which hath nothing to limit it must necessarily be immense and boundless. God therefore being this self-existing being must necessarily be of an unlimited essence; an essence which no possible space can either circumscribe or define, but must necessarily be diffused through all, circumfused about all, and present with all things.

And if he be present with all things, how is it imaginable he should sit still among them, and exercise no providence over them? For since he is a living being, he must be vitally present wheresoever he is; and that he should be vitally and yet unactively present among a world of beings, that he should live in this wide university of things, and in every part of it, and yet take no more notice of, have no more influence upon it, than if he were a dead and senseless idol, is altogether unconceivable; and we may as well imagine a sun in the universe without heat or light, as a living God surrounding or penetrating all things without ever exerting his active powers, or shedding forth his vital influence upon them. For wherever life is, it will operate: and therefore since God, who is all life and activity, is every where, he must operate every where; and if he operate every where, that operation is an universal providence.

IV. And lastly, if there be a God, he must be endowed with all those active perfections of power and wisdom, justice and goodness; all which must be present wheresoever he is. For as for power, it is nothing else but the spring or fountain of causality; and therefore since God is the first cause, he must necessarily be the spring of the power of all causes, and that from which all power is derived must itself be all powerful; otherwise it will derive more power

than it hath, and be the cause of that whereof it hath no causality, which is a contradiction. And then as for wisdom and goodness, they are inseparable to perfect power; which how forcible soever it be, cannot be perfect except it be conducted by wisdom and goodness; for without these, power is only an irresistible whirlwind, that sweeps and hurries all things before it without any end, or method, or order. And what a lame, blind, and defective power must that be, that can neither design nor contrive, neither propose to itself beneficial ends, nor yet choose suitable means to effect them; and, in a word, that can neither intend well nor prosecute wisely! If therefore the power of God be perfect, as it cannot but be, being the original of all power, it must necessarily be conjoined with perfect wisdom and goodness; with perfect goodness, to level its intentions at good and beneficial ends; with perfect wisdom, to order and direct its prosecutions.

Since therefore perfect power, and wisdom, and goodness are essential to God, they must be co-extended with his essence, which, as I shewed before, is extended to all things. And how can we conceive such active perfections as these to be present with all things without ever acting upon them? For the very end and perfection of all these attributes consists in their exercise; for so the end of power is action, the end of wisdom is ordering and contriving, and the end of goodness is doing good. How then can we suppose that an infinite power, whose end is action, should be present where a world of things are to be done, and do nothing? that infinite wisdom, whose end is ordering and contriving, should be present where a world of things are to be ordered,

and order nothing? or that infinite goodness, whose end is doing good, should be present where a world of good is to be done, and do none at all? What is this, but to transform the divine perfections into senseless idols, that have eyes but see not, hands but act not; that have boundless, but useless and unactive powers; that have glorious names, but in reality stand but for so many ciphers in the world! And thus I have endeavoured to demonstrate a providence by arguments drawn from God himself. But because there may be something in them too sublime and metaphysical for common apprehensions to reach, I have but briefly insisted on them. I proceed therefore, in the second place, to another sort of arguments, which are more easy and obvious; viz. such as are drawn from sensible effects, of which I shall give these six instances.

I. The constant direction of things to the same good ends, which have no design in themselves.

II. The watchful providence of things, which have no foresight in themselves.

III. The mutual agreement and correspondency of things, which have no understanding of themselves or of one another.

IV. The continuation of things in the same comely order, which have no government of themselves. V. Miraculous effects.

VI. Predictions of future and remote contingencies.

I. One sensible instance of a divine providence is the constant direction of things to the same good ends which have no design in themselves. When we see things void of all sense and reason as constantly directed to good ends, as they could be if

they had sense and reason, we may be sure that there is a reason without them that framed them for those ends, and directs them to them; it being unconceivable how chance or blind necessity, that have no design, or art, or contrivance in them, should constantly operate as regularly as reason itself. Now if we survey this vast universality of things, we may easily observe, at least of the generality of them, that they are framed for and directed to some wise and excellent end; and though, through our own shortsightedness or want of inquiry, we do not see the use and tendency of them all, yet this is no argument at all that they are vain and superfluous : for as we now see the use of a world of things which past generations understood not, so there is no doubt but future generations will understand the use of a world more than we; and therefore, since the usefulness of the generality of things is now so apparent and visible, we ought in all reason to conclude, that our not discerning the usefulness of them all proceeds not from their defect, but from our own ignorance.

Let us therefore briefly survey this beautiful scene of things that is before us. The sun and earth, for instance, are things that are utterly void of understanding, and therefore can have no design or contrivance in them: how then came they to place and continue themselves at such a commodious distance from one another; whereas in such a vast and immense space they might have found ten thousand millions of other places and distances to fix in? The earth might have found room enough to place itself either much nearer to or much remoter from the sun than it is; but if it had done so, it must have

either been everlastingly parched or everlastingly frozen and benighted, and either way converted into an useless, barren, and uninhabitable desert: whereas, where it now is, it stands at the most convenient distance from the sun, to be warmed and cherished by his enlivening fires, and neither to be roasted by being too near them, nor frozen by being too far from them; but to receive from them such a temperate heat as is sufficient to excite its seminal virtues, and to draw up its juices into them, and thereby to ripen its natural fruits, and, in a word, to comfort and refresh its inhabitants, and to render it to them a pleasant, a healthful, and a fruitful paradise. Since therefore of ten thousand millions of places wherein it might have fixed in that immensity of space that surrounds it, it hath fixed upon and doth still continue in the best, without any design or wisdom of its own, it is plain that there is an overruling wisdom without it, that chose its place and fixes and determines it thereunto. Again, how came the sun, (for whether it be the earth that moves about the sun, or the sun about the earth, is all one to our inquiry,) how came this sun, I say, which hath no reason to govern itself by, to be determined to such a useful course of motion? What makes this vast and mighty body move round the earth in twenty-four hours, in finishing which spacious circle of motion it must fly far swifter than a bullet from a cannon's mouth; and yet through so many ages each twenty-four hours it hath constantly performed it, without being so much as one minute faster or slower; whereby it makes those just and regular returns of day and night to both the hemispheres, so that neither the one or the other is either too much