are exerted uniformly. Fire is another necef- SER M. fary corporeal agent, which operates always I. in the same manner, tho' it has different effects, according to the different texture of the bodies into which it penetrates, caufing some parts to ascend in smoak and flame, reducing fome to ashes, and making some liquid or malleable. To give these and fuch like inftruments, that diverfity of operation, which is necessary to answer even the low Purposes of human art, and the conveniencies of human life, there must be, we know, a fuperior intending Cause, to guide the application of them: But that fuch neceffary causes, as fenfelefs atoms, should, out of themselves, without any skill in the application of their force, or the interpofal of any intelligent direction, produce fuch a wonderful variety as there is in the visible appearance of the world.-the liquid waters, and the more fluid air of a different conftitution the strangely fubtle and penetrating light; the folid earth, and the firmer rocks; the almoft infinite kinds of vegetables, diverse in shape, colour, flower and fruit; not only the many fpecies of animals and the numberlefs individuals, each intire, but the yet more various parts of their compofition, the folid and the fluid, the organs of motion and fenfation ;this is fuch a paradox, it must be an understanding of a very odd make, that can believe it. The

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SERM. The Atheist may next betake himself to I. chance, which is capricious enough, and va'riable, to answer the greatest imaginable or poffible diverfity of productions, if it be admitted to have any fhare in them. Neceffity is limited, and must always produce exactly fimilar and unvarying effects; but fickle chance is tied down to no rule of operation, if it can operate at all. Suppofing it to determine the existence, and the order of things, what should hinder the diverfity which there is in the world, nay, an infinitely greater diverfity? Why may not water, and air, and light, and rocks, and animals, and vegetables, all kinds of substances, and all poffible qualities, be jumbled together? But as the variety which there is in the appearances of nature, is an invincible argument against their being the production of neceffary causes, an equally strong objection lies against the hypothesis of chance, namely, their uniformity. Every one must be fenfible, that this is as truly the character of the face of nature, as the other. Whenever we turn our eyes to the heavens, they have the fame uniform afpect as when we view'd them before, the fun and the moon, and the ftars, hold their places, and go on conftantly in their courfes, producing a regular fucceffion of day and night, fummer and winter: One would think they continue

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continue after an ordinance, and are subject to SERM, a law, rather than guided by giddy hazard. In our lower world, not only the hills are everlafting, and the rocks not removed out of their place; but the waters, however easily yielding to force, keep their perpetual channels; and the whole self-balanc'd globe hangs in loose fluid air, which has no ftrength to fupport it. The tender herbs, which feem to die every winter, revive again in the spring, and cover the earth with a renewed verdure. The living things of fo brittle a frame and short-liv'd, yet do not quite difappear and give way to different kinds, which being equally poffible, have an equal chance for production, if chance ruled, but the fame fpecies are perpetuated in a conftant fucceffion. If this argument were pursued more minutely, it would still appear the ftronger. If we do not take the works of nature in the grofs, and content ourselves with a bare view of their outfides, but examine their interior constitution, the evidence against hazard in their formation will ftill increase ; for it must be plain to every one, that the more complicated any pieces of work, machines or systems are, design is still the more apparent in their fimilarity. But the most obvious view is fufficient to our purpose. For let any man confider whether he would not make a difference

SER M. difference between heaps of fand and ftones hud1. dled together in confufion, and a regular build'ing; between a fortuitous jumble of pieces of brass, iron and lead, and a well going clock; between a mob, or a tumultuous affembly of men without any order, and a well form'd political fociety, or a well difciplin'd army; let him confider, I fay, whether he would not make a difference in these cases, presuming there was counsel and defign in fome, but not in others. And now, if we apply the fame reasoning to the works of nature, whereas, upon the fuppofition of chance, there is infinite to one against any certain determin'd production, (for chance ranges unguided, to the utmost verge of poffibility, when in fact, we see amidst an almost infinite variety of things, there is fuch an obvious conftant uniformity in the appearances of the world,) is it not furprizing, that it should ever have entered into the mind of any man, to exclude design, and attribute all to chance?

The argument fo far as we have proceeded, feems to be fully conclufive, and we may confidently reft in it as prov'd, that neither the hypothefis of chance, nor of undefigning neceffity, can account for the appearances of the univerfe. But we fhall be more directly convinced that there is manifefted intelligence and

defign in the frame of the mundane system, if SER M. in the next place we confider what the an- 1. cients called τὸ ἓν καὶ καλῶς, the beautiful and harmonious, the regular and convenient, the amiable and good, with which the world every where abounds. This point admits of a large illustration, all the difcoveries which have been made in aftronomy, natural philosophy, and natural hiftory, tending to fhew that there is a fitness in things, a correfpondence in the parts of the world, one answering to another fo as to demonftrate wife contrivance, and unity of defign in the whole. There is not one region of the universe of which we have any knowledge, the heavens, the air, the earth, or the sea, not one intire particular being which we have the means of inquiring narrowly into, one fifh, one fowl, one beast or one tree; there is not one of all these that does not appear to be artificially made, and does not by the exact proportion and harmony of its parts, discover design in the whole of its conftitution. And indeed, in these laft ages particularly, men of leisure and penetration have fo happily employed their time and their understandings in the study of nature, as to fet the agument in a very clear light, proving beyond all rational contradiction, the wisdom and goodness of God in his works,

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