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self a centre, and wishes all to gravitate towards himself; he views his friends and even his Maker, as the tools by which he brings about his sinister ends.

GENTLEMEN,

IN obedience to your polite request, I appear in the desk. As I am conscious that you did not invite me with an expectation that I would offer you the fulsome incense of flattery, I wish to meet you on the ground of that blunt honest man who speaks right on, and whose words are the unequivocal index of his heart,

I pretend to none of your secrets. So far as the principles of your society lead you to visit the sick, and in prison; to perform the duties of hospitality to the stranger; to comfort the afflicted, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, relieve the widow and the fatherless, and to dry the orphan's tear, I revere it, as I revere every thing that seconds the cause of humanity.

I acknowledge also, that I despise, equally with you, those narrow spirits who censure you for your particular secrets, and slander the order for the disorderly walk of some of its members. It is a disgrace to the rational part of the creation, that so many centuries have elapsed, and that they bave but just learned to distinguish principles from men who professedly embrace them.

Our holy religion suffers on the same score from the contracted illiberality of ignorant, superficial sceptics, and the obloquy of sneering buffoons. But I am not ashamed to plead the cause of religion still; though it has its mysteries, and many of its professors disgrace it. Disgrace it, did I say? They cannot disgrace it; it will hew its way through all its enemies, and defeat the wisdom of all its foes, though millions of painted hypocrites, by presuming to meddle with the holy and awful Ark of the Covenant, shall perish with the touch.

The rage of the present time is for general disorganization, and the dissolution of all that has the marks of antiquity. Nothing will stand against the general wreck; but real truth and real virtue. Not that the greatest disorganizers think so, nor doth their heart mean so. Many who have boasted of conquering liberty, have set their feet on the neck of real morality,

Whether your institution be feudal, patriarchal, or antediluvian, it matters not; just so far as real benevolence enters into its principles it will stand, and no farther.

Unless a spirit of misrepresentation has belied your insti

tution, an immoral mason is as great an inconsistency as an immoral christian. It is believed that it has not made good men worse: would to God it had made bad men better.

The world has its prescriptible demands on your every day conduct, as much as it has on the professors of religion. As you profess benevolence, it is important that you let your light shine as well as they. There is one material difference, however, between us. If masons do not live agreeably to their benevolent laws, they will sink into contempt, in spite of all their external parade. But religion will make its way through hosts of false professors, as it is founded on the word of God.

While the Jesuits have been long since banished, to their merited oblivion, for their officiousness in the policy of the nations that embosomed them-the masons have, hitherto, maintained a character harmless in this respect. I need not tell you, that your glory and defence depends on keeping this character inviolable. The spirit of liberty has the eyes of an Argus. Clubs cannot rule among a free people. Should you convert your society into a political cabal, the jealousy of a free and enlightened people will search it out, and evil will return on your own heads; you will be viewed and treated with the same contempt as has befallen democratic clubs, clerical influence, and aristocratic combinations. Should you convert your festivals into Bachanals, you will set yourselves in the same point of light that the church of Corinth was set by St. Paul, when they perverted their eucharist and lovefeasts to scenes of intemperance and revelry. Would you bring your society into general repute, it can only be done by each member of the fraternity exhibiting in his own life a speaking proof of the excellence of the institution.

ON THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF HUMAN CONDUCT.

GOD, by his faithful prophets, frequently and solemnly warned the people of Israel against symbolizing with the heathen nations, in fearing and worshipping their speechless, senseless and impotent deities. And to give them a deeper sense of the absurdity and guilt of worshipping any other, than the only living and ever living God, he exhibited his character in the clearest and strongest light, as the author and governor of the natural world. "But the Lord is the true God; he is the everliving God and everlasting king.He hath made the earth by his power, and hath established

the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. When he uttereth his voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasure." After the prophet had given this just and sublime description of the Deity, he knew it would have no salutary effect upon the minds of the people, unless it were accompanied by a divine influence upon their hearts; and therefore he lifts up his eyes to God, and cries for success in the following words: "O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." It depends upon thee, O Lord, whether the people who have gone after idols, shall ever return, and become dutiful and obedient.— They are entirely in thy hands, and thou canst direct all their steps, and govern all their conduct.-From these observations this plain and interesting truth is evident; that saints are willing to acknowledge that God governs all the conduct of

men.

