An Extract from a Book entitled, FREE THOUGHTS on the BRUTE-CREATION: by John Hilldrop, D. D. [Continued from page 372.] 24. INDEED fome learned men have started a difficulty. how these separate effences are to be difpofed of after death. Thus, particularly, the pious Author of the Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding, page 173, 1/4, "They who hold Perception in Brutes to be an argument of the immateriality of their fouls, find themfelves under a neceffity of allowing thofe fouls to be immortal likewife, and are embaraffed how to difpofe of those fouls after the diffolution of their bodies. Again, If thofe fouls are once granted to be immaterial, it is inconceivable that they should not have immortality. And if the fouls of Brutes be immortal, That cannot, when feparate, be thought to remain altogether in a ftate of inactivity or infenfibility, which communicated fenfe and activity to Matter, while in conjunction with it; and if fo, they must be fenfible of happiness or mifery, and liable to rewards and punishments." He concludes, "What heightens the abfurdity of this way of thinking, is, that in imagining the fouls of brutes to be immaterial, men muft neceffarily diftinguish a great variety of them, both in nature and degree, one fort for birds, another for beafts, and another for filhes; and these must all be subdivided again into every different species of immortal fouls according to the different forts that are under these general heads. Nay, every fly and infect must on this fuppofition have fome fort of immaterial foul, even down to the cheefe-mites; and what is yet more abfurd, is, that there must be an infinite variety of immaterialities imagined, to fuit the rank and condition of every individual, living, fenfible creature." What 25. What rhapsody is here! Can there be a more lively picture of a puzzled imagination, terrified with fpeêtres of its own creating? If the premifes be juft, the conclufion must be fo too; they muft ftand or fall together: if the evidence be ftrong for the immateriality of brute-fouls, their immortality must be the natural confequence. And how are we concerned to enquire what fhall become of them in their feparate state? What is it to us to know how they fhall be difpofed of after the diffolution of their bodies? Cannot infinite Power, which formed them without our advice and affiftance, difpofe of them in the fame manner? This I think is certain, that if they are immaterial, and confequently immortal, if their fouls animated certain bodies in this life, they cannot cease to be active after they are in a separate ftate, and must have a peculiar fphere of life and action without their bodies, as well as they had in them. Can 26. But can you conceive what would have become of the numerous defcendants of the feveral fpecies of beings, (whofe peculiar bleffing from God was to increafe and multiply) if Adam had not finned, nor by confequence, Sin and Death entered into the world? Can we fuppofe that he who made them to increafe and multiply, had not made a proper provifion for their reception? And will not the fame Wildom and Power continue the fame provifion for them ftill? any man pretend to tell me what is the flate of feparate fouls? Where, or what, or how many are the different manfions and receptacles of the dead? Thefe are idle enquiries, unanswerable queflions; yet does any reafonable man doubt whether there are fuch mansions, fuch proper habitations for feparate fpirits, and if for one rank of beings, why not for all? And is it not a monftrous prefumption in us, Who are ignorant of the plainest things, and can hardly judge aright of the commoneft things that are upon earth, and find, not without great labour, the things that are before us, Wifd. ix. 16. to be pre VOL. VI. 3 F fcribing fcribing bounds to omnipotent Wisdom, directing the exercise of infinite Power, by our narrow apprehenfions of the nature of things, and the power of God? 27. His objection against the fame immortality, allotted to different fpecies of beings, is very crudely and obscurely expreffed. Immortality, or a perpetuity of existence, to whatever fpecies of beings it is applied, must be one and the fame, however different their condition may be. As for the Brutefouls being fenfible of happiness or mifery in their separate ftate, Why not? As well as in their prefent natural ftate? If they are capable of happiness or misery here, if they are the objects of divine as well as human compaffion in their prefent state, what should hinder their being capable of higher degrees of happiness in their feparate flate, as well as they were in their firft fituation in Paradife, before Sin and Death entered into the world, and they funk with us under the