and proceed in their proper orbits. It is in confequence of the laws laid down by HIM, that the moon goes round the earth in a month. It is H that has combined the two motions of the earth, one by which we obtain the viciffitudes of day and night; the other the other by which the feafons of the year are brought about. He it is, who, at the appointed times, fends falutary winds, and fruitful rains and dews; who gathers together the waters in their fources, and causes them to flow from thence in the beds of rivers, to their great receptacle the fea. It is HE who makes the buds to open, the fruits to ripen, and animals to be prolific, ordering all things according to their different nature, regulating their birth, their growth, and their diffolution.

Though the Author of fo many wonders be invifible, you cannot on that account deny his power, or doubt his existence. You cannot fee your foul, yet the effects it produces in you and around you, are fenfible proofs of it's existence. It is the fame with many of the operations in nature. In like manner, GoD also, though invifible in himself, is vifible in all his works, and in them appears equally ftrong in power, admirable in wifdom, eternal in duration, and fupreme in perfec

tion.

The whole univerfe confpires to celebrate his praife, from whom it derives all it's majefty and beauty. The fun that fhines in brightnefs, declares the incflable fplendor of it's almighty creator. The moon and ftars proclaim to an understanding heart, the adorable power of the hand that guides them. The earth, fo richly ftocked with productions of higher and lower rank, with the various kinds of vegetable and animal life, paint in the Arongeft terms, the riches of the divine nature,

from

from whom iffues all that adorns the earth, improves the mind, and delights the fenfes; governing all things with infinite wifdom, goodnefs unlimited, power uncontrouled.

That a Divine Mind prefides over and governs the univerfe, is indeed the natural conclufion drawn by common reafon, from the evidence of common fenfe. For who that fees this univerfal frame thus wondrous fair, but must infer the cause of it to be full of wondrous beauty? Who, that obferves ever fo flightly that conftancy which is in the motions of the planets, and in the rifings and fettings of the fixed ftars, &c. can poffibly imagine the inconfancy of chance to be the mover? What man, not difordered in his own mind, can fuppofe any other thing than mind to be the caufe of that everlasting order, which appears in the regular interchanges of the elements, and the circling returns of the fucceffive feasons.

As far as I have conducted you through various. branches of natural philofophy; as far as I have proceeded in giving you a general view of the fyftem of the world, beauty has every where ftruck your eye, and engaged you to proceed and fcrutinize further the operations in nature. The more accurate your fcrutiny, the more you will difcover of regularity, fymmetry, and order, in the conftitution of nature's frame; the further you penetrate into her deep reccffes, dividing and fubdividing, opening and unfolding, the minuteft part of every vifible form, the ftill more you will find of beauty within beauty, and find every order to contain a variety of other orders.

When you fee the fun arrayed in glory, and the grandeur of it's departing beams!

When you view the gilded clouds, and the tint of the evening brighter than vermillion!

When you furvey the ftarry concave of heaven,

U 4

heaven, glittering with the brightness of innume rable worlds!

When you see the pale moon alfo, arifing and diffusing it's folemn light over the face of the earth!

Are you not filled with reverence? can you refrain from lifting up your foul unto it's maker? How great is the creator of all these things, yea how powerful and good!

O Lord God; all that is in heaven and in earth is thine, and thou upholdest all.

Adored by thy name, for ever and ever: and be thou, O most mighty, glorified in all thy works.*

King's Hymns to the Supreme Being.

LECTURE

MR.

LECTURE XLVI.

OF ELECTRICITY.

R. STILLINGFLEET has well obferved, that if the whole fcene of nature were laid open to our view, were we permitted to behold the connections and dependencies of every thing on every other, and to trace the economy of nature through the smaller, as well as the greater parts of this globe, we should probably find, that the great architect had contrived his works in fuch a manner, that we cannot properly be faid to be unconcerned in any one of them; and therefore, thofe ftudies, which feem upon a flight view to be quite useless, may in the end appear of no fmall importance to mankind.

If you look back into the hiftory of arts and fciences, you will be convinced, that men are apt to judge too haftily of things of this nature; you will there find, that he who gave curiofity to his creature, man, gave it for good and great purposes; and that he rewards with ufeful difcoveries what in the first instance are condemned as trifling or minute researches.

But it is true, that these discoveries are not always made by the fearcher, or his cotemporaries, or fometimes even by the immediate fucceeding generation; but there can be no doubt, but what advantages of one kind or other always accrue to mankind from an investigation of the operations in nature. Some men are born to observe and record, what perhaps by itfelf is perfectly ufelefs, but yet of great importance to another who follows and goes a Atep further, ftill as useless to him; another fucceeds

and

and thus by degrees, till at last one of fuperior genius comes, who laying all that has been done before his time together, brings on a new face of things, improves, adorns, exalts human fociety.

All thofe fpeculations concerning lines and numbers fo ardently purfued, fo exquifitely conducted by the Grecians, what did they aim at? what did they produce for ages? A little arithmetic, and the first elements of geometry, were all they had need of. This Plato afferts; and though, as being himself an able mathematician, and remarkably fond of those sciences, he recommends the ftudy of them, yet he makes ufe of motives that have no relation to the common purposes of life.

When Kepler, from a blind and strong impulfe, merely to find analogies in nature, difco

vered that famous law between the distance of the feveral planets from the fun, and the periods in which they complete their revolutions, of what importance was it to him or to the world?

Again, when Galileo, pushed on by the fame irrefiftible curiofity, found out the law by which bodies fall to the earth, did he, or could he forefee that any good could come from his ingenious theorems? or was there any immediate ufe made of them?

Yet had not the Greeks pushed their abstract fpeculations fo far; had not Kepler and Galileo made the above-mentioned difcoveries, we never could have feen the greatest work that ever came from the hands of man, Sir Ifaac Newton's Principia.

Some obfcure perfon, whofe name is not fo much as known, diverting himself idly (as a ftander by would have thought) with trying experiments on a feemingly contemptible piece of flone, found out a guide for mariners on the ocean, and such a