Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/519

 *bitant of this lower world, so neither would the capacities of human nature guide the fowls of the air, or conduct the beasts of the field, to so much happiness, as they find, by following the motions and impulses of sense and instinct. And if reflection, enlarged ideas, and moral discrimination, be denied them, it is plainly because they would be a burden and a misfortune, rather than a benefit to them.

But these universal notices, and undeniable testimonies of divine goodness, throughout the animated regions of earth, sea, and air, in the propriety and suitableness of creatures to their state, and objects to their appetites, are too evident and obvious to all men to need enlargement. God's works are all wonderful; and in wisdom, and with goodness, hath he made them.

in the divine providence and government of the creation, though our faculties are too limited and scanty, and our views too narrow and imperfect, to trace its secret and mysterious ways.
 * This attribute is likewise illustriously displayed

An omnipotent support, and a perfectly wise direction, are evident in the laws established, and regularly observed through all the divine productions in heaven above, or on the earth beneath. Neither have the most celebrated philosophers been able, with all their boasted sagacity, and after all their laborious researches into the volume of nature, to assign any other cause, but an invisible agency, and an immediate energy of providence, for mutual attraction in bodies, and the determination of all portions of matter to their centre; for the great strength of appetite, instinct, and sagacity, in animals; that the prevalence and continuance thereof should be so precisely and exactly commensurate to the occasions which require them, and that they should be no longer urgent, than for the time necessary, as in the affection for their young. All which do greatly illustrate the wisdom and goodness of God's administration, and superintending care.

Holy writ elegantly and emphatically describes the excellence of goodness in the Divine providence, in various