Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

gravitation, being, as one should say, the attraction of a lighter body exerted on a heavier, by means of which the mover is drawn towards his object, instead of drawing it, as a boat pulling by a rope is drawn towards the shore. So repulsion is allied in some respects to gravitation: or so it will appear however, when one considers the effect of gravitation completed by contact. For then the subjects which before were so anxious to meet, will be in the habit, if not in the effect, of repelling each other, and with a degree of violence always proportioned to that of their contact.

And do we not observe this effect too in the moral as well as in the material department? Do not base, wicked, and malignant spirits wish to repel each other as soon almost as they meet? It seems so indeed. The effect of their meeting is mutual disgust: and they cannot recede, it is against the laws of nature; but if either could drive its opponent out of the world, it would not be sorry, nor the world aught the worse.

*3: 4, On a similar principle such natural effects as Magnetism and Electricity, with every other kind of fermentation, might also be traced; in which is observed a mixture of some fluids and separation of others; one yielding to the general force of gravitation by its constituent globosity, the other resisting by its constituent crystallization, fighting with its sides and angles, as it were with sword and buckler, against the material union. The resolution of other natural phenomena might also be found on these principles, being all very important in themselves, as the great power of God; which we cannot help confessing in their extreme derivation, if we do not in their simplicity or beginning.

-2, Of inherent motions of the secondary sort, 1, some may be partial, whether inward or outward, called Action generally, and particularly by other names corresponding with the varieties of action; 2, some universal, of which the commonest is called Operation, and others also occur with their appropriate names.

f = 1, Action is properly life, and where all is life, of course a very common property; being founded on the primary species of motion, as they are founded on the half material property of gravitation. Thus e. g., supposing generally two sorts of action as of accidents; one substantive or intrinsic, and the other transitive or direct-the first may be exemplified by the centripetal and centrifugal force (as it is called) of natural bodies above mentioned; the next by their attraction and repulsion, which are only centripetal and centrifugal action with an object. And thereupon it may be observed again, how these two species of action are found progressing continually from one sphere to another: as e. g., 1, the substantive or intrinsic first from the mineral department to the vegetable, thence to the animal, the moral, and the religions. So that what is centripetal and centrifugal action in a stone shall be contraction and expansion in the organs of a plant, systole and diastole in the heart of man, inhalation and exhalation in his lungs, love and hatred in his moral part, fidelity and apostasy in his religious. Similar to which are several analogies that may also be traced through the same departments for the two kinds of action in a transitive form above mentioned; as from the attraction of a' loadstone to the grasp of avarice and the enticement of sinners, who "draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope" (Isai. v. 18).

It may also be worth while to remark by the way how widely the action of any creature must differ from that of the Creator, not only in degree, force, or intensity, but also in its very matter or essence; as e. g., with regard to that particular species called Destruction. We know and too often feel unfortunately, that men have their share of this dreadful species confided to them: but what is it? Why to the extent of burming, slaying, and cutting to pieces, of drowning, desolating, overturning, &c., with such means as they possess. But what is their share, and what are their means to his? The Psalmist has an happy com

parison of the two where he says, "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou so regardest him? Man is like a thing of nought his time passeth away like a shadow. Bow THY HEAVENS, O LORD, AND COME DOWN: TOUCH THE MOUNTAINS, AND THEY SHALL SMOKE. Cast forth thy lightning, and tear them shoot out thine arrows and consume them" (Ps. exliv. 6).

This may shew a wonderful difference in the degree or intensity of action: but another passage in Scripture also reminds us of a still more striking disparity even in the matter or essence of the property, between these two parties. For the most potent general that ever fought upon earth could only cut his adversary in pieces with the sword; but what does God to his ? "Even as I have seen (says the Temanite) they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same. BY THE BLAST OF GOD THEY

PERISH, AND BY THE BREATH OF HIS NOSTRILS ARE THEY

CONSUMED" (Job iv. 8, 9). "They are like the chaff which the wind scattereth away from the face of the earth" (Ps.i.5). As a man would scatter chaff, or only dust, with his breath, the Almighty by means infinitely more sudden and direct is able to annihilate the wicked: or as a man might revive a drooping flame with his breath, so He with simpler means can kindle a sinner's whole existence into flames that never die nor droop. And hence that admirable precept of our Saviour to his disciples, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. x. 28).

Therefore, if we consider the varieties of action or partial motion occurring as before stated, we shall find them perhaps more particularly reducible to three sorts, mechanical, chemical, and metaphysical: the first dividing again into simple and reflected; the second consisting of parts that rank higher than any in the first on account

of their greater spirituality; and the third, of such as are higher still through their affinity or resemblance to intellect. In the course of these three principal sorts of partial motion are performed, but how no one can say or conceive, all the various and intricate parts of mere animal life; which may be enumerated and described in the order of their progress or complexity as follows, v. g.,

[ocr errors]

*1. The simplest effect or process of which we have any sensible perception in this case is mentioned by the single name of Breath, though it properly implies two several parts; 1, exhalation, which our body shares in common with others both animate and inanimate-the same being a common process or joint concern, and consequently A BOND OF UNION AMONG THE CONTENTS OF THE EARTH; 2, inhalation, which has been considered the peculiar office of the lungs wherever they happen to exist. But whether such office be peculiar to that one organ, or a part of the general process of absorption going on every where may be a question. It seems to be no unusual thing for one member to run away with the credit of its comrades: and whether that be the case too or not at present, certainly this double or compound motion, inhalation and exhalation, considered altogether as respiration, and properly designated by the term breathing, or breath, in an animal machine, while in other machines or substances it would be steam and vapour, is the grand criterion of this present state; and as such most aptly called life. For with this, life is present; without it, past or to come. So in the first of Genesis we read of "the moving creature that hath life" (Gen. i. 20), and in the second, how "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils THE BREATH OF LIFE; and man became a living soul" (Ib. ii. 7). And "when thou takest away their breath, they die and are turned again to their dust" (Ps. civ. 29), says the Psalmist. An excellent apostle writing to the church also observes hereupon very

justly to them, "For what is your life?

It is even a

vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James iv. 14).

[ocr errors]

This process of breathing or property of breath is generally supposed to be carried on by spirit. But whether by a common spirit, or by a proper; by the spirit of an animal, or by the spirit of breath we are not told: neither is it material, there being no necessity for either supposition according to the view that is here taken of the subject.

*2, Another partial secondary sort of motion not particularly complex, but more so than the preceding, occurs in the properties of Growth and Repletion erroneously supposed to be consequences or even properties of that property, rather than parts as they are of the same process or present state. For if the ordinary meaning of the first named expression applies only to the increase of material properties, or, speaking theologically, to the extension of the limits of the visible Kingdom, it may be recollected, having no doubt been observed by many, that human nature is subject not only to corporeal growth, decay, and renovation, but to intellectual likewise: which makes these properties to be partly intellectual as well as spiritual. And there can be no doubt either of the highest creatures even in that highest department being as liable to these accidents, or to the properties comprising them, as men: of which one proof may be taken from what St. Paul says of all coming "in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto A PERFECT MAN, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. iv. 13), an highly intellectual growth. And if so much is not here said, we may infer from his superiority implied in other passages (Heb. i. 5, &c.), that not only men must grow intellectually to arrive at this standard; but angels too, who all grow no doubt towards perfection continually in their respective spheres, and still find room enough.

« ÖncekiDevam »