unfold nature by new discoveries made, from repeated trials, in the contents of bodies.

No experiments in Religion is indeed the Language of Statesmen (for in some things bigotry and politics agree, as extremes run easily into one another by their very attempts to keep at distance), because, according to the Politician's Creed, Religion being useful to the state, and yet only a well-invented fiction, all experiments, that is, all inquiries into its truth, naturally tend, not to confirm, but to unsettle this necessary support of civil Government.

But, for one who believes Religion to come from God to be frighted with the danger of experiments, is to take his friend for his enemy, the most ridiculous of all panic terrors.

One might reasonably' ask such a one, how it comes to pass that experiments, of so sovereign use in the knowledge of Nature, should be calculated to make such havoc in Religion? Are not both the works of God? Were not both given for Man's contemplation? Have not both, as proceeding from the common Master of the Universe, their depths and obscurities? And doth not the unfolding the mysteries of moral government tend equally, with the displaying the secrets of the natural, to the advancement of God's glory, and the happiness of Man? In a word, had no experiments been made in Nature, we had still slept in the shade, or wandered in the labyrinth of School Philosophy; and, had no experiments been made in Religion, we had still kept blundering on in the rugged and dark paths of School-divinity.

To

To end as we began, with the instruction afforded by my text. What reason seems to require of us is this; That if yet we know not THE TRUTH, we should seek it of those who do: and if the plain and simple principles of it will not serve our turn, but that we will needs philosophize, and demand a reason for every thing, that at least we stay for an Answer; and stay, too, till we understand it, before we venture to pronounce the Religion of our country to be nothing but a mere human imposition.

SERMON II.

GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT.

PSALM. cxliv. ver. 3.

LORD, WHAT IS MAN, THAT THOU TAKEST KNOW. LEDGE OF HIM? OR THE SON OF MAN, THAT THOU MAKEST ACCOUNT OF HIM? '

THUS the holy Prophet, seized with a sacred

horror at an UNIVERSE stretched out through the immensity of boundless Space; and with a rapturous gratitude for that GOODNESS who has graced his favourite Man with so tender and sơ intimate a regard.

Meditations of this kind are, indeed, most obvious and affecting. The RELIGIONIST and the MAN OF THE WORLD have equally employed them to reduce Humanity to its just value; though for very different purposes; the first, to excite religious gratitude in others; the second, to encourage himself in an impious NATURALISM.

When the Religionist compares this small Spot of earth to the whole of its System; and sees a number of primary and secondary planets, habitaVOL. IX.

D

tions

tions like his own, if he may judge by probable analogy, rolling round with it, and performing their various revolutions about one central fire, the common source of light and warmth to all, He is abashed at the mean and diminished rank his own world bears in this solemn and august assembly.

When, by the aid of improved Astronomy, he compares this subastral economy with the systems of the fixed stars; every one of which reigns a Sun, directing and influencing the revolutions of its attendant planets; and sees that, as the Earth is but a point compared to the orb of Saturn, so the orb of Saturn itself grows dimensionless when compared to that vast extent of space which the stellar-solar Systems possess and occupy; This Lord of the creation shrinks suddenly from his height, and mingles with the lowest crowd of unheeded and undistinguished Beings.

But when, by the further aids of science, he understands, that a new Host of Heaven, too remotely stationed for the naked sight to draw out and review, hath been made to issue into day; each of which shining strangers is the Leader of a troop of others, whose borrowed lustre, too weakly reflected, no assistance of art can bring forward; and that still, when sense stops short, science pursues the great discovery, and reason carries on the progress through the mighty regions of boundless space; the fatigued imagination, tracing system after system, as they rise to light in endless succession, turns frightened back upon itself, and overwhelms the labouring mind with terror and astonishment:

whence,