labor, how they promote even our recreation and sport. Thus have all things on this earth (as is fit and seemly they should have) by the wise and gracious disposal of the great Creator, a reference to the benefit of its noblest inhabitant, most worthy and most able to use them: many of them have an immediate reference to man, (as necessary to his being, or conducible to his well-being; being fitted thereto, to his hand, without his care, skill, or labor,) others a reference to him more mediate indeed, yet as reasonable to suppose; I mean such things, whose usefulness doth in part depend on the exercise of our reason, and the instruments subservient thereto : for what is useful by the help of reason, doth as plainly refer to the benefit of a thing naturally endowed with that faculty, as what is agreeable to sense refers to a thing merely sensitive: we may therefore, for instance, as reasonably suppose that iron was designed for our use, though first we be put to dig for it, then must employ many arts, and much pains before it become fit for our use; as that the stones were therefore made, which lie open to our view; and without any preparation we easily apply to the pavement of our streets, or the raising of our fences: also, the grain we sow in our grounds, or the trees which we plant in our orchards, we have reason to conceive as well provided for us, as those plants which grow wildly and spontaneously; for that sufficient means are bestowed on us of compassing such ends, and rendering those things useful to us, (a reason able to contrive what is necessary in order thereto, and a hand ready to execute,) it being also reasonable that something should be left for the improvement of our reason, and employment of our industry, lest our noblest powers should languish and decay by sloth or want of fit exercise.

Well then, is it to a fortuitous necessity (or a necessary chance) that we owe all these choice accommodations and preeminences of nature? must we bless and worship fortune for all this? did she so especially love us, and tender our good? was she so indulgent toward us, so provident for us in so many things, in every thing; making us the scope of all her workings and motions here about us? Must we change style, and say, fortune pours down blessings on our heads, fortune crowns us with loving-kindness, fortune daily loads us with her benefits?

Shall we not only esteem these good things her gifts, but even acknowlege ourselves her offsprings, and reverence her as our mother; disclaiming so noble a parent, as Wisdom Omnipotent; disowning so worthy a benefactor, as Sovereign Goodness? O brutish degeneracy! O hellish depravedness of mind! Are we not, not only wretchedly blind and stupid, if we are not able to discern so clear beams of wisdom shining through so many perspicuous correspondences; if we cannot trace the Divine power by footsteps so express and remarkable; if we cannot read so legible characters of transcendent goodness; but extremely unworthy and ungrateful, if we are not ready to acknowlege, and with hearty thankfulness to celebrate all these excellent perfections, by which all these things have been so ordered, as to conspire and co-operate for our benefit? Methinks the very perception of so much good, the continual enjoyment of so many accommodations, the frequent satisfaction of so many senses and appetites, should put us in so good humor, that when we feel our hearts replenished with food and gladness, when we so delightfully relish nature's dainties, when we with pleasure view this fair scene of things, when our ears are ravished with harmonious sounds, when our spirits are exhilarated with those natural perfumes shed about our gardens, our woods, and our fields, we should not be able to forbear devoutly crying out with the psalmist; O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches:'The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy and bounty;' Lord, what is man, that thou art so mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou makest such account of him?' that thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, and hast put all things under his feet?" Under his feet: and such in a manner, according to proper and direct meaning, are all those things which we have as yet touched on; so many arguments of the Divinity even looking downwards, as it were, (if we do not look so rather like beasts than men,) we may on this little spot of our habitation perceive : but if, employing our peculiar advantage, we lift up our eyes and minds toward heaven, there in a larger volume, and in a brighter character, we shall behold the testimonies of perfection, and majesty stupendous described: as our eyes are

