Men do not cease to be the _creatures_ of God because they are born of their parents, in virtue of that creative word, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth;" and hence children are admonished "to remember _their Creator_ in the days of their youth."[36] The work of creation is equally real and equally Divine, whether it be effected _mediately_ or _immediately_, with or without the intervention of means, by the direct and instantaneous exertion of Almighty power, or by the gradual and successive operation of second causes acting according to established laws.

In the ordinary course of Providence, the method of mediate production, gradual growth, and progressive development, may be observed in innumerable instances; but it can never be justly held to exclude, or even to obscure, the evidence of a presiding Intelligence and a supernatural Power.

On the contrary, it may serve rather to enhance that evidence; since the very arrangements and provisions which have been made with a view to the reproduction of every thing after its kind, may bear on them the legible impress of a designing Mind and an ordaining Will.

Thus, year by year continually, the whole inhabitants of the world are supported by the fruits of harvest, which are produced and matured under the action of natural laws; yet every intelligent Theist ascribes the result ultimately to the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, and sees in the very processes by which it is brought to pass some of the most signal proofs of these Divine perfections.
Now, as this method is followed in the work of Providence, which may be, and often has been, described as a _continuous creation,_ and yet has no tendency to destroy, or even to diminish, the evidence of a presiding Intelligence in Nature, so no good reason can be assigned why it _might_ not also have been adopted in the production of planets and astral systems, if so it had seemed good to Supreme Wisdom.

If this method was adopted for the propagation of plants and animals, no reason can be given why it might not also have been adopted for the production of planets and moons; nor would it in the latter case, any more than in the former, impair the evidence of God's creative wisdom and power.