LETTER peculiarity. We have no reason to believe that it V. has been made a law with any resident in the other planets or stars, that their existence shall be divided into two unequal portions, like ours, and that these shall be separated from each other by a destruction of their first material form. We do not indeed know that they possess a compound form like our own; for if they do not, then they cannot experience that change which our death brings upon us. Our death is attached to our material frame, not to our spirit. It is the dissolution of our present body; the separation of that from our living principle or soul: it is not the destruction of that living principle; therefore no being that is not, as we are, compounded of a material form, and of a vital principle, can be subject to a death, like ours. The consideration of these laws of our system of being, will prevent us from letting the immensity of the universe, and of its Creator, induce us to think too meanly of human nature; and from leading us to feel, as some have done, that the whole human race are but contemptible emmets in His sight, and too inconsiderable to be honored with the smallest portion of His attention. Ancient thinkers had some ideas of this sort.26 It is a favorite topic still with embalmed this as it died, and preserved it carefully, to be ready for this re-union, as they did their cats and some other animals. This opinion was so fixed, that no pledge for a debt was so good a security, or so sure of being redeemed, as the mummied body of a parent or relation. Diod. Sic. 8. This idea of a bodily resurrection or reconstruction, was so new and incredible to the Grecian and Roman mind, that both at Athens and by the Roman governor, Paul was derided for inculcating it. Both the Epicurean and stoic philosophers exclaimed, What will this babbler say?' Acts, xvii. 18. 26 Some of their theories could not but lead them to very low estimations of human kind. You will remember the ' cum prorep serunt V. many who doubt or disbelieve a Providence, and I LETTER have known some valuable minds to have been much affected by such an impression. In opposition to this, let us advert to the probability, for the reasons which have been adduced, that there are no human beings in the universe but on our globe. And if not, then the special creation of them on our earth only, is an indication of some special design in our existence, and a reason for the particular notice and care of our Creator. But the absence of all certainty that there are intelligent beings superior to us, in any of the radiant orbs we see, or any where else, except the ministerial angels, who are always exhibited as in immediate attendance on the Sovereign of all, or in the execution of His commands, should also operate to hinder us from concluding, that there is any thing in creation that is likely to divest us of the regard and care of our provident Maker, or that has any natural claim to preferring consideration from Him, or that can make us less important in His serunt' of Horace: When men crawled out of the first earth, like animals, ‘a mutum et turpe pecus.' Sat. lib. iii. It was the dogma of Anaximander, that men were first produced within fishes, and were there nourished like their young fry, as the ancients thought; but afterwards, when they had acquired strength able to defend themselves, they were ejected out of the fishes' belly on to the land. Hence he affirmed fish to be the parents of mankind, and therefore condemned our feeding upon them.' Plut. Sym. 1. viii. c. 8. The Grecian sage was at least as wise in this as the Egyptian theorists were, who deduced human creatures from the mud of their Nile, or as the Arcadians and Athenians from the earth; for these believed that they sprung out of the ground as they thought grasshoppers did, and therefore wore one of these insects as an ornament in their hair, made of gold and silver. So the Babylonians were taught, that from chaos arose first hideous beings-men with two faces and wings; one body, but two heads; other human figures, with the legs and horns of goats; some with half the body like a horse; others with the heads and bodies of horses, and tails of fishes. Berossus. Sync. Ch. 228. Cory's Anc. Fr. 24. V. LETTER sight than any other of His works. Distrust all philosophers who inculcate such ideas; and be on your guard against those who separate nature from its God, or teach its laws and phenomena without reference to Him. Philosophers are as apt to err, in many of their opinions, as other people, and have continually been doing so." * Pliny gives us an amusing instance of something more than an erroneous opionion in his account of Dionysodorus. I will not omit this paramount example of Grecian vanity: he was a Melian, distinguished for his geometrical science, and died in his own country in old age. His relations, to whom his inheritance descended, buried him, and a few days afterwards declared that they had found in his tomb a letter, written in his name to those above. It stated, that he had gone down from his grave to the lowest part of the earth, and that his passage had been 42,000 stadia. GEOMETRICIANS were not wanting (nec defuere geometræ) who inferred, that this epistle had been sent from the center of the earth, and expressed the farthest space from that to the surface; from which computing, they pronounced that the earth was 252,000 stadia in circuit.' Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 112. Which shall we most admire? the strange and palpable imposture, or that any ancient mathematicians, men whose leaders we are so accustomed to revere, should seriously calculate upon it as authentic information? LETTER VI. SACRED HISTORY COMPRISES THE PLAN, THE PURPOSES AND VI. THE Sacred History of the World, as it relates to LETTER mankind, may be considered under three divisions. of our inquiry. The PLAN on which it has been carried on; and the REASONS and PURPOSES for which that particular plan has been adopted, and its execution pursued; and the RESULTS or ends which have already been accomplished by it, or which seem evolving from it. Our knowlege of the PLAN must be derived from a study of the events which have taken place; for it is in these that it will be indicated, as the movements of a great army, and their consequences and effects enable the attentive observer to perceive the scheme and objects of the commander in the conduct of his campaign. That a plan has been devised and selected by our Creator for His human world, and steadily acted upon by Him in the course of its affairs, seems to be as certain as any fact that is deducible from what we know of Him, and from its analogies with the certainties of His physical creations. We assume that our material world has been a reasoned production of His intelligence. But if so, then human life, and the concerns which most affect it, must be directed and governed by Him, because the inorganic portions of our earthly system have been visibly made with VI. LETTER express reference to what is living and sentient; and all that is so has been manifestly formed with a peculiar consideration of man, the most sentient and intellectual of all. But nothing was more requisite to his welfare and intellectual improvement, than that the great incidents of his social history, and of the course of his earthly life, should be such, and be from time to time so regulated, as to prevent his destruction or degeneration; to lead him to increasing knowlege; to counteract the errors of his own ignorance and evil excitations; and to trace and educate his moral sensibilities and mental capacity. That a deliberated plan, and a careful execution of it, has been as necessary to human nature as to the planetary system, I cannot doubt. This is one of the conclusions which follow from our being the creation of a God of thought and knowlege; and from our perception of that omniscience, that wisdom and that benevolence, which are so visible in what He has made. It is impossible for my mind to believe, that man was abandoned by his Maker as soon as he was created. So much intellect as appears in the construction of the universe, could not act so capriciously nor so malevolently. We need His direction and care far more than the material world; and nothing essential to our well-being can have been withheld by such a Creator. I rely upon the certainty that He always acts consistently with His own nature, and never in contradiction to it. We can already discern enough of Him, to be satisfied of His moral perfections and transcendent sagacity. These may assure us, that human affairs have been from their commencement a superintended subject of His foreseeing |