We do not know that any other orders of intelligent beings are living anywhere else under such a system as this. For any thing that we know, human nature may be the only class in the universe which has this peculiarity. We have no reason to believe that it has been made a law with any residents in the other planets or stars, that their existence shall be divided into two unequal portions, like ours, and that these shall be separated from each other by a destruction of ther first material form. We do not indeed know that they pos sess a compound form like our own; for if they do not, ther they cannot experience that change which our death brings upon us. Our death is attached to our material frame, not to our spirit. It is the dissolution of our present body; the separation of that from our living principle or soul: it is not the destruction of that living principle; therefore no being that is not, as we are, compounded of a material form, and of a vital principle, can be subject to a death like ours.

The consideration of these laws of our system of being, will prevent us from letting the immensity of the universe, and of its Creator, induce us to think too meanly of human nature; and from leading us to feel, as some have done, that the whole human race are but contemptible emmets in his sight, and too inconsiderable to be honoured with the smallest portion of his attention. Ancient thinkers had some ideas of this sort.* It is a favourite topic still with many

and chose to believe instead, that the soul was to live again on this earth after a period of 3,000 years, and to reanimate its former habitual body (Herod. Eut. s. 124); and therefore they embalmed this as it died, and preserved it carefully, to be ready for this re-union, as they did their cats and some other animals. This opinion was so fixed, that no pledge for a debt was so good a security, or so sure of being redeemed, as the mummied body of a parent or relation.--Diod. Sic. 8. This idea of a bodily resurrection or reconstruction, was so new and incredible to the Grecian and Roman mind, that both at Athens and by the Roman governor, Pauk was derided for inculcating it. Both the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers exclaimed, "What will this babbler say?"-Acts xvii. 18.

* Some of their theories could not but lead them to very low estimations of human kind. You will remember the "cum prorepserunt" of Horace : When men crawled out of the first earth, like animals, "a mutum et turpe pecus."-Sat. lib. iii. It was the dogma of Anaximander," that men were first produced within fishes, and were there nour ished like their young fry, as the ancients thought; but afterward, when they had acquired strength able to defend themselves, they were ejected out of the fishes' belly on to the land. Hence be affirmed fish to be the parents of mankind, and therefore condemned our feeding upon them."-Plut. Sym. 1. viii. c. 8. The Grecian sage was at least as wiss

who doubt or disbelieve a providence, and I have known some valuable minds to be much affected by such an impression. In opposition to this, let us advert to the probability, for the reasons which have been adduced, that there are no human beings in the universe but on our globe. And if not, then the special creation of them on our earth only, is an indication of some special design in our existence, and a reason for the particular notice and care of our Creator. But the absence of all certainty that there are intelligent beings superior to us in any of the radiant orbs we see, or anywhere else, except the ministerial angels, who are always exhibited as in immediate attendance on the Sovereign of all, or in the execution of his commands, should also operate to hinder us from concluding, that there is any thing in creation that is likely to divest us of the regard and care of our provident Maker, or that has any natural claim to preferring consideration from him, or that can make us less important in his sight than any other of his works. Distrust all philosophers who inculcate such ideas; and be on your guard against those who separate nature from its God, or teach its laws and phenomena without reference to him. Philosophers are as apt to err, in many of their opinions, as other people, and have continually been doing so.*

in this as the Egyptian theorists were, who deduced human creatures from the mud of their Nile, or as the Arcadians and Athenians, from the earth for these believed that they sprung out of the ground as they thought grasshoppers did, and therefore wore one of these insects as an ornament in their hair, made of gold and silver. So the Babylonians were taught, that from chaos arose first hideous beings-men with two faces and wings; one body, but two heads; other human figures, with the legs and horns of goats; some with half the body like a horse; others with the heads and bodies of horses, and tails of fishes.-Berossus. Sync. Ch. 228; Cory's Anc. Fr. 24.

*Pliny gives us an amusing instance of something more than an erroneous opinion in his account of Dionysodorus. "I will not omit this paramount example of Grecian vanity: he was a Melian, distinguished for his geometrical science, and died in his own country in old age. His relations, to whom his inheritance descended, buried him, and a few days afterward declared that they had found in his tomb a letter, written in his name to those above. It stated, that he had gone down from his grave to the lowest part of the earth, and that his passage had been 42,000 stadia. GEOMETRICIANS were not wanting (nec defuere geometra) who inferred that this epistle had been sent from the centre of the earth, and expressed the farthest space from that to the surface; from which computing, they pronounced that the earth was 252,000 stadia in circuit." -Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 112.

Which shall we most admire? the strange and palpable imposture, or

LETTER VI.

Sacred History comprises the Plan, the Purposes, and the Results of the Divine System, as to Mankind-Outlines of the Great Events which have accrued in Human Affairs.

THE sacred history of the world, as it relates to mankind, may be considered under three divisions of our inquiry. The PLAN on which it has been carried on; the REASONS and PURPOSES for which that particular plan has been adopted, and its execution pursued; and the RESULTS or ends which have already been accomplished by it, or which seem evolving from it.

