SERMONS.

SERMON I.

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 different 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 forgotten. Our religious impressions of God's power are intended for daily use, and not for extreme 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;