362 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



effects of the law occur ; that thus the knowledge 

 and the agency of the Divine Being pervade 

 every portion of the universe, producing all 

 action and passion, all permanence and change. 

 The laws of nature are the laws which he, in his 

 wisdom, prescribes to his own acts ; his universal 

 presence is the necessary condition of any course 

 of events, his universal agency the only origin of 

 any efficient force. 



This view of the relation of the universe to 

 God has been entertained by many of the most 

 eminent of those who have combined the consi- 

 deration of the material world with the contem- 

 plation of God himself. It may therefore be of 

 use to illustrate it by a few quotations, and the 

 more so, as we find this idea remarkably dwelt 

 upon in the works of that writer whose religious 

 views must always have a peculiar interest for 

 the cultivators of physical science, the great 

 Newton. 



Thus, in the observations on the nature of the 

 Deity with which he closes the " Opticks," he 

 declares the various portions of the world, organic 

 and inorganic, " can be the effect of nothing else 

 than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever- 

 living Agent, who being in all places, is more 

 able by his will to move the bodies within his 

 boundless uniform sensorium, and thereby to form 

 and reform the parts of the universe, than we are 

 by our will to move the parts of our own bodies." 