Our knowledge of the PLAN must be derived from a study of the events which have taken place; for it is in these that it will be indicated, as the movements of a great army, and their consequences and effects, enable the attentive observer to perceive the scheme and objects of the commander in the conduct of his campaign.

That a plan has been devised and selected by our Creator for his human world, and steadily acted upon by him in the course of its affairs, seems to be as certain as any fact that is deducible from what we know of him, and from its analogies with the certainties of his physical creations. We assume that our material world has been a reasoned production of his intelligence. But if so, then human life, and the concerns which most affect it, must be directed and governed by him, because the inorganic portions of our earthly system have been visibly made with express reference to what is living and sentient; and all that is so has been manifestly formed with a peculiar consideration of man, the most sentient and intellectual of all. But nothing was more requisite to his welfare and intellectual improvement, than that the great incidents of his social history, and of the course of his earthly life, should be such, and be from time to time so regulated, as to prevent his destruction or degenthat any ancient mathematicians, men whose leaders we are so accus tomed to revere, should seriously calculate upon it as authentic informa tion?

eration; to lead him to increasing knowledge, to counteract the errors of his own ignorance and evil excitations ; and to trace and educate his moral sensibilities and mental capacity. That a deliberated plan, and a careful execution of it, has been as necessary to human nature as to the planetary system, I cannot doubt.

This one of the conclusions which follow from our being the creation of a God of thought and knowledge; and from our perception of that omniscience, that wisdom, and that benevolence, which are so visible in what he has made.

It is impossible for my mind to believe, that man was abandoned by his Maker as soon as he was created. So much intellect as appears in the construction of the universe, could not act so capriciously nor so malevolently. We need his direction and care far more than the material world; and nothing essential to our wellbeing can have been withheld by such a Creator. I rely upon the certainty that he always acts consistently with his own nature, and never in contradiction to it. We can already discern enough of him to be satisfied of his moral perfections and transcendent sagacity. These may assure us, that human affairs have been from their commencement a superintended subject of his foreseeing care; that he has wise designs and gracious ends in all that he directs and causes; and that the course and conduct of all that relates to human kind, have been, in due succession, justly regulated on a plan of wisdom and benignity, ever promoting and producing the appointed results. These results, like the plan, must be sought for in the actual events and consequences which have taken place.

But his REASONS and PURPOSES in the adoption and prosecutions of his plans, are more difficult of discernment. There is such a largeness of extent, such a multiplicity of operation, such a combination of minuteness with vastness, such a gradation of process, and such a reference from the present to the future, which it prepares and produces, in all that he does, that wherever he has not revealed his intentions, human inference and conjecture can but faintly and imperfectly supply the deficiency of the given information.

We can but do in this, as with the fabric of general nature. We must observe, reflect, reason, and infer. It cannot be unlawful for us thus to endeavour to trace his reasons and his meanings in his ways any more than in his works; and

it never will be either an undesirable or an improper exercise of the mind to do so, if we pursue the inquiry in a reverential and deferent spirit, and do not attempt to assert our individual notions to be unquestionable truth. Our best conclusions will still be but our own single judgment, and must be always left to the consideration of others, how far they are likely to be true. The greatest point will be to take care, that they be always in accordance with that which alone is authority on such topics. The sacred volume must be our compass and our intellectual pilot in these: nothing that is in contradiction to this, in what concerns the laws and dealings of its grand object towards mankind, ought to be regarded as entitled to our belief. It is my earnest desire that my inferences should never be at variance with it, as it is the only safe guide we can obtain on such subjects. Divested of this, we should have no criterion of any truth upon them; but every thing would be in as much doubt and obscurity, as it was in the days of Carneades and Epicurus: and our opinions on God and nature, if it had not enlightened the human mind, would have continued to be as absurd as they were, before the dissemination of divine truth had given new light to the judgment, new principles to the reason, and new motives and sympathies to the human heart.

A new form of human nature from that time began to arise, in individual after individual, which enlarged in every subsequent age, until it attained those new features which distinguished the sixteenth century, and which have been increasing in beauty, dignity, and expansion ever since. Compare now the enlightened men of Europe with those of the greatest nations of antiquity, and you will find the contrast to be most striking.*

The Phenicians were distinguished before the Greeks, who derived their letters from them; and yet the Tyrians, when attacked by enemies, chained the images of their gods to their altars, that they might not abandon their city. Others, when they sent their divinities to be washed, or to undergo a purifying lustration, exacted sureties for their return, The Romans, as wise, are alleged by some of their historians to have had chants and incantations, by which they could draw away to themselves the gods of their enemies.-Plut. Rom. Quæst. c. 61.

Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Metrodorus, thought the sun a mass of iron, or a stone on fire.-Plut. Plac. 1. ii. c. 20. Anaximander talked of his having respiration, c. 21. The Stoics mentioned his passing through a tract for his aliment; and this was the ocean or the earth, on whose exhalations he feeds, c. 23.