ror for every thing that can hurt us, and endanger our being or happiness. Now, the greatest danger is from the greatest power; for where we are clearly over-matched, we cannot hope to make oppofition nor refiftance with fecurity and fuccefs, to rebel with fafety: now, he that apprehends God to be near him, and prefent to him, believes fuch a being to ftand by him as is poffeffed of an infinite and irrefiftible power, and will vindicate all contempt of the divine Majefty, and violation of his laws. If we believe God to be always prefent with us, fear will continually take hold of us, and we shall fay of every place, as Jacob did of Bethel, Surely God is in this place, how dreadful is this place! when we have at any time provoked God, if we believe the juft God is at hand to revenge himself, and if we believe the power of his anger, we fhall fay with David, Pfal. lxxvi. 7. Thou, even thou, art to be feared, and who may stand before thee when thou art angry? Pfal. cxix. 120. My flesh trembleth becaufe of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments.

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Sinners, confider this, it is a fearful thing to fall inte the hands of the living God; and every time you fin, you are within his reach. Let then the confideration of God's prefence deter us from fin, and quicken us to our duty. The eye and prefence of a fuperior will lay a great restraint upon men; the eye of our prince, our master, or our father, will make us afraid or asham. ed to do any thing that is foolish or unfeemly and will we do that under the eye of God, which we should bluff to do before a grave or wife perfon, yea, before a child or a fool? Did but men live under this apprehenfion, that God is present to them, that an holy and all-feeing eye beholds them, they would be afraid to do any thing that is vile and wicked, to profane and pollute God's glorious name, by a trifling use of it in cuftomary fwearing and curfing. Whenever you fin, you affront God to his face, and provoke omnipotent justice, which is at the door, and ready to break in upon you.

And the confideration of this fhould especially deter us from fecret fins. This is the use the Pfalmift here makes of it. If we believe that God fearcheth us, and knows us, that he knows our down-fitting, and our up-rifing, and understands our thoughts afar off; that he compalleth

our path, and our lying down, and is acquainted with all our ways; that there is not a word in our tongue, but be knows it altogether; that he hath befet us behind and before; that the darkness hideth not from him, but the night fhineth as the day, and the darkness and light are both alike: I fay, if we believe this, how fhould we live in an awful fenfe of the majefty which is always above us, and before us, and about us, and within us, and is as infeparable from us, as we are from ourselves, whofe eye is upon us from the beginning of our lives to the end of our days! Did men believe that God is always with them, that his eye pierceth the darkness, and fees through all those clouds with which they hide and muffle themselves, and pries into the most fecret receffes of their hearts; how would this check and restrain them from deviling mifchief in their hearts, or in their bed-chamber! The holy prefence, and the pure eye of God would be to us a thousand times more than to have our father, or our master, or our prince, or him whom we most revere, to ftand by us. Did but men repræfentare fibi Deum, "make God prefent to them," by living under a continual fenfe of his prefence, they would, as the expreffion of the wife man is, be in the fear of the Lord all day. Magna fpes peccatorum tollitur, fi peccaturis teftis adfiftat: aliquem habeat animus quem vereatur, cujus auctoritate etiam fecretum fuum fanctius facit; "The main hope of finners is to remain undifcovered; let but fome-body

be privy to their defigns, and they are utterly disap"pointed: it is fit for the mind of a man to have an "awe of fome being, whofe authority may render even "its privacy more folemn." This is the character of wicked men, Pfal. lxxxvi. 14. That they have not God be fore their eyes. One great caufe of all the wickedness, and violence, and loofenefs that is upon the earth, is, they do not believe that God is near them, and stands by them.

And as the confideration of God's prefence should deter us from fin, so it should quicken and animate us to our duty. It is ordinarily a great encouragement to men to acquit themselves handsomely, to have the eyes of men upon them, efpecially of those whofe applaufe and approbation they value. God alone is amplum theatrum,

he is a greater theatre" than the world; and it should be more to us that he stands by us, than if the eyes of all the world were fixed upon us. Seneca advifeth it as an excellent means to promote virtue, to propound to ourselves, and fet before our eyes fome eminently virtuous perfon, as Cato or Lælius, Ut fic tanquam illo Spectante vivamus, & omnia tanquam illo vidente faciamus; "That we may live juft as if he were looking upon us, and do all things juft as if he beheld us." How much greater incitement will it be to us, to think that God looks upon us, and fees us, and really ftands by us, than faintly to imagine the prefence of Lælius or Cato?

