PART I. to those masses "the properties which most con"duced to the end for which He formed them." CHAP. VIII. A principal and obvious "end" of those "pro"perties," as we have seen, was the solidity and durability resulting from the grain and texture of their composition; so that the granite summits, traversed by Hannibal 2000 years ago, are identically the same which we now witness; and we are sure that they stood identically the same, twice 2000 years before him. Whatever may be the destructive and wasting power of the atmospheric agents upon some bodies, it is null with respect to these, and therefore idle to take account of it in geology; and it is only resorted to, to aid a limping system. We discern a manifest "end," likewise, in their "sizes," and their "figures;" for, to the altitude of the former, is owing the accumulation of supplies for the rivers which are to irrigate the globe; and, to the prolongations and inclinations of the latter, are owing the conduct and direction of the rivers which actually irrigate it. And how is it possible to contemplate the unchangeable arrangement, by which all these perfect means conduce to their several perfect ends, without " rendering immediately "to GOD, the things which are GOD's!" CHAPTER IX. CHAP. IX. Ir is revolting to reason, and therefore to true PART I. philosophy, to observe how strenuously physical science labours to exclude the Creator from the details of His own creation; straining every nerve of ingenuity, to ascribe them all to secondary causes. Can it be aware that, in so doing, it is moving in the very direction which leads, and which ever has led, to materialism, practical, if not theoretical; and, therefore, in the very opposite direction to that in which Bacon and Newton, of whom it makes its boast, always moved? And that, in every degree in which it despoils the Creator, in order to furnish the fiction which it extols under the unmeaning term of Nature, it in the same dėgree disclaims the philosophy of Bacon and Newton, and sanctions the doctrine of Epicurean atheism? for, the atheism of Epicurus was not a denial of Deity, but a denial of the action and interference of Deity.. How different was the proceeding of Newton! who declared, "When I wrote my treatise about our system, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for the 66 PART I. CHAP. IX. 66 belief of a Deity1:" that is, an intelligent, interfering, and operating Deity. Hence it was, that he taught: "Hæc omnia, simili consilio constructa, suberunt UNIUS dominio :- HIC "omnia regit, non ut Anima Mundi, sed ut "universorum Dominus. Et propter dominium suum, Dominus Deus Пavrongαтwp dici Παντοκρατωρ "solet. Nam Deus est vox relativa, et ad servos refertur; et deitas ac dominatio Dei, non in corpus proprium, uti sentiunt quibus "Deus est anima mundi, sed in servos.—All "these things, constructed by the same Wis"dom, are subject to the dominion of ONE "alone. HE, rules them all; not as a soul of "the world, but as the Lord and Master of the "universe; and, on account of His own proper dominion, He is called, the Lord God Almighty. "For God, is a relative term; and relates to "servants, or ministers; and the godship and "domination of God is, not over His own frame, as those supposed who considered Him only as the soul of the world; but, over His ser"vants or ministers." But, does the mineral geology exhibit any demonstration, that it "has an eye upon any such principles," in the management of its science? CHAP. IX. It is vain to say, that it presupposes a first, PART I. Intelligent Cause; and therefore, that it has no need to propound it. It is indispensably necessary to propound it, like Newton; and not only to propound it, but to proclaim it, like him; and not only to proclaim it once, and then to have done with it, but to recur to it repeatedly and constantly, like him, as a first principle never to be lost sight of; that, in so intricate and dangerous a labyrinth, the mind may hold fast by it, as a clue never to be relinquished; lest, if it should once lose that clue, it should stray further and further from the only secure road, into the gloomy entanglements of error, and should become ultimately lost in all the horrors of moral darkness. He who teaches a science, is understood to ground it upon the first principle which he propounds; and when that first principle is nature and chemistry, when that nature is personified, and when creative acts are ascribed to it; such doctrine is fundamentally unscientific and unphilosophical, if brought to the test of Bacon and Newton; and essentially profane and impious, if brought to the test of Revelation. It is manifest, that the mineral geology, considered as a science, can do as well without God, (though in a question concerning the Origin of the Earth,) PART I. CHAP. IX. as Lucretius did; and that, like him, it would Quæ bene cognita si teneas: Natura videtur If then you'll understand, you'll plainly see Doth work by Her own private strength, and move but, "The Creator of the ends of the earth faint- |