For before we can eat any Man's Flesh, we must kill fome Man. But as the former, fo is the latter falfe. If any of them be asked, whether they have feen us commit any thing of this kind, none can be found fo loft to all Senfe of Modefty and Truth, as to affirm it. Some of us also have Servants, more or fewer, from whom it is impoffible to conceal our Actions; none of them have feen us, none of them have, even though falfly, witneffed againft us any fuch thing. How can we be charged with eating humane Flesh, who are unwilling to fee a legal Execution? The Spectacles of the Theatre, the Games, the Combats of the Gladiators with one another, and with Beafts, fuch efpecially as are exhibited by you, are generally admired; but, we think, looking with Pleasure on fuch Slaughters of Men, is a Step towards Murder; and, therefore, abstain from all Sights of this kind. How then can we, who indulge not ourselves to fee Slaughters, left we fhould be polluted, commit Murder? How can we, who fay Women, who caufe Abortion by Medicines, are guilty of Murder, and fhall answer for it before GOD, be imagined to kill and deftroy perfect and grown-up Men and Women? Is it not inconfiftent

inconfiftent for the fame Perfons, to believe the Embrio in the Womb is an Animal, and the Object of GOD's Providence; and that to deftroy it, is no lefs than Murder; and yet, when it is born, and apparently in a State of Life, to kilĺ it? Or, who believe we ought never to expofe our Children, as thinking, all Parents who do so, guilty of their Deaths, can be capable of murdering them, when we have brought them up? No, we act with more Confiftency, and always in obedience to Reason, and to our Principles, and never contrary to them.

AGAIN, who, that is perfuaded of a future Refurrection, would make himself the Sepulchre of Bodies which will be raised? It is acting with strange Abfurdity, to believe our Bodies will rife again, and to feed on them as if they would never be raised. To think the Earth fhall give up her Dead, yet he who hath buried a humane Body in himfelf, fhall not be obliged to restore it. It is much more probable and rational to fuppofe rather, that they who think they fhall never give any Account of their Lives, good or bad, and that there will be no Refurrection of the Dead, but that the Soul perifhes: together with the Body, is, as it were, extinguished;

they

they may be conceived to give them felves a Loose to all Wickednefs: But that we, who believe GOD will bring every Action into Judgment, and that the Body will be punished for being fubfervient to the irregular Defires and Motions of the Soul, must be imagined to abftain from all Wickedness, if there is not an utter Inconfiftency between our Thoughts and Actions. But it may seem to fome a Subject of Ridicule, to affert the Resurrection of the Body: However that be, let it not be imputed to us as criminal, let it be only thought our Simplicity. If we do deceive ourfelves by fuch a Notion, we injure no one: And yet, the Notion that the dead Bodies will be raised, is not fo entirely new, but fome old Philofophers have hinted at it; If I fhould give Instances of this, I fhould exceed the propofed Bounds of this Discourse. I fhall, therefore, just touch upon this Point. Those Philofophers, who have wrote of Senfibles and Intelligibles, and their Natures, have declared, that the Intelligibles are more ancient than the Senfibles; though, by an inverted Order of Nature, we have firft a Perception of Senfibles, and the Senfibles are derived

from

from the Intelligibles which are incorporeal. Therefore, according to both Pythagoras and Plato, it is in no fort impoffible for thefe Bodies, after a Diffolution, to be again formed of the fame Principles they were first made of. But let this Point of the Refurrection drop for this time.

MAY it please your Majefties, most learned, clement, and mild, moft worthy of Empire, and greatest Lovers of Mankind, to give us your Royal Approbation, feeing I have cleared our Pro

+ The learned Dr. Cudworth, in bis Intellectual Syftem, gives this Account of these Intelligibles and Senfibles, P. 728. If there be eternal Truths, which were never made, and could not but be, then must the Rationes Rerum, the • fimple Reafons of Things alfo, or their intelligible Natures and Effences, out of which thofe Truths are compounded, be of Neceffity eternal likewife. For how can this be an "eternal Truth, that the Diameter of a Square is incommen furable with the Sides, if the Rationes, or Reajons, of a * Square, Diameter, and Sides, or their intelligible Effences, were not themselves eternal? These are therefore called by Plato, not only ἀεὶ ταῦτα καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντα, Things which are always the fame and unchangeable; but aljo * τὰ μὴ γιγνόμθμα, ἀλλ' ἀεὶ όντα, Things which were never made, but always exift; and sometimes unre 215Ο νόμιμα, μήτε Σπολλύμενα, Things that were neither made, nor can be destroyed; fometimes ta dfúveta avanebeg, Things ingenerable, and incorruptible. of which Cicero thus: Hæc Plato negat gigni fed fem per effe, & Ratione & Intelligentia contineri: These Things Plato affirmeth to have been never made, but always to be, and to be contained in Reafon and Underftanding. And though perhaps it may seem strange,

• even

"

even Ariftotle himself also, notwithstanding his so often Clashing with Plato's Ideas, here really agreeth in the main, that the Forms or Species, or the univerfal intelligible Effences of Things, which are the proper and immediate objects of Science were eternal, and never made. Thus in his Metaphyficks; o ♪O ¿das WolÊ, de Suva), no Man ever makes the Form or Species of a Thing, nor was it ever generated; and again, to opalea. • in bi eois, there is no Generation of the Etfence of a Sphere. And be fometimes calleth thefe Objects of Science, ἀκίνητον ἐσίαν, or φύσιν, an immutable Ef fence, or Nature. Laftly, where be writeth against the Heracliticks, and those other Scepticks who deny'd all Certainty of Science, he firft difcovers the Ground of their Error terein to have been this; That they fuppofed fingular Bodies, or Senfibles exifting without, to be the only Things or Objeds of the Mind, or Knowledge;" aitíar & Sons TEτοῖς ὅτι πεὶ 7 όπλων αληθείαν ἐσκόπον τὰ ἢ να ὑπέλαβον εν τὰ αἰπη]ὰ μόνον, ἐν ἢ τέτοις πολλὴ ἡ τὸ ἀσεις φύσις ἐνυπάρχε ἔτί δε πᾶσαν ὁρῶντες τού τον κινεμλύων ἢ φύσιν, κάταξε το μεταβάλλον G ἐδὲν ἀληθευίμιον περίζε τὸ πάνως πάντα μετάβαλλον, ἐκ indexes and Lew The Original of thefe Mens Miftakes EHSEXENS was this, because Truth is to be looked for in Things, and they conceived the only Things to be Senfibles, in which it is certain there is much of the indeterminate Nature. Wherefore they perceiving all the Nature of Senfibles to be moveable, or in perpetual Flux and Mutation, fince nothing can poffibly be verified, or conftantly affirmed, concerning that which is not the fame, but changeable, concluded that there could be no Truth at all, nor Certainty of Science, thofe Things which are the only Objects of it, never continuing • the fame." And then be fubjoins, in Way of Oppofition to this Sceptical Doctrine of theirs, and the forementioned Ground thereof, αξιώσομυ αὐτὸς ὑπολαμβάνειν καὶ ἄλλων ἐσίαν τἰ τ' ὄντων, ἡ ἔτε κίνησις ὑπάρχει ἔτε φθορα, ἔτε γύεσις Togπav We would have thefe Men therefore to know δραπάν that there is another Kind of Effence of Things befides that of • Senfibles, to which belongeth neither Motion or Corruption, nor any Generation at all." By which Effences of Things that have no Generation nor Corruption, he could understand nothing else but thofe intelligible Natures, Species and Ideas, which are the standing and immutable Objects of Science.

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