THEREFORE it behoves us to investigate those causes as far as we have ability and opportunity for so doing, because from them only we can attain any knowledge of the divine economy; which, whenever we can discover it, will prove an unerring guide to our proceedings. The neglect of this duty, and the inobservance of second causes, throw men into all the delusions of superstition and enthusiasm: for while they imagine the divine power exerted upon every particular occasion, they overlook those rules of prudence which God has given for their direction. They deem it unnecessary even to think for themselves, expecting an especial guidance for every thing they are to do; which lays them open to the deceit of illuminations, dreams, omens, prodigies, and such like trumpery.

On the other hand, a too close attachment to second causes, is apt to generate prophaneness, making men forget the first, and substitute an undesigning chance or blind fatality in the room of it. But this can never happen, provided they bear in mind that, how far soever they may trace the chain, they must rest it in the divine operation at last, which, whenever exerted, they will find accompanied with a disposing Providence, directing it in such a manner as to produce the whole series of events to follow there. upon. And the longer the chain, the greater number and intricacy of causes and effects it must contain, and the larger must be that plan of disposition which gave beginning to it. Therefore,'

the more a man thinks, he will discover natural causes lying still further and further behind one another: he will find his idea of interposing Providence gradually diminish, and that of the disposing proportionably increase. Therefore, let not men condemn one another too hastily of impiety or superstition, for both are relative to the strength of each person's sight. The philosopher may entertain so high an opinion of infinite wisdom, as that upon the formation of a world, it might provide for every event that is to happen during the whole period of its continuance; therefore, he is not impious in asserting that all things since have gone on in the course of natural causes, for his idea of the first plan is so full as to leave no room for any thing to be interposed.

a

This the plain man cannot comprehend, the lines of his view being short; therefore he is not superstitious in imagining frequent interpositions, because without them he cannot understand ■ Providence at all. He may likewise find it impossible to conceive that every motion of matter, and turn of volition, should be calculated or foreseen, but supposes a watchful Providence continually attentive to the tendency of second causes, interposing every day, and every hour of the day, to correct the errors of chance, and secretly turning the springs of action the way that wisdom and goodness recommend. And he is excusable herein, if this be the best conception he can form; for it derogates not from his idea of the divine wisdom and dominion, to imagine there should be room left in nature for chance, so long as there is a superintending power who can foresee the irregularities of chance time enough to prevent them.

Thus, how largely soever we may ascribe to interposition, or how much soever deduct therefrom, to add to the disposing Providence, we cannot deny that every natural cause we see is an effect of some prior cause, impulse of impulse, and volition of motives and ideas suggested to the mind; therefore must refer all dispensations ultimately to the act of God: and as we cannot imagine him to act without knowing what he does, and what will result therefrom, we must conclude that act to proceed upon a

plan and disposition of the causes tending to produce the particular consequences following thereupon. The only difference between the man of common sense and the studious, is concerning the time when the disposition was made, which the one thinks a few days or a few minutes, the other many ages ago; the one frequent and occasional, the other rare and universal; but both acknowledge that nothing ever happens without the permission or appointment of our Almighty and ever vigilant Governor. Tucker's Light of Nature.

NOTE B. p. 275.

The grand and beautiful discoveries of Laplace, Lagrange, and others, in this department of astronomy, have now demonstrated, that the observed variations in the orbits of the planets in consequence of their mutual action on each other, instead of leading, as it was conjectured they might ultimately do, to material and even ruinous changes in the system, are periodical only, and that the mean distances of the planets from the sun, and consequently their mean periodic times, are absolutely invariable; that the disturbing action keeps increasing up to a certain point, and then again decreasing; and so on alternately :-thus (like the compensation balance of a modern chronometer) correcting its own (apparent) errors, and providing for the preservation of a mean state for any conceivable extent of time. This is unquestionably the sublimest as well as the most beautiful of those modern discoveries which have already gone far to place our own era on a level with that of Newton,-if not in the merit of our researches (for we have the light of his wondrous genius to work by), at least in the unspeakable interest and importance of the results which seem to be opening upon us.

NOTE B. p. 307.

EXTRACTS FROM TUCKER'S LIGHT OF NATURE.

Nor can Despotism itself do any great matters without aid of Free Will for rewards, honours, and encouragements, those engines of free agency, contribute more to the valour of armies, than any scourges of punishment or peremptory edicts, concluding 'for such is our will.'

Since, then, experience testifies that man can make so much use of liberty towards accomplishing his designs; why should we scruple to think the same of God in a larger extent? For he not only has all the objects in his power which touch the springs of action, but fabricated the springs themselves, and set them to receive what touches they shall take. But we judge of the workings of Providence by our own narrow way of proceeding; we take our measures from time to time, as the expedience of them occurs to our thoughts, and then must make what use we can of the materials or instruments before us, be they such as exactly suit our purpose, or not.

In like manner we vulgarly imagine God acting occasionally, and taking up purposes he had not thought of before, until a concurrence of circumstances rendered them expedient. We apprehend him as having turned the numerous race of men loose into the wide world, endowed them with various powers, talents, appetites, and characters, without knowing precisely, or without caring, what they will produce. We allow him, indeed, to have formed the main lines of a plan; but left large vacancies between to be filled up by chance, whose wild workings lie under his control, to divert their course when they would interfere with the strokes of his pencil.

Now, considering the vast variety of humours, the discordant aims and interests among mankind, it must be acknowledged, that the government of the world, in this view of it, could not be administered, without either continual miraculous interpositions

in the motions of matter, or compulsions and restraints upon free agency, giving our volition another turn than it would take from the motives present before us, or causing other motions to arise in our limbs, and thoughts in our minds, than our present volition would naturally produce.

But when we reflect that even the wanton gambols of chance must result from agents and causes originally set at work by the Almighty; when we call to mind his infinite wisdom and omniscience, which nothing can escape, nothing perplex or overload; it seems more congruous with that boundless attribute, to imagine that no single, nor most distant effect of the powers and motions he gave, was overlooked, no chasms or empty spaces left in his design; but that upon the formation of a world, he laid a full and perfect plan of all the operations that should ensue during the period of its continuance.

NOTE D. PAGE 314.

EXTRACT FROM TREMAINE, VOL. III. PAGE 256.

"Do you mean then," asked Tremaine, "that if any very wicked man-Borgia, for example-had chosen in his free will to be virtuous, that the course of things originally in the Divine Mind, would have been affected by it?"

"I go all that length," said Evelyn.

"This is the most extraordinary doctrine I ever heard!" observed Tremaine, yet seriously revolving the train to which this led.

"It is not altogether new," returned Evelyn; "at least there is a very curious dialogue of Laurentius Valla, quoted and enlarged by Leibnitz, in his Essay upon the Goodness of God and the Free Will of Man. In this he supposes Sextus Tarquinius to consult the Delphic Oracle as to his fate. It is predicted. He complains. The Oracle refers him to Jupiter and the Destinies ;