guished by his prefence, is fufficient inducement for any one to watch over his imagination, and guard against the leaft appearance of levity and difrefpect.

An inward fincerity will of courfe influence the outward deportment, but where the one is wanting, there is great reafon to fufpect the abfence of the other. I own it is poffible, and often happens, that this external garb of religion may be worn, when there is little within of a piece with it; but I believe the converfe of the propofition can never happen to be true, that a truly religious frame of mind fhould exift without fome outward mark of it. The mind will fhine through the veil of flesh which covers it, and naturally exprefs its religious difpofitions; and, if it poffeffes the power of godliness, -will have the external form of it too.

May GOD grant us to be defective in neither, but that we may fo praife and magnify GoD on earth, that when he cometh, at the laft day, with ten thousand of his faints in heaven, to judge the world, we may be partakers of their eternal inheritance... Amen.

SERMON XLIV.

The Ways of Providence justified to

Man..

PSALM LXXIII. 12, 13.)

Behold, thefe are the ungodly who profper in the world, they in crease in riches.

Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

THIS Complaint of the Pfalmift, concerning the promifcuous diftribution of God's bleffings to the juft and unjust,-that the fun fhould fhine without distinction upon the good and the bad,and rains defcend upon the righteous and unrighteous man,is a fubject that has afforded much matter: for inquiry, and at one time or other has raised doubts to dishearten and perplex the minds of men. If the fovereign Lord of all the earth does look on, whence fo much diforder in the face of things?why is it permitted, that wife and good men fhould be left often a prey to fo many miferies and diftreffes of life,whilft the guilty and foolish triumph in their offences, and even the tabernacles of robbers prosper!

To this it is answered,that therefore there is a future state of rewards, and punishments to take place after this life, wherein all these inequalities fhall be made even, where the circumstances of every man's cafe fhall be confidered, and where God fhall be juftified in all his ways, and every mouth fhall be ftopt...

If this was not fo,—if the ungodly were to prof per in the world, and have riches in poffeffion,—and no diftinction to be made hereafter, to what purpose would it have been to have maintained our integrity?Lo! then, indeed, fhould I have cleanfed my heart in vain, and washed my hands'in innocency.

It is farther faid, and what is a more dire& an◄ fwer to the point,-that when God created man, that he might make him capable of receiving happinefs at his hands hereafter, he endowed him with liberty and freedom of choice, without which, he could not have been a creature accountable for his actions; that it is merely from the bad use he makes of thefe gifts, that all those instances of irregularity do refult, upon which the complaint is here grounded,-which could noways be prevent ed, but by the total fubverfion of human liberty;

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-that should God make bare his arm, and interpofe on every injuftice that is committed,-mankind might be said to do what was right,but, at the fame time, to lose the merit of it, fince they would act under force and neceffity, and not from the de terminations of their own mind;-that, upon this supposition,➡a man could with no more reason ex--

pect to go to heaven for acts of temperance, justice, and humanity, than for the ordinary impulses of hunger and thirst, which nature directed; that God has dealt with man upon better terms;-he has first endowed him with liberty and free-will ; ――he has fet life and death, good and evil, before him; that he has given him faculties to find out what will be the confequences of either way of acting, and then left him to take which course his reafon and difcretion fhall point out.

I shall defft from enlarging any farther upon eis ther of the foregoing arguments in vindication of God's providence, which are urged so often with so much force and conviction, as to leave no room for a reasonable reply;fince the miferies which befal the good, and the feeming happiness of the wicked could not be otherwife in fuch a free ftate and condition as this in which we are placed.

In all charges of this kind, we generally take two things for granted:ft, That in the inftances we give, we know certainly the good from the bad; —and, 2dly, The respective state of their enjoyments or fufferings.

I fhall, therefore, in the remaining part of my discourse, take up your time with a fhort inquiry into the difficulties of coming, not only at the true characters of men,-but likewife of knowing the degrees either of their real happinefs or mifery in this life.

The first of thefe will teach us candour in our judgments of others;the fecond, to which I

fhall confine myfelf, will teach us humility in our reafonings upon the ways of God.

For, though the miseries of the good, and the profperity of the wicked, are not in general to be denied ;—yet I lhall endeavour to fhow, that the particular inftances we are apt to produce, when we cry out in the words of the Pfalmift, Lo, these are the ungodly,these profper and are happy in the world;-I fay, I fhall endeavour to fhow, that we are fo ignorant of the articles of the charge,———and the evidence we go upon to make them good, is fo lame and defective--as to be fufficient by itself to check all propenfity to expoftulate with God's providence, allowing there was no other way of clearing up the matter reconcileably to his attri butes.

And, firft,what certain and infallible marks have we of the goodness or badnefs of the bulk of mankind?

If we truft to fame and reports,-if they are good, how do we know but they may proceed from partial · friendship or flattery?-when bad, from envy or malice, from ill-natured furmifes and conftructions of things?--and, on both fides, from fmall matters aggrandized through mistake,and fometimes through the unfkilful relation of even truth itself?From fome, or all of which, causes, it happens that the characters of men, like the hiftories of the Egyptians, are to be received and read with caution ;they are generally dreffed out and disfigured with so many dreams and fables, that every ordinary reader fhall not be able to diftinguish truth from falfehood.