less violence of oppression, which, with them, was but too frequent. But if the numbers of those could be reckoned up, by whom, in works and will, if not in outward expressions, the creature is preferred before the Creator; if the worshippers of wealth, of rank, of power, and of pleasure were gathered together, who knows, whether we should find fewer idolaters in our own land, than were found among the Jews? If every instance of perjury, every secret, yea, every public, lust and debauchery, every deceit and covetous meanness, into which the greediness of gain, and the pressure of extravagance, lead men, if all these were laid before our eyes, as they are before His, on whose favour the continuance of our nation depends, could we boast ourselves more blameless than the House of Israel, or hope for a milder sentence, than that which they experienced ? When, above all, we find that a habitual inattention to the Providence and mercies of God was objected to them, as a principal source of God's displeasure, shall we not feel something like an inward shudder at the thought, how greatly we ourselves have, each of us, in like manner offended? It is this common, I had almost said, this universal sin, against which I am now desirous of warning you.

Nor can there be a more appropriate subject for the present time of year, when we are wit

nessing one of the most remarkable and important of the merciful dispensations of God's providence, in the yearly gathering in of the food which He hath given for man, and in the renewal of "the appointed weeks of harvest." Happy shall we be, if, from the present season, we may draw a spiritual as well as an earthly blessing, and improve God's bounty to the nourishment not only of our bodies, but of our immortal souls!

An attentive observance of the ordinary dispensations of Providence, and a habit of tracing up all the wonders of mercy, of wisdom, and of power, which surround us in the visible world, to their great unseen cause,-such an observance, till the glorious light of the Gospel was communicated to the world, was the only, or, at least, the principal, means whereby God's spirit drew the hearts of the Gentiles to Himself, and led them to piety and obedience. It was the foundation and support of what is called the religion of nature; and it is so represented in many striking passages of Scripture. Thus St. Paul, at Lystra, told the multitude, that “the living God which made Heaven and earth and the sea and all things which are therein," though He had in times past suffered the Gentiles to walk in their own ways, and without the advantage of a positive revelation from Heaven, "yet left not Himself without witness, in that he did

good, and gave us rain from Heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." In like manner, the same great apostle, in the 1st chapter of his epistle to the Romans, assures us that, even to the heathen, "that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, even His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. " 2

Nor is there any doubt, that, by a due consideration of the objects of nature alone, even without the advantages of revelation, or, putting those advantages out of the question, from the visible works of God alone, His Being, His Power, and His Mercy, may be fully and satisfactorily proved, and have been so proved, by many wise and good men, both among the heathens and the Christians. Thus it is easy to show,

even to the plainest understanding, that every thing around us must be the work of some thinking and most wise Being; because every thing around us bears the marks of design, of plan, of contrivance to answer some particular and useful purpose. If a man finds a watch in a field, even if he has never seen a watch before, he knows, at first sight, that this engine must have had a maker; since it is plain that it could not make 2 Romans, i. 19, 20.

1 Acts, xiv. 15—17.

itself; and since it would be equally unreasonable to pretend that mere chance could bring so many small pieces of gold, and silver, and glass, and steel together, and join them in a form so regular, and producing motions so well qualified to answer a particular and useful end. It would never enter into the head of the wildest savage to say that a house, a ship, a pump, a gun, were the work of chance; because he must have daily experienced how very little blind chance could perform; and what irregular, and clumsy, and useless results proceed from merely allowing things to come together by accident. Throw bricks and mortar and beams and boards and slates together, in any quantity, or for any length of time you please, what sort of approach will they make, I will not say to such a building as that wherein we are now assembled, but to the meanest and most miserable cottage? Chance may make a heap of rubbish but to build a house something more, much more than chance is surely necessary. And who will dare to say that the many wonderful objects which are under our feet and over our heads, the lilies of the field, whose garments surpass the proudest robes of mortal majesty, the sun, the moon, the stars, those glorious and shining lights, which, with so much order and regularity, perform their stated rounds, and bless us with the returns of night and day, of seed time and harvest, - that these

can owe their existence to a power which never, that we know of, has been able to produce a single regular or complicated body? Look on our bodies, so fearfully and wonderfully made as we are; look on an ear of corn, and judge for yourselves, whether chance could have drawn forth from the mother's womb, all that strange anatomy of muscles and bones, of veins and blood and flesh, which we find about ourselves? or could have multiplied one single grain into many, and raised it from the earth, in which it was buried, and clothed it in that machinery of stalk and root and ear, and appointed it to draw nourishment from the ground, and ordained that the rain should so fall, and the sun so shine, as exactly to be sufficient to bring it to strength and ripeness?"Oh God, how manifold are Thy works in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches!"1

With as little reason can it be pretended that the earth has lasted for ever, and has, therefore, required no Creator. We know that this cannot have been the case, since, if it were, no man can doubt, who notices the rate at which men increase and multiply, that the world would, long since, have been peopled to the utmost amount which it is capable of supporting. But so far is the case from standing thus, that no country in the world can be