defigning cause; and this intelligent caufe we call GOD.

If, for argument's fake, we fhould admit that the immediate author of this world was not himself the first cause, but that he derived his being and powers from fome other being, fuperior to him; ftill in tracing the caufe of this being, and the caufe of his caufe, &c. we fhall at length be constrained to acknowledge a firft caufe, one who is himself uncaufed, and who derives his being and caufe from no fuperior whatever.

It must be acknowledged, however, that our faculties are unequal to the comprehenfion of this fubject. Being used to pass from effects to causes, and being used to look for a caufe adequate to the thing caused, and confequently to expect a greater cause for a greater effect, it is natural to fuppofe, that, if the things we fee, which we say are the production of divine power, required a cause, the divine being himself must have required a greater caufe. But this train of reafoning

B 4

reasoning would lead us into a manifest abfurdity, in inquiring for a higher and a higher cause ad infinitum. It may, perhaps, be true, though we cannot diftinctly fee it to be fo, that as all finite things require a çause, infinites admit of none. It is evident, that nothing can begin to be without a cause; but it by no means follows from thence, that that must have had a caufe which had no beginning. But whatever there may be in this conjecture, we are constrained, in pursuing the train of caufes and effects, to ftop at last at fomething uncaused.

That any being fhould be felf created is evidently abfurd, because that would fuppofe that he had a being before he had, or that he exifted, and did not exift at the fame time. For want of clearer knowledge of this fubject, we are obliged to content ourfelves with terms that convey only negative ideas, and to say that God is a being uncreated or uncaufed; and this is all that we mean when we fometimes fay that he is Self exiftent.

It has been faid by fome, that if we fuppofe an infinite fucceffion of finite beings, there will be no neceffity to admit any thing to have been uncaufed. The race of men, for inftance, may have been from eternity, no individual of the fpecies being much fuperior to the reft. But this fuppofition only involves the question in more obfcurity, and does not approach, in the leaft, to the folution of any difficulty. For if we carry this imaginary fucceffion ever so far back in our ideas, we are in just the fame fituation as when we fet out; for we are ftill confidering a fpecies of beings who cannot fo much as comprehend even their own make and conftitution; and we are, therefore, still in want of fome being who was capable of thoroughly knowing, and of forming them, and alfo of adapting the various parts of their bodies, and the faculties of their minds, to the sphere of life in which they act. In fact, an infinite fucceffion of finite beings as much requires a caufe, as a fingle finite being; and we have as little fatisfaction in confidering one of them as uncaused, as we have in confidering the other.

It was faid, by the Epicureans of old, that all things were formed by the fortuitous concourfe of atoms, that, originally, there were particles of all kinds floating at random in infinite fpace; and that, fince certain combinations of particles constitute all bodies, and fince, in infinite time, these particles must have been combined in all poffible ways, the present system at length arofe, without any defigning caufe. But, ftill, it may be afked, how could thefe atoms move without a mover; and what could have arifen from their combinations, but mere heaps of matter, of different forms and fizes. They could, of themselves, have had no power of acting upon one another, as bodies now have, by fuch properties as magnetism, electricity, gravitation, &c. unless these powers had been communicated to them by fome fuperior being.

It is no wonder, that we feel, and muft acknowledge the imperfection of our faculties, when we are employed upon fuch a subject as this. We are involved in inextricable difficulties in confidering the origin,

origin, as we may fay, of the works of God. It is impoffible that we should conceive how creation fhould have been coeval with its maker and yet, if we admit that there ever was a time when nothing existed, befides the divine being himself, we must suppofe a whole eternity to have preceded any act of creation; an eternity in which the divine being was poffeffed of the power and difpofition to create, and to make happy, without once exerting them; or that a reafon for creating must have occurred to him after the lapfe of a whole eternity, which had not occurred before; and these seem to be greater difficulties than the other. Upon the whole, it seems to be the most agreeable to reason, though it be altogether incom→ prehenfible by our reafon, that there never was a time when this great uncaused being did not exert his perfections, in giving life and happiness to his offspring. We fhall, alfo, find no greater difficulty in admitting, that the creation, as it had no beginning, fo neither has it any bounds; but that infinite fpace is replenished with worlds, in which the power, wifdom, and goodness of

God