ESSAY IX. X29 ful and multiply; to all future generations. Great things doth he which we cannot comprehend. But he sealeth up the handof every man, that all men may know his divine work; Gen. i. 11, 25. Job xxxvii. 5, 7: SECT. II.-The Laws of Nature sufficient for the Production of Animals and Vegetables. IT was a work of wisdom, infinitely various to form all the variety of creatures that swim or fly, that run, creep, or move in the air, earth and water, and to fit every one of them with organs and con-natural motions suited to the purposes of their different life : And it is the 'same wisdom which dictated the laws of nature and motion in the first week of the creation, and the same power which first put them in execution, that proceed by the force of these Unchanging dictates, to produce all the successive nations and ages Of the animal and vegetable worlds. Those great prolific words, Beye fruitful and multiply, have almighty power in them, and reach to the end of time. God himself is the supreme agent and mover, in all the fermenting materials that teem with plants and animals, and he acts still according to the original and uniform laws of motion which his wisdom first dicta- ted, and his power imposed on the parts of matter. But there have been some philosopers and divines who imagine, that because they cannot solve the production of plants and animals by those obvious laws of motion and matter which we are acquainted with, therefore no plant or animal is Produced without sotne new, immediate and present interposure of the skill, and power, and agency of God, different froto the original dic- tates or laws of motion. Thus the common laws of nature which God has established, being in their esteem not sufficient for this end, they introduce his own immediate hand in millions ofinstan- ces tocounterwork those laws, or to assist thedeficiency of themby a creating power. By this means God is as it were constrained to exert a miraculous influence at the generation and production of every new animal throughout the world, as though it were im- possible that a mouse, a pigeon, or a butterfly should be formed withoutit ; and thus his work of creation is never finished, and miracles are wrought by millions every day : for whatsoever is done by him in the material world not according to the laws of nature, is miracle. In my opinion it is a rash and venturous thing to determine that theseproductions are impossible according to thecommon ap- pointed laws of nature and motion ; and to set intellectual agents at work upon them, merely because our knowledge of these laws of matter is not yet sufficient to describe the manner how it may be done. Would it not be a ridiculous and unphilosophical account of
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