dazzled with the radiant light coming thence, so must the vast amplitude, the stately beauty, the decent order, the steady course, the beneficial efficacy of those glorious lamps, astonish our minds, fixing their attention on them; he that shall, I say, consider with what precise regularity, and what perfect constancy those (beyond our imagination) vast bodies perform their rapid motions, what pleasure, comfort, and advantage their light and heat do yield us, how their kindly influences conduce to the general preservation of all things here below, (impregnating the womb of this cold and dull lump of earth with various sorts of life, with strange degrees of activity,) how necessary (or how convenient at least) the certain recourses of seasons made by them are; how can he but wonder, and wondering adore that transcendency of beneficent wisdom and power, which first disposed them into, which still preserves them in, such a state and order? That all of them should be so regulated, as for so many ages together, (even through all memories of time,) to persist in the same posture, to retain the same appearances, not to alter discernibly in magnitude, in shape, in situation, in distance from each other; but to abide fixed, as it were, in their unfixedness, and steady in their restless motions; not to vary at all sensibly in the time of their revolution, (so that one year was ever observed to differ in an hour, or one day in a minute from another,) doth it not argue a constant will directing them, and a mighty hand upholding them? it did so, Plutarch tells us, to the common apprehensions of men in ancient times; who from these observations deduced the existence and notion of a God; because, saith he, 'they took notice that the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, taking their course about the earth, did constantly arise alike in their colors, equal in their bignesses, in the same places, and at the same times.** Reason dictated to them what the inspired psalmist sings concerning the heavenly host; that God commanded, and they were created; he hath also stablished them for ever and ever, by a decree that should not pass.' And surely, those celestial squadrons could never be ranged in a form so proper, and march on so regularly without the mar

*Plut. de Plac. i. 6.

shalling, and without the conduct of a most skilful captain. He that can seriously ascribe all this to an undisciplined and unconducted troop of atoms rambling up and down confusedly through the field of infinite space, what might he not as easily assert or admit? Certainly, he that can think so, can think any thing; and labor were vainly spent in farther endeavor to convince him. So even Pagan philosophers have judged; on whom what impression this consideration hath made, we may learn from these words of one among them, Cicero: 'Who,' saith he, 'would call him a man, that beholding such certain motions of heaven, thus settled ranks of stars, all things there so connected and suited together, should deny there were a reason in them, or should affirm those things done by chance, which by no understanding we can reach with how great counsel they are performed? And, What other thing,' adds he, can be so open and so perspicuous, to us that shall behold the heavens and contemplate things celestial, as that there is a most excellent Divinity, by which these things are governed ?”* Thus do 'the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handywork:' yea, thus we have reason to acknowlege with Nehemiah; Thou, even thou, art the Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein; and thou preservest them all.' Thus, every thing above and below us, before and behind, on this, on that, on every side of us, yields more than a simple attestation to the existence of its glorious Maker; each of them singly, several of them together, giving their vote and suffrage thereto.

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III. Yea, which was the last consideration intimated, all of them join together in one universal consort, with one harmo¬ nious voice, to proclaim one and the same wisdom to have designed, one and the same power to have produced, one and the same goodness to have set both wisdom and power on work in designing and in producing their being; in preserving and governing it for this whole system of things what is it, but one goodly body, as it were, compacted of several members and organs; so aptly compacted together, that each confers its

Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 38. Ibid. ii. 2.

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being and its operation to the grace and ornament, to the strength and stability of the whole; one soul (of Divine providence) enlivening in a manner, and actuating it all? Survey it all over, and we shall have reason to say with the philosopher; All the parts of the world are so constituted, that they could not be either better for use, nor more beautiful for show." 米 In it we shall espy nothing in substance superfluous or defective; nothing in shape deformed, in position misplaced, in motion exorbitant, so as to prejudice the beauty or welfare of the whole. We may perhaps not discern the use of each part, or the tendency of each particular effect; but of many they are so plain and palpable, that reason obliges us to suppose the like of the rest. Even as a person whom we observe frequently to act with great consideration and prudence, when at other times we cannot penetrate the drift of his proceedings, we must yet imagine that he hath some latent reason, some reach of policy, that we are not aware of; or, as in an engine consisting of many parts, curiously combined, whereof we do perceive the general use, and apprehend how divers parts thereof conduce thereto, reason prompts us (although we neither see them all, nor can comprehend the immediate serviceableness of some) to think they are all in some way or other subservient to the artist's design: such an agent is God, the wisdom of whose proceedings being in so many instances notorious, we ought to suppose it answerable in the rest; such an engine is this world, of which we may easily enough discern the general end, and how many of its parts do conduce thereto ; and cannot therefore in reason but suppose the rest in their kind alike congruous, and conducible to the same purpose: our incapacity to discover all doth not argue any defect, but an excess of wisdom in the design thereof; not too little perfection in the work, but too great an one rather, in respect to our capacity: however, we plainly see the result of all to be the durable continuance of things, without interruption or change, in the same constant uniform state; which shows that in the world there is no seed of corruption, as it were; no inclination to dissolution or decay; nothing that tends to the

Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 34.