on nonentity is inadmissible; seeing that the absence or nonexistence of all being could not have caused an existence to be. Should we, however, attempt to trace the succession of the causes of our dependence, they would exceed our comprehension; though each of them which we could understand, would be so many evidences (of the displays) of a God. Although a sense of dependency discloses to our minds the certainty of a Supreme Being; yet it does not point out to us the object, nature, or perfections, of that being; this belongs to the province of reason; and in our course of ratiocination on the succession of causes and events, although we extend our ideas retrospectively ever so far upon the succession; yet no one cause in the extended order of succession, which depends upon another prior to itself, can be the independent cause of all things.

Nor is it possible to trace the order of the succession of causes back to that self-existent cause, inasmuch as it is eternal and infinite; and therefore cannot be traced out by succession, which operates according to the order of time; consequently can bear no more proportion to the eternity of God, than time itself may be supposed to do, which has no proportion at all as the succeeding arguments respecting the eternity and infinity of God will evince. But notwithstanding the series of the succession of causes cannot be followed in a retrospective succession up to the self-existent or eternal cause, it is nevertheless a perpetual and conclusive evidence of a God. For a succession of causes, considered collectively, can be nothing more than effects of the independent cause, and as much dependent on it, as those dependent causes are upon one another: so that we may with certainty conclude that the system of nature, which we call by the name of natural causes, is as much dependent on a self-existent cause, as an individual of the species in the order of generation is dependent on its progenitors for existence. Such part of the series of nature's operations, which we understand, has a necessary connection with, and dependence, on its parts, which we designate by the names of cause and effect. Accordingly, we are authorised by reason to conclude, that the vast system of causes and effects is thus necessarily combined (speaking of the natural world only) and the whole regularly and necessarily dependent on a self-existent cause: so that we are obliged to admit an independent cause, and ascribe to it self-existence; otherwise it could not be independent, and consequently not God. But the eternity or mode of the existence of a self-existent and independent being is to all finite capacities utterly incomprehensible. This, however, is so far from an objection against the reality of such a being, that it is essentially neces

sary to support the evidence of it. For, if we could compre hend that Being whom we call God, he would not be God; but must have been infinite, and that in the same degree as those may be supposed to be, who could comprehend him: therefore, so certain as God is, we cannot comprehend his essence, eternity, or mode of existence. This should always be premised when we essay to reason on the being, perfection, eternity, and infinity of God, or about his creation and providence. As far as we understand nature, we are become acquainted with the character of God; for the knowledge of nature is the revelation of God. If we form in our imagination a compendious idea of the harmony of the universe, it is the same as calling God by the name of harmony; for there could be no harmony without regulation, and no regulation without a regulator, which is expressive of the idea of a God. Nor could it be possible, that there should be order or disorder, unless we admit of such a thing as creation, and creation includes the idea of a Creator, which is another appellation for the Divine Being, distinguishing God from his crea tion. Furthermore, there could be no proportion, figure, or motion without wisdom and power; wisdom to plan and power to execute: and these are perfections, when applied to the works of nature, which signify the agency or superintendency of God. If we consider nature to be matter, figure, and motion, we include the idea of God in that of motion; for motion implies à mover, as much as creation does a creator. If from the composition, texture, and tendency of the universe in general, we form a complex idea of general good resulting therefrom to mankind, we implicitly admit a God by the name of good, including the idea of his providence to man. And hence arises our obligation to love and adore God; because he provides for and is beneficent to us. Substract the idea of goodness from the character of God, and it would cancel all our obligations to him, and excite us to hate and detest him as a tyrant. Hence it is, that ignorant people are superstitiously misled into a conceit, that they hate God, whereas it is only the idol of their own imagination, which they truly ought to hate and be ashamed of; but were such persons to connect the ideas of power, wisdom, goodness, and all possible perfection, in the character of God, their hatred towards him would be turned into love and adoration.

For mankind to hate truth, as it may bring their evil deeds to light and punishment, is very easy and common; but to hate truth as truth, or God as God, which is the same as to hate goodness for its own sake, unconnected with any other consequences, is impossible even to a (premised) diabolical

nature itself. If we advert to the series of the causes of our being and preservation in the world, we shall commence a re trospective examination from son to father, grand father, and great grand father, and so on to the supreme and self-existent father of all and as to the means of our preservation, or successive causes of it, we may begin with parental kindness in nourishing, succouring, and providing for us in our helpless age; always remembering it to have originated from our eter nal father, who implanted that powerful and sympathetic pa ternal affection in the breast of our progenitors.

