author), 'let him consider what he is in comparison of the whole that exists beside: let him regard himself as confined in this obscure by-corner of nature: and from the appearance of the little dungeon where he is lodged, that is, of this visible world, let him learn to estimate the world, its kingdoms, and himself at their real value.' Isaiah estimates their real value in the words of my text. 'Behold,' says he, all nations before him are as a drop of a bucket:' they are of no more value than the small dust that cleaves to the balance: God sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: yea, they are still less considerable, all nations before him are as nothing.'

Thirdly, The immensity of the Creator's works leads us to the efficiency of his will: and the idea of the real world conducts us to that of the possible world. There needs no train of propositions to discover a connexion between what God has done, and what he can do. The idea of a creature leads to that of a Creator: for, in supposing that some beings have been created, we suppose an author of their creation. The idea of a creative Being includes the idea of a Being whose will is efficient for as soon as ye suppose a creative Being, ye suppose a Being whose will is selfefficient. But a Being, whose will is self-efficient, is a Being who, by a single act of his will, can create all possible beings: that is all, the existence of which implies no contradiction; there being no reason for limiting the power of a will that hath been once efficient of itself. So that as soon as ye conceive a Being who has once created, ye conceive a Being, who can always create.

Let us then form this notion of God: a Being who, by a single act of his will, can create now in empty space as he hath formerly created. He can say, of light which doth not exist, what he once said of that which doth exist, Let there be light;' and there shall be light, like that which actually is. He can say, of luminaries which are not, what he has said of luminaries which already are, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven;' and luminaries, that are not, shall be, and those that once were not are now, and will owe their existence to that will, which is always irresistible, and always efficient; or, as the prophet says in the words of my text, to the greatness of his might, to the strength of his

power.

Lastly, to convince you of the grandeur of God, I am to remark to you, 'the magnificence of some of his mighty acts, at certain periods, in favour of his church.' The prophet had two of these periods in view. The first was the return of the Jews from that captivity in Babylon which he had denounced: and the second, the coming of the Messiah, of which their return from captivity was only a shadow.

What wonders did God work in the first of these periods! Nebuchadnezzar, the tyrant of the Jews, had obtained universal monarchy,or, as the prophet Jeremiah expresses it, he was become the hammer of the whole earth, Jer. 1. 23. The inspired writers represent the rapidity of his victories under the emblem of

the swiftness of an eagle. We can hardly imagine the speed with which he overran Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, Persia, Media, Egypt, Idumea, Syria, and almost all Asia, and with which he conquered all those extensive countries as he marched through them. Cyrus had been appointed by the Lord, and nominated by the prophets, to stop his career, and to subdue those Babylonians who had subdued so many nations. But who was this Cyrus? Son of a father, whose meanness an obscurity had prevailed with Astyages, king of Media, to give him his daughter Mandana in marriage; how will he perform such prodigious enterprises? This is not all. Astyages was afraid that Mandana's son should fulfil a dream, of which his diviners had given him frightful interpretations. He caused her therefore to reside at court during her preg nancy, and commanded Harpagus, one of his most devoted courtiers, to put the child to death as soon as he should be born. But God preserved the child, and all the power of Astyages could not make one hair fall from his head without the divine permission. Harpagus trembled at his commission, resigned it to the overseer of the king's flocks, and ordered him to expose Mandana's son: but, when he was preparing to obey him, his wife, affected with the beauty of young Cyrus, prevailed with her husband to expose her own son in

his stead.

Thus, by a train of miracles, was this anointed of God preserved, and by a train of greater miracles still, did he stir up the Persians against the Medes, march at the head of them against the cruel Astyages, defeat him, conquer Media, and at length, besiege Baby. lon. Nebuchadnezzar had surrounded that city with a triple wall, and had replaced the bricks of Semiramis with free-stone, which contributed, says Dion, less to the magnificence than to the eternity of the empire. The walls were a hundred feet high, and fifty broad, so that it was said of that great city, it was alike incredible how art could form, or art destroy it. But what walls, what fortifications, can resist the blows of an arm supported by the greatness of the might, the strength of the power,' of the omnipotent God! Every thing submits to the valour of Cyrus: he takes Babylon, and before he has well secured his conquest, does homage for the victory to the God who had foretold it; and releases the Jews from captivity. These accounts are related by heathen authors, and particularly by Herodotus and Justin: God having determined that the bitterest enemies of revelation should preserve those monuments which demonstrate the divinity of our prophecies.

