men of all nations equally understand. It even explains what other sermons mean, instead of needing to be explained by them. Men will see more beauty in a truly virtuous action, than in the most rhetorical description we can give of it; and then they lose no time, for they see it at once whereas, besides the necessary expense of time, much skill and address must likewise be employed, to unfold it in such a manner as to make it thoroughly understood and relished.

and do many things which may have a good effect upon the multitude, whose favorable regard he is anxious to obtain. And though his low ambition may, upon some occasions, prompt him to take advantage of their weakness, by inflaming their zeal about matters of a trivial or indifferent nature; yet, as he can only succeed in this attempt by persuading them that such things are important and necessary, it is obvious, that however he may impose upon their understanding, and give In this way, my Brethren, we may them stones instead of bread, yet he canpreach without ceasing: and if we know not be said to corrupt their integrity, any thing of the temper expressed in my neither doth he weaken the authority of text, we shall certainly be ambitious to conscience. He may render them ridicuhold forth the word of life continually; lous, but he doth not make them knaves. and so to exhibit the religion of Jesus, that, in our practice, all who behold us may have an easy opportunity of reading the laws of Christ every day.

More particularly: Were we possessed of this temper, we should equally disdain to court the great by a fawning servility, or to catch the vulgar by a low popularity.

These are the dangerous extremes, into one or other of which every unprincipled minister is liable to be seduced.

The last of them which is reputed the most base and contemptible, is commonly the resort of those only who, having little to recommend to the wise and good, can find no other way to emerge from obscurity, and to thrust themselves forward into public view; for no man will stoop to this mean compliance who is qualified to act in a higher sphere, if he is not forced to it by hard necessity, either to cover a sore he wishes to conceal, or to bribe men to wink at some criminal indulgence which he cannot hide, and is unwilling to for sake. But though the other extreme is generally supposed to be less ignominious, yet, when weighed in a just balance, I apprehend it will be found at least equally mean, and in some respects far more per

nicious.

The popular drudge must always assume the appearance of sanctity: he must declaim strenuously against vice, and study to have his outward behavior decent and irreproachable. Thus far the gratification of his favorite passion will constrain him to plead the cause of religion, and to say

Whereas the smiles and rewards of political rulers (for these are the great ones of whom I now speak) are usually courted and obtained by very different means.

As a supple, complying temper, unfettered by conscience, or even a regard to decency, too often proves the best recommendation to their service; hence it is, that many who are candidates for their favor, are so far from assuming an air of sanctity, that they studiously avoid whatever can be deemed the peculiarities of their order, that they may have nothing to distinguish them from the men of the world, or to render them suspected of the remotest disposition, either to canvass the commands of their superiors, or to boggle at any measures they shall please to adopt.

The pernicious tendency of such an infamous plan of conduct is too apparent to need much illustration. Hereby they withhold from their patrons the most convincing and obvious proof of the reality, the excellence, and the efficacy of that religion which the office they hold obliges them to preach. Description and argument, if they are not accompanied with a visible representation of holiness, will make but a feeble impression upon those who are continually beset with the snares of prosperity. Besides, it often happens, that such persons, by means of a liberal education, are in a great measure placed (if I may so speak) beyond the reach of sermons: they have already got a theory of religion into their heads, and are not likely to hear any thing they knew not

before; so that they need striking examples more than verbal instructions. These, and these only, are of sufficient force to rouse their attention, and to carry home conviction to their hearts with power.

Did they behold men of moderate, or rather of scanty fortunes, unbiased by worldly hopes or fears, consistent and uniform in their whole behavior, resolute in very part of duty, inflexibly honest, and fortified against all corrupt influence what soever; such venerable, though imperfect images of God, would not only penetrate but overawe their souls.

