in our disquisitions, when we meditate on Him who is environed with so much glory and perfection, who is the source of being, the fountain of all that existence which we and his whole creation derive from him. Let us therefore with the utmost humility acknowledge, that as some Being must necessarily have existed from eternity, so this being does exist after an incomprehensible manner, since it is impossible for a Being to have existed from eternity after our manner or notions of existence. Revelation confirms these natural dictates of reason in the accounts which it gives us of the diyine existence, where it tells us, that he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; that he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending; that a thousand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years; by which and the like expressions we are taught, that his existence, with relation to time or duration, is infinitely different from the existence of any of his creatures, and consequently that it is impossible for us to frame any adequate conceptions of it.

In the first revelation which he makes of his own being, he entitles himself 'I am that I am;' and when Moses desires to know what name he shall give him in his embassy to Pharaoh, he bids him say that 'I am' hath sent you. Our great Creator, by this reve

lation of himself, does in a manner exclude every thing else from a real existence, and distinguishes himself from his creatures, as the only Being which truly and really exists, The ancient Platonic notion, which was drawn from speculations of eternity, wonderfully agrees with this revelation which God has made of himself. There is nothing, say they, which in reality exists, whose existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present, and to come. Such a flitting and successive Existence is rather a shadow of Existence, and something which is like it, than Existence itself. He only properly exists, whose existence is entirely present; that is, in other words, who exists in the most perfect manner, and in such a manner as we have no idea of.

I shall conclude this speculation, with one useful inference. How can we sufficiently prostrate ourselves and fall down before our Maker, when we consider that ineffable goodness and wisdom which contrived this Existence for finite natures? What must be the overflowings of that good-will, which prompted our Creator to adapt Existence to Beings in whom it is not necessary? Especially when we consider that he himself was before in the complete possession of existence and of happiness, and in the full enjoyinent of eternity. What man can think of himself as called out and separated from nothing, of his being made

a conscious, a reasonable, and a happy creature, in short, of being taken in as a sharer of his Existence, and a kind of partner in Eternity, without being swallowed up in wonder, in praise, in adoration! It is indeed a

thought too big for the mind of man, and rather to be entertained in the secresy of devotion, and in the silence of the soul, than to be expressed by words. The Supreme Being has not given us powers or faculties sufficient to extol and magnify such unutterable good

ness.

It is however some comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we shall be never ́able to do, and that a work which cannot be finished, will however be the work of an eternity.

SECTION II.

THE POWER AND WISDOM OF God in
THE CREATION.

Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum,

Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus. VIRG.

THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which Na

H

ture has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the universe: the world of life are its inhabitants.

The

If we consider those parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observations and enquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled;, every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals, that live upon it; nay, we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities, that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants, as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures: we find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood, plentifully

stocked with birds and beasts, and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniences for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it.

The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a very good argument from this consideration, for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very probable from the analogy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies, which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations.

Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception, and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any further than as it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one, than what is necessary for the existence of the other.

'Infinite Goodness is of so communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation, which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge further upon it, by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge.