the inward consciousness of many more,
who have never avowed infidel sentiments to others, nor even, at least
articulately, to themselves. It may be useful, therefore, to inquire
somewhat particularly, whether, and how far, the existence of "natural
laws" and the operation of "second causes" should affect our views of
the Providence which God exercises over us, or of the Prayers which we
address to Him.

SECTION I.

THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL LAWS AND SECOND CAUSES.

The existence of "natural laws," and the operation of "second causes,"
are often explicitly recognized, and always obviously implied, in
Scripture. Revelation is not designed to explain the nature or the
action of either; but it assumes the reality of both.[185] It is plainly
implied in the very _first_ chapter of Genesis, that, at the era of
creation, God gave _a definite constitution_, implying peculiar
properties and powers, to all the various classes of objects which were
then called into being. He created light, with its peculiar properties;
He created water, with its peculiar properties. He created everything
"after its kind." The distinction between one created thing and another,
such as light and water, and the distinction also between "genera" and
"species," especially in the case of plants, trees, fish, fowl, cattle,
and reptiles, are very strongly marked in the sacred narrative: and this
distinction implies the existence of certain properties peculiar to each
of these objects or classes,--properties not common to them all, but
distinctive and characteristic, which made them to be, severally, what
they are, and which amount to a _distinct definite constitution_. These
properties, account for them as we may, are essential to their
existence as distinct objects in nature, and cannot be separated from
them as long as the objects themselves exist. Light has certain
properties, and so has water, and so has every distinct order of
vegetable or animal life, which make them to be what they severally are,
and which cannot be severed from them otherwise than by the destruction
of their very nature. These properties are known to us by their
_effects_; and hence the substances or beings to which they respectively
belong are regarded by us as _causes_; and their operation as causes is
regulated by certain "laws," imposed upon them by the same Omnipotent
Will which called them into being and endowed them with all their
peculiar properties and powers. The oper