It is surely unnecessary to show, that the temper I have been recommending would effectually guard us against both the pernicious extremes I have been speaking of, and render us equally independent. of the high and of the low. Zeal for the honor of our Lord, and the salvation of precious and immortal souls, would ennoble our minds, and break every slavish yoke in pieces. A true minister of Christ will call no man master; like this great apostle, he will endeavor so to speak, and so to act, in every situation, not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth the A holy and upright minister of Christ heart. It will ever appear a small matter never fails to possess a secret dominion into him to be judged of man's judgment: the hearts of those who are of the most this will be his labor, his only ambition, opposite character. Hate him they may," that, present or absent, he may be acand probably will; but at the same time cepted of his Lord." Which leads me they are constrained to reverence and esto observe, in the teem him: even 66 Herod feared John, and observed him, and did many things," because he knew "that he was a just and holy man.

Whereas, on the other hand, when they see those who are clothed with the sacred character, paying no regard at all to propriety of conduct, mixing with the world, and living at large as other men do; when they see them grasping at power, or scrambling for riches; spreading their sails to every wind, and ready to embark in any cause that can recommend them to those who are able to gratify their ambition or covetousness: however they may avail themselves of their treason, yet surely they must despise such traitors in their heart, and look upon them as the dregs and refuse of human kind.

But alas! strange as it may seem, it seldom happens that these perfidious men become so thoroughly contemptible as to be altogether harmless. Even they who despise them most, with a perverse and fatal subtilty, make their example an occasion of hardening their own hearts; fetching arguments from thence to extenuate their guilt, and to cherish their presumptuous hopes of impunity for it has often been observed, that no twig is so slender that a wicked man will not cling to it, when he feels himself sinking under the rebukes of conscience, and the overwhelming fears of approaching ven

geance.

4th and last place, That the importance of this temper shall be fully understood and felt by us all at the hour of death, and in the day of judgment.

We must shortly sicken and die: that awful period can be at no great distance from any of us it may be nearer to some of us than we are aware of. Let us consider it as present; and say, my Fathers and Brethren, were this the last day, the last hour, the last moment of life, what would support us best? what would yield us the most effectual consolation? I need not wait for an answer: every heart must have made it already. The only triumph of a dying minister is that which Paul uttered when the time of his departure was at hand: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which God, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." He who can say with this holy apostle, "To me to live is Christ," he, and he only, can with him subjoin, "and to die is gain." If now we live when believers stand fast in the Lord; if to promote the honor of our Master, and the salvation of our brethren, be the objects of our keenest desires and vigorous pursuit, death can do us no harm: we may cheerfully look beyond the grave to those pure regions of everlasting light, and love, and joy; where "they that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that

turn many unto righteousness as the stars I suspect we shall find too inuch reason to for ever and ever. Animated by these conclude, either that we do not seriously hopes, let us henceforth go on with fidelity believe this doctrine, or, at best, that our and zeal in performing every part of duty faith is very weak and imperfect. that belongs to us: and, "though Israel be not gathered by our means, yet shall we be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and our God shall be our strength." He who graciously accepteth according to what a man hath, will not reject our labor of love; " but will confess us at last before an assembled world; and say, with all the indulgence of a kind and liberal master, "Well done, good and faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord."

Amen

SERMON II.

66

GOD'S OMNISCIENCE.

PROVERBS XV. 3.-"The eyes of the LORD are in

every place, beholding the evil and the good." In every age of the church the complaint may be repeated, that "all men have not faith." Many who think they have it, are fatally deceived, and shall be found in the issue to have been utterly devoid of this gracious principle. True faith determines the choice, and governs the practice according to the nature of the thing believed. It is called "the evidence," or demonstration, "of things not seen.' Let the objects be ever so remote, yet faith brings them near to the mind, and renders them as powerful and operative upon the affections and will as if they were both present and visible. Such is the nature and efficacy of this grace: from whence you may judge whether it be so common as men are apt to imagine.

