NATURAL THEOLOGY.

al exercise is drawn into any particular chan- | proof, not only of both these works proceed. nel. It is by these means, at least, that we ing from an intelligent agent, but of their have any power over it. taneous thought, and the choice of that train, first place, we can trace an identity of plan, The train of spon-proceeding from the same agent: for, in the may be directed to different ends, and may a connexion of system, from Saturn to our appear to be more or less judiciously fixed, ac- own globe: and when arrived upon our globe, cording to the purpose in respect of which we we can, in the second place, pursue the conconsider it but, in a moral view, I shall not, nexion through all the organized, especially I believe, be contradicted when I say, that, if the animated bodies which it supports. We one train of thinking be more desirable than can observe marks of a common relation, as another, it is that which regards the pheno-well to one another, as to the elements of which mena of nature with a constant reference to their habitation is composed. Therefore one a supreme intelligent Author. To have made mind hath planned, or at least hath prescribthis the ruling, the habitual sentiment of our ed, a general plan for all these productions. minds, 's to have laid the foundation of eve-One Being has been concerned in all. ry thing which is religious. The world thenceforth becomes a temple, and life itself one happiness, our existence, is in his hands. All continued act of adoration. The change is no we expect must come from him. Nor ought Under this stupendous Being we live. Our less than this; that, whereas formerly God we to feel our situation insecure. In every was seldom in our thoughts, we can now nature, and in every portion of nature, which scarcely look upon any thing without perceiv- we can descry, we find attention bestowed uping its relation to him. tural body, in the provisions which it contains the wings of an earwig, and the joints of its Every organized na- on even the minutest parts. The hinges in for its sustentation and propagation, testifies antennæ, are as highly wrought, as if the a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly Creator had nothing else to finish. We see directed to these purposes. We are on all no signs of diminution of care by multiplicity sides surrounded by such bodies; examined of objects, or of distraction of thought by vain their parts, wonderfully curious; compar- riety. We have no reason to fear, therefore, ed with one another, no less wonderfully di- our being forgotten, or overlooked, or neglectversified. So that the mind, as well as the ed. eye, may either expatiate in variety and multitude, or fix itself down to the investigation is, in every view, the most interesting of all of particular divisions of the science. And in human speculations. In none, however, is it The existence and character of the Deity, either case it will rise up from its occupation, more so, than as it facilitates the belief of the possessed by the subject, in a very different fundamental articles of Revelation. manner, and with a very different degree of step to have it proved, that there must be influence, from what a mere assent to any something in the world more than what we verbal proposition which can be formed con- see. It is a farther step to know, that, amongst It is a cerning the existence of the Deity, at least the invisible things of nature, there must be that merely complying assent with which an intelligent mind, concerned in its producthose about us are satisfied, and with which tion, order and support. we are too apt to satisfy ourselves, will or can assured to us by Natural Theology, we may produce upon the thoughts. More especially well leave to Revelation the disclosure of many These points being may this difference be perceived, in the de- particulars, which our researches cannot reach, gree of admiration and of awe, with which respecting either the nature of this Being as the Divinity is regarded, when represented to the original cause of all things, or his characthe understanding by its own remarks, its own ter and designs as a moral governor; and not reflections, and its own reasonings, compared only so, but the more full confirmation of other with what is excited by any language that can particulars, of which, though they do not lie be used by others. want only to be contemplated. When con-babilities, the certainty is by no means equal The works of nature altogether beyond our reasonings and our protemplated, they have every thing in them to the importance. The true theist will be which can astonish by their greatness; for, the first to listen to any credible communicaof the vast scale of operation through which tion of Divine knowledge. Nothing which he our discoveries carry us, at one end we see an has learnt from Natural Theology, will dimi. intelligent Power arranging planetary sys-nish his desire of farther instruction, or his tems, fixing, for instance, the trajectory of disposition to receive it with humility and Saturn, or constructing a ring of two hun- thankfulness. He wishes for light: he redred thousand miles diameter, to surround joices in light. His inward veneration of this his body, and be suspended like a magnificent great Being will incline him to attend with arch over the heads of his inhabitants; and, the utmost seriousness, not only to all that at the other, bending a hooked tooth, concert-can be discovered concerning him by reing and providing an appropriate mechanism, searches into nature, but to all that is taught for the clasping and reclasping of the filaments by a revelation, which gives reasonable proof of the feather of the humming bird. We hav of having proceeded from him.

ent situation to which it is destined. In the larva of the libellula, which lives constantly, and has still long to live under water, are descried the wings of a fly, which two years afterwards is to mount into the air. Is there nothing in this analogy? It serves at least to show, that even in the observable course of nature, organizations are formed one beneath another; and, amongst a thousand other instances, it shows completely, that the Deity can mould and fashion the parts of material nature, so as to fulfil any purpose whatever which he is pleased to appoint.

