In enumerating the effects produced by the successful activity of the enemies of the Church, the author before us observes, that

“A very large proportion of the men

bers of the establishinent have been al

ready drawn away from its communion, and among those who remain there is an indifference, a want of attachment, and a want of confidence, that is too visible in their own neglect of its services, in the little attention which they pay to the admonitions of their clergy, in the unconcern which they feel for its deserted state, and in the little that they seem to care for the rapid progress which schism is making every where around them." (p. 142).

All this is too true.

Of the subjects of the 143d, and the following pages, this author appears to us to have either received very incorrect information, or formed very crude opinions. That any persons should (according to his representation) expend large sums in ob taining situations in the Church for those whom they deem diligent, faith ful, and pious ministers, with a view to destroy the Church and promote the progress of schism, is so incredible upon every known principle of human action, that we must express our astonishment at finding, in the work before us, any intimations of so extravagant a paradox. It is certainly very possible, that persons of opulence may, on different occasions, have purchased an advowson, or a presentation, in order to be enabled to benetit and encourage those, whom they deem upright and laborious ministers of the Church of England: and it is also possible, that such persons may have patronized young men of promising talents and eminent piety; and may have enabled them to obtain a classical and an academical education, in order to their presenting themselves as candidates for episcopal ordination, and to their exercising their talents, and displaying their piety, as parish priests of the Established Church. But if these patrons really mean, by doing this, to promote the downfall of the Church and the extension of schism, they certainly have the most extraordinary method of adapting the means employed to the end designed, that either ancient or modern times have witnessed; and

ment*.

No other objection can be made to the observations in the 145th page, than that they have no solid foundation: our information, limited as it is on the subject, induces us to suspect, that the author has received his account of a simple and harmless fact, from some one who was interested in misrepresenting it.

We were sorry to observe, that the long paragraph, which commences in the 146th page, associates with a few truths much loose reasoning, and gratuitous declamatory assertion. The author, by the charges which he has there advanced against what he calls (by a rather unseemly sarcasm) Godly Ministers, violates principles, which be elsewhere warmly inculcates; and despises cautions, which, to other persons, in other cases, he very peremptorily prescribes. We do not understand what he means by the "possible good" of Fanaticism.

To prayer meetings, this author expresses a decided repugnance, without any exception in favour of those which are composed of members of the Church, and intended to support it. He considers them, at the best, as nurseries of schism-Some, indeed, of his arguments against them would serve also to prove that dinner-parties, card-parties, private-balls, and literary clubs, have a tendency to generate

*We are reminded by this discussion of an assertion made by the editor of the Anti-Jacobin Review, in the number of that work for May 1802, respecting the existence of a fund for the purchase of livings, which was assumed to threaten danger to the Church. Some gentlemen the management of this fund. We have

were even named as being concerned in

made it our business to enquire into the truth of the allegation, and the result of our enquiry has been, that none of the gentlemen named as managers have any knowledge of the existence of any such

fund, and we believe that no such fund exists.

"That indifference on the part of those who are still in the number of our friends, that want of zeal to strengthen and uphold the Church to which they profess attach ment, that lukewarm affection which can

behold its danger without concern, that can be uninterested spectators of its decay, that instead of lending a helping hand to prop the falling pile, they are, by their own neglect of its valuable uses and ends, if not by an increasing dissoluteness of manners, no less dangerous thau the opposite measures of its enemies, hastening, perhaps, the hour of its fall." (p. 166.) (To be continued.)

LXXIX. Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, collected from the Appearances of Nature. By WILLIAM PALEY, D. D. Archdeacon of Carlisle. Faulder, London, 1803. To those whose minds have been long since firmly established in the belief of the truths, not only of natural but of revealed religion, publications, whose object is limited to the defence or illustration of the former, are apt to appear but of secondary importance; yet even to them, whatever tends to confirm their faith, though confined to points concerning which they are least disposed to doubt, cannot but be interesting, if not immediately productive of the highest advantage. But when it is considered, how large a class of men, in every age, have either questioned the truth of the first principles of religion, or carelessly disregarded them, it will be manifest, that whoever has attempted, though feebly and unsuccessfully, to convince and satisfy the one, and to awaken the attention of the other, has deserved well of every real friend to the happiness of mankind. Various efforts of this kind were made at the beginning of the last century, when a daring spirit of scepticism and unbe. lief was very generally prevalent in, the world. The labours of Bentley and Clarke to demonstrate the being and attributes of God, by the refinements of metaphysical discussion, and those of Boyle, Derham, and others, to establish the same great truths, by arguments drawn from the external frame and operations of the natural world, are still remembered and admired; and at a later period, the incomparable" Analogy" of Butler confirmed the fundamental doctrines

both of natural and revealed religion, by a train of reasoning, which has hitherto resisted every attempt to weaken or overturn it. Still, however, atheism continues to maintain its ground; and though perpetually defeated, varies and renews its attacks. In our own days, we have witnessed in a neighbouring country, a general and open profession of its principles; and though a favourable change of opinion, in this respect, may have lately taken place, the seeds of doubt and unbelief are widely scattered, and have even obtained but too extensive a reception amongst ourselves. Atheism has of late years been chiefly supported by considerations drawn from the mechanical structure of the whole natural world, and, particularly, of the human frame. It is, therefore, with peculiar satisfaction, that we enter upon the review of so able and interesting a work as that of the "Natural Theology" of Dr. Paley, in which, while there are some things liable to just objection, the same powers of acuteness, perspicuity, and masterly illustration, which characterizes the former productions of that author, are successfully applied to the confutation of the prevailing atheism of the present day, and to the establishment of the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being.

