glorious Conftitution, the Labour of fo many Ages, and Price of fo much Blood and Treasure; but would chufe rather to facrifice it, and all their own Independency, Freedom, and Dignity, to perfonal Power and hollow Grandeur, to any little Pageant of a King, who should prefer being the Mafter of Slaves to being the Guardian of Freemen, and consider himfelf as the Proprietor, not the Father of his People! But Words cannot exprefs the Selfishness and Servility of those Men; and as little the public and heroic Spirit of fuch, if any fuch there are, as have Virtue enough still left to ftem the Torrent of Corruption, and guard our facred Conftitution against the Profligacy and Proftitution of the Corruptors and the Corrupted.

Divine Cannections.

SECT. IV.

Duty to GOD.

F all the Relations which the human Mind fuftains, that which fubfifts be

tween

tween the Creator and his Creatures, the fupreme Lawgiver and his Subjects, is the higheft and the best. This Relation arifes from the Nature of a Creature in general, and the Conftitution of the human Mind in particular; the nobleft Powers and Affections of which point to an univerfal Mind, and would be imperfect and abortive with out fuch a Direction. How lame then must that System of Morals be, which leaves a Deity out of the Queftion! How difconfolate, and how deftitute of its firmest Support !

It does not appear, from any true History or Experience of the Mind's Progrefs, that any

Existence of

God..

Man by any formal Deduction of his difcurfive Powers,ever reafoned himself into the Belief of a God. Whether fuch a Belief is only fome natural Anticipation of Soul, or is derived from Father to Son, and from one Man to another, in the Way of Tradition, or is fuggefted to us in confequence of an immutable Law of our Nature, on beholding the auguft Afpect and beautiful Order of the Universe, we will not pretend to determine. What seems moft agreeable to Experience is, that a Senfe of its Beauty and Grandeur, and the

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admirable Fitnefs of one thing to another in its vaft Apparatus, leads the Mind neceffarily and unavoidably to a Perception of Defign, or of a defigning Cause, the Origin of all, by a Progrefs as fimple and natural, as that by which a beautiful Picture, or a fine Building, fuggefts to us the Idea of an excellent Artift. For it feems to hold univerfally true, that wherever we difcern a Tendency, or Co-operation of Things, towards a certain End, or producing a common Effect, there, by a neceffary Law of Affociation, we apprehend Defign, a defigning Energy, or Caufe. No matter whether the Objects are natural or artificial, ftill that Suggestion is unavoidable, and the Connection between the Effect and its adequate Caufe, obtrudes itself on the Mind, and it requires no nice Search or elaborate Deduction of Reason, to trace or prove that Connection. We are particularly fatisfied of its Truth in the Subject before us, by a kind of direct Intuition, and we do not seem to attend to the Maxim we learn in Schools, "That there cannot be "an infinite Series of Caufes and Effects "producing and produced by one an"other." Nor do we feel a great Acceffion of Light and Conviction after we

have learned it. We are confcious of our Existence, of Thought, Sentiment, and Paffion, and fenfible withal that these came not of ourselves, therefore we immediately recognize a Parent-Mind, an Original Intelligence, from whom we borrowed thofe little Portions of Thought and Activity. And while we not only feel kind Affections in ourselves, and discover them in others, but likewife behold all round us fuch a Number and Variety of Creatures, endued with Natures nicely adjusted to their feveral Stations and Oeconomies, fupporting and fupported by each other, and all fuftained by a common Order of Things, and sharing different Degrees of Happiness, according to their respective Capacities, we are naturally and neceffarily led up to the Father of fuch a numerous Offspring, the Fountain of fuch widefpread Happiness. As we conceive this Being before all, above all, and greater than all, we naturally, and without Reafoning, afcribe to him every kind of Perfection, Wifdom, Power, and Goodness without Bounds, exifting through all Time, and pervading all Space. We ap- His Relation ply to him thofe glorious Epi-to the human thets of our Creator, Preferver,

Mind.

Benefactor,

Benefactor, the fupreme Lord and Lawgiver of the whole Society of rational intelligent Creatures. - Not only the Imperfections and Wants of our Being and Condition, but fome of the noblest Instincts and Affections of our Minds, connect us with this great and univerfal Nature. The Mind, in its Progrefs from Object to Object, from one Character and Prospect of Beauty to another, finds fome Blemish or Deficiency in each, and foon exhausts or grows weary and diffatisfied with its Subject; it fees no Character of Excellency among Men, equal to that Pitch of Efteem which it is capable of exerting; no Object within the Compafs of human Things adequate to the Strength of its Affection. Nor can it ftop any where in this self-expanfive Progrefs, or find Repofe after its highest Flights, till it arrives at a Being of unbounded Greatnefs and Worth, on whom it may employ its fublimeft Powers without exhaufting the Subject, and give Scope to the utmost Force and Fulness of its Love, without Satiety or Difguft. So that the Nature of this Being correfponds to the Nature of Man; nor can his intelligent and moral Powers obtain their entire End, but on the Suppofition of fuch a Being,