II. SERMON that infinitely perfect and adorable Being, who called us from nothing; and gave us all that we at prefent enjoy, or in reverfion hope for. And when the enlarged mind expatiates on his power; we fhall tremble at the idea of fixing any thing like a limit to it: when we endeavour to fearch into the infcrutable treasures of his wifdom; we fhall exert every fertile power of imagination, to admire and revere it: and when we prefume to employ our thoughts on his nature; we fhall feparate from it every idea, that fuits not with the highest excellence we can attribute to the most fublime and exalted Being: and after all this ftretch of heart, and foul, and ftrength, to think worthily of Him, we fhall have to lament the weaknefs of our conception, and the imperfection of our ideas; fatisfied that, high as the enraptured mind can raife them, they fall beneath, infinitely beneath, the elevated subject, on which they are employed. SER SERMON III. Job, xxxi. 4. Doth He not fee my ways, and count all my Steps? III. FROM the evidence of God's exift- SERMON ence, which was the subject of my laft difcourfe; we will now proceed to the proofs, we have of his providence. It has been fhewn, that the world is the production of a Being infinite in wisdom and power, whom we ftile God: the point of doctrine next to be proved is, that this World, this whole fyftem of created things, is fuper-intended, governed, and directed by that Almighty God, who made it. And indeed there is fuch D 4 III. SERMON fuch a natural and neceffary connection between the belief of God's existence, and fuperintendence; that he, who believes the one, would he think confiftently, muft believe the other likewife. If we believe there is a God, who made the world; we must likewife believe that the fame God, who made the world, doth govern it too. For matter is as incompetent to fupport it's own existence, as to create itfelf; nor is chance better qualified to govern a world, than to make one: and we have already feen, how unapt matter is for the active office of creation; and how unequal chance is to the formation of a world, which difplays fuch harmony, regularity, and confiftence. But from appearances let us proceed to proofs. The power of God, difplayed in the government of the world, may be confidered in a double view: may Firft, III. First, in respect to the material world; SERMON in which He is acknowledged as ordering, and directing the changes and révolutions of nature: His will, and governing power, being the univerfal law, which it obferves. And fecondly we may confider the fuperintendence of God, as difplayed in a moral and religious view; in His difpenfations and government, refpecting the rational world: including the general ftate, œconomy, and conduct of mankind. And under this head I propose a further enquiry into the reality of a particular, as well as general, providence : addreffed to the confideration of those, who, under the affectation of enlarged ideas of the Divine nature, pretend to suppose it an opinion unworthy of Him, to afcribe to his immediate interpofition occurrences, which are fometimes ftiled providential; but which, though apparently extraordinary, fall within the common course prescribed to nature, however SERMON however hidden from us, and fecret may be the immediate causes of them. III. I. First, then, the general notion of providence is God's care of all the creatures He has made; which must confift in preferving and upholding their beings and natures, and in fuch acts of government, as the good order of the world, the arrangement of things, their fecret dependencies, and correfpondent effects require. And that there is fuch a manifeft general ordination and adaptation of things in the natural world, that they exactly fuit the purposes of each other, and contribute mutually to the univerfal good of the great whole; that the common neceffities of mankind are gracioufly provided for, and fupplied in the ufual course of things, and according to the general laws of nature, which infinite wisdom and goodness originally established; that the heavenly bodies are conftituted, and their movements directed, with exact proportion to one another in |