connection and relation between its several parts, and an entireness in the general combination. We are not so much delighted with a fine passage incidentally introduced, a short episode, of which we discern at once the rise and the end, and take in all the incidents and beauties at a single glance, as we are with the judgment which discovers itself in the distribution of the whole work, and the skill, not without difficulty discerned, which arranges, connects, and, as it were, links together the several divisions. Yet do we not sometimes presume to insinuate as if the great Author of all created nature cannot reduce the complexity of its parts into one consistent whole? Do we not intimate objections as if there were no concert, no agreement in the works of the almighty Mind? Do not the same persons who can speak in raptures of a perfect poem, a perfect scheme of reasoning, a perfect plan in architecture, yet presume to suspect that the concerns of the universe are carried on with less system, and on a more imperfect design, than the rude sketches of a frail creature, who is crushed before the moth?

But if we go so far as to leave to God the direction of the natural world, because we know not well, after all, to whom else to commit its management, yet we frequently make little scruple to take the government of the moral world into our own hands. If we consent to his ruling matter, we reluctantly allow that he governs mind. We reason as if we suspected that the passions of men lay beyond his control, and that their vices have overturned his dominion. But we should practically call to mind what is the daily language of our lips, not only that his is "the kingdom," but that the "power" is the source, and "the glory" the result of his administration. He does not, it is true, by an arbitrary compulsion of men's minds, rob them of that freedom by which they offend him, nor by a force on their liberty, prevent those sins and follies, which if he arbitrarily hindered, he would convert rational beings into mechanical ones; but he turns their sins and follies to such uses, that while by the voluntary commission of them they are bringing down destruction on their own heads, they are not impeding his purposes.

Nor does Providence, in his wide arrangements, exclude the operation of subordinate causes and motives, but allows them to assist the greater, and thereby to work his will; as subalterns in the battle contribute severally their share to the victory, while, like those inferior causes, they are compelled to keep their ranks, and not to aspire to the command. As we have a higher end, we must have a supreme direction to

our aims. Yet a lower end is sometimes made a means to a higher, and assists its object without usurping its place. Some who begin by abstaining from evil, or set about doing good from a principle not entirely pure, are graciously led to the principle by doing or forbearing the action; and are finally landed at the higher point, from beginnings far below those at whice we might rashly have asserted they could only set out with any hope of success.

Though this may not very frequently occur, yet as it is by means God works, rather than by miracles; and as the world does not overflow with real piety, what a chaos would this earth become, if God did not permit inferior motives to operate to a certain degree for the general good! Many, whom the utmost stretch of charity cannot induce us to believe that they are acting from the purest principles, are yet contributing to the comfort and good order of society. Though they are sober only from a regard to their health, yet their temperance affords a good example; though they are prudent from no higher motive than the love of money, yet their frugality keeps them within the same bounds as if they were influenced by a better motive; though they may be liberal only to raise their reputation, yet their liberality feeds the hungry; though they are public-spirited merely from ambition, yet their patriotism, by rousing the spirit of the country, saves it. If such right actions, performed from such low motives, can look for no future retribution; if, being done without reference to the highest end, they do not advance the eternal interests of the doer, nor the glory of God, they are yet his instruments for promoting the good of others,, both by utility and example. On this ground we may be thankful that there is so much refinement, generosity, and politeness among the higher orders of society, while we confess that, tear away the action from its motive, sunder the virtue from its legitimate reference, the act and the virtue lose their present character and their ultimate reward.

The means by which an infinitely wise God often promotes the most important plans, are apt illustrations of the blindness and obliquity of man's judgment. May we be allowed to offer an instance or two, in which human wisdom would probably have taken a course, in the appointment of instruments and events, directly opposite to that pursued by Infinite Wisdom? What earthly judge, if he had been questioned as to the means likely to produce one of the strongest evidences of the truth of Christianity to unbelievers, but would have named an agreement between Jews and Christians, as its fullest corrobo

ration? If we ourselves had an important cause dependingfor instance, the ascertaining our right to a litigated estate ;if the success of the trial depended on the testimony of the witnesses, and on the authenticity of our title-deeds, whose testimony should we endeavor to obtain; into whose hands should we wish our vouchers to be committed? According to all human prudence should we not desire witnesses who had no known hostility to us; should we not object to a jury of avowed enemies; and should we not refuse to lodge our records in the hands of our opponents?

But HIS wisdom in whose sight ours is folly, has seen fit to make one of the most striking proofs of the truth of Christianity depend on the living miracle of the enmity of the Jews; " to them also were committed the oracles of God;" so that to both their ancient testimony and their present opposition we are to look for the most striking proofs of a religion which they behold with perpetual hatred. And now that Christianity is actually made to stand upon such evidence, what test can be more satisfactory? Reason itself owns its validity; for what collusion can now be charged upon the concurrent witnesses to Christianity, when each party in court is decidedly at variance with the other? Who can rationally question the strength of that title which is contained in their genuine archives-that evidence resulting from their hereditary denial of facts, of which they persist to reverence the predictions? Where can we more confidently look for the truth of a religion they detest, than to the verification conferred on it by their original history, their irreversible antipathy, their actual condition, and existing character?

