his incomprehensible scheme of universal government. Now that the Almighty regards events as they pass, inasmuch as they are not hid from his general view, he who disbelieves in a particular Providence, will not deny: but if he regards them only as a spectator, and not as a director, he regards them not as a moral governor, he regards them in a manner unworthy of the Deity. But here the objection lies; shall the great God, whose habitation is in seats of endless bliss, condescend to look down upon this frail and miserable world, to watch the appetites, to govern the passions of every sinful creature, and to direct the course of every fortuitous event in human life? Shall we reason thus of the Almighty, of that great Being whose presence necessarily pervades every particle of created matter? Where is the spot in this lower world on which his eye is not fixed, where is that space into which his presence is not infused? Is there a thought in our hearts which he has not "understood long before?" As then he is omnipresent, what event 'can have escaped his sight; as he is omniscient, what contingency can have escaped his preknowledge? As he is a moral governor, for his moral government in some sort no one can deny, will he not necessarily direct every event to the furtherance and support of that administration? Do we suppose that the government of God is conducted on the same principles, and in the same manner, as the government of man? In all human affairs events arise in contradiction to the preconceived ends even of the wisest governors; they arise in no order of connexion, often without

any apparent cause, and still oftener in opposition to probable expectation; and fortunate is he who can either apply the event to his preconceived purpose, or alter his purpose to suit the unexpected event. Can we in reason conceive that the supreme government of the universe is open to all these frustrations of purpose, or that the Almighty is a slave to contingencies and casual issue? If not, if according to our notions of the Divine attributes, such uncertainty and confusion are inconsistent with the Divine government of the universe; then must we suppose a perfect scheme and constitution of things to exist, with which every event is inseparably connected; in which every circumstance, however trifling, bears its part as a furtherance of the grand and incomprehensible end of the whole : incomprehensible to all but that great Being who directs, controls, and governs every part at the same instant; who can reduce contingency to method, and instability and chance to unfailing rule and order. There are those who would be willing enough to allow that all the more important events of the world are under the government and direction of God, but consider it below his majesty to condescend to all the trifling events of the life of man: to number the hairs of our head. Now, in addition to what I have said before, I would ask what line of distinction could the ingenuity of man devise between small events and great, which are, and which are not, under the cognizance of the Almighty? Between perfection and imperfection there is no medium nor degree. If there is one event or one contingency

which defeats the design of the Almighty, and supplies not its link in the chain of order, then is the system and constitution of the whole imperfect, and unworthy the administration of a perfect Being. Since, therefore, it is necessary for the completion of a perfect system, that every part should be perfect, and supply the place allotted to it in reference to the order and design of the whole; it follows that every event in the universe must be under the direction of its moral Governor, who alone can so dispose them as, out of the seeming irregularity and confusion of all things here below, to produce that harmony and order which are the essential attributes of the nature and government of God. No consideration arising from the permission of evil, or the free will of man, can militate against this; as we have seen the one in innumerable instances the minister of God's unsearchable purposes; and the other, with all the difficulties attending its reconcilement with the foreknowledge of God, is essential to moral government; which cannot exist without previously supposing the existence of free moral agents. The necessity of reconciling these two apparently opposite qualities of prescience in the Almighty and free will in man, has exercised the ingenuity of man in proposing solutions of the difficulty. Perhaps the humility rather than the ingenuity of man would return the best answer to this intricate point, by confessing it one of the innumerable questions which are above the power of the human mind to answer or explain. "Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for us, we cannot attain unto it!"

But how they are reconciled, regards not the present question. It is enough for our immediate purpose to be assured, that there is no contingency which may arise from the exercise of man's uncontroled power, that is not foreseen, provided against, and directed by that Great First Cause, which gave man the power he possesses, but, in giving him that power, provided fully for the free exercise of his own. If we exclude the doctrine of a special Providence from our belief, upon what shoals and quicksands of absurdity is our imagination driven, when it has abandoned that heavenly pilot who can alone direct us in safety through the storm. Shall we fly to chance; and what is that chance which is to direct the contingencies of this world? A name only and a shadow it has itself no real being; it is nothing, and can do nothing; a mere word expressing our ignorance of predestinating causes; and if an efficient agent, then we create another self-existing being besides the Almighty, which is a declaration as impious as it is absurd.

RENNELL.

THE CREDULITY OF DEISTS.

THERE is only one position, that the Revelation is not true, is a fable, is a lie, which will deliver men of an unchristian character from an unchristian destiny. Those who hold that position may hope for forgiveness, and trust in mercy to what extent they please, for they are sailing in a sea of darkness. The Deist may construct a god after his own wishes, to quiet his fears or indulge

his passion, or license his affections; to palliate adultery, murder, every vice and crime, as the ancient heathens did; and may run the chance of that idol of imagination holding good in the end. But for a believer in revealed truth to do the same, is first to give his belief the lie, and then to launch into the same sea of trust which the Deist doth. These Deists are always shedding sneers upon the Christian, because he believes. The Christian doth believe what he hath upon good evidence adopted. But what doth the Deist do? He believes that for which he hath no evidence at all; he takes God upon the credit of his own crude fancy; he rests his faith upon an invention of his brain, an invention framed out of a thousand incoherent thoughts suggested by limited and erroneous knowledge, and distorted by a thousand likings and dislikings, in no two minds akin. This creature, more deformed than sin, and more changeable than Proteus, the credulous Deist believes to be the living and true God. And if the man will be mad and act upon his dreams, he can take the folly and the shame that will come of such fatuity. But for the Christian to do so, who believes in the God of revelation, is the highest pitch of crime added to an equal amount of folly, and is not once to be endured. Hath not God first written himself upon tables of stone, then upon the countenance of his everlasting Son, then given varieties of the same in the renewed lives of his saints? This believing, we would erase all, and write him with the imagination of the natural mind, which knoweth of him nothing at all! Which is to dash the