terfering wishes, might preserve the species in some shape of existence, as we see in the case of brutes. But a person must be strangely constituted, who, living amid the respect for law, the admiration for what is good, the order and virtues and graces of civilized nations, (all which have their origin in some degree in the feeling of responsibility) can maintain that all these are casual and extraneous circumstances, no way contemplated in the formation of man; and that a condition in which there should be no obligation in law, no merit in self-restraint, no beauty in virtue, is equally suited to the powers and the nature of man, and was equally contemplated when those powers were given him.

If this supposition be too extravagant to be admitted, as it appears to be, it remains then that man, intended, as we have already seen from his structure and properties, to be a discoursing, social being, acting under the influence of affections, desires, and purposes, was also intended to act under the influence of a sense of duty; and that the acknowledgment of the obligation of a moral law is as much part of his nature, as hunger or thirst, maternal love or the desire of power; that, therefore, in conceiving man as the work of a Creator, we must imagine his powers and character given him with an intention on the Creator's part that this sense of duty should occupy its place in his constitution as an active

and thinking being: and that this directive and judiciary principle is a part of the work of the same Author who made the elements to minister to the material functions, and the arrangements of the world to occupy the individual and social affections of his living creatures.

This principle of conscience, it may further be observed, does not stand upon the same level as the other impulses of our constitution by which we are prompted or restrained. By its very nature and essence, it possesses a supremacy over all others. "Your obligation to obey this law is its being the law of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests such a course of action is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural guide the guide assigned us by the author of our nature."* That we ought to do an action, is of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the questions, why we should do it?-how we are obliged to do it? The conviction of duty implies the soundest reason, the strongest obligation, of which our nature is susceptible.

We appear then to be using only language which is well capable of being justified, when we speak of this irresistible esteem for what is

* Butler, Serm. 3.

right, this conviction of a rule of action extending beyond the gratification of our irreflective impulses, as an impress stamped upon the human mind by the Deity himself; a trace of His nature; an indication of His will; an announcement of His purpose; a promise of His favour; and though this faculty may need to be confirmed and unfolded, instructed and assisted by other aids, it still seems to contain in itself a sufficient intimation that the highest objects of man's existence are to be attained, by means of a direct and intimate reference of his thoughts and actions to the Divine Author of his being.

Such then is the Deity to which the researches of Natural Theology point; and so far is the train of reflections in which we have engaged, from being merely speculative and barren. With the material world we cannot stop. If a superior Intelligence have ordered and adjusted the succession of seasons and the structure of the plants of the field, we must allow far more than this at first sight would seem to imply. We must admit still greater powers, still higher wisdom for the creation of the beasts of the forest with their faculties; and higher wisdom still and more transcendent attributes, for the creation of man. And when we reach this point, we find that it is not knowledge only, not power only, not foresight and beneficence alone, which we must attribute to the Maker of the World; but that we must

consider him as the Author, in us, of a reverence for moral purity and rectitude; and, if the author of such emotions in us, how can we conceive of Him otherwise, than that these qualities are parts of his nature; and that he is not only wise and great, and good, incomparably beyond our highest conceptions, but also conformed in his purposes to the rule which he thus impresses upon us, that is, Holy in the highest degree which we can image to ourselves as possible.

CHAPTER II.

On the Vastness of the Universe.

1. THE aspect of the world, even without any of the peculiar lights which science throws upon it, is fitted to give us an idea of the greatness of the power by which it is directed and governed, far exceeding any notions of power and greatness which are suggested by any other contemplation. The number of human beings who surround us--the various conditions requisite for their life, nutrition, well-being, all fulfilled;-the way in which these conditions are modified, as we pass in thought to other countries, by climate, temperament, habit;-the vast amount of the human population of the globe thus made up ;-yet man himself but one among almost endless tribes of

animals; the forest, the field, the desert, the air, the ocean, all teeming with creatures whose bodily wants are as carefully provided for as his; the sun, the clouds, the winds, all attending, as it were, on these organized beings ;—a host of beneficent energies, unwearied by time and succession, pervading every corner of the earth; this spectacle cannot but give the contemplator a lofty and magnificent conception of the Author of so vast a work, of the Ruler of so wide and rich an empire, of the Provider for so many and varied wants, the Director and Adjuster of such complex and jarring interests.

But when we take a more exact view of this spectacle, and aid our vision by the discoveries which have been made of the structure and extent of the universe, the impression is incalculably increased.

The number and variety of animals, the exquisite skill displayed in their structure, the comprehensive and profound relations by which they are connected, far exceed any thing which we could have beforehand imagined. But the view of the universe expands also on another side. The earth, the globular body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in the universe. There are, circling about our own sun, six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies analogous to it. No one can resist the tempta