The subject of my text will afford us a striking illustration of this remark. We have already professed our belief, and we have done it too with some solemnity, that the eyes of the Lord are in this place, beholding the evil and the good. This we virtually acknowledged when we celebrated his praise but we did it most explicitly when we offered up our prayers to him; for to what purpose should we pray to an absent or even to an inattentive being? Yet if we examine ourselves impartially, and try our faith by the only proper test,

Were God visibly present in our assembly; were the great Immanuel, God in our nature, standing in the midst of us; would we praise him so freely, or pray to him so coldly, or speak and hear so unfeelingly as we do? And shall seeing, or not seeing, make such an odds? Did we just now behold the object of our worship, would the mere shutting our eyes render his presence less venerable, or the influence of it less powerful? No, my brethren : our seeing God could only assure us that he is present; and if an equal assurance is obtained by any other means, the influence of his presence will in either case be the same. It is not therefore to the seeing or not seeing God that any difference in our temper or behavior must be imputed; but to the believing, or not believing, the reality of his presence: from which we may justly infer, that every degree of irreverence in our minds, and every undutiful step in our conduct, is a symptom of the weakness and imperfection of our faith; and, consequently, that a course of known sin, or the habitual indulgence of any corrupt affection, affords undoubted evidence, that whatever light we may have in our understanding, yet we do not believe with our heart, that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

When these things are considered, it will appear that infidelity, in one degree or other, is far more prevalent than we are aware of; and that, notwithstanding our professional assent to the doctrine of my text, yet the best of us have need to get our faith of this interesting truth enlivened and confirmed. I shall therefore proceed to lay the evidence of it before you in as plain and convincing a manner as I can; imploring, in the entrance, that powerful blessing, without which the strongest and most persuasive arguments, like a dart thrown by a weak arm, will either fall short of the heart, or if they reach it, yet strike so feebly as to make no deep or lasting impression.

There are two judges, before one or other of which every question of this kind

must necessarily be tried; I mean, Scrip- the spirits: "All the ways of a man are ture and Reason. Scripture must deter-clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth mine those who confess its divine original; the spirits."-Prov. xvi. 2. He, as it were, and they who decline the authority of this puts them into a balance, so exactly poised judge, can appeal to none other but that that the smallest grain will turn the scale. Reason with which God hath endowed Further, the Scriptures not only ascribe. them; there they must stop, the cause can to God the most unlimited and unerring be carried nowhere else. If therefore it knowledge, but they even render it absurd shall appear, that the doctrine of God's to suppose the contrary; for how extenuniversal presence and knowledge is sup-sive, how spiritual, are his commandments! ported both by Scripture and Reason, the question will be finally decided; and unbelief can have no resource but perverse and wilful obstinacy.

First, then, This doctrine is plainly taught and repeatedly asserted in the sacred writings.

they reach to every part of our conduct; and not only direct the outward life, but give law to the most retired thought and inward affection. Thus we are told (Prov. xxiv. 9.) that "the thought of foolishness is sin;" and the tenth commandment forbids to covet; hereby giving life and spirit. The testimony of my text is clear and to all the former precepts, and teaching us, strong: The eyes of the Lord are in every as our Saviour afterwards explained them place. They not only " run to and fro in his sermon upon the mount, that they throughout the earth," as it is elsewhere include the inward disposition, as well as expressed, which form of speech might the outward action; and not only prohibit leave room to suppose that God beholds external violence, injustice, falsehood, and things successively, looking first at one sensuality, but heart-hatred, causeless or object, afterwards at another, but they are excessive anger, envy, resentment; in short, in every place at the same time. How the first conception of lust in the soul, as awful are the words of Elihu !-Job xxxiv. well as the birth of the sinful deed. And 21. "His eyes are upon the ways of man, can any suppose that God, whose wisdom and he seeth all his goings. There is no is perfect, would give laws to his creatures, darkness, nor shadow of death, where the with the most awful penalties annexed to workers of iniquity may hide themselves." the transgression of them, if, after all, it Nor is his attention confined to "the ways behoved Him to be ignorant, in many cases, of man," by which is commonly meant his whether these penalties were incurred or outward behavior; he looks immediately not? No, surely. The spirituality of the into his heart, and sees the inward frame law is a full proof by itself, that the knowand tendency of his soul; for "all things ledge of the Lawgiver must extend to our are naked and opened to the eyes of him thoughts, no less than to our words; and with whom we have to do, even the thoughts that the darkest corners of the heart lie and intents of the heart." "Man looketh open to his view, as much as the most on the outward appearance," said Samuel, public actions of the life. "but the Lord looketh on the heart." He needs no information from our actions; he looketh directly on the heart, out of which are the issues of life. Nay, "Hell and destruction are before the Lord, how much more the hearts of the children of men ?" -Prov. xv. 11.

