30(j 



CHAPTER IX. 



On the Impression produced by considering the 

 Nature and Prospects of Science; or, on the 

 Impossibility of the Progress of our Knowledge 

 ever enabling us to comprehend the Nature of 

 the Deity. 



IF we were to stop at the view presented in the 

 last chapter, it might be supposed that by con- 

 sidering God as eternal and omnipresent, con- 

 scious of all the relations, and of all the objects 

 of the universe, instituting laws founded on the 

 contemplation of these relations, and carrying 

 these laws into effect by his immediate energy, 

 we had attained to a conception, in some 

 degree definite, of the Deity, such as natural 

 philosophy leads us to conceive him. But by 

 resting in this mode of conception, we should 

 overlook, or at least should disconnect from our 

 philosophical doctrines, all that most interests 

 and affects us in the character of the Creator 

 and Preserver of the world; namely, that he 

 is the lawgiver and judge of our actions; the 

 proper object of our prayer and adoration ; 

 the source from which we may hope for moral 

 strength here, and for the reward of our obedi- 



