cular. It is well known with what fuccefs the primi tive christians began the holy work of interpolating, fuppreffing, forging, and altering profane histories; but as we believe their piety always prevented their meddling with the facred text, notwithstanding the arguments of infidels, who attempt to prove the contrary, thefe holy frauds have been found of infinite fervice in establishing the cause of christianity. Why do we forbear to pursue their great and laudable example? About eighteen centuries ago, the fun was darkened, the moon ceafed to give light, and the stars fell from Heaven; the sign of the Son of Man was feen, the Lord himself decended from Heaven with a fhout, the trumpets of the arch angels, were heard, the dead in Christ arofe, St. Paul and other of the elect, who were then living, were caught up in the clouds, went to meet the Lord in the air, and have been with him ever fince. It is truly astonishing, that a phenomonon fo awful as the destruction of the fyftem of nature, should have made no interruption in the state of nations and affairs of that time; that all the historians fhould omit to record fo dreadful an event, nay, that they should furvive it; and that the primitive fathers fhould forbear to mention a circumstance which was. fo well calculated to establish the christian religion, and confute all the arguments of the Heathens. But Christians can have no doubt, but that it really happened, fince it was fo directly foretold both in time and circum stance, by Christ and his apostle Paul.

Profession of faith of a Savoyard Curate, from Rousseau, continued from our last.

Again, if every particle of matter has its particular direction, what can be the caufe of all thofe directions and their variations? If every atom or particle of matter revolve only on its axis, none of them would change their place, and there would be no motion communicated; and even in this cafe it is neceffary that fuch a revolving motion fhould be carried on one way. To afcribe to

matter motion in the abstract, is to make ufe of the terms without a meaning; and in giving it any determinate motion, we must of neceflity fuppofe the cause that determines it. The more I multiply particular forces, the more new caufes have I to explain, without ever finding one common agent that directs them. So far from being able to conceive any regularity or order in the fortuitous concourfe of elements, I cannot even conceive the nature of their concurrence; and an univerfal chaos is more inconceivable than univerfal harmony. I eafily comprehend that the mechanifm of the world cannot be perfectly known to the human understanding; but, whatever men undertake to explain, they ought at least to fpeak in fuch a manner that others may understand them.

If from matter being put in motion I discover the exist ence of a Will, as the first active caufe, this matter, being fubjected to certain regular laws of motion, difplay alfo intelligence: This is my fecond article of faith. To act, to compare, to prefer, are the operations of an active, thinking being; fuch a being, therefore, exists. Do you proceed to afk me, where I difcover its existence? I answer, not only in the revolutions of the celestial bodies; not only in myfelf; but in the flocks that feed on the plain, in the birds that fly in the air, in the stone that falls to the ground, and in the leaf that trembles in the wind.

I am enabled to judge of the phyfical order of things, although ignorant of their final caufe; because, to be able to form fuch a judgment, it is fufficient for me to compare the feveral parts of the vifible univerfe with each other, to study their mutual concurrence, their reciprocal relations, and to obferve the general result of the whole. I am ignorant why the univerfe exists, but I am enabled, nevertheless, to fee how it is modified; I cannot fail to perceive that intimate connection, by which the several beings it is compofed of, afford each other af fistance. I resemble, in this refpect, a man who fees the infide of a watch, for the first time, and is captivat

ed with the beauty of the work, although ignorant of its ufe. I know not, he may fay, what this machine was good for, but I fee that each part is made to fit fome other; I admire the artist for every part of his perfor mance, and am certain that all these wheels act thus in concert to fome common end which it is impoffible for me to fee.

