In compliance with cuftom the writer fimply indicates principles of demonftration which enforce convic. tion:

ift. Let any man now exifting be confidered as the laft term of a series compofed of individuals in conti nued fucceffion from the commencement; in that feries each individual has been father to his fucceffor; except the laft who has no fucceffor; and alfo each Individual has been fon to his predeceffor, except the firft, who had no predeceffor, the firftman therefore in this fucceffion must have received an exiftence from an almigh ty cause not included in the fucceffion; the writer fays, almighty, because nothing short of omnipotence could give existence to a Being, which had no previous exist. ence radically in fome other. To pretend that in this fucceffion there was no first man is inconfiftent with reafon a regular fucceffion of Beings of the fame fpecies without a commencement is impoffible: there is a laft term, therefore a firft: first and laft are relative terms. To affert that this firft man made himself, is ridiculous in the extreme, and not lefs abfurd to think him the work of chance: a pofitivè effect pre-fupposes a pofitive cause, and a caufe capable of producing the effect. Chance is an empty found, it conveys no idea, produces nothing. If you fuppofe hiin the work of nature, you are to confider that nature, fignifies neither lefs nor more than the mechanical laws by which the material world is governed; that thefe laws have an immediate reference to a Being infinite in power and wisdom to eftablish these fame laws, and execute them. Every part and particle of the material world is fubject to thefe laws, and, placed in the fame circumftances, act invariably in the fame manner, and thus declare, to the intelligent world, there dependence on, and implicit obedience to, the orders of their God. "Cali enarrant Gloriam Dei." Ps. 18, v. 2. Let us now confider this

argument

argument, the force of which is not to be eluded, in another light:

All the individuals who compofe the feries in regular fucceffion have exifted; the number was not infinite, because it admits an increase, and is, in fact, continually increafing; infinity admits no increase, therefore, there must have been a man to begin the fucceffion, and as he could not by any poffibility be fon to himself, or to any of his fucceffors, he must have had his existence from fome Being not included in the fucceffion. This rea foning is applicable to the different fpecies of animated Beings, which fucceed each other by generation, and as not one of them is capable of giving existence, by ge neration, to a Being of a different fpecies, it is manifeft that they mustall have received an existence froma Being included in none of thofe fucceffions. To have recourfe to chance, to hazard, to nature, to fome unknown powers in matter, to the fortuitous concourse of atoms and fuch like causes, which, have no existence but in the imagination of wild fpeculatifts, is unphilofophical: a philofopher affigns no caufe incapable of producing the fpecific effect, which he examines: What ignorance does the man betray who affigns a caufe incapable of producing any effect at all.

A fecond principle of demonftration :

All the Beings which we fee or know in this vifible world, are contingent, that is, they may or they may not exist: we may conceive them in a state of poffibility, not one of them all is capable of giving itself an exiftence, and much lefs of giving' exiftence to all the other Beings, which form this vifible world; there muft therefore be fome one Being, felf-exiftent, which we cannot conceive, in a ftate of mere poffibility, Why fo? Because it would be poffible and impossible at the fame time: poffible from the fuppofition, and impoffible as it could not give itfelf existence, and could

not

not receive exiftence from any other Being, all being fuppofed non-exiftent. A first cause therefore must be felf-exiftent, on which all the Beings, which compofe this visible world depend for their existence.

A third principle of demonftration:

Infinite perfection is poffible: we reafon on fome of its properties, though our limited understanding can not form an adequate idea of the whole; an impoffible Being, afquare circle, for example, has no properties; all we conceive of fuch a repugnant Being is, that the parts of which it is faid to be compofed, or the properties with which it is invefted, exclude each other. If infinite perfection be poffible it muft neceffarily exift. Why fo? Because exiftence is not only the firft, but the foundation of all perfection.

