was.

This is a clear and decided example, how the laws of Nature and the properties of things arise from creation, and subsequent to it, and never form or produce it; for the same reasoning is applicable to every substance of Nature, and to all its laws and agencies."*

"The preceding argument is, we think, irresistible. The unbeliever may indeed say that the combination of the oxygen and hydrogen so as to form water was owing entirely to their affinity for each other; but in saying this, he abandons the original position, and destroys his own argument. If it was the affinity for each other of its materials and their consequent combination, which formed water, then it was not produced by the laws of water; and hence in the application the unbeliever admits that the world or universe in its present state was not produced by the laws of Nature, but was owing to the tendency or affinity of the substances of which it is composed. We have done, then, with that doctrine which teaches that Nature is the effect of the laws of Nature. The argument is now placed upon a new ground, but not a less difficult one for the objector. He affirms that water is the result of the affinity which oxygen and hydrogen have for each other, and which causes them to unite in its formation. But does he not perceive that this only removes the difficulty one step backward without solving it? The inquiry now is, how came oxygen and hydrogen to exist? or, if we make a direct use of this illustration again, we ask, if the universe as it is now, was the effect of the mutual affinity of its materials, how came these materials into being? It will be seen that such an answer is no explanation of the phenomena; the existence of these materials is still to be accounted for, and the task of explanation on this point will be found no more easy than on the other. If the unbeliever can tell us how these came to exist at the first, he will have accomplished something,-otherwise he is yet in the dark."t

But to return; where is the evidence that Nature has formed all her productions after long periods of time? Can an example be produced of the first rudiments of organization, or a spontaneous generation? Has any one ever seen one of those rudiments in the first stage of its progress, or undergoing those stages of metamorphoses through which it passes in advancing to a more perfect form? Can any one tell what was its last form, and what will be its next? Men and animals are still what they have always been. But a hypothesis,

* Turner's Sacred History of the World, v. ii. p. 277-8.

countenanced by no fact in nature, has no legitimate claim to the character of philosophy, and should be dismissed as a dream.

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That all things now are, in the main, as they ever were, without a first cause, is in opposition to a universal tradition, that the world was made. "The Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and Indians," says Strabo, agree with the Grecians, that the world began, and should have an end, and that God, the maker and governor of it, is present in all parts of it." When America was first discovered, the inhabitants of St. Domingo, and also those of Peru, believed in one chief God, under the title of the Maker of the Universe. Tully says, in his work on the nature of the gods; "Thales was the first of all the philosphers that inquired into these things, and he said that God was that mind, or intelligent principle, which fashioned all things out of water." Strabo says, that "the Brahmins, the chief philosophers of India, agreed with the Grecians in this, that the world was made of water. In the Hindoo Vedas it is said "water was the first work of the Creator." Aristotle says, that "the gods were anciently represented, as swearing by the lake Styx, because water was supposed to be the principle of all things," and he further says, that "this was the most ancient opinion of the origin of the world," and that "those who lived at the greatest distance from his time were of this mind." Maximus Tyrius, in his dissertation, says, "Men may differ about other things, yet they all agree in this principle, that there is one God, King and Father of all things. This the Greeks say, this the Brahmins, this those that live upon the continent, and those that dwell by the sea-the wise and the unwise."

If the world, and consequently mankind, had a beginning, there is every reason to expect that there should be a universal tradition concerning that which was the most remarkable which could be transmitted to mankind. But if the world was eternal, and had no beginning, there could be no ground for such a tradition; and if at any period an attempt were made to set any such a tradition on foot, it would be extremely difficult to induce any number of men to believe it, and still more difficult to have it universally propagated. For if the theory of Aristotle, that the world was from eternity, and always existed, as it now is, be true, there would be no common head from whence such a tradition could spring. Lucretius, the celebrated Epicurean, says, "If the world had no beginning, how is it that the Greek poets mention nothing higher than the Theban war and the destruction of Troy?"

Had the world been eternal, learning of every description would have been discovered, and universally propagated, beyond the memo

ry of all ages; but they can easily be traced to their origin; and where learning and the arts obtain, this tradition of the beginning of the world is most universally received and, confidently believed. Moreover, as the several parts of which this world is composed, are corruptible, why is it, that during infinite duration, this earth and these heavens have not been dissolved, especially as according to the theory of the Atheist there is no God, no wise and intelligent Spirit to repair and regulate them, and to prevent those innumerable accidents, disorders, and calamities, which in so immense a space must in all probability have befallen them?

As a convincing proof that the world was not eternal, but had a beginning, Lucretius urges, that "those things which are in their own nature corruptible, had never been able from all eternity to have held out against those forcible and violent assaults, which, in infinite duration, must have happened." And, Aristotle himself acknowledges, that "all the philosophers that were before him held that the world was made."

