rest basis, when prudently investigated, of natural theology, and an excellent introduction and support to revelation. I recommend it, likewise, as a study, which contributes peculiarly to purify, exalt, and delight the mind; and, along with the charming enthusiasm of piety, to strengthen the most solid foundations of virtue, while, to use an expression of Malebranche, "it sees all things in God, and God in all things."

This argument we may see admirably illustrated by the famous Genevan philosopher Bonnet, and by those very respectable English writers, Derham, and Ray. But perhaps no writer has treated it with more closeness, perspicuity, and irresistible evidence, than Dr. Paley in his treatise on natural theology. In those works, may be seen that mechanical contrivance, that correspondence of parts, that adaptation of means to their respective ends, through all the productions of nature, which are the most unequivocal indications of wisdom and design, as well as of power and goodness, in its author. "Final causes, says a very judicious writer, may be considered as the language in which the existence of God is revealed to man. In this language, the sign is natural, and the interpretation instinctive."-Ferg. ins. p. 3. ch. 1. s. 2.

Another argument to the same end has justly been derived from the universal concurrence of mankind in the assertion and belief of this important principle. The general senti

ments of human nature are always found to point to truth. They are intuitive perceptions resulting immediately from the bare inspection of their objects; or conclusions which force their evidence upon the mind, like the first truths of science, necessarily springing out of the comparison of our own ideas. The concurrence of all nations, in the belief of the being of God, is a decisive proof, either, that it is a native sentiment of the human heart arising necessarily from the constitution of our nature, and entitled to the same implicit credit as our other internal sensations; or it is an induction so clearly and necessarily flowing from the phenomena of nature as to be obvious equally to the wisest, and the most uncultivated mind; the rapidity of the conclusion giving it the appearance and effect of an instinctive principle.

To this argument it is not a sufficient objection, that many nations have acknowledged a multiplicity of gods; and that, in all nations, the multitude have entertained unworthy conceptions of the divine nature. The natural sentiments of the human mind may be corrupted; or, being left in their original, and uncultivated state, may be liable, through ignorance, to many errors. The principles of taste, may, in like manner, notwithstanding their acknowledged foundation in human nature, be rendered defective, or be grossly perverted, by erroneous culture; yet their error, or corruption instead of demonstrating that there are no such principles, is, on the other hand, a proof of their existence. Many nations,

misled by the analogy of the divine, to human governments, conceiving that the administration of the Deity might, more honourably, be conducted by subordinate agents, elevated each local, and imaginary divinity to the throne of divine worship. But all mankind have ever acknowledged one Supreme God: and the multitude of subordinate officers, if they may be called such, which error had attached to him in his government, does not destroy the evidence of the prin cipal and original sentiment that, God exists. Our object, at present, is to establish this single truth. And this truth is not destroyed by diversity of opinion, with regard to the mode of his administration, or the nature of his perfections. These ideas, requiring greater precision of thought, and a wider compass of reasoning, one man, or one nation, according to the advances which they have respectively made in the cultivation of science, may reasonably be supposed to have formed more just, or more inadequate conceptions of them than another.

The truth of the divine existence is confirmed, if such primary and palpable truths can receive additional confirmation, by the absurdity of the causes to which atheists have been obliged to resort in order to account for the origin of things. One of their first principles is, that matter is eternal, and, though senseless and inert, contains the essence of all order and motion. Another, that the intelligence, which evidently reigns in the universe, is the result of material organ

ization necessarily arising from its original and essential principles. And another still, not less extraordinary than either of the preceding, that, from the accidental collision of atoms, have been formed globes which, from some interior, and inexplicable impulse, have thrown themselves into orbits constructed with the most perfect mathematical exactness, and governed by laws which ensure undeviating constancy in their movements. From the same accidental collision, roots, and seeds have been generated, whence the whole vegetable world has been evolved, and yearly reproduced. At this age of philosophy, one would think that such principles must carry their own refutation in the very terms of their statement. Observe any mass, or congeries of matter, and let the plainest, or the most improved understanding decide, if any arrangement of atoms, according to any known laws of material action, could sublimate it; above all, could enable it to sublimate and organize itself, so as to produce sensation and reason. Or is it possible, that, if one lucky cast, or collision among infinite millions, should have formed an animal, or vegetable, it should have been so framed as to be capable of throwing from itself continually a similar assemblage of organized atoms, while not another cast, of the same kind, should ever succeed in forming a new body?

If an atheist ask us, why, since we admit the existence of a wise intelligent cause, only to exclude the ideas of disorder and chance from the world, do we see so many unseem

ly examples of both, in the structure of things, and in the revolutions of what we call providence? It is, I conceive, a sufficient answer, to deny the existence of either, and to challenge an antagonist to produce an instance.-For, what is chance?-Only a name to cover our ignorance of the cause of any event. Nothing can happen by accident in the government of an infinitely wise, and powerful being. All events depend upon a certain concatenation of causes. The cast of a die is as certainly governed by the laws of matter and motion, as the greater movements of the planets. Disorder in the works of nature exists only in the imperfection of our own understanding. This is certain, with regard to all the arrangements of nature, that, in proportion as her laws have been more clearly developed, and her operations more distinctly understood, those phenomena, which formerly were esteemed to be irregularities, are now discovered to be directed by the most wise, certain, and permanent laws. One conclusion will obtrude itself on every reflecting mind; that, since nature, as far as we can discern her operations, contains, even to our imperfect reason, the most obvious indications of intelligence, design, and goodness, if there be any parts of it, which we are unable to interpret, in perfect coincidence with the general system, this ought to be ascribed solely to the narrow sphere to which our intellectual vision is circumscribed. We cannot doubt, but that the same wisdom, which we perceive in that portion which we do comprehend, pervades all the works of the same author.