vidence, with respect to the human species, appears in these things; that having created such an intellectual free agent as man, with a design that he should enjoy a considerable portion of happiness in this life, and eternal happiness in another, on certain stipulated conditions; these conditions have always been made clear and intelligible to him. And that it should be fully in his power to accomplish these conditions, God has been pleased to ingraft in his soul, in the first place, a persuasion of the existence of a supreme Being, who has an authority over him, who can control the affairs of men, and whose favour it is his highest interest to obtain: in the second place, he has planted in the soul an idea of a future state, and of some rewards and punishments in that state: and in the third, he has given him a moral sense, which, if uninfluenced and unsophisticated, leads him to make and to observe a distinction between good and evil. These ideas may be said to be imprinted on the soul of man, though in different degrees of perfection: they prevail in some degree in all nations, however barbarous, or however civilized; and therefore, as Cicero observes, what is thus universal, may be justly deno

K

minated to be the nature and character of the species reason does not create these ideas, but she improves them, and revelation perfects them. Thus, by the providence of God, man has such an outline given him for his conduct, as is suitable to his character as a free agent and probationary being; and which outline, if he fills up according to the suggestions of reason and conscience, where there is no revelation, and according to reason, conscience, and revelation, where that unerring direction happily exists, such a man doubtless will always possess in his bosom those ideas and feelings, which will accomplish the happiness he was intended to enjoy in this life, and give him a reasonable persuasion if a Pagan, and an assured one if a Christian, that when he dies he shall be happy in a future state. No man, therefore, can pretend to say, that in the most important of all things, his temporal and eternal happiness, any thing is left to chance; for both these are established on fixed and immutable principles. Again, with respect to the real prosperity of nations, no man will presume to maintain otherwise than that virtue is favourable and vice unfavourable to that prosperity; or than that both these

operate in the same manner on man, in his individual capacity. So far the providence of God is visible, manifest, immutable; and has always been so, from the creation of man to the present hour. This then is the rule. But there may, I apprehend, be very strong reasons assigned for an occasional exception to this rule, without suffering the mind to infer from that exception, that the administration of human affairs at all depends on chance for as the providence of God has been pleased to place men in this life as candidates for those everlasting rewards it designs them hereafter, and these rewards being to be determined in proportion to their faith and obedience; if in this life the providence and conduct of God was so evidently decisive and conspicuous, that every good man was assuredly and certainly rewarded, and every bad man assuredly and certainly punished in this world; these certain rewards and punishments would so very sensibly affect us, and with so much preponderancy press on our hopes and fears, as to defeat God's intentions with respect to man as a free agent: for, having created him with a capacity of judging and determining for himself, it is by no means his will that the religion and virtue

of a man should proceed from an overruling necessity or constraint, but be the result of an impartial enquiry and free choice. Therefore a constant and inevitable reward in this world would not sufficiently admit of a trial of the free will, faith, or free agency of man; it would bias and overrule all these so much, that a voluntary faith in the attributes of God's wisdom and power, arising and existing in the mind from a just contemplation of the glories of his creation, and of his wonderful conduct in his animal, vegetable, and solar systems, and particularly in his attribute of goodness arising and existing in it from a due investigation of his intellectual system in the creation, preservation, and redemption of man; in God's readiness to pardon the sins of men on their repentance; in the gracious revelation of his Scriptures; in his suffering man at all times to come into his presence and worship him; in enjoining him as his duty a system of conduct, which is so far from being in any respect grievous, that its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths peace; leading immediately to the accomplishment of the noblest ends any human being can propose to himself, namely, the favour and approbation of his God, the

approbation of the worthy part of his species, cheerfulness, peace of mind, and the blessing of God in this life, and eternal happiness in the next. How delightful is a due investigation of this gracious system! In addition to what has been advanced, it allows man, under the deepest and heaviest affliction, to pour out the agony of his soul before his heavenly Father, and in that homage to have his heart relieved by the peace of God; and it allows him, when his heart is glad, to add a divine lustre to that gladness by praise and thanksgiving. In this charming system, the Lord God Jehovah offers himself to man, and allows himself to be considered by him as his portion, as his heavenly Father, as his exceeding great reward, as his sovereign good. God likewise freely offers him the assistance of his grace and holy Spirit, to accomplish a perfection of character, which otherwise can never by man be accomplished. Now all that voluntary faith in the goodness, and trust in the wisdom and power of God, which thus arises, and is established by contemplation, in the heart of a pious man, and is the criterion by which, as a free agent, the worth of his character is estimated in the judgment of