ores, worked them up into fprings, and wheels, and dial plates, and hands; and difpofed them fo as to form a perfect watch, all by a mechanical operation; he will alter his opinion, and stand convinced, that watches might be made without hands, by a blind mechanifm, proceeding without thought or contrivance of the work it performed. But though he lost his idea of ingenuity being requifite for making watches upon feeing them generated by mechanical caufes, he would be fatisfied, a much greater must have been employed in conftructing the engine, than he had judged needful, while he confidered them as made by hand, with hammers, files, pincers, and other inftruments of the trade.

It may be here objected, that this is a romantic fuppofition, for that nobody ever faw an engine that will make watches. This is true, nobody ever yet saw such an engine, nor I believe ever will; for it would require much greater fkill to contrive, than the fons of men are mafters of: nevertheless we have all feen engines that have brought to perfection work more curious and admirable.

Examine a fruit or a feed, and you will find it nicely enveloped in feveral teguments, furnished with fibres and juices ranged in their exact order, provided with fprings capable of expanding into ftem, branches, and leaves, of one particular form and contexture. The plant that bears it, may be confidered as an engine, fitted with roots to gather the nutritious particles from the earth; fap veffels to concoct and circulate the juices; twigs to work them into a bud or flower, for perfecting this furprizing machine.

Confider the body of a fowl, what an abundance of work it contains, adapted for carrying on the business of digeftion, circulation, and animal motion, in greater art and variety than any clock-work that ever yet was made by human contriVOL. IV.

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vance.

What then is an egg, but an engine conftructed to fashion all thefe complicated works, and arrange them in their proper order? or what elfe the matrix of the parent bird, befides another engine contrived for making eggs?

Indeed the whole fyftem of nature may be confidered as a stupendous engine, containing, befides the works appropriated to the generation of organized compofitions, a countless multitude of others, properly fitted and difpofed to affift in carrying on the plan of vegetation and vital engines, all confpiring in their feveral ufes to carry on the general plan of divine providence.

If you confider this matter properly, you will foon be convinced, that this prolific principle is not from the feed, nor from the fun, but from God the Creator, and that not only when created at first, but continually afterwards; for fupport is perpetual creation, as fubfiftence is perpetual exiftence.

Each of the links that compose the mighty chain of nature, while it connects, illuftrates thofe that border next upon it, and difplays the wisdom of the Creator both in it's own frame and state, and the connections it holds with the orders above and below it.

The continued fupport, the conftant prefervation, and repeated renovation of creatures both rational and irrational, animate and inanimate; their regular arrangement, and exact adaption to their refpective fituations, evince a ruling government and fupreme governor, and that the whole univerfe of being is connected, comprehended, and pervaded by the influence of our God.

You will hence alfo perceive the error of thofe who refolve nature into mere mechanical operations, as if nature could operate of herself to produce effects: for you have feen it clearly

proved,

proved, that there is no operation in nature, but what is carried on under the influence and direction of the Supreme Being; that there is no inferior agent but what is fubject to the controul of a merciful and all wife God, the real and living operator by the fubjects of the material world.

As well might you fuppofe light and heat equally and regularly difpenfed, as at prefent, "with fun and ftars in mid-fea funk," as to fuppofe nature living without a principle of life and being flowing from no fountain. The whole feries of caufes and effects proves, that nature has no will of it's own to guide it's motions or direct it's courses. Does the fun know when to rife? or does the fea prescribe to itself it's juft limits how far it fhall go, and no farther?

The more you contemplate the vast concurrence of causes that join in producing the feveral operations of nature, the more eafily will you be ready to believe with Plato, that the whole world is one tiffue of caufes and effects, wherein nearly, or remotely, every thing has an influence upon every thing; and thence conclude, that the young ravens are fed, and the lilies of the field arrayed in the glory of Solomon, by divine provifion; and that of two fparrows which are fold for a farthing, not one of them falleth to the ground, not a hair is loft out of the number upon our heads, without the permiffion or appointment of our HEAVENLY FATHER.

LECTURE XLIV.

OF THE FIXED STARS.

No part of the univerfe gives fuch enlarged ideas of the structure and magnificence of the heavens, as the confideration of the number, magnitude, and diftance of the fixed ftars

We admire indeed, with propriety, the vaft bulk of our own globe; but when we confider how much it is furpaffed by most of the heavenly bodies, what a point it degenerates into, and how little more even the vaft orbit in which it revolves would appear, when feen from fome of the fixed ftars, we begin to conceive more juft ideas of the extent of the univerfe, and the boundaries of creation.

The moft confpicuous and brightest of the fixed ftars of our horizon is Sirius. The earth, in moving round the fun, is 190 millions of miles nearer to this ftar in one part of it's orbit, than in the oppofite; yet the magnitude of the ftar does not appear to be in the leaft altered, or it's dif tance affected by it; fo that the diftance of the fixed ftars is great beyond all computation. The unbounded space appears filled at proper diftances with these ftars, each of which is probably a fun, with attendant planets rolling round it. In this view, what, and how amazing, is the structure of

the univerfe!

Though the fixed ftars are the only marks by which aftronomers are enabled to judge of the courfe of the moveable ones, and we have afferted

their relative pofitions do not vary; yet this affertion must be confined within fome limits, for many of them are found to undergo particular changes, and perhaps the whole are liable to fome peculiar motion, which connects them with the univerfal fyftem of created nature. Dr. Herschel even goes fo far as to fuppofe, that there is not, in ftrictness of fpeaking, one fixed ftar in the heavens; but that there is a general motion of all the ftarry fyftems, and confequently of the folar one among the reft.

There are some stars, whofe fituation and place were heretofore known, and marked with precifion, that are no longer to be feen; new ones have also been difcovered, that were unknown to the ancients, while numbers feem gradually to vanish. There are others which are found to have a periodical increase and decrease of magnitude; and it is probable, that the inftances of these changes would have been more numerous, if the ancients had poffeffed the fame accurate means of examining the heavens, as are used at prefent.

New ftars offer to the mind a phenomenon more furprizing, and lefs explicable, than almost any other in the fcience of aftronomy; I fhall felect a few inftances of the more remarkable ones, for your inftruction: a confideration of the changes that take place, at fo immense a distance as the ftars are known to be from you, may elevate your mind to confider the immenfity of HIS power, who regulates and governs all these wide extended motions; "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span."

"Who turns his eye, on nature's midnight face, BUT MUST INQUIRE What hand behind the

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