not to be the Messiah. For a double reason therefore it is evident, that the Jews have by no means so corrupted the prophets, as to give Whiston this pretence, or the orthodox any advantage. It is true, they have here and there nibbled at corruptions, but hardly ever of prophecies concerning the Messiah. Their expectation of him, as well since as before his coming as a mighty conqueror, and a universal monarch, hath effectually prevented all attempts of that kind in regard to him, nothing being more likely to frustrate their hopes than lowering his character, or rendering his coming doubtful. 163. Fashion is not always useless. The shaving of our beards, given to distinguish a man from a woman, and to add a little majesty to an effeminate or scurvy countenance, I find, since I grew old, enables me to pass for somewhat younger, and less disgusting, than otherwise I could do, although it is contrary to nature, and a sort of insult on my Maker. It makes however some apology for my folly with those who are not near enough to see my wrinkles. A long beard, wagging under a mouthful of nonsense, is a most piteous sight; and if I must talk like a fool, it is some excuse to look like one. It is certain that both I, and my acquaintances, suffer by my shaving, for I say a thousand things, which I should be ashamed to say over a long and hoary beard; so, if I want a monitor, I have an apology. But why should I talk? If I am a fool, how can I hold my tongue? In case others, not much wiser than myself, would talk eternally, whether one so deaf can hear them, or not, I may be taken for a greater fool than I am, by saying yes, or no, in the wrong place. Nobody will ask me, what matter is it if I should be taken for a fool, because the question might pinch himself. If at any time I speak sense, it is on a religious subject; but it is then I am heard with the greatest contempt by my brethren the clergy, and by the younger sort of people. My beard, at full length, would not be more out of fashion than my principles with both. But to account for my principles I am a sincere Christian, and to account for my talking so much in defence of them it is enough to say, that I imbibed them long ago, and that I am just now pretty far gone in the seventy-ninth year of my life. 164. It hath long been a question among metaphysicians, whether God hath so constituted the natural world as to subsist of itself, without the necessity of his supporting hand, perpetually interfering with causes and effects, to keep them in the regular train, wherein they were originally appointed to succeed one another; or whether they are not every moment upheld and guided by the power of their Maker. Much hath been said for the former opinion; and not a great deal less for the latter, as created natures seem incapable of independency, and as a derivative independency seems to imply a sort of contradiction. Yet as a proper independency is by no means intended in the former opinion; as it is on all hands maintained, that God can, when he will, suspend or alter the course of nature in the material world; and, as when natural causes, which continually happen, come to interfere with morality, in which case the actual and occasional support of the Deity, given to a bad man in the very perpetration of a wicked action, would infer a sort of concurrence in God to sin; this opinion, I think, must be given up, and Divine Providence must be confined to the moral world, excepting when the course of things in the natural may be so altered or directed, as to give aid in the suppression of vice, and promotion of virtue. It is true, all things do, and did from the beginning, consist by Christ, particularly the law of God, and of man, as a free and moral creature, which could not be, if in his original make he had not a power to obey, or transgress. Here as great consistency, as in any other part of the creation, is evident by the rewards conferred, and the punishments inflicted, by those laws on mau. As to the system of natural things, if philosophy cannot find out the second causes, whereby its attractions, repulsions, magnetism, &c. are carried on, it does by no means follow, that there are no such second causes; nor that the Deity must himself immediately, by his own agency, produce the effects, such as gravitation, &c. for in that case, he would be supposed to concur with sin, and help, in the very act, the man who is murdering his father, by giving him, in the very instant, all the power he hath to perpetrate the horrid deed. No, it is more reasonable surely to believe, that God, by the original nature of this man, gave him a power to cherish, or destroy, his father; and left it to the freedom of his will, to choose which of the two he should do. It is one thing to say, that God, by the original make of a man, hath put it in his power to do a great deal of good, or a great deal of mischief; and quite another to say, that after the man hath willed the most atrocious deed, his good Maker should aid him in the execution of it, which looks a little too like saying, that the good Being wills the deed, as well as the wicked man. This consideration forces my reason to believe, that, in the natural world, the stated course of effects, whether as to men, or the other parts of the creation, was put under the influence of second causes, most of them inscrutable to human understanding, and probably to the angelic also. But angels and men are so left to the exercise of their freedom, as to be able, if they please, to do good or evil, without any compulsion either way from the power or operation of such second causes. On the contrary, these second causes are the instruments or powers, by which the will of a free being acts according to its choice. Man may abuse his freedom, and the second causes, or circumstances wherein he is placed; but it cannot be supposed, that God, either in the original appointment of the second causes, or at the time the man is disposed to that abuse, should aid him in so doing, by any means, or in any sense of the word, since at that very time he forbids the abuse under the severest penalty, and aids his obedience with his Holy Spirit. Here is room sufficient, and a proper scene, for the interference of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, in the government of God's intelligent and free creatures; and here they are all exercised in such a manner as not to destroy, but aid our freedom, when a right choice of