290 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



by which the government of the physical world 

 is directed to physical good. 



We may perhaps see glimpses of such an 

 order, in the arrangements by which our highest 

 and most important duties depend upon our 

 relation to a small circle of persons immediately 

 around us : and again, in the manner in which 

 our acting well or ill results from the operation 

 of a few principles within us ; as our conscience, 

 our desire of moral excellence, and of the favour 

 of God. We can hardly consider such principles 

 otherwise than as intended to occupy their proper 

 place in the system by which man's destination 

 is to be determined ; and thus, as among the 

 means of the government and superintendence 

 of God in the moral world. 



That there must be an order and a system to 

 which such regulative principles belong, the 

 whole analogy of creation compels us to believe. 

 It would be strange indeed, if, while the me- 

 chanical world, the system of inert matter, is so 

 arranged that we cannot contemplate its order 

 without an elevated intellectual pleasure; while 

 organized life has no faculties without their proper 

 scope, no tendencies without their appointed ob- 

 ject ; the rational facidties and moral tendencies 

 of man should belong to no systematic order, 

 should operate with no corresponding purpose : 

 that, while the perception of sweet and bitter has 

 its acknowledged and unquestionable uses, the 



