idea of the caufe from the effect by which we are led to know it. Thus when we contemplate the Deity, his attributes and their operation coming united on the mind, form a fort of fenfible image, and as fuch are capable of affecting the imagination. Now, though in a juft idea of the Deity, perhaps none of his attributes are predominant, yet to our imagination, his power is by far the moft ftriking. Some reflection, fome comparing, is neceffary to fatisfy us of his wifdom, his juftice, and his goodnefs. To be ftruck with his power, it is only neceffary that we fhould open our eyes. But whilft we contemplate fo vaft an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invefted upon every fide with omniprefence, we fhrink into the minutenefs of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before him. And though a confideration of his other attributes may relieve in some measure our apprehenfions; yet no conviction of the juftice with which it is exercifed, nor the mercy with which it is tempered, can wholly remove the terror that naturally arifes from a force which nothing can withftand. If we rejoice, we rejoice with trembling; and even whilst we are receiving benefits, we cannot but fhudder at a power which can confer benefits of fuch mighty importance. When the prophet David contemplated the wonders of wisdom and power which are displayed in the economy of man, he feems to be ftruck with a fort of divine horror, and cries out, Fearfully and wonderfully am I made! An heathen poet has a fentiment of a fimilar nature; Horace looks upon it as the last effort of philofophical fortitude, to behold without terror and amazement, this immenfe and glorious fabric of the universe: Hunc folem, et ftellas, et decedentia certis Tempora momentis, funt qui formidine nulla Lucretius is a poet not to be fufpected of giving way to fuperftitious terrors; yet when he fuppofes the whole mechanism of nature laid open by the mafter of his philofophy, his tranfport on this magnificent view, which he has reprefented in the colours of fuch bold and lively poetry, is overcaft with a shade of fecret dread and horror: His tibi me rebus quædam divina voluptas But the fcripture alone can fupply ideas anfwerable to the majefty of this fubject. In the fcripture, wherever God is reprefented as appearing or peaking, every thing terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and folemnity of the divine prefence. The pfalms, and the prophetical books, are crowded with inftances of this kind. The earth fhook (fays the pfalmift), the heavens alfo dropped at the prefence of the Lord. And what is remarkable, the painting preferves the fame character, not only when he is fuppofed defcending to take vengeance upon the wicked, but even when he exerts the like plenitude of power in acts of beneficence to mankind. Tremble thou earth! at the prefence of the Lord; at the prefence of the God of Jacob; which turned the rock into standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters! It were endless to enumerate all the paffages, both in the facred and profane writers, which establish the general fentiment of mankind, concerning the inseparable union of a facred and reverential awe, with our ideas of the divinity. Hence the common maxim, Primos in orbe deos fecit timor. This maxim may be, as I believe it is, falfe with regard to the origin of religion. The maker of the maxim faw how infeparable thefe ideas were, without confidering that the notion of fome great power must be always precedent to our dread of it. But this dread muft neceffarily follow the idea of fuch a power, when it iş once excited in the mind. It is on this principle that true religion has, and muft have, fo large a mixture of falutary fear; and that falfe religions have generally nothing elfe but fear to fupport them. Before the chriftian religion had, as it were, humanized the idea of the Divinity, and brought it fomewhat nearer to us, there was very little faid of the love of God. The followers of Plato have fomething of it, and only fomething; the other writers of pagan antiquity, whether poets or philofophers, nothing at all. And they who confider with what infinite attention, by what a difregard of every perifhable object, through what long habits of piety and con templation it is, any man is able to attain an entire love and devotion to the Deity, will eafily perceive, that it is not the first, the moft natural, and the most ftriking effect which proceeds from that idea. Thus we have traced power through its feveral gradations unto the highest of all, where our imagination is finally loft; and we find terror, quite throughout the progrefs, its infeparable companion, and growing along with it, as far as we can poffibly trace them. Now, as power is undoubtedly a capital fource of the fublime, this will point out evidently from whence its energy is derived, and to what claís of ideas we ought to unite it.Sublime and Beautiful. POWER AND PROPERTY. THAT power goes with property is not univerfally true, and the idea that the operation of it is certain and invariable, may miflead us very fatally.Me morial on the Affairs of France in 1791. POWER (DISCRETION OF.) If the diferetion of power is once let loose upon property, we can be at no lofs to determine whofe power, and what difcretion it is that will prevail at laft.-Oecon. Reform. POWERS. Conduct of the Coalefced Powers in the War againft France. WITHOUT their principles, perhaps without any principles at all, they played the game of the Jacobins. There was a beaten road before them. The Powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared dangerous; the war was cafily diverted from France as a faction, to France as a ftate. The Princes were easily taught to flide back into their old habitual courfe of politics. They were cafily led to confider the flames that were confuming France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings, (which were without any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France) as an happy occafion for the pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their neighbour's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. They carried on their new defigns without feeming to abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to feek, or they flattered themfelves that they fought, in the acceffion of new fortreffes, and new territories, a defenfive fecurity. But the fecurity wanted was against a kind of power, which was not dangerous in its fortreffes nor in it's territories, but in it's fpirit and it's principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at defending themselves against a danger, from which there can be no fecurity in any defenfive plan. If armies and fortreffes were a defence againft Jacobinian, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy people. This error obliged them, even in their offenfive operations, to adopt a plan of war against the fuccefs of which there was fomething little fhort of mathematical demonftration. They refufed to take any ftep which might ftrike at the heart of affairs. They feemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole, as if they reall wifhed the confervation of the Jacobin power; as what might be more favourable than the lawful Government to the attainment of the petty objects they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was, the more eagerly they chofe as their fphere of action. The plan they purfued, in it's nature, demanded great length of time. In it's execution they who went the nearest way to work were obliged to cover an incredible extent of country. country. It left to the enemy every means of deftroying this extended line of weaknefs. Ill fuccefs in any part was fure to defeat the effect of the whole. This is true of Auftria. It is ftill more true of England. On this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off from his object. As long as there was any appearance of fuccefs, the spirit of aggrandizement, and confequently the fpirit of mutual jealoufy feized upon all the coalefced Powers. Some fought an acceffion of territory at the expence of France, fome at the expence of each other, fome at the expence of third parties; and when the viciffitude of dilafter took it's turn, they found common diftrefs a treacherous bond of faith and friendship.Regicide Peace. PEOPLE. AMONGST thefe nice, and therefore dangerous points of cafuiftry, may be reckoned the queftion fo much agitated in the prefent hour-Whether, after the people have discharged themfelves of their original power by an habitual delegation, no occafion can poffibly occur which may juftify their refumption of it? This question, in this latitude, is very hard to affirm or deny: but I am fatisfied that no occafion can juftify fuch a refumption, which would not equally authorize a difpenfation with any other moral |