who fall into the opposite error of maintaining it injudiciously, and pressing it too closely; an error the more to be lamented, because it is frequently found in connection with the best intentions, and with sincere feelings of devotion. Under these circumstances, I propose, in this and the following discourse, to attempt to lay down those principles, which, while they impress on our minds a deep, serious, operative feeling of a superintending Providence, may engender no misguided fanaticism, and may sanction no rash or presumptuous conclusions respecting the purposes of the Supreme Governor.

Now the important truths, that the Supreme Being does exercise a continual providence and a moral government in the world; that He does ordain the issues of futurity, as well as fore-know them; that He does superintend the execution of those general laws which He has established; that He does, in those manners and degrees, which, though inscrutable to us, are seen by His supreme wisdom to be right and fitting, so overrule the dispositions and the actions of His subject creatures as to make them minister to His special designs; these truths are pressed by various considerations on our firmest conviction.

For, in the first place, without adverting for the present to the clear authority and express declarations of Holy Scripture, we shall find, on

following that light which reason holds forth for our guidance, however reason must ever be an insufficient guide in matters of religion, that the belief of the continual providence of God is so closely connected with that of His existence, that we cannot separate them one from the other.

We believe that an all-perfect God exists, because, in all the works of the creation which we behold around us, we discern most striking manifestations of infinite wisdom, power, and intelligence. But are we to suppose that, since the first creation, these high qualities have, as far as this world is concerned, slept in the Supreme Being, and never been exerted; that, satisfied with first calling all things into being, He has since employed no care, or thought, or power on their continuance, or preservation? Is it not manifestly as difficult to conceive that the course and order of universal nature should be maintained and upheld without presiding intelligence and pervading energy, as that they should at first have been established without such intelligence and power? But, if we allow that the Supreme God exercises a preserving providence, how can we disbelieve that He also exercises a governing and a controling providence, since the purpose of preservation must often be effected by overruling the events of things, and controling the

dispositions of free agents. Again, if, as every reflecting person must believe, God be endowed with moral perfections in the highest possible degree, if He be infinitely good, and holy, and pure, He surely must be concerned to exercise these qualities amongst the works of His power, and to promote their ends. If He be good, He must be concerned to diffuse His goodness, and to cause the traces of it to be discerned amongst His works. If He be holy, He must be concerned to advance the purposes of holiness. If He disapprove unrighteousness and sin, He must be concerned to stay their growth, and to defeat their ends. Once more, can we conceive of Him in a just light, and not believe Him to be a Being whose all-pervading essence is present in every place, who is in all, and with all, and over all? But, if this be the case, is it consistent with any views of things that we can frame, that He should be a mere passive and indolent spectator of events that pass in the world; that, ever desirous of compassing certain ends of goodness and holiness, and endowed with wisdom and with power to bring those ends to pass, in any manner that He pleases, He should never interfere respecting them by any influence, direction, or control? Let it not be thought, that He, whose vast and comprehensive intelligence upholds systems of worlds in their

appointed order, cannot deign to extend His providential care to individual objects, and to ordinary occurrences in this comparatively insignificant portion of His works with which we are connected. It is, as far as our limited faculties enable us to discover, a necessary attribute of His exalted and perfect nature, to exercise an influence not more comprehensive in its extent than minute in its detail. And surely none will doubt that He, who has created from nothing, and who sustains in existence, the minutest part of the most insignificant plant and insect, may also interfere in the ordinary course of worldly affairs, and may over-rule and direct the dispositions and the actions of individual beings.

In the second place, the same truths of the particular providence and the moral government of God are inferred from observation, genéral and particular, on the affairs of men. Many instances are recorded in history, many suggested by individual experience, of events so singularly brought about, as to be placed beyond the limits of mere accidental occurrence, and to bear the certain stamp and impress of superintending intelligence and power. Not only is the general course of worldly events directed towards the support of virtue and the depression of vice; but the train of circumstances, by which these purposes are effected, is sometimes so wonderfully drawn

out; is so regular, yet so perplexed, as undoubtedly to mark the hand of some special designer. In public affairs, success has, in many striking cases, in a manner contrary to all presumption founded on common chances, crowned the exertions of honest policy, and discomfiture has abashed the hopes of interested ambition and arrogant impiety: effects have been produced wholly disproportioned to their visible means: weakness has obtained a triumph over enormous strength: causes have strangely conspired to produce issues wholly unexpected: secret machinations have been brought to light by improbable accidents: plans, apparently the best digested, have been frustrated at the moment of their execution, by circumstances which no human sagacity could foresee, and no human skill prevent: prosperity and calamity have flowed in a combined series, far too regular to be supposed the mere result of general laws, operating without some special direction: instruments have been raised up unexpectedly for the punishment of national sins, and these instruments having fulfilled their part have sunk under some awful visitation. In private life, individuals have been preserved as by a miracle, when destruction has appeared inevitable. They have had their consciences suddenly awakened by some unexpected stroke. They have been checked by some awful warning in a career of thoughtless guilt. The