Whether the belief of a Deity be innate in man, that is impreffed on his mind, at his entrance into the world, by the author of his being or not, a queftion which the writer does not undertake to determine, it is certain that there is not, that there never was, a man of sense free from the influence of prejudice or paffion, who did not believe the existence of a God, and his interference in human affairs; hence, even amongst the Heathen nations the mind of man though fhackled with false opinions, abforbed in fenfuality, fubfervient to fictitious divinities, depreffed by the tyranny of univerfal custom, yet, upon a fudden emergency, as if awakening from a dream, called on the God of nature: God knows it, God fees it, God will requite, and fuch like exclamations, not looking to the temples of falfe deities, but to the Heavens, the throne of that God, whom the foul of man naturally adores. If there be, as is pretended by a modern writer, fome favage hordes in the wilds of Africa, or America, who know no Being fuperior to man, and pay no homage to any divinity, it only fhews that uncivilized man is capable of being degraded

from

from the rank which he was intended to hold in the order of created Beings; and the cause must be def perate indeed which has recourse to the favage autho rity of fuch men.

From paffing that bold affertion, or rather wild con jecture, of this modern asti-christian, unnnoticed, it must not be inferred that the writer believes it true: with refpect to the wildeft Savages in America, it is abso lutely false, and, if we may judge by analogy, and the report of unprejudiced travellers, it is not more true with refpect to their uncivilized brethren in the defarts of Africa and in the Afiatic Islands.

From the principles of demonftration already propofed, it is incontrovertibly true that there is a felfexiftent primary caufe poffeffed of all perfection, from which all the Beings which compose the vifible world derive their exiftence, and on which they effentially depend for that portion of time, and space, which they occupy in the world; that this primary caufe is neither matter, nor any particle or element of matter, is equally evident: for whether matter be composed of indivisible elements, or of elements infinitely divifible, a question foreign to the fubject, on which we reafon, it is moft certainly compofed of parts, it therefore effentially depends on fome agent, which is not matter, to effect this compofition, if it be not thought that matter has not only made, but compofed itself according to its own fancy, which is offenfive to common fenfe. We fee matter compofed and decompofed according to fixed and invariable laws; we fee matter fet in motion, the direction, the compofition, and decompofition, of its motion are fo regular, that they are fubject to mathematical calculation, and we fee the fmalleft particle of matter fubject to the fame laws which are invariably obferved by the heavenly bodies; the man who from thefe facts is not convinced of the abfolute dependance

of

of matter on its maker, and of its blind submission to the laws, which he has eftablished, for its compofition, decompofition, for its motion, and the direction of its motion, must be ftupidly ignorant of the first principles of reasoning, or perverfely obftinate, and persevering in an opinion, not fimply groundless, but insulting to reafon.

What is faid of matter in general, is applicable to every parcel, and particle of matter: no reafon can be affigned why one particle should poffefs power, wisdom and independence exclufively, to have recourfe to latent powersin matter is ridiculous: we know that matter is capable of receiving impreffions from external agents, and of making impreffions according to established laws, the extent of this capacity we do not know, but from this very capacity we know that matter is dependant, that it is paffive, incapable of forming any plan, or acting in confequence of any pre-conceived defign, of courfe incapable of compofing that order, which fubfifts in the visible world, the beauty, the harmony, and, the almoft boundless extent of which fo loudly proclaim the power, the wisdom and the magnificence of its author.

The writer paffes in filence the fenfelefs jargon of Atheistical writers, who seem to vie with each other in the extravagant abfurdity of the different fyftems, which they invent, in order, as they pretend, to account for the present order of things, without having recourse to a primary cause.

To the inventive faculties of these gentlemen the world is indebted for knowing, that man is a fort of monkey, in cunning furpaffing the common baboon ; as they advance in knowledge we may expect to hear, how a goat made a horse, or a table built a house.

Thefe men, in general, extremely ignorant, yet am. bitious of literary fame, confcious of their inability to fucceed in common pursuits, endeavour to attrac