430 OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. I think this argument is conclusive alone, but all the con- siderations put together, give us abundant reason to believe, that it is by the continual and uniform agency of God upon the mate- rial world, according to certain laws of matter and motion which he has appointed in the vegetable and animal world, that there is a continual succession of plants and animals formed and main- tained through all ages, and the honour of such a wondrous con- trivance is due to the great Creator.* SECT. H1.Of the Nourishment and Growth of Plants. IN the beginning of time and nature at the commandof God, the earth brought forth plants and herbs, and four-footed animals in their various kinds; but the birds of the air, as well as the fishes, were produced by the salue command out of the waters. This was intimated in a former section. The water and the earth were the first appointed mothers, if I may so ex. press it, of all the animal and vegetable creation. Since that time they cease to be parents indeed, but they are the common nurses of all that breathes, and of all that grows. Nor is the wisdom of God much less conspicuous in constituting two such plain and simple beings as the earth and water, tobe the springs of nourishment and growth to such an innumerable variety of creatures, than it was in the formation of them out of two such materials. Is it not counted an admirable piece of divine contri- vance and wisdom, that the single principleof gravitation should be employed by the Creator, to answer so many millions of pur- poses among the heavenlybodies in their regular revolutions, as well as among the inhabitants, and the furniture of this earthly globe wherewe dwell ? And may it not be esteemed as astonish- ing an effect of the same supreme wisdom, that two such simple things as water and earth should be the common material out of which all the standing ornaments, the vegetable beauties, and the moving inhabitants of this our world, whether flying or creeping in that part which is called the Translator's Introduction, from p. 18, to p. 99, where he refutes Lewenhoeck's Notion of Generation risingfrom the Animais in Semine Masculino. This book was published in 8° in MG. But I am informed that this notion of all animals being contained in the'first male animal is now ex- ploded among the wiser philosophers of the age. s Perhaps after áI1 it may be enquired here, Whether plants and animals can pcssibty be formed by the mechanical notions andpowers of matter? To this f answer, if by the word mechánical, we mean nothing else but those motons and powers, which proceed four the essential properties of matter consideredas a mare solid extended substance, then I cannot allow the proposition to be true: Bat at we include in the word mechanism, all those additional powers and motions also, Which arise from the original laws of motion-which God imposed upon mat- ter at first, such as gravitation or mutual attraction, and others of the saine kind, then l allow that all things in the successive ages of the world are formed 'necks- nicldly; always supposing the divine agency preserving all the stoma of ,ostler and their motions, according to these laws. And it is sty opinion, that all beyond ti,.s in miracle.
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