But let us compare the partial and particular ends, the means whereby they are effected, and their constant relations of every kind; then let us appeal to our innate fense of conviction; what man in his fenfes can refuse to acquiefce in fuch testimony? To what unprejudiced view does not the visible arrangement of the universe display the fupreme intelligence of its author? How much fophistry does it not require, to difavow the harmony of created beings, and that admirable order in which all the parts of the fystem concur to the prefervation of each other? You may talk to me as much as you please, of combinations and chances; what end will it answer to reduce me to filence, if you cannot perfuade me into the truth of what you advance? and how will you divest me of that involuntary fentiment, which con. tinually contradicts you? If organifed bodies are fortuitoufly combined in a thousand ways, before they affume fettled and constant forms: if at first there are formed stomachs without mouths, feet without heads, hands without arms, and imperfect organs of every kind, which have perished for want of the neceflary faculties of felfprefervation; how comes it that none of thefe imperfect effays have engaged our attention? Why hath nature, at length, confined herself to laws to which she was not at first fubjected? I confefs that I ought not to be furprised that any poffible thing fhould happen, when the rarity of the event is compenfated by the great odds that it did not happen. And yet if any one was to tell me that a number of printer's types, jumbled promifcuoufly together, had difpofed themselves in the orders of the let ters compofing the æenied, I certainly fhould not deign to take one step to verify or difprove fuch a story. It

may be faid, I forget the number of chances; but pray how much must I fuppofe to render such a combination in any degree probable? I, who fee only one, must conclude that there is an infinite number against it, and that it is not the effect of chance. Add to this, that the product of thefe combinations must be always of the fame nature with the combined elements: hence life and or-: ganization never can refult from a blind concourse of atoms; nor will the chymist, with all his art in com pounds. ever find fenfation and thought at the bottom of the crucible*.

I have been frequently furprised, and sometimes fcandalized, in the reading of Nieuwentheit. What a prefumption was it to fit down to make a book of these wonders of nature that display the wifdom of their author? Had his book been as big as the whole world, he would not have exhausted his fubject; and no fooner do we enter into the minutiae of things than the greatest wonder of all efcapes us; that is, the harmony and connection of the whole. The generation of living and organised bodies alone, baffles all the efforts of the human understanding. That infurmountable barrier, which nature had placed between the various fpecies of animals, that they might not be confounded with each other, makes her intenti

* It would be incredible, if we had not proof of it, that human extravagance could be carried to such a pitch. Amatus Lusitanus, affures us, that he had seen in a phial an homuncule, about an inch long, which Julius Camillus, like another Prometheus, had generated by his fkill in alchymy. Paracelsus, in his treatise de natura rerum, gives the process of making these Mannikins, and maintains, that Pygmies, Fauns, Satyrs and Nymphs, were engendered by chymistry. There wants nothing more, in my opinion, to establish the poffibility of these facts, than to prove that the organical materials can refist fire, and that the component moleculæ may preserve themfelves alive in the intenfe heat of a reverberatory furnace.

ons fufficiently evident. Not contented only to establish order, she had taken effectual methods to prevent its being disturbed.

There is not a being in the univerfe which may not, in fome refpect, be regarded as the common centre of all others, which are ranged around it in fuch a manner that they ferve reciprocally as caufe and effect to one another. The imagination is lost, and the understanding confounded, in fuch an infinite diverfity of relations, of which, however, not one of them is either lost or confounded in the crowd. How abfurd the fuppofition, to deduce this wonderful harmony from the blind mechanism of a fortuitous jumble of atoms! Thofe who deny the unity of defign, fo manifest in the relation of all the parts of this grand fystem, may endeavour, as much as they will, to conceal their abfurdities with abstract ideas co-ordinations, general principles, and emblematical terms; whatever they may advance, it is impoffible for me to conceive that a fystem of beings can be fo duly regulated, without the existence of fome intelligent caufe which affects fuch regulation.

(To be continued.)

RANNIE'S EXHIBITION.

THE age of fuperstition has not yet paffed! for, after combatting the enemies of truth fince the creation, the numerous and respectable writers and advocates of this inestimable virtue still find it a difficult task to remove the cobwebs of impofition from the eyes of all mankind. Copernicus was condemned to an ignominious death for daring to oppofe the monstrous doctrines of the reigning schools that infisted on making the earth to be the centre of the univerfe!-and Archimedes, who enlightened the world by his knowledge of mechanifm, which enabled him to destroy the enemy's fhips laying before the walls of Syracufe, by the ufe of burning glaffes, was murdered by an ignorant foldier whilst in the very