abfolutely necefsary to be applied in finding the true Longitude at Sea and Land. Rendering all other Methods more correct, and in fome Cafes by more than Half a Degree, or thirty geographical Miles. By Samuel Dunn, Profeflor of Mathematics in London. 4to. 2s. 6d. Hawes, &c. T has been the custom, for a long feries of years, to adjust all kinds of inftruments for taking altitudes of the fun, moon, or ftars, by the plumb-line; which has always been fuppofed to have a direct and invariable tendency towards the center of the earth in all latitudes; and even fince it has been difcovered that the earth is an oblate spheroid, or the diameter of the equator longer than the polar axis, it has been concluded that the direction in which heavy bodies endeavour to defcend, is accurately perpendicular to the furface of the earth and fea. But, in the work before us, Mr. Dunn has undertaken to prove, that, fuppofing it were poffible to take obfervations at fea without anyerror, and alfo that a time-keeper could be made fo very accurate, as to keep equal time without the leaft variation; yet it would be impoffible, in fome cafes, to find the longitude either at fea or land, within thirty geographical miles of the truth, without L4 |