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edge of the great Supreme must be the origin of every fpiritu al feeling and of all godly practice. Of confequence, if our notions and conceptions of his nature, truths and perfections are erroneous and falfe, and not agreeable to the accounts he has given of himself in his word, whatever degree of affections, and feemingly good exercises of heart, these notions and apprehenfions may produce in us, there can be nothing in them of true religion. Because the objects by which these affections are excited, are delufive and false; they have no existence, but in our own blind and deceived minds, hence thefe exercifes and affections have no correfpondence to the real nature and perfections of God, in which confifts the very effence of all fincere piety and chriftian godlinefs. For the fake of illuftration, let us fuppofe a perfon to have conceived a notion of God as a being of a blind and undistinguishing propenfity to compaffion, mercy and indulgence; of fuch abfolute facility of temper, as not to adhere to the rules of juftice, or to regard the moral conduct of his creatures; now for a perfon from these apprehenfions of God, to be pleafed with him, love him, and feel transports of affection, there can be no religion in fuch exercises as thefe, for all is mere fancy and delufion. There is no fuch God, and the being he refpects and admires is a mere idol of his imagination. On the other hand, let us fuppofe a perfon to have conceived an idea of God, as a rigorous, cruel and vindictive being, and difpofed to punifh his creatures, merely for the fake of punishment, now for this perfon to be filled with fear and dread of this fuppofed deity, and is very cautious in all his conduct, left he should excite his refentment, there can be no religon in this fear, for the reafons already affigned.

From thefe obfervations, it cannot but appear, how neceffary a revelation from God is, to teach us his true character, and to give us a juft knowledge of his nature and perfections in order to the being and practice of religion. And how care

fully fhould we attend to the accounts given us in this reve lation respecting himself.

Some proper knowledge of God is neceffary to form us to thofe frames, exercifes and fentiments, which we ought to feel with regard to all his providential dispensations, especially fuch as give us a great deal of pain and affliction, and appear to be intended for this very purpofe. Many fuch difpenfations we are the subjects of in the courfe of our lives; many that are excedingly painful and greivous. Our text affures us that none of the evils which befal us come by chance, or are fortuitous events. However God may employ fecondary cau fes in the affiction of mankind, yet it is his hand behind the fcene that directs the whole. "Affliction cometh not forth of "the duft, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet "man is born to trouble as the fparks fly upwards." Neither foil nor clinate produce afflictions without the agency of God. Nay, fo infignificant an incident as a fparrow falling to the ground, cannot take place withcut the notice of our heavenly father. When it is here denied that afflictions and troubles are not mere accidental events, nor the effects of natural and common caufes, there must be fome efficient in these matters of great importance, and this can be none other but God. The denial of the attribution of this effect to any natural agency, certainly implies in the clearcft manner, that God is the author of all affliction, calamity and trouble, which befal the children of men.

The implicated affertion in thefe words fhall employ our attention at prefent, to wit, that when mankind are afflicted, pained and grieved, that it is the hand of God which doth these things. Or in other words. when mankind is in trouble, God is the author of all their afflictions.

