Thou, most worthy to be prais'd, ador'd! Eternal, boundless, and almighty Lord!

Line 166. The description of the Deity, in Revelation, is particularly noble and sublime. "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending.. saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come-the Almighty." Rev. i. 8. It is almost unnecessary to mention, that most of the other ideas of the Supreme Being are taken from the Psalms, from Isaiah, and the book of Job, which, besides containing the most solid and important truths, are each a little Paradise of poetical sweets.

It is astonishing, but true, that great multitudes of men are now really Athesits. We read in the Psalms "The fool hath faid in his heart, there is no God." These fools, however, openly confess what David's fool only imagined.

Ex

As these men pretend to be philosophers, it may not be improper to tell them that it is naturally impossible an effect can exist without a cause. nihilo nihil fit, Nothing can be made from nothing," is an old and true phrase of philosophy. It. is as absurd to say that two and two do not make four, as that blind chance could produce an immense system where intelligence is plainly visible in every part.

If we consider our own solar system, without considering the other solar systems which probably exist in the universe, we must be convinced that it

arose

Who the vast heav'n drew'st as a curtain forth,
Hanging on nothing the capacious earth,

arose from an intelligent and almighty being, a Deo. "from God," as Sir Isaac Newton says, who was an abler philosopher than any of our modern. atheists. If we consider the planets, and the revolution of those planets round the sun, must it not. appear as clear as the beams of that sun, to an understanding that is not insane, that some great first cause, some God, and not a fortuitous concourse of atoms or mere chance, has formed and constituted thefe planets, and implanted in them fuch a proper degree of gravity as to prevent their being attracted too near the sun, or from falling too much on the contrary fide, by which fabrication and constitution they glide along the ethereal plains in an orbit. which neither admits of variation nor decay? Could the wisest man among us make the most trivial particles of matter, suspended upon nothing, to move continually in an orbit in any manner resembling the motion of these immenfe Planets? It is well said by the Poet.

An indevout Astronomer is mad.

YOUNG.

What the poet says of the astronomer may be also applied to the Geographer. Can any man of understanding, who attends to the formation of this earth, to the construction of the sea and the rivers,

ta.

While all the morning-stars together sung,
And from thy sons loud hallelujahs rung ;
And said'st to Ocean, as he first did flow,
Here, and no further, rebel! shalt thou go;

to the stature of man, of beasts, birds, &c. think that all these nice productions of art and of wisdom* could have proceeded from blind chance? Could the soul of man, could intelligence, have arisen from aught but intelligence?" He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" Psal. 94. 9.

If any person of sense were to see a common map, where the four quarters of the world are distinctly and accurately described, and not only those, but almost every mountain, city, sea, and river, could he suppose that the winds had fortuitously driven. the various parts of the map, into a curious and harmonious system? Must he not think it the product of an Intelligent Being? And if a trivial map,. which is but a mimic of the earth, requires some intelligence for its construction, must not the highest intelligence have been necessary for the formation of the earth itself? Is not this certain as any mathematical truth whatever, certain as that the whole is greater than a part?

* I would very particularly recommend the reader to "Ray on the Wisdom of God in the Crea tion."

At thy rebuke which instant fled along,

Scar'd at the potent thunder of thy tongue;

175

Of that dread voice old Lebanon which shakes,

And in the half his knotty cedars breaks.

At thy command the sun dispens'd his ray,
Flam'd in th' ethereal vault, and gave the day;

In highest Heav'n who keep'st thy chief abode, 180
From ever, unto endless ever, God;

As with a garment cloath'd around with light,
In dazzling Majesty, severely bright;
The awful splendors of whose throne display,
To eyes of Seraphim, resistless day;
Thou sendest rapid lightnings through the air,
They go, and say to thee, behold us here!
Who can hold back thy all commanding hand?
And who the thunder of thy force withstand?
Heav'ns pillars tremble at thy stern reproof,
Wak'd and surpris'd at the dread pow'r aloof.
Thou overturn'st the mountains in thine ire,
Thou art a jealous God, and a consuming fire;

185

190

Clouds are thy chariot, and thy charioteer
A mighty cherub, riding through the air.

195

Where can I go from thy all searching eye?
And whither, whither, from thy Spirit fly?
If I should take th' excursive wings of morn,
And to the sea's remotest bounds be borne,
There I should meet thy unconfin'd command, 200
Urg'd by thy pow'r, and guided by thy hand.
If up to highest heav'n I could ascend,
Or down to lowest hell, my footsteps hend;
In highest heav'n, or lowest hell, where'er

I bent my footsteps, I should find thee there. 205
No darkness is impervious to thy sight,

But shews me to thee like the broadest light.
Thy eyes run to and fro the earth to find,

And shelter him, who bears a virtuous mind.
I'll cleanse my heart to win thee to abide,
Like a gigantic champion by my side.

For though thy first beginning is thine own,

210

Thy footstool earth, the heav'n of heav'ns thy throne,