The second theory of the Atheist, and which was adopted by the Epicureans, viz: that matter is eternal and of itself, and that the beautiful and immense frame of the heavens and the earth was caused by a fortuitous concourse of innumerable atoms, is equally false and absurd with the former. According to this theory, matter is in itself eternal, and there is an infinite empty space containing the infinite little parts of matter, and these being always in motion, after infinite trials, without any design or disposal of an intelligent being, by a lucky casualty formed themselves into the earth and the heavens; and the earth, being full of vigor, brought forth men, and all sorts of living creatures. This theory imputes to chance an effect which carries on its face all the characteristics of contrivance. But will chance fit means to ends, in myriads of instances, and not fail in one? How often might you shake a set of letters in a bag and throw them out, upon the ground before they would fall into an eloquent speech! and may not a small pamphlet be made by chance as easily as the vast volume of the universe? How long might you carelessly sprinkle colors on a canvas before they would chance to make your own picture; and is a man more easily made by chance than his picture? How long might five thousand blind men, who should be sent out from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, wander up and down before they would chance to meet in rank and file on the battle field below New Orleans? Yet this is much more easy to be imag

vous themselves into this earth and these heavens. What opinion would you have of me, did I assert that this church was never contrived, or built by any man; that the bricks, by chance, grew into the figures in which they now appear; that upon a time the materials of the building, the bricks, the stone, the mortar, the timber, the iron, the lead, and the glass, fortunately met together, and ranged themselves into that beautiful order, in which they are now so closely compacted; and that it must be a very great chance indeed that again parts them? What, I say, would you think of him who would advance this opinion; and what if he should write a book to prove it? You would pronounce such an one insane. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that he would have more reason on his side than that man has, who asserts that the earth was made by chance, and that men grew up out of it, as men are now; or that they were first oysters, and by chance reached the perfection of men. The thing is, at first sight, so absurd, that no arguments can render its absurdity more palpably apparent; and yet these atheistical madmen assume to themselves to be the men of reason; the philosophers of the world; the only cautious, prudent persons, who cannot be imposed upon by "wily priests;" and who must have convincing evidence of everything, and who will admit nothing without a mathematical demonstration. *

The works of creation prove that there is a God. When we examine a watch or any other piece of machinery, we instantly perceive marks of design. The arrangement of its several parts, and the adaptation of its movements to one result, show it to be a contrivance; nor do we ever imagine the faculty of contriving to be in the watch itself, but in a separate agent. If we turn from art to nature, we behold a vast magazine of contrivances; we see innumerable objects replete with the most exquisite design. † When we view the heavens above; the atmosphere around us; the air in which we breathe, which compresses our earth, and keeps it together; the outspread sky bespangled with globes of light, adorned with those two great luminaries, the sun and the moon, especially the former, that inexhaustible fountain of light and heat, whose benign influences spread plenty and happiness over all the earth, and cause her inhabitants to rejoice; whose circuit is from one end of the heaven to the other, "and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." When we consider its magnitude, motion and influence; its proper distance from us, not being so near as to scorch us, nor so remote as to be of

* See Tillottson's argument on the existence of God.

† Paley's Evidences.

no use to us. When we view this globe of the earth hanging on nothing, like a ball in the air, poised with its own weight; its bowels stored with immense riches, its surface covered with inhabitants; when we consider their shapes and uses, some for strength, and some for swiftness, others for food, and others for clothing; the vast varieties of feathered tribes that cut the air, and the innumerable fishes that swim the sea. If we will consider our own composition; the form of the body: while animals look down, man looks above, to behold the heavens, to lift up his face to the stars. When we consider the organs of the senses, of sight, of hearing, of tasting, of smelling, and of feeling; the admirable structure of the eye, the hand, and the ear; the various operations performed within our bodies, many of which are performed without our knowledge or will; the circulation of the blood through all the parts of the body, in a very small space of time; the respiration of the lungs, the digestion of the food, and the chylification of it; the mixing of the chyle with the blood; the nourishment thereby communicated, and which is sensibly perceived in every part of the body: when we consider the faculty of speech, and its organs; the features of our faces, and the shapes of our bodies, all differing from each other; the constant supply of animal spirits; the continuance of vital heat, which outlasts fire itself; the slender threads and small fibres spread throughout the body, which perform their office, running fifty, sixty, or eighty years. Especially when we consider the brain, and above all, the mind, which can receive and compare ideas; can put them together, and compare them with each other; can infer one thing from another and draw conclusions from them, and reason concerning them. Do not all these exhibit the most exquisite design, the most consummate skill and contrivance? If the idea of a contrivance and a contriver be inseparable, and if it be evident in regard to this earth and its inhabitants that they themselves are not the designing agents, it is most manifest that there is a separate and invisible being who is the former of them all. This great being is indicated by the appellation of the Deity: and could it even be shown that the argument to prove that the world and its inhabitants have not, in the main, existed as they now are from all eternity, is defective, still whatever is supposed to have occasioned this constant succession, exclusive of an intelligent cause, will never account for the undeniable marks of design which pervade the universe: Nor is the absurdity of supposing a contrivance without a contriver diminished by this imaginary succession, but rather increas