To venture another specimen. If we had presumed to point out instruments for the destruction of Jerusalem, we should probably have thought none so appropriate as Constantine; we might have supposed the first Christian emperor would have been the fittest avenger of the Redeemer's blood. Omniscience selected for the awful retribution a pagan prince, a virtuous one it is true, but one who seemed to have no personal interest in the business, one to whom Jews and Christians, as such, were alike indifferent. While this utter desolation was the obvious accomplishment of a prophecy, which was to be a lasting evidence of the truth of our religion, the choice of the destroyer was one of those "secret things which belong to God," and is only to be alleged as a proof that "his ways are not our ways."

We will advert to another event, the most important since the incarnation of him whose pure worship it has restored→→→

the Reformation. This occurrence is a peculiarly striking instance of our ignorance of the operations of Supreme Wisdom, and of the means which, to our short sight, seem fit or unfit for the accomplishment of his purposes. If ever the hand of Providence was conspicuous as the meridian sun, it was so in this mighty work; it was so in the selection of apparently discordant instruments; it was so in overruling the designs of some to a purpose opposite to their intention, in making the errors of others contribute to the general end. If this grand scheme had been exposed to our review for advice, if we had been consulted in its formation and its progress, how should we have criticised both the plan and its conductors? How should we have censured some of the agents as inadequate, condemned others as ill chosen, rejected one as unsuited, another as injurious! One critic would have insisted that the vehemence of Luther would mar any enterprise it might mean to advance; that so impetuous a projector would inevitably obstruct the establishment of a religion of meekness. Another would have pronounced, that among the human faculties, wit was, of all others, the least likely to assist the cause of piety; yet did Erasmus, by his exquisite satires on the ignorance and superstition of the priests, as completely contradict this opinion, as Luther, by his magnanimity and heroic perseverance, triumphantly overturned the other. This inconsiderate, blustering Henry, the human counsellor would have said, will ruin the cause by uniting his hostility to the reformers with his inconsistent resistance to the papal power; and yet this cause his very perverseness contributed to promote. Another censor would have been quite certain that the timid policy and cautious feeling of Charles the Wise would infallibly obstruct those measures which they were actually tending to advance. Who among us, if his opinion had been asked, would not have fixed on the pontiff of Rome and the emperor of the Turks, as the two last human beings to be selected for promoting the reformed religion? Who would have ventured to assert that the money raised by indulgences, through the profligate venality of Leo, for building St. Peter's in his own metropolis, was actually laying the foundation of every Protestant church in Britain, in Europe, in the world? Who could have predicted, that the imperial Mussulman, in banishing learning from his dominions, was preparing, as if by concert, an overwhelming antagonist to the sottish ignorance of the monks? All these things, separately considered, we, in our captious wisdom, should have pronounced calculated to

produce effects directly contrary to the actual result; yet these ingredients, which had no natural affinity, amalgamated by the almighty hand, were made to accomplish one of the most important works that Infinite Wisdom, working by human means, has ever effected.

CHAP. III.

Practical Uses of the Doctrine of Providence.

We do not sufficiently make the doctrine of providence a practical doctrine. That the present dark dispensations which afflict the earth are indications of almighty displeasure few dispute; but having admitted the general fact, who almost does not ascribe the cause of offence to others? How few consider themselves as awfully contributing to draw down the visitation! We look with an exclusive eye to the abandoned and the avowedly profligate, and ascribe the whole weight of the divine indignation to their misdeeds. But we forget that when a sudden tempest threatened destruction to the ship going to Tarshish, in which there was only Jonah who feared God, those who inquired into the cause of the storm, found him to be the very man. The cause of the present desolating storm, as a pious divine observed of that which darkened his day, may as probably be the offences of professing Christians, as the presumptuous sins of the bolder transgressor. This apprehension should set us all on searching our hearts, for we cannot repent of the evil of which we are not conscious. It should put us upon watching against negligence; it should set us upon distrusting a false security, upon examining into the ground of our confidence. No dependence on the goodness of our spiritual condition, no trust in our exactness in some peculiar duties, no fancied superiority of ourselves to others, no exemption from gross and palpable disorders, should soothe us into a belief that we have no concern in the visitation. Throwing off their own guilt upon others was the second sin of the first offenders.

Another practical use of the doctrine of providence is, to enable us to maintain a composed frame of spirit under its ordinary dispensations. If we kept up a sense of God's agency in common as well as in extraordinary occurrences; if we were practically persuaded that nothing happens but by divine appointment, it might still those fluctuations of mind,