sarily existent, independent, omnipresent beings; possessing equal power, wisdom, and goodness, is absurd and contradictory. If one be equal to every possible production, the others would be unnecessary; might remain inert without any deficiency in the creation; and the attribute of necessary existence, respecting them, would be annihilated.

Although our minds be lost in wonder and astonishment, when we employ their faculties upon the unoriginated existence, the spirituality, omnipresence, omniscience, and universal irresistible energy of the one intelligent Cause, yet our embarrassment is the natural, and necessary result of the infinite disproportion between our powers, and the subjects they contemplate. Finite conceptions cannot possibly grasp the whole of what is infinite. But incomprehensibility implies no other contradiction, than that which would consist in pretending to fathom it. These sentiments oppose not any one principle of reason. Our reason confesses the necessity of admitting them, in order to explain the phænomena of the natural and moral world. more we exercise our rational faculties; the more we attend, inquire, reflect, investigate,

The

contemplate, the more clearly shall we discover the necessity of a first Cause; the more numerous will be the proofs of his existence; and with the greater confidence will our judgements decide that there is a God, possessing every natural and moral excellence. These sentiments are founded upon the indisputable axioms, that every effect must have a cause; that the cause must be adequate to the effect; and that the nature of the cause is known by the nature. of the effect. Such are the principles universally received, whenever human plans, and human inventions, become the subjects of investigation. In no case whatever, do we refuse to acknowledge the hand of an intelligent agent, where the workmanship abounds with marks of intelligence and design: and as the signatures of skill, in the most exquisite productions of the human species, are confessedly inferior to the lowest productions in nature, the arguments in proof of the operations of an intelligent first cause, acquire a force proportionate to the dif ference.

The above concise summary is sufficient to show, that a belief in a great first Cause, possessing every possible perfection, and the source of all

existence, is not an irrational belief;-that it has not the character or appearance of being the creature of the imagination, or a mere vision of the brain; that it is founded upon much surer principles, than those which peopled the Heathen nations with multitudes of deities, of various and opposite powers and propensities ;-that such a being is not the production of fear, nor is he a frail creature, elevated to deification by servile flattery, or even by a spirit of gratitude; nor is he the personification of qualities and attributes, which ignorance had finally mistaken for real existences; nor can the existence of such a being be ascribed to any other cause of credulity, which had such an empire over the regions of Paganism. Our belief is founded on rational principles; will stand the test of reason; and is surrounded with evidences, of which every other hypothesis is totally destitute. The notion that the universal system of nature exists, by an eternally blind, unintended succession, is as extravagant as it is hypothetical. It is a mere assertion without a single argument for its support, and it is inconsistent with every phænomenon in nature. To assert that the world was made by chance, is to attribute an infinitude of power to a word without a meaning. It is to suppose that a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, possesses all the secrets

of infinite intelligence; and that a power which has never been suspected of building the cottage of a peasant, has built the Universe!

We have thus taken a general survey of the proofs, on which the belief of the Theist is founded. These arguments would receive infinite force, could the immense extent of the subject permit us to particularize. Nay, a minute attention to any part of this vast creation, which might be selected for our researches, would manifest to us innumerable traces of exquisite skill, to effect the purposes of benevolence. There is not any one subject of knowledge, in which the attentive and unprejudiced mind does not perceive the marks of wisdom, at every stage of its progress; and the greatest proficients will be the most forward to confess, that evidences multiply beyond the power of calculation. All the occupations of intellect consist in making perpetual discoveries in the state, properties, relations, connexions, accordances, and beneficial influences, which exist in the subjects of every branch of science.

But we shall content ourselves with simply referring to the subject which has been occupying so much of our attention; in treating of which, every page is replete with evidences that a Being

exists infinitely superior to man. superior to man. The whole history of human beings, and of the developement of their moral and intellectual powers ;— their primitive state of imbecility and ignorance, contrasted with their ability to make unlimited advances in every thing desirable and useful, and to work their way through numberless impediments, to those improvements which ornament and dignify their nature;-the passions and affections with which they are endowed, to stimulate them to action; the provision made for the remedy of those errors and evils, which an ignorant or a perverse abuse of their free agency occasion;-their intellectual powers, and the nice adaptations of these to the many contingencies to which they are subjected; the infinite superiority of Man to every other being on the globe, approaching to the dignity of superior intelligences; the rich abundance of the means of good, which is spread before him, and the diversified sources of his enjoyment; his being constituted a moral agent ;and his perceptions of that line of conduct, and of those duties, which constitute individual and social welfare;-the refined affections of which he is made susceptible, by which he is attached to his associates by the most delicate ties, and which are in exercise according to the degrees of merit in the object, expectancy of good, or