I.

Of the DEITY and his Attributes.

T

HE first article to be proved is, that there has been fomething through all eternity: for if there had been originally nothing, there could have been no produce: no derivative either good or evil. Nothing could have been effected, if there were no efficient caufe: for an effect without a cause cannot be conceived. If then there has been fomething original during the whole procefs of time, that fomething must have been the fource of all; the great Creator and Confervator of the world. As he created all things, he must be all-powerful: and as the whole is done with confummate wisdom, he must be all-knowing, and all-wife: and as he has exifted through a boundless duration, he must persevere through the like without

end; for the great felf-existent Being, by whom all things are directed, can never be liable to any impediment: nor to any detriment, or decay. He must likewise be all-good, and all-juft; for infinite wisdom is not confiftent with depravity: nor can there be any poffible inducement for his being otherwife. He therefore, and he only, is perfect. We may therefore fafely fubfcribe to the firft article of our Church, which tells us, that there is but one living and true God; everlasting, without body, parts, or pafions of infinite power, wisdom and goodness: the maker and confervator of all things, both visible, and invifible.

Of the fuppofed Eternity of Matter.

If we were to grant, what fome of the ancients blindly maintained, that matter was eternal; yet the confequence would be nearly the fame for dull, inanimate, matter could not poffefs intellect and design; it could not modify itself, nor perform those mighty operations, by which the world was produced. This made the celebrated philofopher

fopher Athenagoras, who faw this difficulty, add intellect, as a concomitant to matter. But instead of adding, he should have fuperinduced it, and made the Eternal Mind the original; and matter with all its variations, pofterior and fubordinate.

Concerning Chance, and the Atomical Syftem.

But it may be faid, that chance, and a fortuitous concourfe of atoms might poffibly have produced the world. Chance is a term without meaning. Befides, give chance all the ideal efficacy, that can be conceived, yet who ever found a coin felf-formed in a mine of gold, or a bufto or statue in a quarry of granate or marble; or a welldefined diagram upon a newly-dug slab of flate? Did chance ever produce a fingle plinth? No. Much less a wall of brick; much less a fuit of regular rooms; much less a house with all its appertenances. But the most fuperb edifice, that ever was con

* He was of Clazomenæ in Afia Minor, and the preceptor of Socrates at Athens, where he refided. He was born near five hundred years before Christ.

ceived and conftructed, would not equal the smallest infect, bleft with fight, feeling, and locomotivity. If then chance could not perform these more ordinary operations fingly, it could never produce the whole world, fo great, fo various, and fo replete with wisdom; and particularly those beings, with which it is peopled. Many of these are gifted, not only with motion and activity, but with fenses for perception; alfo with thought, memory, and recollection; and above all, with reafon to regulate the whole. None of these could have proceeded from an unconscious mass, nor from that equivocal and ideal parent chance. Befides, whence came the atoms, upon which chance was to operate? This was firft to have been fhewn, but was never confidered.

Of an infinite Series.

Some have furmifed, that the whole feries of Beings, which has been lengthened out in fucceffion for ages, may have reached from all eternity: and confequently was

not

not produced, but original, and self-existent. Now we know, that these Beings are fingly, perishable, changeable, and dependent; how then can they be collectively everlasting, and without fupport? If we were told, that such a series of Beings came into the world without any cause, or antecedent efficacy, five hundred, or one hundred, years ago; the notion would be esteemed puerile, and not worthy of confideration. To extend fuch a chain upwards to infinity, does not alter the purport. The only difference feems to be this: in the first instance the opinion is absurd; in the latter infinitely abfurd. For how can dependent Beings subsist unsupported ?

Let us then abide by this plain truth, that where there is defign, there must have been a designer; where there is art, there must have been an artist. The print of a foot in the fand intimates, that an animal made it; from the impreffion of a figure upon wax, we judge of the feal that impressed it. If then the world is replete with marks of confummate wisdom, it is certainly the offspring of divine intelligence,

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