maketh alive. He woundeth and healeth. By him kings reign, and princes decree justice, and not a sparrow falleth to the ground without him. All angels, authorities, and powers are subject to him. He appointeth the moon for seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down. He thundereth with his voice, and directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm fulfil his word. The Lord is King for ever and ever, and his dominion is an everlasting dominion, The earth and the heavens shall perish; but thou, O Lord, remainest. They all shall wax old, as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. God is perfect in knowledge: his understanding is infinite. He is the Father of lights. He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven. The Lord beholdeth all the children of men from the place of his habitation, and considereth all their works. He knoweth our down-sitting and up-rising. He compasseth our path, and counteth our steps. He is acquainted with all our ways; and when we enter our closet, and shut our door, he seeth us. He knoweth the things that come into our mind, every one of them; and no thought can be withholden from him. The Lord is good to all, and his tender

mercies are over all his works.

He is a father

of the fatherless, and a judge of the widow. He is the God of peace, the father of mercies, and the God of all comfort and consolation. The Lord is great, and we know him not: his greatness is unsearchable. Who but he

hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span? Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. Thou art very great, thou art clothed with honour. Heaven is thy throne, and earth is thy footstool.'

Can the mind of a philosopher rise to a more just and magnificent, and, at the same time, a more amiable idea of the Deity, than is here set forth in the strongest images and most emphatical language? And yet this is the language of shepherds and fishermen. The illiterate Jews and poor persecuted Christians retained these noble sentiments, while the polite and powerful nations of the earth were given up to that sottish sort of worship, of which the following elegant description is extracted from one of the inspired writers.

Who hath formed a god or molten an image that is profitable for nothing? The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry and his strength faileth.

M

He

He And

drinketh no water, and is faint. A man planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. He burneth part thereof in the fire. roasteth roast. He warmeth himself. the residue thereof he maketh a god. He falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my God. None considereth in his heart, I have burnt part of it in the fire; yea, also, I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?'

But

In such circumstances as these for a man to declare for freethinking, and disengage him self from the yoke of idolatry, were doing honour to human nature, and a work well becoming the great asserters of reason. in a church, where our adoration is directed to the Supreme Being, and (to say the least) where is nothing, either in the object or manner of worship, that contradicts the light of nature, there, under the pretence of freethinking, to rail at the religious institutions of their country, showeth an undistinguishing genius, that mistakes opposition for freedom of thought. And, indeed, notwithstanding the pretences of some few among our Freethinkers, I can hardly think there are men so stupid and inconsistent with themselves as to have a serious regard for natural religion, and

at the same time use their utmost endeavours to destroy the credit of those sacred writings, which as they have been the means of bringing these parts of the world to the knowledge of natural religion, so in case they lose their authority over the minds of men, we should of course sink into the same idolatry which we see practised by other unenlightened nations.

If a person, who exerts himself in the modern way of freethinking, be not a stupid idolator, it is undeniable that he contributes all he can to the making other men so, either by ignorance or design; which lays him under the dilemma, I will not say of being a fool or a knave, but of incurring the contempt or detestation of mankind.

SECTION VI.

EXCELLENCY OF THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTION.

Aptissima quæque dabunt dii,
Charior est illis homo, quam sibi-

δυν.

IT is owing to pride, and a secret affectation of a certain self-existence, that the noblest motive for action that ever was proposed to man is not acknowledged the glory and hap

piness of their being. The heart is treacherous to itself, and we do not let our reflections go deep enough to receive religion as the most honourable incentive to good and worthy actions. It is our natural weakness to flatter ourselves into a belief, that, if we search into our inmost thoughts, we find ourselves wholly disinterested, and divested of any views arising from self-love and vain-glory. But however spirits of superficial greatness may disdain at first sight to do any thing, but from a noble impulse in themselves, without any future regards in this or another being; upon stricter inquiry they will find, to act worthily and expect to be rewarded only in another world, is as heroic a pitch of virtue as human nature can arrive at. If the tenor of our actions have any other motive, than the| desire to be pleasing in the eye of the Deity, it will necessarily follow that we must be more than men, if we are not too much exalted in prosperity, and depressed in adversity. But the Christian world has a Leader, the contemplation of whose life, and sufferings must administer comfort in affliction, while the sense of his power and omnipotence must give them humiliation in prosperity.

It is owing to the forbidden and unlovely constraint, with which men of low conceptions act, when they think they conform themselves to religion, as well as to the more odious con.