than to the all-wife PARENT OF NATURE, feems an incomprehenfible perversion of reason and philosophy. That mind must be strangely prepoffeffed and bewildered with false science, which rather feeks for the cause of these involuntary motions, in dead matter, organization, chance, neceffity, fomething that, without knowledge or power, acts wifely and powerfully, than in THE GREAT FOUNTAIN of POWER, WISDOM, and ANIMA TION. If chance could be fuppofed to produce a regular determined action, yet it is beyond the highest degree of credulity, to fuppofe it could continue this regularity for any time. But we find it remains throughout life independent of our will; and the fame inceffant vital actions have been carried on from the commencement of the world. It is thus that the fun's influence upon the earth hath ever been regular. The production of trees, plants, and herbs, hath ever been uniform. Every feed produces now the fame fruit it ever did. Every fpecies of animal life is ftill the fame.-Could CHANCE continue this regular arrangement? Could any thing continue it but the hand of an OMNIPOTENT CREATOR? A PRAYER. A PRAYER. What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the knowledge of the SUPREME BEING; and, from the visible works of nature, be enabled to infer fo fublime a principle as its SUPREME CREATOR! Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so great, that they may not fee a SOVEREIGN AUTHOR in the more obvious works of nature, to which they are so much familiarized; yet it scarcely seems poffible, that any one of good understanding should reject that idea, when once it is suggested. —A purpose, an intention, a design, is evident in every thing; and when our comprehenfion is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we muft adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of fome INTELLIGENT CAUSE or AUTHOR. But the vulgar, that is, the generality of mankind (a few excepted), never elevate their contemplation to the heavens, or penetrate into the secret structure of vegetable or animal bodies, so as to discover a SUPREME MIND, or ORIGINAL PROVIDENCE, which bestows laws on every part of nature. They confider these admirable works in a more confined and selfish view; and finding their own happiness or misery to depend on the fecret influence of external objects, they folely regard the causes, which produce all these events, and distribute pain, good and ill, by their powerful, but filent, operation. HUME. O MY GOD! if so many men do not discover THEE in this great spectacle, THOU giveft them of all nature: it is not because THOU art far from any of us. Every one of us feels THEE, as it were, with his hand: but the fenfes, and paffions they raise, take up all the attention of our minds. Thus, O LORD, thy light fhines in darkness: but the darkness is fo thick and gloomy, that it does not admit the beams of thy light. THOU appearest every where; and every where unattentive mortals neglect to perceive THEE. All nature proclaims THEE. But she speaks to deaf men; whose deafness proceeds from the noise and clatter they make to ftun themselves. THOU art near, and within them, but thy are fugitive and wandering as it were out of themselves. Alas! thy very gifts, which should fhew them the hand from whence they flow, amuse them to fuch a degree, as to hinder them from perceiving it. If THOU wert a barren, impotent, and inanimate body, like a flower, that decays and falls to ruin; a picture, that is but a collection of colours to ftrike the imagination; or an useless metal that glitters; they would perceive THEE, and fondly afcribe to THEE the power of giving them pleasure; although, in reality, pleasure cannot be felt by inanimate matter, and animation can alone spring from THEE, who art the true source of all life. If therefore THOU wert a lumpish, frail, and inanimate being; a mass without any power; a mere fhadow; shadow; thy fantastic nature would busy their vanity, and abforb all their mean and brutish thoughts. But because THOU art an UNKNOWN BEING, and SPIRITUAL, they perceive THEE not. The very light, that should light them, ftrikes them blind; like the rays of the fun which hinders us from seeing that luminary. In fine, because THOU art too elevated, and too pure in thy nature to affect grofs fenfes, men are become like beasts, and perceive THEE not. O misery! O difmal night, that furrounds the children of ADAM! O monstrous stupidity! Man has eyes only to fee thadows, TRUTH appears a phantom to him. What's nothing, is all; and what is ALL, is nothing to him. What do I behold in all nature? GOD every where, and ftill GOD alone. When I think, O LORD, that all being is in THEE, THOU exhauftest and swallowest up all my thoughts. I know not what becomes of myself. Whatever is not THOU disappears; and scarce so much of me remains, wherewithal to find myself again. Who fees THEE not, never faw any thing; and who is not fenfible of THEE, never was fenfible of any thing! He is as if he were not. His whole life is but a dream! He is devoid of comfort! How happy he who fearches, |