whence, it never can disengage itself till it rises on the wings of FAITH, which bear this humbled creature from himself, and place him before the throne of God; where he sees the mysteries of that Providence laid open, whose care and bounty so magnificently provides for the meanest of his creatures.

Thus piously affected is the Religionist with the sacred horrors of this amazing scene; an universe stretched out through the wide regions of space, and terminated on all sides by the depths of infinity.

But let us turn now to the Man of the world, whom this view of things, rather DEGRADES than HUMBLES. Calmly contemplative in the chair of false science, he derides the mistaken gratitude of the benighted Religionist; a gratitude rising not on reason, but on pride. "For whether, says he, we consider this earth, the mansion of evil, or man its wretched inhabitant, What madness is it to suppose, that so sordid a corner, and so forlorn an occupant, can be the centre of God's moral government! What but the lunacy of self-love could make this shortlived reptile, shuffled hither as it were by Fate, and precariously sustained by Fortune, imagine himself the distinguished care, and the peculiar Favourite of Heaven? As well, says he, might the blind inhabitants of an ant-hill, which chance had placed on the barren frontier of an extended Empire, flatter themselves with being the first object of their monarch's policy, who had unpeopled those mighty deserts only to afford room and safety for their busy colonies. The most, that reasoning pride can tempt us to presume is, that we may not be excluded from that

general providence, governing by laws MECHANICAL, and, once for all, impressed on matter when it was first harmonized into systems. But to make God the MORAL, that is, the close, the minute and immediate inspector into human actions, is degrading him from that high rank in which this philosophy of inlarged creation hath so fitly placed hin: and returning him to the people, travested to the mortal size of local Godship: under which idea, the superstitious vulgar have been always inclined to regard the Maker and Governor of the World."

Thus widely distant are the conclusions of the philosopher, from the sentiments of the religious

inan.

But who are the inlarged thinkers, and on which side reason declares, it is the purpose of this discourse to inquire: Where, we trust, it will be found, that Man, notwithstanding the vast distance between him and his Creator, is indeed the subject of God's 1 MORAL government, just as instinct prompts him to hope, and religion directs him to believe.

I. If from the difference of intrinsic dignity, and native worth in the CREATURE, we can conclude aught concerning the proportioned degrees of nearness in which it stands to its Creator, we shall be forced to give the place of honour to MIND above MATTER.

We are dazzled with the pomp and splendor of a visible Creation: and the august forms of material things hinder us from discerning the despicable qualities of that substance out of which they are fashioned.

fashioned. But view this substance well, and we shall find, that what philosophers call the INERTNESS of Matter, a quality essential to it, places it in the very lowest class of what we can conceive of Being. So that were it not for the virtue of ATTRACTION, a thing foreign and extrinsic to it, Matter would be totally unfit for all the known purposes of its Creation.

To make Matter, therefore, any way considerable, its accumulated bulk must supply for its inherent baseness. And yet the best Philosophy, proceeding on geometric principles, hath informed us, that possibly all the solid matter in the universe may be comprised within a narrowness of limit still more astonishing than even that immensity through which we find it dilated and expanded.

*

Thus MATTER carries in it no further marks or notice of a creating Hand, than an aptitude of fall

* See Newton's Opt. p. 243. 8vo Ed.-" The Saga"city of our author [Newton] (says Dr. Pemberton, " in his excellent View, &c.) has discovered a method by which the least portion of matter may be wrought "into a body of any assigned dimensions how great "soever, and yet the pores of that body none of them

པ

greater than any the smallest magnitude proposed at "pleasure; notwithstanding which, the parts of the body "shall so touch, that the body itself shall be hard and "solid. Which shews that this whole Globe of Earth,

nay all the known bodies in the universe together, as "far as we know, may be compounded of no greater a "portion of solid matter than might be reduced into a "Globe of one inch only in diameter, or even less." View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy, pp. 355, 356.

ing back into nothing on the withdrawing the influence of that power which brought it into being. While, on the contrary, a rational MIND presents us with the strongest and brightest image *, it is possible for a Creature to reflect of its Creator. It partakes of that divine virtue, the power of agency within itself. It has a capacity of imagination to turn its regard from the present, to the past and future; an ability of judgment to examine and rectify the informations of sense; and a freedom of Will to give morality to all its thoughts and actions.

But besides this obvious superiority of Mind over Matter in the nature of their essences; there is as sensible a difference in the ends of their Creation, or in the effects produced by the exertion of their several qualities. The material world was made but for the sake of the intellectual; and consequently it is not to be supposed, that MORAL GOVERNMENT, which regards the end, should be neglected; while NATURAL GOVERNMENT, which concerns only the means, should ingross the whole of the Ruler's attention. With respect to the effects produced, Mind will, here again, have the same advantage; moral fitnesses having a greater intrinsic excellence than natural for Matter being devoid of consciousness, the end of the Natural is only good effected; while the end of the Moral is good felt and enjoyed.

Mind, therefore, cannot but engage the care of Providence; which is confessed to superintend the movements of that Matter, whose combinations ultimately regard only mind and Intelligence.

* Gen. chap. i. ver. 26.

But

But what makes fastidious reason so averse to the idea of God's moral government, when it so easily admits his Natural, is that in this latter case, systems are thought to be sustained and kept in order only by the general laws of mechanism, impressed on Matter at its Creation; or by certain powers lodged within it, to mold it into form, to push it into motion, and to give the true bias to its operations: so that here, the Deity works neither immediately nor particularly, but leaves every thing to the government of those general Laws, or at least to the administration of that secondary power, or Plastic Nature, which superintends the execution of his Laws while he himself, the sovereign Lord of Being, descends not from his high estate, nor suffers his supremacy to be degraded by a minute attendance on every particle of body; or polluted by an intimate contact with gross impure materiality. On the other hand, they see, moral government must be conducted on different principles. For its subject being free agency, and its object the direction of the effects which such an agency produceth, the attention of the Deity must be instant, immediate, and particular; the relations of Master and Servant, of Lord and Subject, necessarily implying the most close and constant intimacy.

But what shall we say, if the indisposition to God's moral government, on account of this difference, be a mere prejudice? An indisposition not derived from Nature, but the false explanations of its phænomena, obtruded on us by vain systemmakers? Indeed, this supposed distance and separa