than Aristotle or Galen: the treatises of Ray, or Derham, or Paley, could not have been written two thousand years ago: but the ancients, imperfect as their sciences were, knew more than enough of the harmony and design of the universe, to draw out an unanswerable argument from final causes: and, in point of fact, they did draw out both that and other arguments so far as to leave us indisputable proof that the God of NATURAL THEOLOGY will never be any thing more than the dumb idol of philosophy: neglected by the philosopher himself, and unknown to the multitude; acknowledged in the closet, and forgotten in the world.

The real use of Natural Theology to ourselves, is to show the strong probability of that being true which revelation declares. For, when Natural Theology has told all her story, the reasonable question presses us still,

Has, then, the Creator, whose existence you point out so clearly, maintained no communication with this visible emanation of his power? Has he revealed no commands, and prescribed no worship to the human race? Then he remains the inactive deity of philosophic theism:* the indifferent spectator of the crimes, the virtues, the cares, and the sorrows of mankind:

Who sees with equal eyes, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

The truth is, however, that to descend from the height to which we have been gradually raised by Revelation, and argue still upon the level of unassisted reason, would be impossible if it were desirable, and unprofitable even if it were possible. It would be impossible, because the rays

of

* The doctrine of Socrates affords the only material exception.

knowledge which Revelation has generally diffused will imperceptibly penetrate, however thick a veil we may choose to spread before our eyes: and it would be unprofitable, because, as I have already hinted, philosophy may silence atheism, but will never command practical obedience, or inspire practical devotion.*

Where Reason, however, leaves us, Revelation takes us up; and furnishes us with a record of the creation, preserved by the wisdom, and authenticated by the power, of the Creator: and although it has sometimes been fashionable to attack Christianity, as Paley expresses it, through the sides

* "The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform religion; and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God; but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God." Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

of Judaism, it will, I trust, appear to a candid inquirer, no less morally impossible for the early Hebrew writings to have been forged, than for the Gospel itself to have been fabricated by its first teachers: and a difficulty no less inexplicable to account for the existence of the Jewish law and religion, independently of the facts which are attested in the Pentateuch; than for the promulgation of Christianity, independently of the miracles and resurrection of the Messiah. To bring into popular view the nature and extent of this argument, is the principal object of the first of the following volumes.

In the second volume I have endeavoured to obviate those difficulties regarding the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, which arise from the existence of physical and moral evil. These difficulties have been deemed important by reflecting persons in all ages: and some superficial

writers, though professing to acknowledge the Power and Intelligence displayed in the creation, have ventured to blaspheme the MORAL attributes of the Deity, on the ground of the guilt and ignorance, the poverty and wretchedness, with which the world abounds.

But the subject has been made still more interesting, since it has been recently and clearly proved, that the greater part of these evils are the necessary consequence of a cause universally operating, viz. the natural tendency of mankind to increase in a quicker ratio than their subsistence. So that it becomes almost hopeless to expect any material diminution of the degree of evil actually existing; and the imputation may now appear to attach upon the divine ordinances, which was formerly cast upon accidental inconveniences, or human institutions. On this account it seemed peculiarly