406 OF TILE PLACE AND MOTION OP SPIRITS. gave it commission in an immediate manner to move a mountain) since a mountain is only a heap of earthy particles, and not an organized body, and therefore is not to be moved by strings or springs of nerves and muscles,as an animal body is ? And whe- ther the same spirit must shrink itself up to the size of a grain of wheat, if God gave it its next commission only to move so small a thing? Whether these contradictions or shrinkings of the spirit would be performed by mutual penetrations of its own parts? Or rather whether God's powerful appointment both of the mountain and the grain to be moved at the volition of the spirit, be not a sufficient philosophical account of this spirit's power to move the mountain or the grain by its volition without proximities or contacts, diffusions or contractions ? I would enquire yet further, whether God could not appoint myspirit, while it is united to my body, to exert a volition, which should in an immediate way move a grain of wheat placed at two yards distance from my body ? Did he not give the prophets and apostles power by their volition to heal the sick by a word, and make happy changes in several sick bodies which they did not touch ? And whether, if my soul had such a power immediately to move a distant grain of wheat, it must be extended through all the intermediate space between my body and that grain, that so it might be nearer to it, in order to act upon it ? And if there be no .necessity of this extension, or stretching so far as the grain of wheat, in order to move it, why must a soul or spirit be supposed to have any proximity to a body, in order to move it by a volition ? May we not conclude from all these considerations, that the power of a spirit to move a body, or to move several bodies dis- tinct from each other, is not innate in the spirit itself, but rather seems to depend upon the supreme will of God, and his particu- lar appointment or commission ? And when this is done accord- ing to the common and uniform course of things which God has established in the world, it is called nature, or the law of na- ture; but when it is not according to this natural course of things, it is called miracle: But that all spirits moving matter have this power only by'special divine appointments. 'rite great law of attractionor 'gravitation in the corporeal world, has a considerable resemblance to this doctrine of a spirit moving bodies. Ifone planet act upon another at a great distance by way of attraction, according to the universal and original laws of attraction, it is said to do it naturally; bnt.if in any instance this attraction differ from the original law, it is called miracle; but both the one and the other are originally the effects of an almighty divine volition or appointment. Note, All the queries which I have put, with regard to a spirit's moving one or more bodies nearer or more distant, may
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