QUESTION VII. 301 juices of their sires or their dams. And this is according to the law -of creation, and it can hardly be otherwise in the nature of things. You will say, man does not propagate his kindby the mere mechanism of flesh and blood, and animal ferments; for it is the original and constant creative decree of God that produces a new substance, a human soul, and joins it to this body; whereas the offspring of brutes are propagated, and come into existence; by the mere mechanical agency of flesh and blood, without any other particular act of the divine will or power, or any creation of a new sni stance. To this 1 answer, That perhaps few or none of the common appearances of nature, or the constant daily events in the corporeal world, come to pass by mere ° mechan- ism, or the impulse and necessary effects of the motions of the particles of matter without the influence of some superadded laws of nature, beside and beyond the necessary properties of matter; which laws proceed fromGod's constant uniform agency upon matter, such as the law of gravitation, or the mutual ten- dency of all the parts of matter towardeach other which is a law of nature, or decree of creation, and is in reality the con- stant uniform agency of Godon the inanimate world : And some suppose elasticity, electricity, magnetism, &c. to be of the sane kind, as well as all vitality in the vegetable and animal creatures. And in this sense brutes propagate their kind, not merely by the mechanical motions of flesh and blood, but by some ori- ginal creative decree of God, or constant law of nature; where- by matter is impelled into such particular vital motions and forms, and kindled intolife in a succession of generations, by a constant uniform act or agency of the divine will. Let me add also, that it is by this universal divine agency, all animals borrow their breath of life from the air, which is an extraneous substance, which yetis then counted a part of themselves, and is called their breath, and their life. In like manner, when the infant-bodyof man is so tar formed as to become fit for union with a rational soul, the soul then comes into existence, in union with the body, by an original creative decree of God, or a settled law of nature; and thus, the man and the brute, in their long successions, are both formed by the power of that ancient law of creation, this almighty creative word, " be fruitful and multiply." I add also, that the soul, though it be a distinct substance coming from God, yet coining into existence in this manner by a law of nature, * fly the words a mechanism and mechanical," in this place, I mean only the mere effects arising from the natural and essential properties of motion and matter, considered only as a piece of solid extension moved : Sometimes the word mechanism" is taken in a larger sense, no as to include all the super- added laws of nature or motion, which are impressed and maintained; through all the material creation, by the divinewill; such as gravitation, mutual attrac- tion and repulse, &c.
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