SERMON immense arch of the heavens, the splendour II. of the sun in his meridian brightness, or the beauty of his rising and setting hours, the rich landscape of the fields, and the boundless expanse of the ocean, are scenes which mock every rival attempt of human skill or labour. Nor is it only in the splendid appearances of nature, but amidst its rudest forms, that we trace the hand of the Divinity. In the solitary desert, and the high mountain, in the hanging precipice, the roaring torrent, and the aged forest, though there be nothing to cheer, there is much to strike the mind with awe, to give rise to those solemn and sublime sensations which elevate the heart to an Almighty, Allcreating, Power. In short, we can no where cast our eyes around us without meeting what is sufficient to awaken reverence of the Deity. This reverence becomes the more profound, that the Great Being who is the object of it, is to us invisible and unknown. We may seek to discover him, but he hides himself from us; his footsteps we clearly trace, but his face we can never behold. We go forward, but he is not there; and backward; but II. but we cannot perceive him: on the left hand, SERMON where be worketh, but we cannot behold him; he bideth himself on the right hand, that we cannot see him*. We know that he is not far from every one of us; yet he shrouds himself in the darkness of his pavilion; he answereth from the secret place of thunder †. Before this incomprehensible Being, this God terrible and strong, we become in a manner annihilated; we are sensible that in his sight we are only as the drop of the bucket and the small dust in the balance; and in his presence can only rejoice with trembling. For we know that the mighty arm which upholds the universe, and which surrounds us with wonders on every side can in a moment crush us to the dust, if we become objects of displeasure to heaven. Awful are the operations of the Divine Power which we are constantly beholding in the moral as well as in the natural world. The Almighty rules among the nations, as well as over individuals: on his pleasure depend all the great revolutions of the earth; the interpositions of his Providence * Job, xxiii. 8, 9. + Ps. Ixxxi. 7. are II. SERMON are frequently apparent to the world, in bringing down the mighty, and raising up the fallen. In the books of the law and the prophets, we hear his threatenings against rebellious sinners denounced with a tremendous voice; and in the dispensation of the gospel, a most striking instance is exhibited to us of the strict justice of his government, in the expiation that was required for the apostacy of a guilty world. So that both the law and the gospel, the works of nature and the conduct of Providence unite in uttering that solemn voicė which ought often to resound in our ears: Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth. Fear before him all ye nations: Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. For honour and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. He alone doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number*. On this head of discourse I have insisted the more, because I apprehend that such sentiments as I have now been inculcating *Ps. xlvi. 10 Ps. xcvi. 6-8. Job. v. 9. 13 occur II. occur too rarely among many professed SERMON Christians. Did an awful reverence for the Supreme Being, dwell on all our minds. with a properly impressive sense, its effects would oftener appear in conduct. On many occasions, it would check a wanton levity of spirits. It would infuse more solemnity into our religious acts. It would inspire greater respect for the temples of God, and for all the forms of sacred worship. It would banish that profanation of the name of God, which we so often hear from unhallowed lips.- Let it be remembered, that the fear of God is, throughout much of the Scripture, employed as the term descriptive of the whole of religion. It is not the fear which slaves are constrained to feel for a tyrant, but the reverence which children have for the best parent, or subjects for the best sovereign; the veneration which necessarily enters into the love we bear to a Being of superiour order: it is to fear the Lord and his goodness, as it is emphatically expressed by one of the Prophets *. This fear of God, therefore, is not only consistent with the VOL. V. *Hosea, iii. 5. love SERMON love of him, but forms a material part of it. The pretended love of God disjoined from reverence of him, would no longer be genuine love, but would rise into arrogant presumption. I proceed to ob serve, II. THAT gratitude forms an essential part of that disposition which we ought to bear towards God. This implies an affectionate senfe of God upon the mind, and enters directly into love, understood in its most common acceptation. It were a gross mistake to imagine, that the reverence of which I have discoursed has any tendency to check gratitude: on the contrary it heightens it, by uniting the sense of our benefactor's condescension with the ́benefits which he conveys. The more eminent the qualities of a benefactor are, and the higher the rank is in which he stands, our hearts are warmed the more by the feeling of his goodness. It is impossible to think of God at all, without conceiving him as the benefactor of mankind. Mysterious as this world is in many of its appearances, it nevertheless carries, on |