discrimination with which he applies them; the lucid and emphatical manner in which he communicates the impression which he feels and the conclusion which he is establishing, command the warmest praise. Let it not be supposed that I would detract a particle of eulogium from these merits; nor that, in having introduced qualifying words as to the extent of his investigations, I would intimate that the propositions which he advances ought to have been illustrated by a wider range of instances. Though, from the infinitely varied arrangements of creation, facts and examples and illustrations might of course be multiplied inexhaustibly; he has produced an abundant sufficiency for the purposes which he meditated. Yet I may be allowed to state, that in his work there is a very material defect; a defect not as to that which he has done, but as to that which he has not done. His treatise embraces a part only of its legitimate subject. It is not co-extensive with its title. It leaves out of consideration most momentous truths of Natural Theology; truths concerning the Deity and our relations to Him, which by observation and natural reason man is capable of attaining.

The point which Dr. Paley puts forth his strength to evince is, that the incontestable and diversified indications of design in the visible creation, the exquisite and benignant arrangements

in

every part and class, animate and inanimate, demonstrate the existence and the superintendence of One Supreme, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and Benevolent Author. The Natural Attributes of the Deity he states to be Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Eternity, Self-existence, Necessary Existence, and Spirituality*. Necessary Existence he explains to mean "demonstrable” Existence; and Spirituality to signify, negatively, the exclusion of some of the known properties of matter, especially of the vis inertia, solidity, and gravitation; and positively, the possession of perception, thought, will, power, and action, or the power of originating motion. In this enumeration he does not name Wisdom. Probably he included it in the term Omniscience; not, indeed, correctly, as know. ledge and wisdom are very distinct ideas. But his reasoning is continually occupied in establish

* P. 381-385. London edition, 1817.

ing the wisdom of the Deity. Neither is Goodness contained in his catalogue of attributes.Subsequently, however, he has a chapter on the Divine Goodness; in which he regards the term as synonymous with benevolence, and as signifying a benignant design in the Deity to render all classes of his percipient creatures happy in their respective stations. This design he establishes on two arguments: first, that in a vast plurality of the instances in which contrivance on -the part of the Deity is seen, the design of the contrivance is beneficial; and, secondly, that God has superadded pleasure to animal sensations either beyond the amount necessary for any other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the opera tion of pain.

Now, although Dr. Paley, in the conclusion of his treatise, justly remarks, that Natural Theology, by inspiring a devout frame of mind, prepares the true theist for receiving any credible communication of divine knowledge: yet it must be observed, that his view of Natural Theology, if my representation of that view be accurate, contains nothing concerning Holiness as an attri

bute of God; nothing as to the earth being at present, to the lowest known depth beneath its surface, in such a.state of ruinous disorder, and exhibiting such concomitant phenomena, that it cannot be supposed to have originally proceeded thus from the forming hand of its Creator; nothing of Man being now in a fallen state through transgression; nothing therefore of his being actually placed partly under penal discipline, partly under hopes and indications and means of mercy. It will be the object of the following pages to prove that, towards the know. ledge and confirmation of these and other fundamental truths lying at the root of the gracious plan of salvation through a Redeemer, Natural Theology affords, in addition to its developement of the attributes already enumerated by Dr. Paley, specific and appropriate, and most valuable aid. I conceive that Natural Theology, not only has for its office to promote, by the developement of those attributes, the conversion of an atheist or of a polytheist into a rational theist, and by preparatory influence to dispose him to listen to any credible revelation; but that it is able, and that it is intended, by ulterior and direct facts and ar

guments within its own province, powerfully to assist the advancement of the deist into a chris

tian.

I mean not then to retrace the ground which has been so ably traversed and made good in the work to which I have referred. My purpose is, to commence from the point at which that work terminates; and to advance, as I may be able, on the additional and extensive range left open to enquiry.

It may be requisite to premise with distinctness the import of the attribute of Holiness, as ascribed to the Deity. I understand by that attribute, the possession in perfection of justice, truth, mercy, purity, and every other moral excellence: the habitual exercise of all and of each of these excellencies in the government of the universe; correspondent and operative approbation of each created being invested with moral agency, who acts in willing accordance with these excellences; and correspondent and operative disapprobation of each, who acts in willing contrariety to any of them.

To the believer in the Gospel I may confidently state in the outset, that, in describing an