derftandeth our very thoughts afar off? Surely SER M. no darkness can cover any thing from his IX. fight. How defpicable are the idols of the nations who have eyes and fee not, ears and hear not, and who know not, and cannot declare things to come? How infatuated are their worshippers? How unhappy as well as inexcufable are they, who acknowledge no other God than chance or neceffity? For what fatisfaction can an intelligent being have in a world, fuppofed to be under no intelligent direction, but the course of things hurried on in it by giddy fortune, or irrefiftible fate, equally unknowing of futurity? On the contrary, the fincere fervants of the true and living God have this never-failing confolation, that however ignorant they are of what is to come, concerning which their minds are naturally anxious, he fees the end from the beginning, and no event can poffibly surprise him; for even the freeft purposes of men, and all other rational agents, were known in his eternal counfels, and the iffues of them comprehended in the fore-appointed scheme of his adminiftration.

2dly, As this knowledge is peculiar to God, neceffarily arifing from the infinite perfection of his nature, and no finite mind can attain to any part of it with certainty, otherwise

SERM. than by communication from him, he has IX. wifely hid it from men, that they may learn

to truft his providence with abfolute refignation. We are not to form our fchemes in life, and take the measures of our conduct, by a discernment of particular future events, (for they are cover'd from our fight under impenetrable darkness) but by general laws which God has given us, and by our observations on the ordinary courfe of things. No man can be fure of fuccefs, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the ftrong, the best concerted projects are liable to a multitude of accidents which do not fall within the reach of our forefight. But this ought to give us contentment, and here we ought to rest with pleasure, that the wife and good God knows all things; and having done what was on our part reasonable, we may fafely commit our way and our work to him, leaving the direction of events to his providence. Nor ought we to pry too curioufly into futurity, which God has concealed from us. This is an error which weak and diftrustful minds are apt to fall into. The Gentiles were not fo inexcufable in it, who knew not God; but for Chrif tians to apply themselves to fuch as practise the arts of necromancy and divination, for`revealing fecrets and foretelling things to come,

is to expose themselves as a prey to impoftors, SER M• and to dishonour the true God, who has fa- IX. voured them with a clear manifeftation of himself, by attributing to dæmons and their pretended agents, that knowledge which peculiarly belongs to him. And,

Laftly, Let us take no thought for to-morrow, for our heavenly Father knows what we need; he knows what is beft, and what the event of things will be. And let us not boast of to-morrow, nor be vainly puff'd up, with any expectations in this world, for God only knows, we know not, what a day, or any future time, may bring forth.

SERMON X.

The Wifdom of God manifefted in the Constitution and Government, both of the natural and moral World.

SERM.

X.

1 Tim. i. 17.

Unto the king eternal, immortal, invifible, the only wife God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.

IT

T is evident beyond all rational contradiction, that the world was made, and is governed by design; and that the appearances of nature, and the series of events, which every one may obferve, cannot be accounted for without fuppofing intelligence in the univerfal Caufe. But there is a difference between understanding and wisdom, as between a power, or faculty, and the right use of it. Understanding is the fundamental capacity of wisdom, and wisdom is the proper exercise and improvement of understand

X.

ing. Our own experience, and our obferva- SERM. tions upon the conduct of mankind, lead us to diftinguish between acting with defign and acting wifely; the former is the character of all rational agents, but, alas! we have too good reafon to know that the latter does not always accompany it: And wisdom admits of various degrees; the inequality arifing from several caufes; either an unequal meafure of knowledge, for according to our dif cernment of the reafon of things, their relations, connexions and dependencies, so must our conduct be wife or unwife; or from the motives which influence the fprings of action. We find in ourselves a variety of affections, which prompt us to act, preventing deliberate attention. Men do not always govern themselves according to the dictates of cool reason, and purfue the measures which themselves know, or believe to be the best, but are often biafs'd by prejudices, and misled by their particular propenfities, to do what their own minds do not approve. Therefore knowledge and wisdom are different qualities, and they must be confidered as diftinct attributes in the Deity; though in him, as may be afterwards obferv'd, the one is justly infer'd from the other; and the fame X 4 arguments