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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 adminiftration; and partly in punishment of their rebellion. And foon after this it is that we first 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-eftablishment, 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 conflitute 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 leaft 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: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked 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 ace ftomed to an extraordinary providence.

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+ Confiderations on the Theory of Religion, p. 398. Ed. 3d.

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Scripture affures us, there are Gods many," which, by the I think a stronger text, certainly a directer, against the unity of the Godhead, than any this learned writer has produced for the fleep of the foul. But what fay believers to this? They fay, that Scripture takes the unity, as well as the exiflence 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 fuppofes 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 thofe 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 fubftance, but a quality only; and fo have taken effectual care indeed, that its repofe fhall not be disturbed in this, which we may emphatically call, the fleep of death. We can never prove, (fays another of these fleepers †) that the foul of man is of fuch a nature that it can and must exift 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 fate of the body, of the brain in particular. If fome dying perfons have a lively ufe of their rational faculties to the very laft, it is because death has invaded fame other part, and the brain remains found and vigorous t This is the long-exploded trafh 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 subject, (in which, he had been better employed than in writing upon it) or never understood them.So far as to the abstract truth. Let us confider next the practical confequences. Convince the philofophic libertine that the foul is a quality arifing out of matter, and vanifhing on the diffolution of the form, and then fee if ever you can bring him to believe the Christian doctrine of the refurrection? While he held the foul to be an immaterial substance, exifting, as well in its feparation from, as in its conjunction with, the body, and he could have no reafon, arifing from the principles of true philofophy, to ftagger in his belief of this revealed doctrine.Thu fool, 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 país 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?

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But their fee of the foul is mere cant: and this brings me

St. Jude's filthy dreamers only defiled the flesh. Thefe defile the
Taylor of Norwich.

1 lb. p. 401.

St. Paul.'

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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 fubflance of itfelf, and fo dies with its fubftratum. Now fleep, is a modification of existence, not of non-existence; fo that though the Aleep of a fubftance hath a meaning, the fleep of a quality is nonfense. 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 fubftance of the dunghill from whence it arofe, and from which, not the fame, but another mushroom fhall, in time, arife. In a word, neither unbelievers nor believers will allow to these middle men that a new exifting foul, which is only a quality refulting 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 discovered the receptacle of the ghosts of defunct bodies, fo thefe gentlemen may have found out the yet fubtiler corner, where the ghosts of defunct qualities repofe.'

[To be continued.]

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Improvements in the Doctrine of the Sphere, Aftronomy, Geography, Navigation, &c. deduced from the Figure and Motion of the Earth; and abfolutely neceffury 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, Profeffor of Mathe matics 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 fpheroid, or the diameter of the equa tor 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 any error, 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

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without making ufe of the corrections he has given in this treatife. Thefe correction's are deduced from the following principles:

1. If the earth be confidered as a perfect sphere, or globe, of folid and homogeneous matter, and at reft, a heavy body let fall towar's the earth, will move in a right line towards the earth's center; becaufe the quantity of matter and quantity of attraction in the northern, fouthern, eaftern, and western hemifpheres. are exactly mutual, and equal to each other.

2. Suppofe this globe to continue folid, and to have a motion round its polar axis once in 24 hours; then will the falling body, be impe led by two forces, one tending towards the center, and the other in the direction of the centrifugal force. But it is known, that when a body is acted upon by two forces under different directions, it will defcribe the diagonal of a parallelogram between both thofe directions. Confequently the falling body, fuppofing the earth a perfect fphere in motion round its polar axis, would not move in a right line towards the center of the earth, but towards a point fituated to the eastward of that center, fuppofing the diurnal rotation performed in a dienter rection from weft to eat.

3. Suppofe the earth to be a fpheroid, flat towards the poles, and at reft. A falling body will not move in a right-line towards the earth's center; becaufe the quantity of matter in the northern and fouthern hemifpheres will, except under the equinoctial and poles, be unequal; and confequently the falling body will move in a line towards a point fituated to the fouthward or northward of the center, according as the defcending body was either in north or fouth latitude. That is, the point to which the line of direction tends will be to the fouthward of the center, when the falling body is, in the north latitude, and to the northward of the center when in fouth latitude.

4. Suppofe this fpheroidal earth to be turning from weft to eaft round its polar axis; then will the falling body be impelled by two forces, as before in the spherical earth, and will move in the diagonal of a parallelogram, formed by thefe two forces.And from these two directions, the one a deviation in longitude and the other in latitude, the true and abfolute direction or line of defcent of falling bodies will be determined.

Such are the principles upon which our Author has founded the corrections already mentioned; and he finds, by computation, that the true and accurate direction of the plumb-line at Greenwich is 14' 15" different from a right-line drawn perpendicular to the furface of the earth. He has alfo fhewn how to find, upon the fame principles, the deviation of the plumb-line from the earth's center in any other latitude, from the equator to the pole.

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But this being only a correction that takes place in a north and fouth direction, the Author proceeds to fhew what the deviation will amount to in a direction east or weft of the earth's center, by means of the centrifugal force of the earth's diurnal rotation.

Having given general rules for correcting both thefe errors, namely, the error in latitude arifing from the oblate spheroidal figure of the earth, and likewise the error in longitude arifing from the centrifugal force, he proceeds to fhew how the time of any inftantaneous phenomenon may be affected by both thefe errors, by a comparison of the conclufion deduced from the ufual manner, with the true conclufion refpecting the earth's center. In which he obferves, that neither the ufual method of taking altitudes by the apparent horizon at fea, nor the method of taking altitudes by the plumb-line, nor by the spirit level, nor by any equal altitude inftrument, can poffibly give the true time, be the obfervation made ever fo correct, and with inftruments that are ever fo accurately divided. And by a comparison of the true with the common way of computation, he concludes, that in the usual cafes, this difference may produce an error of more than half a degree, or thirty geographical miles.

As these corrections, if abfolutely neceffary, muft greatly affect the accuracy of every kind of obfervation, particularly those neceflary for finding the longitude at fea; it will be proper to examine whether they are really of that importance and neceffity our Author afferts they are.

We shall not here queftion the truth of the principles on which these corrections are founded; but endeavour to fhew, that, however true the former may be, the latter are much greater than can fairly be deduced from them.

For, the dimenfions Mr. Dunn has given to his fpheroid are certainly erroneous. They are indeed founded on actual menfurations made at the polar circle and in France: but as these difagree both with the theory of the illuftrious Newton, and alfo with the actual menfurations made in Peru, there is reafon to think that they are defective; and confequently if any corrections are neceffary to be made, fuch corrections will be different from thofe given by our Author.

According to the menfurations on which he has founded his calculations, a degree at the equator is equal to 56625 toises. But by the menfurations of the mathematicians who were fent to Peru, the length of a degree under the equinoctial is 56767.8 toifes, or 142.8 more than it should be according to the menfurations made in Lapland and France. Now whoever peruses the accounts published by Bouguer, Condamine, and Ulloa, will be convinced that this error is much greater than they could have committed, unless they had agreed to deceive the public;

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