The following is a fair "Nothing can give

taining my being is a creative act. sample of metaphysical sophistry: what it has not, we have not our being next moment: Ergo, &c. Exception our being is still the same in all moments. Answer. No otherwise than the water of Ettrick is the same it was this morning. Those things which may be separated are not the same; but my being in the moment A, may be separated from my being in the moment C, being annihilated in B, and created again in C. Now there is the same reason of all. My being this moment is necessary; for quicquid est quando est, necessario est; my being next moment is not necessary, for I may be annihilated: ergo, they are not the same.”.

The whole force of their reasoning who maintain that creation and preservation are the same specific acts of God, is derived from this assumption, that every positive act of God is the same. We cheerfully admit that the upholding all things by the word of the divine power, is a series of positive acts on the part of God; but does it therefore follow there is a new creation springing into being every successive moment? By no means. For cannot God diversify his acts and agency? Creation is the result of one volition on the part of God, that volition being accompanied with an exercise of his power. Preservation, at any moment, is the result of another volition, it being accompanied with another and correspondent effort of the divine power. If it seem inconceivable to us, and beneath the dignity of the divine Being, to suppose that he would be thus incessantly exercising His energies, we must remember, that human language cannot express accurately the fact in this case. We can have no idea of the mode of the divine existence, which is not by succession, but AN ETERNAL NOW: nor of the mode of the divine operation, which is, and must be, in some other way than according to the impulses of continued distinct

momentary volitions. What we therefore contend for, is, that creating and sustaining agency on the part of God, are different-the former being indeed instantaneous, but the latter continuous, and both exerted in some mysterious way, adapted to His own mysterious nature. In thus affirming we are not to be understood as making mere gratuitous assertions. For what, we ask, are the laws of nature as they are ordinarily termed?

We talk, of gravitation, of various species of attraction, and of all the physical laws of nature, as of certain properties or powers inherent in different modifications of matter themselves. But who does not feel, that this is not satisfactory? When we say that the load-stone attracts iron, what do we mean? Do we mean that one piece of inert matter operates spontaneously on another? Or, that any material thing can have an influence, and effective operation, beyond itself—that some substance at the magnetic pole operates on the needle, which oscillates in my theodolite, hundreds and thousands of miles removed from it-that it can be in two different places at the same time? Certainly not. Some indeed may attempt to explain the influence of one material object on another, and various have been the theories to account for the magnetic, electric, and galvanic, &c. energies which it is altogether unnecessary to cite here; but, whether the laws of fluids tending to an equilibrium resolvable into gravitation, or any one of the mechanical powers, be made the means of solving the phenomena, we must pronounce them all unsatisfactory.

For, suppose that all the different modes of action observable among material substances be resolvable into gravitation, still we wish to know what is gravitation? Why do all bodies tend towards the centre of the earth, and mutually towards each other, according to their respective densities and volumes? How does the sun, at such an im

mense distance, operate on the earth to hold it in its orbit? Who, on mere physical principles, can answer these questions satisfactorily? To say that it is the property of one body, thus to affect, and another thus to be affected, is saying just nothing. To say that God originally gave it this property, and that it still possesses it by virtue of his creative power, is saying no more. For the inquiry is how one piece of matter, destitute of spontaneity and intelligence, can operate without the sphere of its own existence?

We may labour and theorise forever, but shall never be able to solve satisfactorily the phenomena produced by the regular action of what are termed the laws of nature, if ✅ we exclude the agency of God-the prime mover, the first cause, the supreme intelligence, the only independent Being. It may do in the structure of a dramatic poem to observe the rule of the poet,

Nec Deus intersit nisi nodus

Vindice judex

-but if we exclude the agency of God in the support of material things around us we cannot proceed one step, till we are lost in utter and inextricable perplexity. Although we may not be able to understand the precise mode of that agency we attribute to God, yet we feel, that an adequate cause is assigned, in the fact of such agency: for all the effects we observe to be transpiring and the diversified modes of His agency, only serve to give us a more exalted idea of his power and resources. To say, that the continuity of that agency militates against the dignity of His character, is altogether a mistake, for with God there is no succession. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," so that, inasmuch as eternity with Him is an ever-present now, if we attribute to him at any one period of our existence, any particular agency, we need not fear, that we shall derogate from his

dignity, if we believe that agency to be continuous through the whole, and by a like mode of reasoning, of all other things.

These remarks may prepare the way for a reply to the inquiry from which we have digressed, whether the Spirit's agency, in the production of life, consists merely in an effort of creative power at the commencement, introducing all the different forms of life, which, by laws then ordained, should have power to propagate themselves in all varieties; or whether, there is still and continuously, an agency of the Spirit for the preservation and support of life. The laws of re production are indeed established, and continual developements of life are conducted according to them, and have been from the very first period of creation. The fishes, the reptiles, the feathered tribe, the animals, and man, were all created in the full vigour and perfection of their being, not in an embryo state; and the trees and herbs, &c. were all planted in the ground, after they had been created, with the seed already formed, the germ of future growths distinctly organized and ready to commence the evolutions of life in a new individual.1

But it does by no means follow from these admissions, that the Spirit's agency ceased on the establishment of the laws of re-production. The whole developing process is under His immediate care. For, as what are called the laws of nature, are but modes of the divine agency-different indeed from the creative energy, but as real; so the laws of re-production are but modes of the Spirit's agency-different indeed from that originally exerted in the formation of the first living creatures, but not the less real. In the one instance, the agency is direct, and the effect produced without the intervention of means-in the other through the instrumentality

1. Gen. ii. 5.

of what are termed second causes.

These causes derive

all their efficiency from the divine agency.

III.

THE DEVELOPING PROCESS, HOWEVER PURSUED,

IN THE PRODUCTION OF NEW LIVING BEINGS, OWES ALL ITS

EFFICACY TO THE SPIRIT'S AGENCY. He presides over this immense and interesting department of the Creator's works. "He giveth to all life and breath and all things."

That there is some divine care extended to the works of the Creator's hands, must be admitted by all who acknowledge the truth of the sacred scriptures. Yet are there not a few, who profess to believe, that the providence of God must be administered only by general laws; for to suppose that his care extended to the minute creatures, and every individual form of life, and living substance, they think would derogate from his dignity. They can conceive of God's providence extending to systems, or of its being concerned in great signal revolutions in the affairs of men, but as to any thing further they are incredulous, "The first Almighty cause

"Acts not by partial but by general laws."

But these are vain and ignorant objections. They are founded alike in ignorance of God and of his work. The infidel admits the providence of God in general, that is, it may extend to systems, and by general laws. But what are systems? What too is here meant by general and individual? Is there any being which is not a system with respect to some others? Man unites in himself several. One system of living beings is involved in another. The whole creation teems with life, and where to begin, or where to end, in our researches, we know not. In fact there is no such thing as absolute magnitude save in God. All greatness, of which we have knowledge, is relative. We estimate the magnitude of one object by comparing it with another. And shall we adopt a standard of our own, and extend or restrict the agency of God according to our