But, above every other article of revealed | cle of consciousness, and because consciousreligion, does the anterior belief of a Deity ness carries identity and individuality along bear with the strongest force upon that grand with it through all changes of form or of visible point, which gives indeed interest and impor- qualities. In the most general case, that, as tance to all the rest, the resurrection of the we have said, of the derivation of plants and human dead. The thing might appear hope- animals from one another, the latent organiless, did we not see a power at work adequate zation is either itself similar to the old organito the effect, a power under the guidance of zation, or has the power of communicating to an intelligent will, and a power penetrating the new matter the old organic form. But it is inmost recesses of all substance. I am far not restricted to this rule. There are other from justifying the opinion of those, who cases, especially in the progress of insect life, "thought it a thing incredible, that God in which the dormant organization does not should raise the dead:" but I admit, that it much resemble that which encloses it, and still is first necessary to be persuaded that there is less suits with the situation in which the ena God, to do so. This being thoroughly set-closing body is placed, but suits with a differ. tled in our minds, there seems to be nothing in this process (concealed as we confess it to be) which need to shock our belief. They who have taken up the opinion, that the acts of the human mind depend upon organization, that the mind itself indeed consists in organization, are supposed to find a greater difficulty than others do, in admitting a transition by death to a new state of sentient existence, because the old organization is apparently dissolved. But I do not see that any impracticability need be apprehended even by these; or that the change, even upon their hypothesis, is far removed from the analogy of some other opera- They who refer the operations of mind to tions, which we know with certainty that the a substance totally and essentially different Deity is carrying on. In the ordinary deri- from matter (as most certainly these operavation of plants and animals, from one an- tions, though affected by material causes, hold other, a particle, in many cases, minuter than very little affinity to any properties of matter all assignable, all conceivable dimension-an with which we are acquainted,) adopt perhaps aura, an effluvium, an infinitesimal-deter- a juster reasoning and a better philosophy: mines the organization of a future body; does and by these the considerations above suggestno less than fix, whether that which is about ed are not wanted, at least in the same deto be produced, shall be a vegetable, a merely gree. But to such as find, which some persentient, or a rational being; an oak, a frog, sons do find, an insuperable difficulty in shakor a philosopher; makes all these differences; ing off an adherence to those analogies, which gives to the future body its qualities, and na- the corporeal world is continually suggesting ture, and species. And this particle, from to their thoughts; to such, I say, every conwhich springs, and by which is determined, a sideration will be a relief, which manifests the whole future nature, itself proceeds from, and extent of that intelligent power which is actowes its constitution to, a prior body: never-ing in nature, the fruitfulness of its resources, theless, which is seen in plants most decisively, the variety, and aptness, and success of its the incepted organization, though formed with-means; most especially every consideration, in, and through, and by, a preceding organi- which tends to show that, in the translation zation, is not corrupted by its corruption, or of a conscious existence, there is not, even in destroyed by its dissolution; but, on the con- their own way of regarding it, any thing trary, is sometimes extricated and developed greatly beyond, or totally unlike, what takes by those very causes; survives and comes in-place in such parts (probably small parts) of to action, when the purpose, for which it was the order of nature, as are accessible to our prepared, requires its use. Now an economy observation. which nature has adopted, when the purpose was to transfer an organization from one individual to another, may have something analogous to it, when the purpose is to transmit an organization from one state of being to another state and they who found thought in organization, may see something in this analogy applicable to their difficulties; for, whatever can transmit a similarity of organization will answer their purpose, because, according even to their own theory, it may be the vehi- |

Again; if there be those who think, that the contractedness and debility of the human faculties in our present state, seem ill to accord with the high destinies which the expectations of religion point out to us; I would only ask them, whether any one, who saw a child two hours after its birth, could suppose that it would ever come to undertsand fluctions; or who then shall say, what farther amplifications of intellectual powers, what ac

See Search's Light of Nature passim.

NATURAL THEOLOGY.

cession of knowledge, what advance and im- (the author, in nature, of infinitely variou provement, the rational faculty, be its consti- expedients for infinitely various ends), upon tution what it will, may not admit of, when whom to rely for the choice and appointment placed amidst new objects, and endowed with of means adequate to the execution of any a sensorium adapted, as it undoubtedly will plan which his goodness or his justice way be, and as our present senses are, to the per- have formed, for the moral and accountable ception of those substances, and of those pro- part of his terrestrial creation. That great perties of things, with which our concern may office rests with him; be it ours to hope and lie. sion, that, living and dying, we are his; that life is passed in his constant presence, that to prepare, under a firm and settled death resigns us to his merciful disposal. persua

Upon the whole; in every thing which respects this awful, but, as we trust, glorious change, we have a wise and powerful Being,

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