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of many one, and one that might still be adapted to use by repeated abstractions.

§3. If any thing can shew the poverty and contraction of the human intellect, compared with others that may be conceived, it must be the necessity of the last mentioned property (or faculty rather) of abstraction, which is the root of more complex constituents. And a necessity it is too that increases with the course and progress of complexity: so that a double share of abstraction will be required continually for the production of every class of constituents, as it succeeds another in that course and progress; and if the whole detail of reiterated acts, by which a property is composed, must be abstracted, to make room for that being the lowest or least complex constituent, another abstraction will be necessary upon that for the production of Elements; which are next in point of complexity, being formed as aforesaid by the union of properties; also, for another and another again in the more and more complex degrees that follow. With all this poverty of intellect, therefore, it may be thought much, for a man to be able to acquire by reflexion an idea of his own constituency, so as to feel how fearfully and wonderfully he is made. This may seem much indeed, being much more than any other earthly creature can be supposed to feel yet by dint of his natural superiority, and its use in reflexion, man is enabled not only to feel the inward effects, but also to comprehend the outward process of his own making, to a certain extent; the beginning, or first act being a secret of his Author's; which no man, nor any other intellectual, it may be presumed, can ever penetrate, though he can hardly help owning it. And then, if a man can only conceive the possibility of a first act, or a First Cause, he may both deduce therefrom all the consequences that we behold in creation, and also learn to distinguish these consequences, both from their First Cause and from his FIAT, as clearly as the sound of an in

strument is distinguished from the hand that formed it, and the stroke by which such sound is excited or produced. This seems an agreeable encouragement for any one to proceed in tracing the subject or constitution of the kingdom; as the end of such an undertaking may be also consequently expected in something more than empty sound, or unavailing information. Considering, therefore, this combination, called elements, first in the abstract, or any subject, we may specify these two, namely, 1 Matter, 2 Mode, as examples of the same.

1. The Matter of a subject is that of which it consists, and differently named, according to the light in which it may be considered; as e. g.

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The variety of matter is endless; as may be gathered only from its specification in the three several kinds of properties, material, spiritual, and intellectual before mentioned. For if the first of these have engrossed the familyname, as being (perhaps) the elder of the three upon earth, as well as the most conspicuous branch of the three, there are, nevertheless, these same three sorts of matter, namely, 1, Matter properly so called, 2, Spirit, 3, Intellect and after their exhibition in the class and degree of properties given above, there will be no great difficulty, perhaps, in

1, apprehending such an element as matter by abstracting or mentally condensing the class of material properties above described, so as to form one general (however abstract and confused) notion of that lowest element of the kingdom, v. g. Matter, and its several particulars. With the same faculty any one may be capable 2, of drawing the spiritual class of properties to a focus in the point or element of Spirit; also, 3, of condensing the intellectual rays or

properties before mentioned in the point or element of Intellect. The notion of these three several elements of the kingdom, v.g. 1, matter, 2, spirit, 3, intellect, being therefore once conceived by abstracting or condensing their particulars as aforesaid, they are afterwards easily resolved and currently mentioned as matters of course; and more confidently too, if not more consciously, than their primitive constituents. For, however it may seem, their difference-or the difference that obtains between the three forementioned elements, matter, spirit, intellect-is not such as that of three distinct things, and yet sufficiently decided to yield three very evident notions in one subject; whether the same be considered as elements, or as kinds of properties: shewing that the material element is not the spiritual, nor the spiritual element the intellectual, nor consequently the intellectual either of those; but that they are all in themselves equally substance of the kingdom, or the subject under consideration; all equally essence in respect of their necessity; all equally presence in respect of their perceptivity; and in respect of each other, all at the same time precisely indiscriminable. They are all felt spiritually and conceived intellectually; their mode, design, or character -and their virtue, spirit, or effect—and their being, life, or essence are all one, in fact, however distinguishable to a certain degree in our apprehension. Men's notions of these three elements or kinds may be innumerable, but the same three will still be only one subject or thing; their description may also be one thing, and their perception another: but all will not serve to make two things of them, leaving three out of the question. Notwithstanding so strict an unity, however, it is usual to consider these elements as fountains; and properties as streams detached, rather than as streams springing out of them.-And a man would not be well understood who should describe classes of properties as elements with their relations and accidents simply as they are.

2.

Of the second abstract element, or element of the

abstract subject, Mode, above named, a few particulars

may also be observed. But if one should go to define the expression, as usual, in the first place, it would be found absolutely too simple for a definition: it is only in relation to the subject from which, and the object to which it proceeds, that a mode is definable; being a design or conception in relation to that, a boundary or description in relation to this; or generally that IN which, as the other element, matter, was said to be that of which, our object, or ANY subject, consists.

As for its distinction, or the kinds of modes; they are properly two, Persons, and Things: Places are also named sometimes, as an intermediate species; whence three sorts of modes; Persons, Places, and Things, have been conceived: but Place cannot well be considered in so distinct a light; the same being, in strictness, a property of things, and answerable to Habitation with persons, rather than a correlative or parallel subject. The use of this deduction is, to prepare for a better acquaintance with the first named sort of mode particularly, and not forgetting the last; the first named sort being Persons, and its subject Personality, a subject that is found to have a more than metaphysical importance in Christian Modes of Thinking and Doing entering, therefore, on the particulars of the subject accordingly,

1, A Person will appear to have two meanings, 1, perfect and conclusive; 2, partial and inclusive as aforesaid : by a perfect person or presence being meant, a presenting of the subject, either actually as he, or symbolically as some other subject exists in every and to every sense or respect, of which either the subject or object or both are susceptible; by a partial person or presence being meant, a presenting of the subject in some, or by, or to some respect or respects of the subject, or object, or both. For in every case the person or subject and the object or percipient must be more or less alike for the purpose of perception: spirit, e. g., is not presented to matter, nor matter

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to spirit, nor either to intellect, without a sprinkling of itself in the object. A person may not only be presented, but also enthroned, and reign universally in either the spiritual or the intellectual department, without being there materially, which, as before signified, is impossible for an immaterial subject. But, such a subject will have the advantage of being presented more intimately, and also of ruling and directing in either, or in all three of the forementioned departments, by his own special presence.

-1, In its perfect and conclusive meaning, Person, will signify a description, presence, or representation of an intellectual subject, in opposition to the other sort of mode, denoting a presence without intellect: and it may be either absolute as the subject in itself; like Man, Angel, Spirit, for example; or relative, as the subject in its presence, like Opponent, Partner, Antagonist, &c., being rendered with this view in the original of the New Testament, by Пagovσia and Пporwπov, that is in English, Presence, generally speaking. And upon this relative view of the mode, namely, as consisting in presence, we may, by help of the relations aforesaid, literally understand so many different sorts of person; specifying the same, likewise, thereafter, and in the order of their complexity, as follows: namely, 1, universal; 2, general; 3, special; 4, proper, or particular. Considering the different sorts of persons here mentioned distinctly,

=1, The first mentioned universal person, or presence, will be an abstract of the whole undivided presence of any intellectual nature or being; as 1, God; 2, Man; v. g. God always, as well as when He was only one person, v. g. to Himself; and man once, being then by possibility all men in one, and all taking their mode from one. For upon this point also we may distinguish two sorts of persons and things; some existing by possibility, implication, necessity; and others in effect-or more shortly, some being future, and some present. So Adam was once by necessity or implication, millions of millions of men

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