The mechanism of our body, the connection and fubferviency of all its parts to a common purpose, the exquifite contrivance of its organs, confifting of such various minute veffels, interwoven with wonderful art, have led anatomifts in all ages to acknowledge an infinitely wife and powerful MAKER. Among the most precious remains of antiquity, are thofe commentaries of GALEN written on the uses of the several parts of the human body, as hymns and offerings of praise to the great CREATOR. Is it, indeed, otherwise conceivable how, fuch confiftency and harmony could have taken place in the different parts of our wonderful frame? How they could have been fo exactly fitted to each other, and to the ex to have been effected. Could they produce a light in the air, which at midday was brighter than the fun? Could they make SAUL hear words from out of that light which were not heard by the rest of the company? Could they make him blind for three days after that vifion, and then make scales fall off from his eyes, and restore him to fight by a word? Or, could they make him and those who travelled with him believe, that all these things had happened, if they had not happened? Moft unquestionably no fraud was equal to all this. Since then St. PAUL was neither an IMPOSTOR, an ENTHUSIAST, nor DECEIVED by the fraud of others, it follows, that his converfion was miraculous, and that the Chriftian religion is a divine revelation. See Lyttleton's Obfervations on the Converfion of St. PAUL; a treatise to which it has been truly faid, that infidelity has never been able to fabricate a fpecious anfwer, and of which this note is a very short and imperfect abridgment. terior objects, which have an evident relation to them, and the fyftem they compofe. Could the bones *, which in all amount to four hundred, and the muscles which are still more, and are each fo well difpofed for motion, be adjusted without a fuperior knowledge in mechanics? The eye, so admirably adapted to light, and appropriated to vifion, was it formed without a knowledge of optics? Or the ear, without the fcience of founds? Even our inclinations and paffions, thofe fources of fo much apparent ill, are, by the DEITY, providentially rendered the means of our preservation, both as individuals and a race; and the selfish, and focial affections, like centripetal and centrifugal forces, conduct us with proper force to the ends intended by our MAKER to be produced by them. Yet the love of life and all its enjoyments, the fear of death and all its dreadful harbingers, and the focial affections and all its endearments, would not have been fufficient securities for our carrying on the vital motions, with that conftancy and uniformity neceffary to the preservation of life, if, thus engaged, these motions had depended upon our will and choice. Reason would have deliberated concerning them with too much flowness, and volition would have executed 1 * Vide the Plate, Galeni ConverSIO, The Converfion of Galen. them . them often with a dangerous and fatal caprice. For, if the heart had been subjected to the foul's authority as much as the voluntary muscles are, if its motions could have been fufpended or stopt with the fame facility, death would then have coft us no painful pang: and, whenever the body was tortured with difeafe, and the mind in anguish from grief or disappointment, a remedy fo eafy to be applied might have been too frequently reforted to, and yet more unfortunate beings might have rushed uncalled into the prefence of HIM who ftationed us for the wifeft reasons here on earth. The preservation of life therefore greatly depends upon our vital motions being entirely fubject to the wife government of the Author of our lives; who charges HIMSELF with the immediate care of them, and of us. All this, when attentively confidered, muft affect us with a sense of God's goodness; who, refpecting the imbecility of man's nature, hath been pleased, by appetites and paffions, to excite him to acts of felf-prefervation; and where the violence of these might have been hurtful, no less than the flowness and inftability of reason, hath taken our safety under his own more immediate direction. To attribute contrivances like these, and even understanding itfelf; to unintelligent caufes, rather VOL. IV. d than |