that our minds cannot fully and absolutely acquiesce in the position that God is not. To be fit subjects for our present argument, we do not need to have explored that territory of nature which is within our reach; and thence gathered, in the traces of a designer's hand the positive conclusion that there is a God. It is enough if we have not traversed, throughout all its directions and in all its extent, the sphere of immensity; and if we have not scaled the mysterious altitudes of the eternity that is past; nor, after having there searched for a divinity in vain, have come at length to the positive and the peremptory conclusion, that there is not a God. In a word, it is quite enough that man is barely a finite creature, who has not yet put forth his faculties on the question whether God is; neither has yet so ranged over all space and all time, as definitely to have ascertained that God is not-but with whom though in ignorance of all proof, it still remains a possibility that God may be.

14. Now to this condition there attaches a most clear and incumbent morality. It is to go in quest of that unseen benefactor, who for aught I know, has ushered me into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me. It is to probe the secret of my being and my birth; and, if possible, to make discovery whether it was indeed the hand of a benefactor, that brought me forth from the chambers of nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in that glowing territory, which is lighted up with the hopes and the happiness of living men. It is thus that the very conception of a God throws a responsibility after it; and that

duty, solemn and imperative duty, stands associated with the thought of a possible deity, as well as with the sight of a present deity, standing in full manifestation before us. Even anterior to all knowledge of God, or when that knowledge is in embryo, there is both a path of irreligion and a path of piety; and that law which denounces the one and gives to the other an approving testimony, may find in him who is still in utter darkness about his origin and his end, a fit subject for the retributions which she deals in. He cannot be said to have borne disregard to the will of that God, whom he has found. But his is the guilt of impiety, in that he has borne disregard to the knowledge of that God, whom he was bound by every tie of gratitude to seek after a duty not founded on the proofs that may be exhibited for the being of a God, but a duty to which even the most slight and slender of presumptions should give rise. And who can deny that, antecedent to all close and careful examination of the proofs, there are at least many presumptions in behalf of a God, to meet the eye of every observer? Is there any so hardy as to deny, that the curious workmanship of his frame may have had a designer and an architect; that the ten thousand independent circumstances which must be united. ere he can have a moment's ease, and the failure of any one of which would be agony, may not have met at random, but that there may be a skilful and unseen hand to have put them together into one wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases to uphold it; that there may be a real and a living artist, whose fingers did frame the economy of actual

things, and who hath so marvellously suited all that is around us to our senses and our powers of gratification? Without affirming aught which is positive, surely the air that we breathe, and the beautiful light in which we expatiate, these elements of sight and sound so exquisitely fitted to the organs of the human frame-work, may have been provided by one who did benevolently consult in them our special accommodation. The graces innumerable that lie widely spread over the face of our world, the glorious concave of heaven that is placed over us, the grateful variety of seasons that like Nature's shifting panorama ever brings new entertainment and delight to the eye of spectators-these may, for aught we know, be the emanations of a creative mind, that originated our family and devised such a universe for their habitation. Regarding these, not as proofs, but in the humble light of presumptions for a God, they are truly enough to convict us of foulest ingratitude-if we go not forth in quest of a yet unknown, but at least possible or likely benefactor. They may not resolve the question of a God. But they bring the heaviest reproach on our listlessness to the question; and show that, anterior to our assured belief in his existence, there lies upon us a most imperious obligation to "stir ourselves up that we may lay hold of Him."

15. Such presumptions as these, if not so many demands on the belief of man, are at least so many demands upon his attention; and then, for aught he knows, the presumptions on which he ought to inquire, may be more and more enhanced, till they brighten into proofs which ought to convince him.

The prima facie evidence for a God may not be enough to decide the question; but it should at least decide man to entertain the question. To think upon how slight a variation either in man or in external nature, the whole difference between physical enjoyment and the most acute and most appalling of physical agony may turn ; to think how delicate the balance is, and yet how surely and steadfastly it is maintained, so as that the vast majority of creatures are not only upheld in comfort but often may be seen disporting themselves in the redundance of gaiety; to think of the pleasurable sensations wherewith every hour is enlivened, and how much the most frequent and familiar occasions of life are mixed up with happiness; to think of the food, and the recreation, and the study, and the society, and the business, each having an appropriate relish of its own, so as in fact to season with enjoyment the great bulk of our existence in the world; to think that, instead of living in the midst of grievous and incessant annoyance to all our faculties, we should have awoke upon a world that so harmonized with the various senses of man, and both gave forth such music to his ear, and to his eye such manifold loveliness; to think of all these palpable and most precious adaptations, and yet to care not, whether in this wide universe there exists a being who has had any hand in them; to riot and regale oneself to the uttermost in the midst of all this profusion, and yet to send not one wishful inquiry after that Benevolence which for aught we know may have laid it at our feet-this, however shaded from our view the object of the question

may be, is, from its very commencement, a clear outrage against its ethical proprieties. If that veil of dim transparency, which hides the Deity from our immediate perceptions, were lifted up; and we should then spurn from us the manifested Godthis were direct and glaring impiety. But anterior to the lifting of that veil, there may be impiety. It is impiety to be so immersed as we are, in the busy objects and gratifications of life; and yet to care not whether there be a great and a good spirit by whose kindness it is that life is upholden. It needs not that this great spirit should reveal Himself in characters that force our attention to Him, ere the guilt of our impiety has begun. But ours is the guilt of impiety, in not lifting our attention towards God, in not seeking after Him if haply we may find Him.

16. Man is not to blame, if an atheist, because of the want of proof. But he is to blame, if an atheist, because he has shut his eyes. He is not to blame, that the evidence for a God has not been seen by him, if no such evidence there were within the field of his observation. But he is to blame, if the evidence have not been seen, because he turned away his attention from it. That the question of a God may lie unresolved in his mind, all he has to do, is to refuse a hearing to the question. He may abide without the conviction of a God, if he so choose. But this his choice is matter of condemnation. To resist God after that He is known, is criminality towards Him; but to be satisfied that He should remain unknown, is like criminality towards Him. There is a moral perversity of