The particular object, and the general plan, of this important work, will be most advantageously perceiv ed by the following extracts from the first chapter, which contains the "State of the Argument."

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew how the stone came to be there, I might to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to shew the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch, as well as for the stone? Why is in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and

it not as admissible in the second case, as

adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the several parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order than that in

which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use, that is now served by it.

"This mechanism being observed, the inference, we think, is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use." (p. 1-4).

The force of this conclusion, Dr. Paley very ably argues, would not be weakened by our never having seen a watch made, or known an artist capable of making one; or by our incapacity to execute such a piece of mechanism ourselves, or even to understand how it was performed; neither would it be invalidated by the watch sometimes going wrong or seldom going exactly right, (perfection not being necessary to prove contrivance;) nor yet by our ignorance of the manner in which the different parts of the machine conduced to the general effect. Still less, as he satisfactorily proves, would it account for the existence of the watch, on the supposition of the absence of design, to be told, in the language of modern atheists, that the watch was merely one out of many possible combinations of material forms; or that it owed its present form and structure to a principle of order, (for what idea can be formed of "a principle of order distinct from the intelligence of the watchmaker;") or that the mechanism of the watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce the mind to think so; or that it was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature," (an expression quite as justifiable as the jargon so frequently heard respecting" the law of vegetable nature," "the law of animal nature," or even "the law of nature, when intended to exclude the ideas of agency and power in the production of natural phenomena.") Neither, as he shews in the last place, would it draw the observer of the watch from his conclusion to say, that he knew nothing at all of the matter. "He

knows enough for his argument. He knows the utility of the end. He knows the subserviency and adaptation of the means to the end. His igconcerning other points, affect not the norance of other points, his doubts certainty of his reasoning. The conSciousness of knowing little, need not beget a distrust of that which he does know." (p. 4-8.)

In the second chapter, which contains "the State of the Argument continued," a supposition is made respecting the mechanism of the watch, for the purpose of exposing the absurdity of that system of atheism, which would preclude the necessity of a supreme intelligent and designing mind, by referring all appearances of order and design to natural organization. Suppose the person who found the watch to have unexpectedly discovered, that, in addition to its other properties, it contained within it a mechanism evidently calculated to produce in the course of its movements another watch; "what effect," he asks, "ought such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion?"

"The first effect," he answers, "would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver." (p. 9.) watch before him were, in some sense, the "He would reflect alse, that though the maker of the watch, which was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair; the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use." (p. 10.)

"Therefore, though it be now no longer probable, that the individual watch which our observer had found, was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in any wise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was." (p.11.)

"Nor is any thing gained by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. A designing mind is neither with." (p. 13.) supplied by this supposition, nor dispensed

"The conclusion which the first exami

nation of the watch, of its works, construetion, and movement suggested, was, that it must have had, for the cause and author of that construction, an artificer, who understood its mechanism, and designed its

use.

pose.

This conclusion is invincible. A second examination presents us with a new discovery. The watch is found, in the course of its movement to produce another watch, similar to itself: and not only so, but we perceive in it a system of organization, separately calculated for that purWhat effect would this discovery have, or ought it to have, upon our former inference? What, as hath already been said, but to increase, beyond measure, our admiration of the skill, which had been employed in the formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at once turn us round to an opposite conclusion, viz. that no art or skill whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other evidences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism." (p. 18.)

The third chapter opens with "the application" of the preceding argu

ment.

"This," continues the learned author, "is atheism: for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. I mean that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety." (p. 19.)

Dr. Paley immediately proceeds to exemplify and illustrate the truth of this assertion; and as the instance which he has selected for this purpose is particularly interesting, as well as decisive of the point in question, and affords, at the same time, a very pleasing specimen of the author's manner, we presume that the following extracts from this chapter will prove highly gratifying to our readers.

"I know no better method of introducing so large a subject, than that of comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope.' As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it." (p. 19, 20.)

"To some it may appear a difference sufficient to destroy all similitude between the eye and the telescope, that the one is a perceiving organ, the other an unperceiving instrument. The fact is, that they are both instruments. (p. 20.)

"The end is the same; the means are the same. The purpose in both is alike;

At

"The resemblance between the two cases is still more accurate, and obtains in more points than we have yet represented, or than we are, on the first view of the subject, aware of. In dioptric telescopes there is an imperfection of this nature. Pencils of light, in passing through glass lenses, are separated into different colours, thereby tinging the object, especially the edges of it; as if it were viewed through a prism. To correct this inconvenience had been long a desideratum in the art. last it came into the mind of a sagacious optician, to enquire how this matter was managed in the eye; in which there was exactly the same difficulty to contend with, as in the telescope. His observation taught him, that, in the eye, the evil was cured by combining together lenses composed of different substances, i. e. of substances which possessed different refracting powers. Our artist borrowed from thence his hint; and produced a correction of the defect by imitating, in glasses made

from different materials, the effects of the different humours through which the rays of light pass before they reach the bottom of the eye. Could this be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the optician the only effectual means of attaining purpose?" (p. 22-24.)

that

One instance, amongst others, which proves the superiority of the eye over the telescope, rather than points out any strict resemblance between the two, is thus described. It relates to the exquisite contrivance by which the great author of nature has provided which objects are viewed by the for the vast diversity of distance, at naked eye.

"Can any thing," he justly argues, "be more decisive of contrivance than this is? The most secret laws of optics must have been known to the author of a structure endowed with such a capacity of change.” (p. 29.)

The adaptation of the visual faculty to the circumstances and necessities of different species of animals, is