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SERMON I.

ON THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

ROMANS, XI. 36.

FOR OF HIM, AND THROUGH HIM, AND TO HIM, ARE ALL THINGS.

THERE is no habit of the mind which gives such uniform and equable satisfaction, as that which refers every event in the course of our own, or of others' experience, to God, the only proper agent. In a world so full as this of sudden and strange vicissitudes, it is of great importance to believe, steadfastly and cordially, that no event takes place which has not been foreseen; that no agent, animate or inanimate, operates uncontrolled; and that all the wills of all voluntary beings in creation, are subordinate to the irresistible volitions of the Ruler of creation. It is common enough to hear the providence of God generally and indistinctly acknowledged in extraordinary events, especially in those which bear with them an impressive character of moral retribution. But this is very differ

ent from that habitual, enduring persuasion of the unlimited and uninterrupted providence of God in everything which attends the Christian in sorrow and in joy, in security and in danger, in private and in public, in our business and our devotions, in youth and in age, in time and in eternity. It might be supposed that the man who had once attained to the grand and impressive conviction that there is a God, would never forget it; that the idea would intrude itself upon every occasion, and be associated with every event. But we find, alas! that it is not so. Everything seems an object of attention, but the being without whose aid we could attend to nothing. Men resort to a thousand inferior and secondary causes, as if it were enough to admit that there is one superior cause, but it is too remote or too incomprehensible to arrest their regard. To account for what we know, we rest upon what we can see and look not beyond creatures like ourselves, while God sits silently and sublimely at the head of all things, secretly guiding the complicated motions of his universe.

The belief of a providence is of little value, unless it become a habit of the mind. It is of little consequence that we see God in the whirlwind, or in the awful convulsions of nature, if, as soon as the whirlwind has passed over, or the shaking earth is steadfast again, the mighty agent is forgotOur religious impressions of God's power, are intended for daily use, and not for extreme

ten.

circumstances, or awful and interesting situations. If we acknowledge not God in prosperity, we cannot trust him in adversity; if we see him not in the regular occurrences of nature, we shall be wakened by the extraordinary, only to a sentiment of indistinct and stupifying fear.

Still, however, there are periods in our own lives, and in the affairs of the world, when we pause and feel uncertain of our former convictions. When we see the good and pious defeated in all their plans, always frustrated, and always suffering; the vicious triumphing in prosperity; the unprincipled elevated to power; the infidel boasting himself above every name that is called God, shadows of doubt will at intervals fly across the most pious mind, and sometimes rest long upon the strongest understanding.

It is to revive, and not to generate in your minds, a belief of the supreme control of the great Disposer of events, that I propose now to give you the reasons on which this belief of God's providence is founded.

The general idea of a providence is so clear and so common, that it needs not to be explained. God, we acknowledge, governs the universe. In the motions of the inanimate part of creation his power is easily acknowledged; for, as we know that nothing can move itself, we are ready to admit the impulse of a superior agent. But we see not so clearly how the power of God can extend to the voluntary acts of intelligent beings.

Perhaps this

difficulty will be sufficiently removed by simply granting, that, as far as God has given to any class of beings the power of governing themselves, so far his own immediate agency is withdrawn. These, then, he governs by arranging and combining the circumstances in which these beings are placed, and by so overruling and controlling their determinations, that they shall always, directly or indirectly, advance his purposes, and accomplish his designs. It is easy also to discern, that whatever power has the unlimited control of the inanimate part of creation, and determines the situation of the material world, must also have the living world equally at his disposal; for so intimately is every part of nature, animate, inanimate, and rational, connected, and so continually dependent is man upon the influence of exterior objects, that it is instantaneously felt, that whoever has the government of the one, possesses, of necessary consequence, that of the other.

By the providence of God I understand, that all creatures, animate and intelligent, are continued in existence by his power, and furnished by his bounty with the means of preservation; that their station in the scale of being is ordained by his wisdom, the period of their lives terminated by his previous appointment, their number multiplied or diminished by his ordination, and their circumstances, in any period of their existence, precisely those which he determines and circumscribes. By the providence of God I mean, that not one in the vast variety of

events is accidental or fortuitous; that of the continual changes in mind or matter, God is not ignorant, even for a moment; that not a motion in creation takes place which he has not foreseen, or for which he has not provided, or to which he is not present; that the will of every agent is subordinate to his, and accomplishes his purposes; that the situation of every particle of matter, of every insect, bird, beast, man, or angel, or whatever other existences there may be which we know not, is, at every moment of time, precisely that which God ordains, and nothing else. I mean that the world, natural and moral, is never for an instant without an administration. Never is the Supreme Power ignorant or inattentive, never inefficient, never wavering. Whatever appears to resist the will of God, at the same time accomplishes his purposes; whatever cooperates with his will, cooperates not without his knowledge, his direction, his superintendence.

Do you ask me whence I draw these conclusions? I answer, first, from the very nature of God. You acknowledge that he is a spirit. But what is your idea of a spirit? Is it not of something incorporeal, intelligent, and inherently active? Can you imagine an intellectual force universally diffused throughout creation, which is for a moment idle or unemployed? Can that spirit which formed the universe, avoid animating, sustaining, moving, and operating upon it? I cannot conceive of intellect that is inactive. It must be ever in exer

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