By giving our ideas a larger scope, we shall perceive our dependence on the earth, and waters of the globe, which we inhabit, and from which we are bountifully fed and gorgeously arrayed; and next extending our ideas to the sun, whose fiery mass darts its brilliant rays of light to our terraqueous hall with amazing velocity, and whose region of inexhaustible fire supplies it with fervent heat, which causes vegetation and gilds the various seasons of the year with ten thousand charms, we immediately see this to be, not the achievement

of

man, but the workmanship and providence of God. How the sun is supplied with materials, thus to perpetuate its kind influences, we know not. But will any one pretend to deny the reality of those benign influences, because we do not understand the manner of the perpetuality of that fiery orb, or how it became such a body of fire: or will any one deny the reality of nutrition by food, because we do not understand the secret operation of the digesting powers of animal nature, or the minute particulars of its cherishing influence? None will af fect so much stupidity. Equally preposterous and absurd would it be for us to deny the providence of God," by whom we live and move, and have our being," because we cannot comprehend it.

We know that earth, water, fire, and air, in their various combinations, are subservient to our wants; we also know that these elements are devoid of reflection, reason, or design; from whence we may easily infer, that a wise, intelligent, and designing being has ordained them to be thus subservient. Could blind chance constitute order and propriety, and consequently a providence? That wisdom, order, and design should be the production of nonentity, or of chaos, confusion, and old night, is too ridiculous to deserve a serious confutation, since it supposes, that there may be an effect without a cause, that is, produced by nonentity; or that chaos and confusion produce the effects of power, wisdom, and goodness. To such absurdities as these we must either assent, or subscribe to the doctriue of a self-existent and providential being. Chaos itself

would necessarily include the idea of a creator, inasmuch as supposes a positive existence, though it precludes the idea of a providence, which cannot exist without order, tendency, and design.

it

But chaos could no more exist independent of a creator, than the present aptly disposed system of nature. For there could be no fortuitous jumble or chaos of original atoms, independent or previous to creation, as nonentity could never produce the materials. Nothing from nothing and there remains nothing; but something from nothing is contradictory and impos▾ sible.

The evidence of the being and providence of a God is so full and complete, that we cannot miss of discerning it, if we but open our eyes, and reflect on the visible creation. The display of God's providence is that by which the evidence of his being is evinced to us; for, though mere chaos would evince the certainty of a creator, yet that abstract mode of argument could not have been conceived or known by us, were it not for the exercise of God's providence (by whom we have our being); though that argument in itself would have been true, whether it had been used by us or not; because the reason of propositions and just inferences in themselves, are in truth the same, independent of our conceptions of them, abstractedly considered from our existence.

The benefit accruing to us from reasoning and argumentation, as it respects our knowledge and practice, is this, that thereby we explore the truth of things, as they are in our own nature; and to do so is our wisdom. All other conceptions of things are false and imaginary. We cannot exercise our thinking faculty on any thing whatever, that has a positive existence; but if we trace it thoroughly it will centre in an independent cause, and attest a God. Thus it is, that from the works of nature we explore its great and exalted author; but the inquisitive mind is lost in its searches and researches into the immensity of the divine fullness, from whence our beings and all our blessings flow. Your's, &c.

E. A.

P. S. In my next, I shall endeavour to point out the manner of dis Covering the moral perfections and essential attributes of God.

ON THE PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY, AND THE NATURE AND CONDITION OF MAN.-ESSAY THE FIRST.

3

RESCIENCE is a power, which we attribute to God in his character of creator, and it would appear to found itself upon the two following self-evident propositions:--

1st. That the being who is capable of creating an organized system, and of arranging all its complicated details with precision and accuracy, must necessarily be intimately acquainted with the actions and operations, whether simple or compound, of all the various principles on which it is founded, and all the several laws by which it is to be governed.

2dly. That he who avowedly and visibly provides for the continuance of such a system, through a long and indefinite series of ages, must have actually contemplated its condition and circumstances, under all its revolutions, and throughout every stage of its progress.

These general principles allowed, let us observe their consequences, by applying them to a particular instance: the creation of the sun for example, and the various parts of the solar system, by the Deity. As the great Creator always works through the intervention of second causes, and invariably avails himself of the means necessary to compass the ends which he has in view, it necessarily follows, that, when he said, "let there be light," he, as certainly defined the laws, which should produce and govern that element, as that he actually called it into existence. Finding also, that nothing is made for itself alone, but that every single part of the creation depends upon the rest for its effect, nay for its very existence-light, for instance, being evidently framed in a designed accordance with the laws of reflection and refraction, with that of the process of vegetation, and with the sense of sight in man, and other animals: observing this, it further follows, as an equally necessary consequence, that the Creator of all those laws, must have absolutely intended them for each other, and consequently, that he must have foreseen the nature of their relative effects and operations, or he could never, in so exquisite a manner, have adapted them each to each, and every one, to so numerous and complicated a whole.

Matter, when once set at rest, may remain so for ever; a system so formed, therefore, would appear to require no exertion of wisdom in a creator to regulate its future laws, or of prescience to foresee their workings and effects. The system of nature however is not thus constituted; describing innume rable and complicated revolutions, and undergoing, through