“God has been pleased to prescribe limits to his own power, and to work his ends within those limits. The general laws of matter have perhaps the nature of these limits; its inertia, its reaction, the laws which govern the communication of motion, of light, of heat, of magnetism and electricity, and probably of others yet undiscovered. These are general laws, and when a particular purpose is to be effected, it is not by making them wind and bend and yield to the occasion, (for nature with, great steadiness adheres to, and supports them) but it is, as we have seen in the eye, by the interposition of an apparatus corresponding with these laws, and suited to the exigency which results from them, that the purpose is at length attained. As we have said, therefore, God prescribes limits to his power, that he may let in the exercise, and thereby exhibit demonstrations of his wisdom. For then, i. e. such laws and limitations being laid down, it is as though one Being should have fixed certain rules; and, if we may so speak, provided certain materials; and afterwards have committed to another Being, out of these materials, and in subordination to these rules, the task of drawing forth a creation: a supposition which evidently leaves room, and induces indeed a necessity for contrivance.