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substance distinct from the body, but the result of corporeal organization. There are others called by this name, who have maintained that there is nothing but matter in the universe.

1. That man is no more than what we now see of him: his be

is required of servants than they are equal to; to be gentle in our deportment toward them; to reprove them when they do wrong, to commend them when they do right; to make them an adequate recompence for their services, as The followers of the late Dr. to protection, maintenance, wages, Priestley are considered as Mateand character.-2. As to the mo- rialists or philosophical Necessarals of servants. Masters must rians. According to the doctor's look well to their servants' charac-writings, he believed, ters before they hire them; instruct them in the principles and confirm them in the habits of virtue ;ing commences at the time of his watch over their morals, and set conception, or perhaps at an earthem good examples.-3. As to lier period. The corporeal and their religious interests. They mental faculties, inhering in the should instruct them in the know- same substance, grow, ripen, and ledge of divine things, Gen. xiv, decay together; and whenever the 14. Gen. xviii, 19. Pray with system is dissolved, it continues them and for them. Joshua xxiv, in a state of dissolution, till it shall 15. Allow them time and leisure please that Almighty Being who for religious services, &c. Eph. vi, called it into existence to restore 9. See Stennet on Domestic Du- it to life again. For if the menties, ser. 8; Paley's Mor. Phil., tal principle were, in its own navol. i, 233, 235; Beattie's Ele- ture, immaterial and immortal, all ments of Moral Science, vol. i, 150, its peculiar faculties would be so 153; Doddrige's Lec., v. ii, 266. too; whereas we see that every MATERIALISTS, a sect in faculty of the mind, without exthe ancient church, composed of ception, is liable to be impaired, persons, who, being prepossessed and even to become wholly exwith that maxim in philosophy, tinct, before death. Since, there"ex nihilo nihil fit," out of nothing fore, all the faculties of the mind, nothing can arise, had recourse separately taken, appear to be morto an internal matter, on which tal, the substance, or principle, in they supposed God wrought in which they exist, must be prothe creation, instead of admitting nounced mortal too. Thus we Him alone as the sole cause of might conclude that the body was the existence of all things. Ter- mortal, from observing that all the tullian vigorously opposed them separate senses, and limbs were in his treatise against Hermoge- liable to decay and perish. nes, who was one of their number. Materialists are also those who maintain that the soul of man is material, or that the principle of perception and thought is not a

This system gives a real value to the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, which is peculiar to revelation; on which alone the sacred writers build all our

hope of future life: and it ex-ed by what precedes it: and this plains the uniform language of the constant determination of mind, scriptures, which speak of one day according to the motives presented of judgment for all mankind; and to it, is what is meant by its necesrepresent all the rewards of vir-sary determination. This being tue, and all the punishments of admitted to be fact, there will be vice, as taking place at that awful a necessary connexion between all day, and not before. In the scrip- things past, present, and to come, tures, the heathens are represent-in the way of proper cause and efed as without hope, and all man-fect, as much in the intellectual kind as perishing at death, if there as in the natural world; so that, be no resurrection of the dead. according to the established laws The apostle Paul asserts, in 1st of nature, no event could have Cor. xv, 16, that if the dead rise been otherwise than it has been, not, then is not Christ risen; and if or is to be, and therefore all things Christ be not raised, your faith is past, present, and to come, are vain, ye are yet in your sins: then precisely what the Author of Nathey also who are fallen asleep in ture really intended them to be, Christ are perished. And again, and has made provision for. ver. 32, if the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. In the whole discourse, he does not even mention the doctrine of happiness or misery without the body.

If we search the scriptures for passages expressive of the state of man at death, we find such declarations as expressly exclude any trace of sense, thought, or enjoyment. See Ps. vi, 5. Job xiv, 7, &c.

