What, that can consist with liberty, hath been omitted by supreme wisdom in this most important affair? To incline him to be moderate in all his gratifications, true pleasure proceeds from nothing else. To keep off intemperate indulgence, and to guard him against all voluptuous excesses, it is so ordained, that extravagance and inconvenience are near together; and that vice and pain are, though not immediate and inseparable associates, never far asunder; and that it is impossible for that soul to be calm and at ease which iniquity has stained, and which impenitent guilt corrodes.

The parts of man's body are wonderfully designed and curiously constructed; regularly disposed of, and most accurately proportioned for the safety and advantage of the whole. As apt as we may be to quarrel with our nature, suppose an instinct was struck out of our frame, or a single passion taken from us; suppose our senses any ways altered, by being either strengthened or impaired; or even reason refined and abstracted to such a degree as to render us wholly negligent of food and raiment, necessary exercises, and secular concerns; in any of these instances, the imaginary emendation would be a real deficiency, and a proportionable deduction from the moment and quantity of our happiness.

It is evidently the same with respect to all the other creatures we are acquainted with: their nature and condition, their qualities and circumstances, are so adapted to one another, that, as the intellectual powers of a being of a more exalted nature would not, probably, suit an in

habitant of this lower world, so neither would the capacities of human nature guide the fowls of the air, or conduct the beasts of the field, to so much happiness as they find by following the motions and impulses of sense and instinct: and if reflection, enlarged ideas, and moral discrimination be denied them, it is plainly, because they would be a burden and a misfortune, rather than a benefit to them.

But these universal notices and undeniable testimonies of divine goodness, throughout the animated regions of earth, sea, and air, in the propriety and suitableness of creatures to their state, and objects to their appetites, are too evident and obvious to all men to need enlargement. God's works are all wonderful; and in wisdom and with goodness hath he made them.

JOHNSON.

THE WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORKS OF CREATION.

REGULARLY built and finely decorated as the theatre of nature is, it is not till we come to consider how well adapted it is to the fable meant to be represented on it, that we fully understand the sagacity of the contriver. True it is, that the profusion of objects makes an irresistible impression on the eye; true, that the polish and perfection of each separate part raise in us the greatest admiration of that Being, who, having undertaken so great a design, has not left himself without a witness in the smallest part of it; but

all this is little to what we feel, when, after reflecting that the end he had in view was successive preservation, we come to examine the means he has made use of for that end; there it is that the curtain is evidently drawn aside, and the Divinity discovered in the full majesty of his glory; there it is that the proudest, the most reasonably proud of his creatures, and he that discovered the simple law by which all this universal harmony is preserved, and he that made man's first disobedience the subject of his sacred song, renounce the name of wise, which creatures as shortsighted as themselves had conferred on them; and, thoroughly conscious of their own littleness, ascribe the honour there where only it is due. Ascribe, how justly! For once admit what near six thousand years' experience has well confirmed that forming a proper receptacle for the creatures he meant to place in it, and successive preservation, were the designs of the Creator, and then consider what a manifestation of wisdom it was to have placed the sun in such a manner as that every spot by turns should be cheered by its appearance, and benefited by the treasure it gives birth to; what a manifestation of wisdom to have made animals various in number, and different in their natures, to find each its proper food and nourishment in the country it belongs to; to have furnished each with an apparatus for providing this nourishment, a weapon for its defence, an habitation adapted to its want of it; to have made so many of them abandon their way of life, and change, as it were, their very natures, when their young ones stand in need of their

protection. How comes it, if not from the deepest thought and design, that man possesses those parts double which minister immediately to his occasions; that the most useful to him are placed in that part of the body where they can be of the greatest utility; that those of which the loss would be more fatal are most remote from danger, and best fortified against its approaches? Why does the eye naturally contract itself when the light becomes too strong for it? Why does the stomach give such faithful indications of whatever would be contrary to the welfare of the whole frame? Why are the several passages, as well those of the senses as those through which the aliment takes its course, provided in such a manner with bolts, and bars, and doors, that shut spontaneously upon whatever has once passed through them, that nothing hurtful to that part of the system it would intrude into can get through, nothing useful can be sent back? Nor is this all: consider the two great points of reason and conscience; the one to teach us how to make our abode here as comfortable as we can; the other to remind us as often as we swerve from our duty. Which of us can take half these precautions for the welfare of the child he loves, which have been taken by the universal parent for all his children? Which of us has any scheme half so conspicuous, either for the wisdom of the means or the steadiness in pursuing them?

MATY,

VOL. I.

C

ON THE

OMNISCIENCE OF THE DEITY.

How incomprehensible is the knowledge of God, from whom nothing is concealed in heaven or on earth, or under the earth; who overlooks not the situation of a single atom, or the rising of a single thought! He counts the host of heaven, and through an immeasurable extent of empire calls all his subjects by their names. In one immense survey he beholds every creature, from the angel of his presence down even to the insect and the herb, and the dust we tread upon. The meanest individual of his kingdom is not unnoticed by him; or the meanest circumstance of the meanest individual. All hearts are open to him; all secrets are revealed to him; as to him there is no darkness and no mystery, so in him there is no ignorance, and for him there is no information. In every instant he discerns every motion and every thought, though they amount to myriads on myriads; and though in the instant they are produced they perish. As he discerns whatever is within us, or above us, or around us, or beneath us, as wide as immensity itself, without labour, without oversight, and without succession, easily, perfectly, and instantly; so he discerns whatever comes to pass throughout the universe, without error, without surprise, without confusion; clearly, calmly, and unweariedly accompanying, as it were, the universe through its unceasing changes, comprehending all things with