what period, from either of these grand epochs, were mankind so multiplied as to become proper objects of providential notice? "POPE, who is often the mere echo of BOLINGBROKE, who was 'formed by his converse,' as he expresses it himself, and had, in his little bark, attended his triumph and partaken the gale' so far, that he was often ignorant of his own latitude-has, nevertheless, dared to differ from his noble patron on this subject, and discovers a manly independence in thinking for himself. The providence of God, according to him, extends alike to every being, the most lowly as well as the most exalted, the peasant as well as the prince. "And sees, with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall: Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.'* A noble and philosophic sentiment, whose beauty is only proportioned to its truth. "But it has, farther, been alleged, and in that part of the allegation which regards individuals Lord BOLINGBROKE unites in opinion, that no providence or divine interposition, either general or particular, can ever exist without infringing on the liberty of moral election. "Now it is possible, and indeed nothing is more common, than for influences and interpositions to subsist between man and man, and yet for the liberty of the person who is acting to remain as free and inviolate as ever. Such are often the result of the remonstrances of friendship,—such, of the counsels of wisdom and experience. We consent to desist from one particular mode of conduct, and to pursue its opposite, whenever the first is demonstrated to us to be unjust or deleterious; and the second to be advantageous, or consistent with rectitude. We act under the influence of the representations of our friends, but we perceive not, in thus acting, and in reality, do not submit to, any infringement on our liberty of choice. * Essay on Man. "Shall we, then, allow the existence of such an imperceptible power in man, and yet maintain that it cannot possibly exist in the Supreme Being? If the man of address, from a superficial knowledge of our character and opinions, is so far capable of insinuating himself into our favour, as often to influence and direct our ideas and our actions to the very point he has in view-must not a Being who is all-powerful and all-active, who is acquainted with the deepest recesses of the soul, who views every thought as it arises, and knows by what motives it may most assuredly be influenced, must not such a Being be capable of directing, with infinitely more ease, the train of its ideas; and, at pleasure, either subtract from, or make addition to, the force of the motives that govern it? However impossible this may be on the doctrine of moral necessity, and supposing the same severity of fate to subsist throughout the ideas and actions of intelligent beings, that is ever to be met with in the physical department of creation-far from any such impossibility of conduct resulting from the opposite doctrine, it is a conduct that appears perfectly natural to the Almighty Creator, and which, in fact, he must unavoidably pursue. "The poetry of Tasso, therefore, is not more sublime than his philosophy is just, when, in his description of the glories of heaven, and the magnificence of the eternal throne, he adjoins 'Sedea colà, dond' egli, e buono e giusto, Dà legge al tutto: e'l tutto orna, e perduce; Ove senso, ò ragion non si conduce.* "I grant that the belief of a providence thus particular has been the source of a thousand errors and extravagant conceits in the minds of the enthusiastic and the superstitious. But, not to * Gerusalemme Liberata, cant. 9. sta. 56. 'Tis there he sits, the just the good Supreme; Thro' scenes where sense or doubting reason fails. urge that right reason can never admit the doctrine of a general providence, without, at the same time, including that of a particular, it does not follow that a proposition must be false because some visionary adherents to it pretend to deduce consequences which are not necessarily involved in it, and with which, in reality, they are by no means connected. I am not contending for the inspiration of De Serres,* or the wandering tribe of prophets who united themselves to him on the mountains of the Cevennes, at the period of the revocation of the edict of Nantz; nor for the invisible interposition to which the excellent but too credulous Baxter attributed it, that 'his small linen, when hung out to dry, was caught up in an eddy, and carried out of sight, over the church steeple:'+ but there are, nevertheless, a thousand events occur, as well in the lives of individuals, as in what relates to society at large, which-though they cannot be said to violate the established laws of nature-we are by no means led to expect; and, indeed, the very reverse of which we have been secretly predicting. "That CHARLES the Eighth, or FRANCIS the First of France, men who had devoted the earliest and most vigorous hours of their lives to illicit amours and continual debaucheries of every kind, should complain, towards the advance of age, of pains and debilities, and a constitution totally broken