lowed to merit immortality, are to be scattered like the fragrance in the air. When we are folicited by fome urgent temptation, we are not to afk grace or affiftance of God, but to recal to mind the beauty of virtue; as if present gratification could be refifted by abstract conceptions. Can this be expected by the found philofopher? Does not this betray an ignorance of human nature? Is not this to forget that men often admire what they cannot love, and that action and fpeculation are very diftinct? That this picture is not overcharged, must be evident to all who think coolly and impartially, Let us then turn from this dreary profpect, to the confolatory invitation of the glorious Gospel of Jefus Chrift: Let us hold faft the profeffion of our faith without wavering, and take heed that none of us entertain an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

D

LECTURE II.

ROMANS i. 20.

The invifible things of him from the creation of the world were clearly feen, being underflood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; fo that they are without excuse.

THESE words of St. Paul, as well as various other paffages of the Scriptures, affert the manifestations of an omnifcient and omnipotent Creator in the phenomena of the natural world. The Apostle reprehends the errors of thofe fpeculative men, who, in the vanity of their imaginations, had loft fight of the most obvious truth, and had neglected to draw fuch inference from facts as could fcarcely even efcape the vulgar; profeffing themselves to be wife, they became fools: for even to the vulgar all created things must appear to have their origin from a fupreme Being; because that which is known of God is manifeft in them, for God hath fhewed it unto them; because the invifible things of him from the creation of the

world are clearly feen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. Before we can entertain any faith in the Christian revelation, it is neceffary for us to poffefs a firm conviction of the doctrine of a particular providence, which conftitutes the basis of revelation. It will therefore be requifite, in the following discourse, to fhew that the operation of God in the natural world is perpetual and uninterrupted; and we must so adjust the statement of facts, that it may be understood how far he employs fecond caufes; how fubfervient, and how extremely limited these are; and that they never ought to be mistaken for their Author, whose vigilance is ever actively fuperintendant; by whom all things live, and move, and have their beinga; who made the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, with all their hofts; the earth, and all things that are therein, and who preferveth them all, and whom all the hofts of heaven worship.

The grand principle of religion is the being of a God, from which all our obligations and our duties flow. But it is of the highest importance, as the ground of the Chriftian faith, that we should acquire, not only a conviction

a Acts xvi. 28.

of the being, but also of the particular providence of the Deity. We must believe that he is immediately concerned in the works of nature and of grace: for it has been the constant aim of Deifts to leffen our confidence in the immediate interpofition of a God; and fince they have not dared to deny his being, they have laboured to reprefent him as an impaffive spectator of all the affairs of the natural world. Suppose the contrary; admit God to be anxious for the happiness and welfare of man, and all his works of creation; and all the fyftems and arguments of the fceptic lofe their foundation. The doctrines of our bleffed Lord on this head are so express, that we cannot hefitate to place implicit confidence in the fuperintendence of a particular providence. For, not to infift on all his recommendations of faith and of prayer; his promises of grace, of spiritual aid, and of a divine Comforter; he tells us, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered b; that not a Sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. And he grounds our truft in the Gospel promises on this principle. When he informs us, that we ought not to be over folicitous about temporal affairs,