tive Being. For we derive all our ideas of God from our ideas of ourselves. To say, therefore that God's agency is different, in nature, from our own, is as absurd as to say that his knowledge, his power, or his moral rectitude is different from our own. And to say this, is to say, that we have not & cannot have any true knowledge of God. We may, then rest satisfied, that God is a perfectly free, voluntary, moral agent; & that his free, voluntary, moral agency solely consists in the mere exercise of his will. I have dwelt the longer on this point, becuse it is a point of great importance to be understood, in in order to have just conceptions of God, who is the first, the greatest and best of beings, of whom and through whom and to whom are all things. And now if we have properly explained the agency of God, we may easily make it appear,

II. That his agency is universal. God claims to be the universal agent. "I am the Lord and there is none else. 1 form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things." He here claims to be the supreme and universal agent in both the natural and moral world. And such universal agency is ascribed to him through the Bible. He is said to cause the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He is said to cause the regular succession of day and night, winter and summer, seed time and harvest. He is said to set up and overturn kingdoms and nations. He is said to turn the hearts of kings and of all men whithersoever he pleases. Be is said to work in all men both to will and to do of his good pleasure. These and all other things are ascribed to God, by all the sacred writers. The truth of such representations of the universality of the divine agency may be illustrated and confirmed, by various considerations. Among others I will mention the following.

1. God has made all things. He existed eternally, before any other being or object existed in infinite space. He once existed alone; and might have always existed alone, if he had pleased. It was owing to the pure benevolence of his heart, that he formed the great and glorious design of creation. And it was

owing to his free, voluntary and almighty agency, that he brought the heavens and the earth, angels and men out of nothing into being. He created all things, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. He is the Creator of every object in the universe besides himself. Every thing, that lives and moves and exists in the immensity of space, is a demonstration of his universal agency. Creation is exclus.vely a divine operation. No being but God could give existence to the smallest atom, or the meanest insect. Human agency can move and modify what is created, but cannot give existence to the least material or immaterial object. Though the works of creation are immensely great and numerous and various, yet they are not more extensive than the divine agency, which brought them out of nothing into existence. God grounds his claim to universal agency, upon his having actually made all things. "I am the Lord and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things." As the first cause of all things he must necessarily be an universal agent.

2. This further appears from his upholding all things. God did not and could not make any creature or object independent and give it the power of self-preservation. The Creator of all things must of necessity be the supporter and preserver of all things. The same almighty agency, which is necessary to give existence to any creature or object, is equally necessary to uphold that creature or object in existence every moment. Preservation is, strictly speaking, nothing less than continued creation. The first agent must be the supreme agent; that is, he must exercise a constant agency over all other agents. For in him they live and move and have their being. This some of the wisest heathens believed and taught. Hc, that made angels agents, must exercise a constant agency over them. He, that made men agents, must exercise a constant agency over them. To suppose, that either

angels or men can act independently of God, is to suppose, that they themselves are gods. But the Deity cannot make a Deity, any more than he can make a self existent and eternal creature. This is totally inconsistent with the nature of creative power, which Godiliustrates in the instance of Cyrus. "For Jacob my servant's sake and Israel mine elect, I have called thee by name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is no God beside me; I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." God, who created Cyrus, exercised a constant agency over him and girded and guided and preserved him through every period of his life. And this is equally true of all intelligent creatures from the highest to the lowest. "The preparation of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” He exerts his agency in producing all the free and voluntary exercises of every moral agent, as constantly and fully as in preserving and supporting his existence. It is as demonstrably certain, that God exerts his agency in upholding all things, as that he exerted his agency in creating all things. For no other power, but that which made the world, can uphold it in existence a single moment. The first agent, therefore, must be the constant and universal agent. I may add,

3. God must extend his agency to all created objects in the universe, because he has made all things for himself. As he was voluntary in making all things, so he must have had some supreme motive in creating all things; and that motive could have been no other, than his own glory. He ought and did regard himself supremely in the work of creation. His infinite wisdom. and goodness required him to propose a wise and good design in creating angels and men and every other creature he formed. He made nothing in vain. He created no superfluous objects. He brought no more, nor fewer creatures and objects into existence, than he saw necessary to answer his ultimate end in creation. None of these creatures and objects are capable of guiding their own motions, or directing their own actions, to promote the purposes for which they were

made. It is, therefore, utterly impossible, that God should make all these created natures and objects answer his own original design in creation, without exercising a constant and controlling agency over them. He has both a right and a power to do what he will with his own and to govern them, in the best manner, to answer the purposes of his own glory. But we cannot conceive it to be possible, even for God himself to do this, without exercising a constant powerful agency over all his creatures and all his works in every part of his extensive dominions. Should any object in the material world or any creature in the intellectual world, act or move in a manner different from that which he originally intended, it would mar his glory and injure the universe; which he is under indispensable moral obligation to prevent. If the divine If the divine agency be a moral agency, it must be an universal agency. To speak with reverence, God is morally obliged to extend his agency over all the creatures and objects he has brought into existence, without the least limitation or exception. He must form light and create darkness ; make peace and create evil, when and where and to what degree, the good of the universe requires; because he is the owner and rightful sovereign of the universe. And we may be confident, that the same motives, which induced him to create all things, will constantly dispose him to uphold and govern all things by his wise and almighty agency, so as to make them all subservient, in some way or other, to his eternal purpose, which he formed before the foundation of the world and before he gave existence to angels, or men, or any other creature or object in the natural or moral world.

IMPROVEMENT.

1. If divine agency wholly consists in volition, then human agency must wholly consist in volition. Many maintain, that moral agency in creatures does not consist in volition, but in the cause of volition. This is absurd, because it is placing free agency in something, which is involuntary. How can a man act freely,

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when he does not act voluntarily? If a man should move without choo ng to move, his motion would not be a free, moral action, worthy of praise, or blame. We never feel ourselves to be praise, or blame worthy, in any case, in which we do not act freely and of choice. It appears from what has been said, that God's agency does not consist in his power, knowledge, or wisdom, or in any one of his natural attributes, but entirely in his chce or volition. His agency in creating the world wholly consisted in his free, voluntary, spontaneous exertion. He said, "Let there be light, and there was light." His whole agency in the work of creation consists in his will, his choice, or volition. So human agency does not consist in reason, conscience, or any other intellectual faculty, but merely in volition or choice. A power or capacity to act is not acting. Though mankind have power or capacity to act, yet they never act, until they choose to act; and in their choosing to act their free agency consists and in nothing else. It does not consist in any thing either before or after their choosing to act. Many imagine, that their free agency consists in a power to cause or originate their own voluntary exercises; but this would imply, that they are independent of God, in whom they live and move and have their being; which is far from being true. God is the primary cause of every free. voluntary exercise in every human heart. But this is consistent with their having free voluntary exercises, which is the essence of free agency. We cannot conceive of man's having more freedom to act, than their having a freedom to act voluntarily A power to act without choosing to act, would be of no advantage to them, if they possessed it. But they do not possess such a power; neither does God himself possess such a power. God has not a power to act without a choice, or to act contrary to choice. He has a capacity to choose and refuse; and in choosing and refusing, he acts with the highest possible freedom. And since his free agency wholly consists in choosing and refusing, we may safely conclude, that human agency wholly consists in choosing and refusing and can consist in