Neither do the Scriptures represent him as a mere spectator, but as a witness and judge, who ponders the thought and action with all their circumstances, and makes a just and righteous estimation of them: "I know, and am a witness, saith the Lord." "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed." Nay, he weighs

Nay, which completes this part of the evidence, we find God actually judging men's hearts, and rewarding or punishing them according to their secret dispositions. Thus it is written of Amaziah (2 Chron. xxv. 2.) that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but he did it not with a perfect heart." David is applauded for his good intention to build a house for the Lord, though he was not permitted to execute his design: "Thou didst well," said God, " in that it was in thine heart!' And Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, obtained an honorable exemption from that violent death, and want of burial, to which the

rest of that wicked family were doomed; for this express reason, "Because in him there was found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel."-1 Kings xiv. 13. Upon the whole, then, you see how clearly and explicitly the Scriptures decide in favor of this doctrine, that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Let us now inquire, in the

their works are in the dark; and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay; for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?" In both these passages, the omniscience of God is rationally deduced from the obvious dictates of natural Second place, What Reason teacheth us religion; that we are the creatures of concerning this matter. And here I shall God, and that we derive from him all the argue from such principles as all men are | faculties we possess: And the conclusion agreed in, atheists excepted, and these are appears so just and necessary, that no obnot parties to the cause in issue. Surely jection occurs to me by which the force none of us will hesitate to acknowledge, of it can be evaded. But this argument that God is the Creator, the Preserver, acquires an additional strength when we the Governor, and the Judge of the world. consider, in the Now, if in each of these essential charac- 2d. place, That he is not only our Creaters of the Deity we shall find a separate tor, but likewise our Preserver; for "in proof of God's perfect knowledge; how ir-him we live and move." The same power resistible must the evidence be when they that brought us into being is continually are all united, and with what powerful exercised in supporting our being; nor conviction must it come into our hearts! can we live independent of God for one Let us then consider them apart, and try moment. Try your strength in the easiest how far they can lead us in this important matters; try if you can make one hair inquiry. white or black;" and when you have found yourselves unable for that which is least, let this convince you, that you are far less able to do so great a thing as to support and prolong life itself.

In the first place, I apprehend, that such knowledge as the Scriptures ascribe to God, will be found inseparably connected with the character of Creator. Is it not reasonable to conclude, that he who made man, and endowed him with the faculty of knowing, possesseth in himself a very perfect knowledge? Nay, must we not conclude, that his knowledge is as far superior to ours as his nature is exalted above ours? Here, then, Reason leads us, by two very easy steps, to attribute to God an infinite knowledge, at least a knowledge that we can no more limit than we can do the Divine nature itself.

The inspired author of the 94th Psalm addressed this argument to the infidels in his day, who scoffingly said, "The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know?" To the same purpose Isaiah speaks, (Isaiah xxix. 15, 16.) "Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and

Is the ability to move at all, then, constantly derived from God? and can any man dream, that God hath given him power to remove to such a distance, that his own eye cannot reach him? Doth he enable us to think, and shall we exclude him from the knowledge of these thoughts which we have no power to form, but what we receive from him? The absurdity is so glaring, that Reason must at once reject it with disdain.

3dly. Unless the eyes of the Lord were in every place, how could he execute what belongs to the Governor of the world? Can he order things aright which he doth not see? Or must his work lie unfinished in one part of his dominions till he hath gone to perfect it in another? Or shall he carry it on by delegates, as weak and finite creatures are obliged to do? It were blasphemy to think so. With infinite ease doth he govern the world he hath made; and, as he created all things in number, weight, and measure, so he