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Ideas, as to fay it can think, when it hath nothing to think of.

PERHAPS this Power of raifing up to itself Ideas, without the prefence or impreffion of Any Object whatsoever, is a Privilege of the Divine Intellect alone; and answerable to the Almighty Power of Creation, or producing a Thing out of Nothing. But the power of the Mind in our little World, is much the fame with that of the whole Man in the greater; it is as impoffible for it to raise up to itself any fimple Idea intirely New and independent of all Senfation, as it is for a Man to add one Particle to the common Mafs of Matter; tho' it muft be confeffed to have a wonderful Sagacity in working upon what it finds already ftored up in the Imagination. So that the five Senfes are as fo many Windows thro' which the Mind takes in a profpect of the whole visible Creation; and if these were from the first stopped up and closed, it would be always involved in thick Darkness: And even now, with all our Senfes, we have no more Direct Perception of any thing beyond the fix'd Stars by the Eye of the Intellect, than by that of the Body.

MENS endeavouring to abstract the Intellect from all Objects of Senfe, fo as to take a Direct View of fpiritual things; and working up their Minds to an opinion and belief that they have fome degree of Intuitive Direct

know

knowledge of them tho' Imperfect and obfcure, hath proved a fatal Delusion, and never served any real and fubftantial End of Religion. I believe I may fafely appeal to the Experience of the beft of Men, whether they ever found any the leaft Glimmerings of fuch celeftial Light in their moft exalted Contemplations? Many who never afpired to this Immediate and familiar Intercourfe with heavenly Objects, have arrived to great degrees of habitual Virtue and Holiness; whereas the contrary Opinion doth but puff Men up with spiritual Pride; and too often ends in rank Enthufiafm.

3. THIRDLY, by that property of Ideas of Senfation, their being Original, they are diftinguished from fuch as are called Ideas of Reflection, or fuch as we are fuppofed to have of the Operations of our own Minds. But these Operations cannot be difcerned by the means and Intervention of any Ideas; for then we fhould have no Perception or even Consciousness of the Operations Themselves; but of thofe Characters only and Reprefentations of them, which would ftand in the Mind instead of the Operations; as the Idea of a Tree ftands in the Mind for the Tree itself, and is the immediate Object of Thought. And fince there neither is nor can be an Idea of what is Itfelf actualy in the Mind already, thofe Operations can be perceived no other way than by a Self-consciousness. The Eye of the Mind,

as

as I faid before, cannot take a view either of its own Subftance or Effence, or of its own Properties or Qualities by any Reflex A&t: It doth not come to the knowledge of its own Faculties by any fuch unnatural Squint, or diftorted Turn upon itself, but by an immediate Consciousness of the feveral different ways of its own working upon those Ideas of Senfation lodged in the Imagination.

WE have not even the leaft Direct Idea or Perception of the purely fpiritnal Part of us; nor do we difcern any more of its Real Subftance than we do that of an Angel. We are fo far from an exact view or intuitive knowledge of it, that we are forced to argue and infer its very Existence from our Obfervation only of fuch Operations as we conclude could not proceed from mere Matter; and because we have no direct Idea of it, we express the Nature of it, as we do that of Spirit in general, by the negative Word Immaterial. And as we cannot form one Thought of our Spirit, otherwise than as it is in conjunction with the Body; fo neither can we conceive any of its Operations but as performed together with bodily Organs: And therefore it is that we are under a neceffity of expreffing the Modus of them all in Words borrowed from Senfation and bodily Actions. Thus we fay the Mind Difcerns, Apprehends, Diftinguisheth, or Separates one thing from another; it Draws one H

thing

thing out of another, which is a Confequence or one thing Following from another. Nay, when we would Attempt to form Ideas of Thinking and all the various Modes of it, they are imagin'd to be fo many Motions or Agitations of the Soul, in conjunction with the most refin'd and spirituous Parts of the Body, about the Ideas of fenfible Objects, and the Notions formed partly out of them: And when from the Existence of these fenfible things it infers the Being or Existence of things fpiritual and imperceptible, and exercises thofe Motions or Operations upon them, as Reprefented by their Substitutes; that is properly meditating upon the things of another World.

AND thus it is with all the Paffions of the Mind, Love, Defire, Joy, Sorrow, Hope, Fear, Anger; when we attempt to form Ideas of them, we do it by conceiving them as fo many Motions or Agitations of the finest and most curious Parts in the frame of an Human Body, in conjunction with the purely spiritual Part of us, about Objects of Senfation or their Ideas,or about our complex Conceptions: And when those Motions are, by the Mediation of these Ideas and Conceptions, exercised upon Objects out of the reach of all our Perception, fuch as God and HeavenlyThings,and upon fuch Things of this World as have a more immediate relation to them, that is Religion. This is drawing the Mind off from the things of this World, and fetting our Affec

tions on things above; and the more habitualy all those Motions of the Soul are imployed that way, to the greater degrees of true Devotion, and Piety, and Holiness do Men arrive.

CHA P. V.

A fecond Property of Ideas of Senfations that they are Simple.

A

SECOND Property of an Idea of Senfation is that it is Simple; that is, an Uniform Uncompounded Appearance,which cannot be refolved into more Ideas than one of the Same Kind; and is the Effect and Confequence of one fingle individual Senfation. So that this Property is applicable only to our First Senfations or Perceptions of Things, confider'd antecedently to any Act or Operation of the Intellect; excepting only that of a bare View and merely intuitive Knowledge of them, in the fame Order and Figure they lie ranged in the Imagination; before it makes any Compofition, or Alteration, or Comparifon; and before it forms any Judgment upon them; or draws any Confequences whatsoever in relation to them.

THE Notion of Simple Ideas I think ought not to be reduced to fuch a narrow compass as they generaly are by Logicians; as if the Ideas of Sounds, and Taftes, and Smells,and Colours, and Tangible Qualities only were Simple; and as if the Ideas of fingle feparate Bodies were all ComH 2

pounded.

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