To this head of afflictions are to be reduced all the natural

evils which men feel, or are the fubjects of. All thofe natural things univerfally, which give us pain and distress, deftroy our comfort, eafe and happiness, and involve us in mifery, anguish and wretchedness in all their infinite and indefcribable forms. In this are included not only the more common and ordinary, but the more fignal and extraordinary events which produce thefe effects in their higher and more painful degrees. The enumeration of thefe, even under general heads, exceeds the powers of calculation. Such as wars, famines, peftilences, conflagrations, inundations, bereavements, difeafes, death, &c. In one fentence, all the plagues and natural evils of this life and of the world to come. He who can count the drops of the ocean, or the fands on the ebbing fhore, let him undertake the enumeration. When we fpeak of the divine agency in the evils among rational beings throughout the univerfe, or the evils comprehended in time and eternity, all know that evils are of two kinds, natural and moral, and we must always carefully diftinguish between them. Natural evil is that which confifts in pain and fuffering in all its infinite variety and extent; moral evil is that which is contrary to duty, a want of conformity to the divine law, or a violation of moral obligation. God is not the author of moral evil, neither indeed can be. This is abfolutely out of the power of his nature as it implicates impotency, weaknefs and inconfiftency, which are. ever far from God. He is infinitely abhorrent to every thing of this kind. He is not tempted with evil, neither doth he tempt any man. All pofitive agency or dire& and immedi ate influence in the production of fin would be a renunciation of his existence, a denial of himself, and, O blafphemous expreffion, that he had commenced finner! Few of the authors of metaphyfical divinity, from Dr. Twifs down to the prefent day, but what I have read; I know they can twift words to fpeak things which they mean not, and which they would not wifh any to understand in their ufual acceptation. Divines and moralifts, like other philofophers, become fometimes in

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toxicated with speculations, they iffue affertions and then spen of explanation, and finally, after much labour, ftudy and toil, as they can be understood, they return again within de lines of fobriety and common fenie.

God has permitted fin for wife and most important purpoposes to enter into this world, and he overrules it for the glory of his name and the benefit of the general fyftem. It is enough. for us to believe, "That the wrath of man fhall praise him "and that the remainder of wrath he will restrain."

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Though we in the most perfect manner acquit God of be ing the author of fin or moral evil, yet reafon and scripture where declare him to be the cause or author of natural evil, of all pain, punishment and fuffering from the lowest to the highest degree, both in this world and in the world of hell. He is the author hereof in divers refpects.

Where one

Firft, as he is the founder of that establishment by which natural evil becomes infeparably connected to, or with moral The former is the unchangeable effect of the latter. This connection is as indiffoluble as caufe and effect. takes place, the other certainly follows. God has folemnly demonftrated that this connection is inviolable and indiffolvable in any other way but by the gofpel. He has difplayed this truth with awful and incontrollable evidence in the death and fufferings of his only begotten fon, when he ftood in the law, room and place of guilty finners.

Secondly, he is the author of affliction or natural evil, as he by pofitive influence and direct agency, in confequence of the iniquities of men, brings on thofe events, changes and revolutions, which are productive of the greatest pain, mifery and diftrefs to mankind. This influence is employed in a thousand in perceptible modes, fo concurrent with the visible course of

things, that his hand is neither obferved nor confidered. Hence the events are afcribed to the mere operation of natural caufes, while God is the author of all thefe diftreffes and troubles. Thefe ought always to be attended to by rational creatures, as a juft correction of their fins, 'defigned by heaven for their amendment and their good. Sometimes God exerts his agency in the production of events for the punishment of the wickedness of men, which are very extraordinary in their appearance, and flash terror on the most blind and stupid foul; he fufpends the laws of the natural fyftem, arrefts the fun in his course, caufes the ftaff in the hand to become a ferpent, opens feas and rivers to make a paffage of dry ground, causes waters to flow from the flinty rock, &c. At other times where the laws of nature are untouched, they are fo overruled as that events arife which are preternatural, and pour down torrents of affliction on man. God acts herein in all inftances, not only as the Lord of nature, but as the moral Governor of the universe. And he has invifibly produced and applied thefe events in fuch a connection with wickednefs, as is a full demonstration of the feriptures being the infpiration of God. Any perfon well informed in the hiftory of the bible, cannot avoid obfervations of this dreadful import.

That God is the author of all natural evil, in all its common and tremendous forms, let us a little attend to the evidences of this awful truth. None I hope can mifunderftand my meaning on this fubject, when all natural evil is afcribed to God as the author thereof, that it intends, all afflictions, pain, fufferings and calamities, which we can be the fubjects of, in our perfonal, family, national capacities, characters or relations. It is that punishment which ftands infallibly connected with fin by the divine conftitution. Had not mankind finned, they would never have known what natural evil meant. But as they are finners God has determined to entail calamities upon this guilty and unhappy world. Wherefore all unif I

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