Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. SER M. XI. P. 247 The fublimity and extent of Chriftian Morals. PHILIPP. iv. 8. Finally, Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honeft, whatfoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praife, think on these things. Of Sincerity, as opposed to Prejudice. JOHN i. 45, 46, 47. Philip findeth Nathanael, and faith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write, Jefus of Nazareth, the fon of Jofeph. And And Nathanael faid unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip faith unto him, Come and fee. Jefus faw Nathanael coming to him, and For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and join the Holy Ghoft. SERMON I. Of moral and natural evil. JAMES i. 17. Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights; with whom is no variableness, neither fhadow of turning. N this paffage, St. James ar- SERM. gues the goodness of the I. I Supreme Being from the vifible difcoveries of it in his works; in the difpofi tion and frame of Nature, and the general laws and operations of Providence VOL. II. B But SERM. But if God be abfolutely and unchangeI. ably good, how comes it to pafs that there if fo much evil in the world * ? This 1119 thought * Some of the Antients feem to have thought that there was no other poffible method of explaining the prefent conftitution, but by running into Atheism, and fubftituting univerfal Fate in the room of a Providence, or wife moral government. It is not my business, in the prefent argument, to confute this scheme of Fatalifm; but only to try to account for the existence of evil in fome different way, that is confiftent with the belief and acknowledgment of a Deity: And this I have attempted in the following. difcourfe Others, again, hád recourfe to two eternal independent Principles, of contrary qualities and difpofitions ; one of whom they imagined to be the author of all the good, the other of all the evil in the universe. This was the chief article of the old Magian fuperftition; and feems to have been efpoufed by Plutarch, who afcribes it to feveral of the Greek philofophers. Vide Cudworth's Intelle&ual System, p. 213, &c. It was likewife the doctrine of the Marcionites and Manicheans, who were pretended Chriftians, tho' difowned and condemned by the Chriftian church. But Zerdufht, or, as the Greeks call him, Zoroafires, reformed the Magian fcheme, by introducing one infinite Self-Exiflent Being, fuperior to the oppofite Principles of Light and Darkness, whom he denied to be firft Causes, and abfolutely independent; and yet suppofed, "That from the mixture of thefe, all good and evil fprung; that if thefe two had not been mixed together, "the world had not existed; and that they rise against each "other, and contend for victory, but in the end light "fhall conquer darkness, and good evil." And that he might not be charged with making the fupreme God the author of evil, he taught, that this first and greatest of |