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To illustrate this observation,

I. We will consider what is to be understood by the conduct of men.

This includes every thing in which they are active, and for which they are accountable. They are active in their desires, their affections, their designs, their intentions, and in every thing which they do and say, of choice; and for all these things they must give account to God. Their internal exercises are as much their conduct as their external actions.— When they love or hate, choose or refuse, they are as really active, as when they express these internal affections by words er actions. Walking is one of the most common instances of human conduct. This conduct always implies a desire, a design, and a will to walk, as well as the external act or motion of the feet. Men may be as active when they neither walk nor speak, as when they do both with the greatest rapidity and vigor. But when they are moved without, or contrary to their will, their motion is not their action, but the action of another agent. In such a case, every person feels an essential difference between activity and passivity. He feels that he ought to be accountable for his activity, but not for his passivity. Accountability can never extend any further than activity. God will never call any of his creatures to an account, for any thing in which their choice was not concerned. But he will call them to an account for all their desires, affections, intentions and designs, as well as for their external actions. All these, therefore, are comprized

in what may properly be called their conduct. So that by all the conduct of men, we are to understand all the emotions of their hearts, and the external actions of their lives. We proceed to show,

II. That God does govern all the voluntary conduct of

men.

This is asserted by the prophet Jeremiah: "O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Men are as free and voluntary in walking as in any thing they ever do. But in this, the prophet says he knows they do not guide and govern their own free and voluntary conduct; by which he means to assert, that it is God who guides and directs them in all their ways. This doctrine is abundantly tauglit by the inspired writers. David says, "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." Solomon says, "The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." In the same chapter he says again, a man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps." In another place he says, "man's goings are of the Lord: how can a man understand his own way?" Just after this he observes again, "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." And the apostle Paul plainly taught, that God guides and governs all the free and voluntary conduct of men. He says, “ we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." He exhorts the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling adding, “for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." And to the Hebrews he says, "now the God of peace, make you perfeet in every good work, to do his will, working in you that is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ." The plain import of all these passages is, that God governs all the conduct of men. in their internal affections, desires and designs, as well as in their external actions. But this truth may be further illustrated and confirmed, by considering,

1. That God is able to foretel the conduct of men. This abundantly appears from the whole tenor of scripture. He foretold the conduct of Jacob and of his sons towards Joséph; the conduct of Pharaoh and his subjects; the conduct of Hazael; the conduct of Judas in betraying, and the conduct of Peter in denying his Master; the conduct of the man of sin, and the conduct of whole nations and kingdoms. There is a multitude of predictions of the free and voluntary actions of men to be found in the bible, which put it beyond doubt, that

God is able to foretel the actions of men. But how could this be possible, if the way of man was in himself, and he could direct his steps independently of the divine guidance and influence? It is impossible, in the nature of things, for God to foreknow and foretel any conduct of men, which is not in the least under his direction. If it be true, then, that he does foreknow and foretel the conduct of men, it must be equally true, that he does, by some means, govern their conduct. The divine predictions of the future conduct of men, are a demonstration of his governing all their actions. Besides,

2. As God is able, so he must be disposed to govern all the conduct of men. He has made them rational and immortal creatures, and designs to employ them as instruments to promote his own glory. His glory therefore requires him to direct all their steps, and govern all their intentions, volitions and actions. Should he fail to do this in a single instance, he would so far relinquish and fail of answering his original design in creation. The same motive, which induced God to bring any person into existence, must induce him to govern all the conduct of that person, through every period of his existence. There is precisely the same certainty that God governs all the conduct of all mankind, as there is that he has actually given them existence. It would be unworthy of God to bring men into existence, to answer no purpose, and no less unworthy of God to bring men into existence to answer a certain purpose, and then neglect to govern their conduct so as to make them answer that purpose. Whoever admits, that God is not only ABLE, but DISPOSED to govern all the conduct of men, must admit, that he actually does govern all their free and voluntary actions. The predictions and purposes of God, confirm the declarations of his word upon this subject. However difficult some may suppose it to be, for God to govern the actions of free, moral agents; yet there is no truth in the bible capable of more clear and infallible proof. It necessarily results from the nature of man, the wisdom of God, and the immutability of his counsels. Accordingly, those who believe the existence of God, and the divinity of the scriptures, generally and almost universally maintain, that God does govern not only the natural, but moral world; that is, he governs all the free and voluntary conduct of mankind. But there is another point in which they are not so well agreed, and that is.

III. How God governs all the conduct of men: or what he does to direct all their steps, and guide them in all their

ways.

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