10 AN TIE NT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



do abfolutely neceflary, and not our adlion but the adlion of the 

 Deity. — So that, according to Spinoza and Dr Prieftley, God is the 

 immediate Author of all evil in the Univerfe. 



I muft obferve, for the credit of Antient Philofophy, that this 

 dodrine of an embodied God is not only entirely repugnant to the 

 Chriftian Theology, as it has been hitherto underflood, but alfo to 

 the notions of all the antient Theifts : For, though it appear that Py- 

 thagoras and Plato maintained that there was a Divine Being which 

 animated this material world, as our Mind animates our Body, and 

 which is therefore called the Anima Miindi ; yet thofe philofophers 

 diftinguifhed that Being moft carefully from the Supreme God, who 

 was the Firft Perfon of Plato's Trinity, and who is faid by him to 

 be above all Being and Siibjlance^ [v7n[>ovuioi)^ and entirely Jepa- 

 rated (or e^«/5/;^^eK5f, as they expreffed it,) from all Matter. And 

 from this Supreme Mind they fuppofed that other Minds proceeded 

 in infinite progreffion and fubordination, which, being incorporated 

 with Bodies, were the immediate caufe of their motion. 



But it may be faid, that there is no neceflity to fuppofe that the 

 Supreme Mind cannot move Body, without being mixed or incor- 

 porated with it. On this fubjedt, I have faid what, I think, is fufE- 

 cient, in the Second Volume of this Work, *. But, if any doubt 

 fhould ftill remain with any of my readers, I will fay further, 

 that, whatever moves Body can only do it, either externally or in- 

 ternally, or both ways. As to the Motion of a Body by an exter- 

 nal caufe, we know, from daily obfervation, how that is performed, 

 namely, by the application of the furface of fome other Body to the 

 furface of the Body that is moved : And we alfo know, that it is 

 impofTible, by the nature of things, that a Subftance purely immate- 

 rial, which has no folidity nor furface, can move Body in that 

 way. If, therefore, Mind cannot move Body externally, it muft do 



it 



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