NATURAL THEOLOGY. 53 



influence, though every where around us, near us, 

 and within us ; though diffused throughout all 

 space, and penetrating the texture of all bodies 

 with which we are acquainted, depends, if upon a 

 fluid, upon a fluid which, though both powerful 

 and universal in its operation, is no object of sense 

 to us ; if upon any other kind of substance or ac- 

 tion, upon a substance and action from which we 

 receive no distinguishable impressions. Is it then 

 to be wondered at that it should, in some measure, 

 be the same with the Divine nature ? 



Of this, however, we are certain, that whatever 

 the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of 

 it which we see, can be He. The universe itself 

 is merely a collective name : its parts are all which 

 are real ; or which are things. Now inert matter 

 is out of the question ; and organized substances in- 

 clude marks of contrivance. But whatever in- 

 cludes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its con- 

 stitution, testifies design, necessarily carries us to 

 something beyond itself, to some other being, to a 

 designer prior to, and out of itself No animal, for 

 instance, can have contrived its own limbs and 

 senses: can have been the author to itself of the 

 design with which they were constructed. That 

 supposition involves all the absurdity of self-crea- 

 tion, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing can 

 be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a will, 

 which itself is void of ; which is indebted for any 

 of its properties to contrivance ah extra. The not 

 having that in his nature which requires the exer- 

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