I shall, therefore, give a brief account of this argument; referring to Dr. Clarke for the other. Natural theology consists of two parts: in the first, we demonstrate the existence of God; in the second, his attributes. These parts, however, are strictly connected; for the same arguments that prove the first, prove also the second.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE.

411. THAT we ourselves, and innumerable other things, exist, may be taken for granted as a first principle, as evident as any axiom in Euclid. Hence we infer, that something must always have existed. For if ever there was a time when nothing existed, there must have been a time when something began to be; and that something must have come into being without a cause; since, by the supposition, there was nothing before it. But that a thing should begin to exist, and yet proceed from no cause, is both absurd and inconceivable; all men, by the law of their nature, being necessarily determined to believe, that whatever begins to exist proceeds from some cause; therefore some.

being must have existed from eternity.-This being must have been either dependent on something else, or not dependent on any thing else. Now an eternal succession of dependent beings, or a being which is dependent, and yet exists from eternity, is impossible. For if every part of such a succession be dependent, then the whole must be so; and, if the whole be dependent, there must be something on which it depends; and that something must be prior in time to that which depends on it, which is impossible, if that which is dependent be from eternity. It follows, that there must be an eternal and independent being on whom all other beings depend.

412. Some atheists seem to acknowledge a first cause, when they ascribe the origin of the universe to chance. But it is not easy to guess what they mean by this word. We call those things accidental, casual, or the effects of chance, whose immediate causes we are unacquainted with; as the changes of the weather, for example; which however every body believes to be owing to some adequate cause, though we cannot find it out. Sometimes, when an intelligent being does a thing with out design, as when a man throwing a stone out of his field happens to strike a man whom he did not see; it is called accidental. In affirming that the universe proceeds from chance, it would appear, that atheists mean, either that it has no cause at all, or that its cause did not act intelligently, or with

design, in the production of it. That the universe proceeds from no cause, we have seen to be absurd, and therefore, we shall overturn all the atheistical notions concerning chance, if we can shew, what indeed is easily shewn, and what no considerate person can be ignorant of, that the cause of the universe is intelligent and wise, and in creating it, must have acted with intelligence and wisdom.

413. Wherever we find a number of things, complex in their structure, and yet perfectly similar, we believe them to be the work of design. Were a man to find a thousand pairs of shoes, of the same shape, size, and materials, it would not be easy to persuade him that the whole was chancework. Now the instances of complex and similar productions in nature are so very numerous as to exceed computation. All human bodies, for example, though each of them consists of almost an infinite number of parts, are perfectly uniform in their structure and functions; and the same thing may be said of all the animals and plants of any particular species. To suppose this the effect of undesigning chance, or the production of an unintelligent cause, is as great an absurdity as it is possible to imagine,

414. Further, a composition of parts mutually adapted we must always consider as the work of design, especially if it be found in a great variety of instances. Suppose a body, an equilateral prism,

for example, to be formed by chance; and sup pose a certain quantity of matter accidentally determined to resolve itself into tubes of a certain dimension. It is as infinite to one, that these tubes should have orifices equal to the base of the prism; there being an infinity of other magnitudes equally possible. Suppose the orifices equal, it is as infinite to one that any of the tubes should be prismatical; infinite other figures being equally possible. Suppose one of them prismatical, there is, for the same reason, an infinity of chances, that it shall not be equilateral. Suppose it equilateral, there are still infinite chances that the tube and prism shall never meet. Suppose them to meet, there are innumerable chances that their axes shall not be in the same direction. Suppose them to have the same direction, there are still many chances that the angles of the prism shall not coincide with those of the tube: and supposing them to coincide, there are innumerable chances that no force shall be applied in such a direction as to make the prism enter the tube.

415. How many millions of chances, then, are there against the casual formation of one prism inserted in a prismatic tube! which yet a small degree of design could easily accomplish. Were we to find, in a solitary place, a composition of this kind, of which the tube was iron and the prism of wood, it would not be easy for us to believe, that such a thing was the work of chance. And if so

small a thing cannot be without design, what shall we say of the mechanism of a plant, an animal, a system of plants and animals, a world, a system of worlds, an universe! No person, who has any pretensions to rationality, and is not determined to shut his eyes against the truth, will ever bring himself to believe, that works so stupendous could be the effect of undesigning chance.

416. To set this argument in a proper light, it would be necessary to take a survey of the works of nature; in which the vast number of systems, the artful union of parts, the nice proportions established between every part and system and its respective end, the innumerable multitudes of species, and the infinite numbers of forms in every species, are so conspicuous as to prove, beyond all doubt, that the Creator of the world is infinitely wise, powerful, and good. Let a man examine only a grain of corn, by cutting it open, and viewing it with a microscope; and then let him consider another grain as planted in the earth, and by the influence of heat, soil, air, and moisture, springing up into a plant, consisting of a great number of vessels that disperse the vital sap into every part, and endowed with the power, or susceptibility, of growing in bulk, till in due time it produce a number of other grains of the same kind, necessary to the existence of man and other creatures;-let a rational being attend to this fact, and compare it with the noblest efforts of human