To establish this conclusion, nothing is necessary but that throughout all nature the same consequences should invariably result from the same circumstances. For if this be admitted, it will necessarily follow, that at the commencement of any system, since the several parts of it and their respective situations were appointed by the Deity, the first change would take place according to a certain rule established by himself, the result of which 2. That there is some fixed law would be a new situation; after of nature respecting the will, as which the same laws containing anwell as the other powers of the other change would succeed, acmind, and every thing else in the cording to the same rules, and so constitution of nature; and conse-on for ever; every new situation quently that it is never determin-invariably leading to another; and ed without some real or apparent cause foreign to itself; i. e. without some motive of choice; or, that motives influence us in some definite and invariable manner, so that every volition, or choice, is constantly regulated and determin

every event, from the commencement to the termination of the system, being strictly connected, so that,unless the fundamental laws of the system were changed, it would be impossible that any event should have been otherwise than it was.

In all these cases, the circumstan- the fixed laws of nature, our preces preceding any change are call-sent and future happiness necessaed the causes of that change: and rily depend on our cultivating good since a determinate event, or ef- dispositions. fect, constantly follows certain circumstances, or causes, the connexion between cause and effect is concluded to be invariable, and therefore necessary.

This scheme of philosophical necessity is distinguished from the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination in the following particulars.

1. No Necessarian supposes that any of the human race will suffer eternally; but that future punishments will answer the same purpose as temporal ones are found to do: all of which tend to good, and are evidently admitted for that purpose. Upon the doctrine of necessity, also, the most indifferent actions of men are equally necessary with the most important; since every volition, like any other effect, must have an adequate cause depending upon the previous state of the mind, and the influence to which it is exposed.

It is universally acknowledged, that there can be no effect without an adequate cause. This is even the foundation on which the only proper argument for the being of a God rests. And the Necessarian asserts, that if, in any given state of mind, with respect both to dispositions and motives, two different determinations, or volitions, be possible, it can be on no other principle, than that one of them should come under the description of an effect without a cause; just as if the beam of a balance might incline either way, though loaded with equal weights. And if any 2. The Necessarian believes that thing whatever, even a thought in his own dispositions and actions the mind of man, could arise with-are the necessary and sole means out an adequate cause, any thing of his present and future happielse, the mind itself, or the whole ness; so that, in the most proper universe, might likewise exist without an adequate cause.

This scheme of philosophicalnecessity implies a chain of causes and effects established by infinite wisdom, and terminating in the greatest good of the whole universe; evils of all kinds, natural and moral, being admitted, as far as they contribute to that end, or are in the nature of things inseparable from it. Vice is productive not of good, but of evil to us, both here and hereafter, though good may result from it to the whole system and according to

sense of the words, it depends entirely on himself whether he be virtuous or vicious, happy or miserable.

3. The Calvinistic system entirely excludes the popular notion of free-will; viz. the liberty or power of doing what we please, virtuous or vicious, as belonging to every person, in every situation; which is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of philosophical necessity, and indeed results from it.

4. The Necessarian believes nothing of the posterity of Adam's

Christ is a branch, will be effectually overturned. See NECESSI

sinning in him, and of their being liable to the wrath of God on that account; or the necessity of an in-TY, PRE-EXISTENCE, SPINOSISM,

SOUL, UNITARIAN, and books under those articles.

finite Being making atonement for them by suffering in their stead, and thus making the Deity pro- MEANS OF GRACE denote pitious to them. He believes no- those duties we perform for the thing of all the actions of any man purpose of improving our minds, being necessarily sinful; but, on affecting our hearts, and of obthe contrary, thinks that the very taining spiritual blessings; such as worst of men are capable of bene- hearing the gospel, reading the volent intentions in many things scriptures, self-examination, methat they do; and likewise that ditation, prayer, praise, christian very good men are capable of conversation, &c. The means are falling from virtue, and conse- to be used without any reference quently of sinking into final per- to merit, but solely with a dedition. Upon the principles of pendance on the Divine Being; the Necessarian, also, all late re-nor can we ever expect happiness pentance, and especially after long in ourselves, nor be good exemand confirmed habits of vice, is plars to others, while we live in altogether and necessarily ineffec- the neglect of them. It is in vain tual; there not being sufficient to argue that the Divine decree time left to produce a change of supersedes the necessity of them, disposition and character, which since God has as certainly apcan only be done by a change of pointed the means as the end. Beconduct of proportionably long sides, he himself generally works continuance. by them; and the more means he thinks proper to use, the more he displays his glorious perfections. Jesus Christ, when on earth, used means; he prayed, he exhorted, and did good, by going from place to place. Indeed, the systems of nature, providence, and grace, are all carried on by means. The scriptures abound with exhortations to them, Matt. v. Rom. xii. and none but enthusiasts or immoral characters ever refuse to use them.

