Here let us throw a veil over this mistaken great man, and if poffible cover him from human fight for ever, that his feduced and ambiguous virtue may be no more profaned, as an umbrage to the counfels of perjured friends, facrilegious regicides, and implacable defperadoes.

Now the ufe we make of these reflections, is, that fince we have feen the mighty Cæfar himself fall into fuperftition at the thought of this exit, fince Cato's firm conftancy, Brutus his generous zeal, and Caffius his fteady malice, all ended in the fame dereliction of themselves, and defpondence at lait, we may justly conclude, that whatever law we may make to ourfelves, from the greatnefs of nature, or the principles of philofophy, for the conduct and regulation of life, it is itfelf but an artificial paffion, by which we vainly hope to fubdue those that are natural, and which will certainly rife or fall with our disappointment or fuccefs, and we that are liable to both are highly concerned to be prepared for either: at which perfection there is no nearer way to arrive, but by attending our own make, and obferving by what means human life, from its fimple and rural happinefs, fwelled into the weighty cares and diftractions with which it is at prefent enchanted; and from this knowledge of our mifery, extract our fatisfaction.

AN is a creature of fo mixed a composure, and

MA of a frame fo inconfiftent and different from its

felf, that it easily speaks his affinity to the highest and meaneft beings; that is to fay, he is made of body and foul, he is at once an engine and an engineer: tho' indeed both that body and foul act in many instances separate and independent of each other: for when he thinks, reasons, and concludes, he has not in all that work the least affiftance from his body: his finest fibres, pureft blood, and highest fpirits are as brute and diftant from a capacity of thinking as his. very bones; and the body is fo mere a machine, that it hungers, thirfts, taftes, and digefts, without any exerted thought of the mind to command that operation: which when he obferves upon himself, he may, without deriving it from vapour, fume, or diftemper, believe that his foul may as well exift out of, as in that body from which it borrows nothing to make it capable of performing its moft perfect functions! This may give him hopes, that though his trunk return to its native duft, he may not all perish, but the inhabitant of it may remove to another mansion; efpecially fince he knows only mechanically that they have, not demonftratively how they have, even at prefent union.

And fince this mind has a confcioufnefs and fuperior reflection upon its own being and actions, and that thoughts flow in upon it, from it knows not what fource, it is not unnatural for to conceive that there is fomething of a nature like itself, which may,

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imperceptibly, act upon it, and where it cannot deduce its reafonable performances from any corporeal beginning, draw hopes or fears from fome being thus capable to impress pleasure or torment; which being it cannot but fuppofe its author.

But this its author is incomprehenfible to the foul (which he has thought fit to imprifon in fenfe and matter) but as he is pleafed to reveal himself, and beftow upon it an expectation of its enlargement; yet were we to take the account which poetical writers, give, and 'fuppofe a creature with these endowments wandering among other wild animals, the intelligent favage would not be contented with what rapine or craft could, gain from his brethren beafts, but his condition would ftill be as neceffitous for his better part; and his dark natural enquiry would make him, for want of a more juft knowledge of his. Creator, fall into fuperftition. and believe every fountain, grove and foreft inhabited by fome peculiar deity, that bestowed upon mankind the firean, the shade and the breeze.

But we are informed that the wonderful Creator of all things, after he had given the rivers to flow, the earth to bring forth, and the beafts to feed, faw and approved his work, but thought a dumb, brute, and mechanic world an imperfect creation, till inhabited by a confcious being, whofe happiness should confift in obedience to, and a contemplation on, him and his wonders.

For this reafon man was created with intellectual powers and higher faculties, who immediately beheld with joy and rapture, a world made for the fupport and admiration of his new being; how came he into this happy happy state! whence the order! the beau

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ty! the melody of this living garden! Are the trees verdent? Do the birds fing? Do the fountains flow for no other reafon but to delight and entertain him? How does he pass through the most bright and delicious objects, and how does he burn to utter himfelf upon the extatic motions which they give him! in fuch fweet inquietude were the firft hours of the world spent, and in this laffitude of blifs and thought our parent fell into a profound fleep, when his Maker, who knew how irksome a lonely happiness was to a fociable nature, formed out of his fide a companion, woman he awaked, and by a fecret fympathy beheld his wife: he beheld his own rougher make foftened into sweetness, and tempered into fmiles: he faw a creature (who had as it were heaven's fecond thought in her formation) to whom he could communicate his conceptions, on whom he could glut his eyes, with whom he could ravifh his heart: over this confort his ftrength and wisdom claimed, but his affection refigned the fuperiority: these both equal and both fuperior were to live in perfect tranquility, and produce as happy a progeny: the earth and all its fruit were theirs, except only one tree: which light injunction, was all that was required of them as an inftance of their obedience and gratitude. to his bounty, who had given them every thing else. But fuch was their vanity and ingratitude, that they foon forgot the dependence fuitable to a borrowed being, and were deluded into an empty hope of becoming by their tranfgreffion like their Creator, and (though juft born of the duft) proud enough from that no-exiflence, to difdain one that was precarious: they did therefore eat, and were undone; they offended God, and like all their fucceeding criminals against him, were confcious that they did fo. Inno

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cence and fimplicity were banished their bofoms, to give way to remorfe and conviction. Guilt and fhame are the new ideas they have plucked from the tree of knowledge their affronted Creator pronounces upon them a sentence which they now think more fupportable than the pain of his offended prefence, which he withdrew; and commanded nature to give them no further voluntary obedience; fo that he was now to extort from her the continuance of their wretched condition by toil and labour, and fhe to bring forth heirs to it with pangs and torture.

This is the account we have from a certain neglected book which is. called, and for its genuine excellence above all other books, defervedly called THE SCRIPTURE: and methinks we may be convinced of the truth of this hiftory of our parents, by the infallible spots and symptoms of their hereditary difease in our tempers, pride and ingratitude for what is more natural to us, than by an unreasonable selfopinion, (though we cannot but feel that we are but mere creatures, and not of ourselves) to affume to ourselves the praife and glory of our capacities and endowments: and how lazy, how unwilling are we to eradicate the deep and inward fatisfaction of felfadmiration? however, it must be confeffed, that it is the most senseless and ftupid of all our infirmities, for till you can remember and recount to us, when that thinking, throbbing particle within, first resolved to wear a body, when it fpun out its arteries, fibres and veins, contrived the warm circulating ftream that runs through them, when you firft ventured to let the heart pant, the lungs fuck air, and at last to lanch the whole tender machine into the hazard of motion; till, I fay, you can acquaint us with all this,

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