thought or action is to be enlivened, or carried into execution. If a man hath only common sense, he must have found himself to be but a very weak creature, assaulted by enemies too artful to be guarded against by one so little apt to be vigilant; too powerful to be resisted by one so ready to yield; so surrounded by dangers, evil accidents, sickness, storms by sea, fires at land, distractions, deaths, and perils among false brethren; in the midst of all this, how sweet a consolation can he administer to himself by his faith in the protecting hand of God, who careth for him, who is ever present with him, and is mighty to save him, by night when he is wrapped up in sleep, like a caterpillar in his nympha-state, and by day, when he mounts the dangerous stage of life, and takes the field against the host of hell, against a seducing world, against his own corrupted and treacherous heart! Against the arrow that flieth by night, and the pestilence that destroyeth at noon-day! When he feels the earth shaking under him, and hears the volcano roaring near him, and the thunder tearing the oaks and rocks about him! Here, though he walk through the valley and shadow of death, he fears no evil,' for he knows that God is with him. His heart standing fast, trusting in the Lord.' Almighty goodness forbids it to palpitate; or if it does, an heroic mixture of love and joy gives it more than half its agitations. The hand of God is not always visible in our deliverances, seldom indeed to the unthinking; but he that knows his own weakness, and how little it is that he can do to deliver himself on a thousand perilous occasions, will often, by the eye of faith, perceive that hand, which conceals itself from the fleshly organ, that gratitude may search for, and find its benefactor. How is God, who giveth and upbraideth not' by an ostentation of his goodness, pleased with this search! And how is the poor soul transported, when he hath found that God himself was at his side in the critical hour of danger, when all human, all created help, would have been useless? Nay, perhaps, when the poor soul was arrested in its eager pursuit of criminal pleasure, quickly to be avenged with infamy and destruction? This last sort of deliverance, though not always welcome, because it comes against the grain of a man's appetite, is surely the best and highest of all deliverances. When a man becomes a devil to himself, to be delivered from this worst of fiends by the persevering goodness of an angry God, exceeds every thing that even angelic understanding, or the highest rapture of gratitude can conceive. Every thing in the natural world goes on, as it were, in a regular machine. But the moral, consisting of angels and men, requires to be directed and governed. All creatures, free to do good, or evil, must be inspected and governed. They may do good, and be rewarded; they may do evil, and be punished. A master therefore they have to superintend their conduct, and to distribute to them according to their deeds. In this system the relative attributes of God, his justice and mercy, find an open course of exertion, wherein his Providence is ever concerned. And correction, restraint, relief, are always wanted, and always applied. The moral world is as well worth guiding as creating; and being fallible, if not guided it may go astray. And how it can, when once astray, be rectified, but by superior wisdom and goodness, is not conceivable. Redemption therefore and sanctification become necessary effects of infinite goodness, as long as moral freedom gives an open to transgression, and to a return from thence to obedience. As misery is connected with the former, and happiness with the latter, the call on mercy for grace and help must ever be made by the creature on its Maker, who will as assuredly hear and interpose, as we shall pray. Here is sufficient encouragement to depend on a particular Providence, provided an humble sense of our weakness, a deep sorrow for our sins, and a faithful reliance on divine goodness, shall give the requisite force to our supplications. But what if these qualifying dispositions are unattainable by our best endeavours without aid from the same Providence? If this is the miserable case of man in his now fallen condition, as indeed it is, a particular Providence becomes as necessary to him in this first step towards his relief, as in any of the subsequent. Ere he goes for help, he must be enabled to go. Ere he can be humble, he must be humbled. Ere he can repent of his sins, he must feel the sting of sin and death. Ere he can stand fast in the faith, he must be enabled to stand; he must believe, that God is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,' and his providential assistance. What is man without God in the world? A poor forlorn creature, far less able to keep his place in it than the beast that perisheth; than the fly, that flutters about his nose; than the worm, that grovels in the dunghill. To be wise, he must derive from the fountain of wisdom. To be strong, he must draw from the source of strength. To be good and happy, he must have recourse to God, from whom alone there is a possibility of this attainment. But then the provident God is ever present with him; 'Christ, the way, the truth, and the life,' offers him that hand, which was nailed to the cross for him; and the Holy Spirit gives strength to walk in that way, kindles up that truth, and that light before him, and breathes in his soul that principle of eternal life whereby he is converted into a new and happy creature. Of all the instances of Providence, that of revelation, from first to last, whether we consider it as general or particular, is the most necessary, the most gracious, and the most manifest to the understanding of men. True light for a benighted world, and holy love for the wandering affections of our hearts, are here displayed, and enforced to the total reformation and eternal happiness of all who will receive them. 165. It is one character of an honest man, that he walks upright, and in so doing, it may be his too, that he is a prudent man, and sees the way before him, so that it is easy for him to go forward to his purpose on a straight and visible line of life. The cunning man, another name for a mixture of knave and fool, crouches, dodges observation, and moves always on a curve. His neighbours, if somewhat acquainted with him, have no defence against him but suspicion, for they can seldom guess where |