and worn out; and, at length, fall victims to their own irregularities and miscon Il y avoit deja long tems que dans les montagnes des Cevennes et du Vivares i l'elevait des inspirés et des prophetes. Un vieil huguenot, nommé de Serres, avait tenu ecole de prophetie. Il montrait aux enfans les paroles de l'ecriture qui disent “quand trois ou quatre sont assemblés en mon nom, mon esprit est parmi eux; et avec un grain de foi un transportera des montagnes." Ensuite il recevait l' esprit : il etait hors de lui-meme: il avait des convulsions: il changeait de voix: il restait immobile, egaré, les cheveux herissés, selon l'ancien usage de toutes les nations, et selon ces regles de demence transmises de siecle en siecle. Les enfans recevoient ainsi le don de prophetie: et s'ils ne transportaient pas des montagnes, c'est qu'ils avaient assez de foi pour recevoir l'esprit, et pas assez pour faire des miracles: ainsi ils redoublaient de ferveur pour obtenir ce dernier don.-Siecle de Louis 14. par. M. de Francheville, tom. 2. + World of Spirits. duct or that LOUIS the Eleventh, or others, men who never hesitated to employ either artifice or murder for the accomplishment of their purposes, should, at length, become fearful of their own personal safety, be perpetually haunted by the horrors of their own imaginations, and the lawless deeds they had committed; and at last sink into an early grave through mere distrust and disquietude of spirit;-that men thus abandoned or dishonest should in this manner, in due time, meet with the very punishments they so richly deserved, may not particularly excite our surprise, as being merely the obvious consequences of causes equally obvious and natural. But when we behold the Dauphin, who was afterwards Charles the Seventh of France, pursued with resistless impetuosity by the victorious Henry the Fifth of England-a wretched fugitive in a country he was afterwards destined to sway with so much eclat-incapable of providing himself and his family with the common necessaries of life;-his father, the reigning monarch, disordered in his intellects; his mother, the flagitious and unnatural Isabelle, consulting to save herself by marrying her daughter to the young conqueror, in exclusion of the dauphin, apparently for ever;-when we survey the nation vanquished in every part, and the victor, exulting in the mighty deeds he had achieved, advancing towards Paris with all the pomp of royalty and success; there to be crowned, unanimously, sovereign of the conquered country:-when we survey these things, and learn that at this eventful moment the successful Henry expires abruptly in the bloom of youth and vigor, and leaves his victorious armies to save themselves, in their turn, by a disgraceful retreat :-or when, in later times, we read the history of the memorable armada of Spain, destined for the conquest of this country, which Philip the Second had almost ruined himself and his people to complete, and which Sixtus the Fifth, the reigning Pope, had consecrated, and bestowed his benediction upon; when we survey this mighty armament pressing on the very shores of Great Britain with all the insolence of conscious triumph, and mark it defeated by a force far inferior to itself, and wrecked, by the most opportune tempests, on the very coasts it had a few moments before so insolently menaced : -- when reverses of fortune like these are occurring around us, so abrupt and decisive-the vulgar may stare and keep silence,—the man of science may pretend to account for them, and resolve the whole into different, though capricious, combinations of natural causes and effects: but the true philosopher, the man of real reflection, even while he acknowledges the presence and energy of natural causation, and contends not for any miraculous interposition, traces, nevertheless, throughout the whole, the secret direction of an invisible and superior power:-a power to whom every element submits, and who superintends, at pleasure, the complicated concerns of mankind: a power, who alike amidst all the fluctuating fortunes of individuals or of kingdoms, still 'Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.' Such has been the situation of things in all ages; such the recurrence of the peripetia in the grand drama of human life: and such the sentiments by which every nation has, at all times, been actuated. Hence altars have been erected, temples dedicated, and vows profused, without number; hence the wrath of the presiding deity has been deprecated, or his benediction coveted and besought.-Can we, then, influenced by considerations like these-by rational arguments and the sanction and testimony of every nation and climate under heaven-can we do otherwise than conclude, in the words of the Roman orator,-— 'Deos esse, et eorum providentia mundum administrari;-eosdemque consulere rebus humanis; nec solùm universis, verùm etiam singulis?"" About the same time that the Essay on Providence was written, Mr. Good prepared for a Review (I believe, the Analytical,) a critique of a work on Miracles, in which several of the sophisms of Rousseau were * Cicer. 1 Divin. n. 117. |