This fhould have an influence upon all the duties we perform, and the manner of performing them, that we do it to him who ftands by us, and is familiarly acquainted with us, and is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. This Cic. in l. 2. de leg. looks upon as a great principle of religion, Sit igitur hoc perfuafum civibus, & qualis quifque fit, quid agat, quid in fe admittat, qua mente, qua pietate religiones colat, deos intueri, & piorum impiorumque rationem habere: "Let men be thoroughly perfuaded of this, that the Gods obferve both "the difpofition and the actions of every particular . man, what he confents to, what he allows himself in, particularly with what meaning, with what degree of "inward devotion he performs his religious worship; "and that they distinguish between the pious and the " impious."

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II. To encourage our faith and confidence in him. When we are in ftraits, and difficulties and dangers, God is with us; when trouble is near to us, God is not far from us; where-ever we are, how remote foever from friends and companions, we cannot be banished from God's prefence; if we dwell beyond the utmost parts of the fea, there his hand leads us, and his right hand holds us. Pfal. xvi. 8. I have fet the Lord always before me; becaufe he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. The confideration of God's prefence is the great ftay and fupport of our faith. Pfal xlvi. 1. 2. God is our refuge and strength, a very prefent help in trouble; therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the fea.

In the greatest commotions, and the most imminent and threatening dangers, this fhould charm and allay our fears, that God is a prefent help.

This was the fupport of Mofes his faith in his fufferings, as the Apoftle tells us, Heb. xi. 27. He endured, as feeing him who is invifible.

To conclude all, whenever we are under any preffure or trouble, we should rebuke our own fears, and challenge our anxious thoughts with David, Pfal. xlii. 11. Why art thou caft down, O my foul, and why art thou fo dif quieted within me? Trust fill in God; believe that God is with thee, and that omnipotent goodness ftands by thee, who can and will fupport thee, and relieve thee, and deliver thee when it feems beft to his wisdom.

SERMON

The eternity of God.

PSAL. XC. 2.

CLV.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou badft formed the earth and the world, even from everlafting to everlasting thou art God.

T

HE immenfity and eternity of God are thofe attributes which relate to his nature, or manner of being. Having fpoken of the former, I proceed to confider the latter, from these words.

The title of this pfalm is, The prayer of Mofes, the man of God. He begins his prayer with the acknowledgment of God's providence to his people from the beginning of the world; Lord, thou hast been our dwellingplace from all generations; in generation and generation; fo the Hebrew. He was well acquainted with the hiftory of the world, and the providence of God from the beginning of it; and as if he had spoken too little of God, in faying, that his providence had been exercised in all the ages of the world, he tells us here in the text, that he was before the world, and he made it; he was from

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all eternity, and should continue to all eternity the fame. Before the mountains were brought forth, the most firm and durable parts of the world, the most eminent and confpicuous; Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world; before any thing was created; from everlafting to everlasting thou art God. In fpeaking of this attribute, I fhall,

1. Give you the explication of it.

2. Endeavour to prove that it doth belong to God, and ought to be attributed to the divine nature. 3. Draw fome corollaries from the whole.

Firft, For the explication of it. Eternity is a duration without bounds or limits: now, there are two limits of duration, beginning and ending; that which hath always been, is without beginning; that which always fhall be, is without ending. Now, we may conceive of a thing always to have been, and the continuance of its being now to cease, though there be no fuch thing in the world and there are fome things which have had a beginning of their being, but fhall have no end, fhall always continue, as the angels and fpirits of men. The first of these the fchoolmen call eternity à parte ante, that is, "duration without beginning;" this latter eternity à parte poft," a duration without ending." But eternity, abfolutely taken, comprehends both thefe, and fignifies" an infinite duration, which had no beginning, nor fhall have any end;" fo that when we fay God is eternal, we mean that he always was, and fhall be for ever; that he had no beginning of life, nor fhall have any end of day's; but that he is from everlasting to everlafting, as it is here in the text.

It is true indeed, that as to God's eternity, à parte ante, as to his having always been, the fcripture doth not give us any folicitous account of it; it only tells us in general, that God was before the world was, and that he created it: 'it doth not defcend to gratify our curiofity, in giving us any account of what God did before he made the world, or how he entertained himself from all eternity it doth not give us any diftinct account of his infinite duration; for that had been impoffible for our finite understandings to comprehend; if we fhould have afcended upward millions of ages, yet we should