In short, the three doctrines of Materialism, Philosophical Necessity, and Socinianism, are considered as equally parts of one system. The scheme of necessity is the immediate result of the materiality of man; for mechanism is the undoubted consequence of materialism, and that man is wholly material, is eminently subservient to the proper or mere humanity of Christ. For if no man have a soul distinct from his body, Christ, who in all other respects appeared as a man, could not have a soul which had existed before his body: and the whole doctrine of the preexistence of souls, of which the opinion of the pre-existence of

MEDIATOR, a person that intervenes between two parties at variance, in order to reconcile them. Thus Jesus Christ is the Mediator between an offended God and sinful man, 1st Tim. ii. 5. Both Jews

and Gentiles have a notion of a deemer of.-2. That sin might be Mediator; the Jews call the Mes-satisfied for, and reconciliation be siah syns, the Mediator, or Mid-made for it, in the same nature dle One. The Persians call their which sinned.-3. It was proper god Mithras, MEITs, a Mediator; that the Mediator should be caand the dæmons, with the hea-pable of obeying the law broken thens, seem to be, according to by the sin of man, as a divine perthem, mediators between the su- son could not be subject to the perior gods and men. Indeed, the law, and yield obedience to it, whole religion of Paganism was Gal, iv, 4. Rom. v, 19.-4. It was a system of meditation and inter-meet that the Mediator should be cession. The idea, therefore, of man, that he might be capable of salvation by a Mediator, is not so suffering death; for, as God, he novel or restricted as some ima- could not die, and without shedgine; and the scriptures of truth ding of blood there was no remisinform us, that it is only by this sion, Heb. ii, 10, 15. Heb. viii, 3. way human beings can arrive to -5. It was fit he should be man, eternal felicity, Acts iv, 12. John that he might be a faithful highxiv, 6. Man, in his state of in- priest, to sympathize with his peonocence, was in friendship with ple under all their trials, temptaGod; but, by sinning against him, tions, &c. Heb. ii, 17, 18. Heb. he exposed himself to his just dis- iv, 15.-6. It was fit that he pleasure; his powers became en- should be a holy and righteous feebled, and his heart filled with man, free from all sin, original enmity against him, Rom. viii, 6: and actual, that he might offer he was driven out of his paradisai- himself without spot to God, take cal Eden, and totally incapable of away the sins of men, and be an returning to God, and making advocate for them, Heb. vii, 26. satisfaction to his justice. Jesus Heb. ix, 14. 1st John iii, 5. But Christ, therefore, was the appoint-it was not enough to be truly man ed Mediator to bring about reconcilation, Gen. iii, 12. Col. i, 21; and in the fulness of time he came into this world, obeyed the law, satisfied justice, and brought his people into a state of grace and favour; yea, into a more exalted state of friendship with God than was lost by the fall, Eph. ii, 18. Now, in order to the accomplish-ferings of men or angels would not ing of this work; it was necessary that the Mediator should be God and man in one person. It was necessary that he should be man, 1. That he might be related to those he was a Mediator and Re

and an innocent person; he must be more than a man: it was requisite that he should be God also, for, 1. No mere man could have entered into a covenant with God to mediate between him and sinful men.-2. He must be God, to give virtue and value to his obedience and sufferings; for the suf

have been sufficient.-3. Being thus God-man, we are encouraged to hope in him. In the person of Jesus Christ the object of trust is brought nearer to ourselves; and those well-known tender affections

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