215 



Adam in this noblest work of nature, cart do no more 

 than a (lower or a fly ; and if he would go out of his 

 own species, and the appointed order of things, he is 

 not able to make a fly ? or a flower ; no, not a worm, 

 nor asimple bulrush. In those productions wherein 

 mankind are merely the instruments of the God of 

 nature, their work is vital and divine ; but if they 

 would set up for prime artificers, they can do nothing: 

 a dead statue, a painted shadow on a canvass, or per. 

 haps a little brazen clock-work, is the supreme pride 

 of their art, their highest excellence and perfection. 



Let the atheist then exert his utmost stretch of un- 

 derstanding : let him try the force of all his mecha- 

 nical powers, to compose the wing of a butterfly, or 

 the meanest feather of a sparrow : let him labour, 

 and sweat, and faint, and acknowledge his own weak- 

 ness : then let him turn his eye, and look at those 

 wondrous composures, his son, or his little daughter, 

 and when their infant tongue shall inquire of him, and 

 say, Father, who made us ? Let him n >t dare assume 

 the honour of that work to himself, but teach the 

 young creatures that there is a God, and fall down on 

 his face, and repent and worship. 



It was God who said at first, * c let the earth bring 

 forth grass, and the herb yielding seed. --after his 

 kind and the living creature afcer his kiivj :" and 

 when this was done, i.hen with a creating voice he 

 bid those herbs and thjse living creatures, be fruitful 

 and multiply to all futurr generation " Great 

 things doth he which we cannot compr Hend. But 

 he sealeth up the hand of every man, t'r :i men may 

 know his divine work.'* Geu. i. 11. 25. Job. xxxvii. 

 5.7. 



SECT. II. 



The Laws of Nature sufficient for the Production of 

 Animals and Vegetables, 



WILL you suppose that it derogates from the glory 