bondage of corruption? But to fay (as our Author does) that it will thence follow they are liable to rewards and punifhments, requires proof. They were not moral Agents, nor their prefent unhappiness the proper punishment of any abuse of their free-will, the tranfgreffion of any command, or disobedience to the will of their Maker, This the Apoftle exprefsly declares, Romans viii. 20, They were made subject to vanity, not willingly, not by any fault of their own; but by reafon of him who fubjected them to it: yet in hope, in certain hope of being delivered from a mifery they have not deserved, from a bondage which they have not brought upon themselves, but were neceffarily involved in it by the relation they flood in to our firft Parent. 28. And why does he fay, it heightens the abfurdity of this way of thinking, that we fhall be obliged to distinguish a great variety of fouls, both in nature and degree, for the great variety of beings? Why is it a greater abfurdity to fuppofe different fpecies of immaterial fouls, than different fpecies fpecies of material bodies? If (as the Apoftle reafons, 1 Cor. xv. 39,) All flesh is not the fame flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds: where would be the abfurdity of faying, all fouls, or fpirits, or immaterial beings, are not fpecifically the fame; but there is one kind of foul of men, another kind of beafts, another of fishes, and another of birds, and another of infects, and perhaps another of the various tribes and families of each? It is at least highly probable that it is fo, and the appearance of abfurdity arifes from nothing but our ignorance of the ways of God, and his myfterious operations in the frame and courfe of nature, and a vain prefumption that we are competent judges of both. This it is that tempts us to prescribe limits, and direct the exercife of infinite Power; this tempts us to lay fchemes for the operations of Omnipotence, and charge every deviation from them as abfurd and unreasonable. And by the fame method of reafon. ing, we might (if experience did not convince us) as wifely infer that the almoft infinite variety of material bodies were abfurd and impoffible. [To be continued. An Anfwer to Mr. Madan's Treatife on Polygamy and Marriage: in a Series of Letters to the Rev. J. Wefley: by J. Benson. [Continued from page 374.] UT it is no wonder that Mr. Madan fhould make 24. BUT "the whole business of marriage" to confift in what is merely carnal; for as to any thing rational and Spiritual, any union of hearts and interefts (which is the foul of marriage, without which it differs from itself, as a dead corpfe differs from a living man) that is entirely precluded by his scheme 3 F 2 fcheme of Polygamy, which, wherever it takes place, muft render every expectation of any thing of that kind abfurd and prepofterous.* But that he should prefs our first parent, Adam, while yet in a state of innocency, and the holy and blessed. Jefus into his party, and bring them in as countenancing the fame beaftly doctrine, is indeed to be wondered at. However, I think any man who knows any thing of conjugal love, whose heart is knit, by an indissoluble tie of ftrong affection, to the object of his choice, the woman he prefers to all others in the world, will hear thefe words of Adam and of Chrift, with very dif ferent emotions from those felt by this Author, and when it is pronounced, For this caufe fhall a man leave father and mother and fhall cleave to his wife, and they twain fhall be one flesh," he will no more understand merely an union of bodies by the expreffion," He fhall cleave to his wife," than he will understand a separation of bodies by the former expreflion, "He hall leave father and mother," or than he will infer the lawfulness of Polygamy from the laft claufe," they twain shall be one flefh." Such was marriage at its first institution, the most perfect friendship, the moft intimate union, an union not of bodies merely, but of fouls alfo and of interefts. And fo far as marriage, in this fallen ftate, is ftill calculated to add to the happinefs of mankind, it muft partake of its original nature, and retain fo much of what is rational and spiritual, as not to degenerate into a mere carnal affair; unless it be fupposed that the pleasures of the body exceed those of the foul, and that the brute creatures are more happily married, than the human race. Married, I fay; for if, (as he fays, p. 21.) I am told the following lines were, fpoken extempore, by a mad woman in Bedlam, upon hearing of Mr. Madan's Icheme of Polygamy, "If John marry Mary and Mary alone, It is a good match between Mary and, John: But if John marry more wives, what blows and what fèratches ? 'Tis no longer a match, but a bundle of matches. |