Wonder-working hand, in majestic silence, sways at will In In the mechanism of the animal frame, we discover the most skilful adaptation of instruments to the accomplishment of certain ends. In the eye, for example, we have a most beautiful and admirable piece of mechanism, adapted with exquisite wisdom for the important purposes which it is designed to serve. this single organ we have the combined effect of almighty power, and infinite intelligence, -of a power that can create, and an intelligence that can render the creative energy subservient to purposes of the greatest utility; but the Being to whom these attributes belong is himself concealed from our view. His power, wisdom, goodness, are not, on this account, the less manifest; while they furnish evidence far more striking and palpable of his universal presence and operation, than the works of our neighbour afford of his existence. When we consider, that this organ is fully formed before there is any use for its exercise, and adapted to the properties and action of an element with which it has no communication; and that its fabric shews it to be made with a designed reference to the qualities of that element hitherto entirely excluded, but with which it is to hold hereafter so intimate a relation, we have a proof, of the most convincing nature, of the intelligence of the Creator. This argument, which arises from an observation of the works and ways of God, is of mighty cogency, is continually in our view, and addresses itself to the heart, as well as to the understanding. If we should ask a sign in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, what could we desire more for our conviction than what God happened in other cases; and ages, as Milton remarks, do not recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. But religious feelings, and the sentiments of divine power involved in them, so far from being wanting in any age, or whole nation, have prevailed and operated at all times, among every people, and in every stage of civilization. We are forced, therefore, to conclude that no sufficient account can be given of so universal a consent, unless it be supposed to be a dictate of nature. A common and universal effect must flow from some common and universal cause. Besides, this consent has been given by those who have most improved and exercised their reason. With the exception of a very few individuals, the truly great men of ancient and modern times, who have either ascertained the laws of other worlds, or, who have given imperishable interest to the annals of their own, have not only left their deliberate and decided testimony in favour of the being and perfections of God, but seem to have considered their studies important and useful, as they were calculated to render this truth clearer and more efficacious. How unreasonable is it to allege that their views on this subject were the effect of education and custom. Rather, ought we not to conclude that their belief in the existence and attributes of the Deity is a dictate of nature, confirmed by a patient and extended investigation of her laws. "As those fruits which grow from the most generous and mature stock, in the choicest soil, and with the best culture, are most esteemed; even so, ought we not to think those sublime truths which are the fruits of mature thought, and have been rationally deduced by men of the best and most improved understandings, to be the choicest productions of the rational nature of man. And if so, being in fact reasonable, natural, and true, they ought not to be esteemed unnatural whims, errors of education, and groundless prejudices, because they are raised and forwarded by manuring and cultivating our tender minds *." It has been attempted to weaken the force of this argument, if not altogether to destroy it, by denying that the consent of mankind regarding the being of God or of divine power has been universal. Some savage tribes, it is alleged, have been discovered destitute of any notions of religion. The ground upon which this seeming objection rests is far from being well established. Though it has been said by travellers, that some tribes in North America and in New Holland have been found living without any conceptions of superior power, we are far from being certain as to the truth of the fact. Indeed, when we recollect the peculiar circumstances in which all savage tribes are placed, and the difficulty with which the few opinions they possess are gathered, it becomes us to hesitate before we conclude that they are totally destitute of all religious notions. But, admitting this were the case, it only proves, what, indeed, may readily be allowed, that it is possible for the human mind to become so degraded and merged in brutish ignorance, as to be unacquainted with the first principles of morality. If, in the extreme of savage life, some of the powers of the human mind, acknowledged to be original, are totally dormant, and are therefore unknown, need we * Berkeley's Minute Philosopher. Dial.i. wonder that the capacity for religious sentiment and truth should be among the number? There must be some degree of mental activity before the primary principles of the most obvious subject are discovered. It is possible for some tribes to exist in a state so savage as not to be capable of any intellectual exertion. It has been remarked as a matter of common observation, that persons of little reflection, who are chiefly occupied about sensible objects, and whose mental activity is in a great measure suspended, as soon as their perceptive powers are unemployed, find it ex tremely difficult to continue awake, when they are deprived of their usual engagements. Savages, like the lower animals, have their time completely divided between sleep and their bodily exertions. Beings in such a situation form an exception to the general, and in my opinion, to the natural, condition of mankind : their ignorance, therefore, of principles regarding which the other part of the human race are agreed, can furnish no objection to invalidate their truth. Ignorance, it has been justly observed, is no argument against the certainty of any thing. There are many nations and people almost totally ignorant of the plainest mathematical truths; and yet these truths are such that the mind cannot but give its assent necessarily and unavoidably, as soon as they are distinctly proposed to it. All that this objection proves, therefore, supposing the matter of it to be true, is only this: that men have great need to be taught and instructed in some very plain and easy as well as certain truths; and if they be important truths, that then have they need also to have them frequently inculcated, and strongly enforced upon them. But while the universal consent of mankind respecting the being of God is admitted, it is alleged that the different opinions which prevail in different nations as to his worship and perfections, destroy the force of any argument that can be derived from them, since opinions so various cannot have truth for their foundation. Are we then to admit that a principle or doctrine ceases to be true when men form various notions respecting it? Have not some of the best established facts, as well as the most certain deductions of human reason, been sometimes made the subject of disputation? Might we not as well argue that no historical account of a matter of fact can be true, when different relations are given of it; or, that because the different sects of philosophers maintain different opinions, none of them can be in the right? Truth, indeed, is simple and uniform, and various and contradictory opinions cannot all be true; but they are not therefore all necessarily false. Had there been no truth in religion, there could have been no superstition; and if the heart of man did not naturally recognise the existence of the great Lord and Ruler of all, divine worship would never have received a name in any language. It is not for the purity of religion in the heathen world I contend, for we know that it was sunk in the grossest idolatry;-but for the inherent existence in human nature of those feelings which prompt to the acknowledgment of the Deity, and from which every form of religious worship has been derived: and the multiplicity of these forms is the strongest possible proof that the feelings that give rise to them are not owing to adventitious circumstances, but are fixed in the mind of man. We dis |