:

But I said just now, that the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon was only a shadow of that deliverance, which the Messiah was to bring into the world and that the mighty acts, which God wrought in the first period, were only faint images of what he would operate in the second. Accordingly, our prophet had the second of these periods much more in view than the first in the words of my text. It is not a love for the marvellous; it is neither a prejudice of education, nor a blind submission to the confes

sions of faith; (motives that produce so much superstition among Christians :) these are not the reasons of our comment: it is the nature of the thing; it is the magnificence of the prophecies connected with my text; it is the authority of St. Paul, who, in the eleventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans, ver. 34. and in the second of his first epistle to the Corinthians, ver. 16. interprets these words of my text of the gospel, Who has known the mind of the Lord? who has been his counsellor? Accordingly, in this second period, God has displayed treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But we have elsewhere treated this subject at large, and we choose rather only to hint this article to-day than to incur the just reproach of treating it imperfectly.

Such then are the grandeurs of God; and all that I have lisped out is more properly the title of the subject, upon which I would fix your attention, than the subject itself well digested. Nevertheless, how imperfect soever the sketch may be, it may serve to convince us, that there is no extravagance in the prophet's ideas; that if his language is lofty, it is not hyperbolical, and that he is always below the truth, even when he uses these sublime expressions, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? meted the heavens with a span, comprehended the dust of the earth with a measure, weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? But why does he describe the Deity with so much pomp? This remains to be considered in the second part of this discourse, which shall also be the application.

II. We observed in the beginning, that the prophet's design was to render two sorts of idolatry odious: idolatry in religion; and idolatry in morals.

Idolatry in religion consists in rendering those religious homages to creatures, which are due to the Creator only. To discredit this kind of idolatry, the prophet contents himself with describing it. He shames the idolater by reminding him of the origin of fidols, and of the pains taken to preserve them. What is the origin of idols? The workman melteth an image (says our prophet), and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold.' What pains does the idolater take to preserve his idols? He casteth silver chains to fasten them, and to prevent thieves from stealing them, or perhaps for fear they should escape through their own inconstancy. The heathens had been accustomed, when they besieged a city, to evoke the tutelary gods (Macorbius has preserved a long form of these evocations ;*) and the besieged, to prevent the effects of these evocations, and to secure their gods from going into their enemies camps, used to fasten their images with chains. Many proofs of this might be alleged, but one passage of Quintus Curtius shall

Saturn. III. 9. The following is the form of the incantation. If you be a God, or a Goddess, under whose guardianship the people and the city of the Carthaginians is, and you, particularly, who have ta ken upon you the protection of that people and city, I worship you, and humbly beg you would be pleased to forsake the people and city of the Carthaginians, to abandon their places, temples, religious ceremonies and cities, and come away,' &c. Bayle, Soranus Rem. E.

L

suffice. He tells us, that 'a citizen of Tyre having publicly declared that he had seen in a dream the image of Apollo quitting the city, the citizens immediately used the precaution of fastening it with a chain of gold."*

But the prophet no less intended to shame idolatry in morals, which consists in distrusting the promises of God in extreme dangers and in expecting from men a succour that cannot be expected from God. A man is guilty of moral idolatry, when, in dangerous crises, he says, My way is hid from the Lord; my judgment is passed over from my God.' Be not surprised at my giving so odious a name to a disposition of mind, which is too common even among those whose piety is the least suspected, and the best established. The essence of idolatry, in general, is to disrobe the Deity of his perfections, and to adorn a creature with them. There are indeed many degrees of this disposition. He, who renders divine honours to the glimmering light of a taper, is guilty perhaps of a more gross idolatry, than he who worships the sun. The Egyptian, who worships a rat, is perhaps more absurd than the Roman, who ranks a Cesar with the gods. But, after all, there is so small a difference between the meanest insect and the greatest emperor, the glimmering of a taper and the glory of the sun, when compared with the Supreme Being, that there can be no great difference between these two sorts of idolatry.

Let us apply this to our subject. God is the sole arbiter of events. Whenever ye think, that any more powerful being directs them to comfort you, ye put the creature in the Creator's place; whether ye do it in a manner more or less absurd: whether they bo formidable armies, impregnable fortresses, and well-stored magazines, which ye thus exalt into deities; or whether it be a small circle of friends, an easy income, or a country-house; it does not signify, ye are alike idolaters.

The Jews were often guilty of the first sort of idolatry. The captivity in Babylon was the last curb to that fatal propensity. But this miserable people, whose existence and preservation, whose prosperities and adversities, were one continued train of obvious miracles, immediately from heaven; this miserable people, whose whole history should have prevailed with them to have feared God only, and to have confided in him entirely; this miserable people trembled at Nebuchadnezzar, and his army, as if both had acted independently of God. Their imaginations prostrated before these second causes, and they shuddered at the sight of the Chaldean Marmosets, as if they had afforded assistance to their worshippers, and had occasioned their triumphs over the church.

Thanks be to God, my dear brethren, that the light of the gospel hath opened the eyes of a great number of Christians, in regard to idolatry in religion. I say a great number, and not all for how many parts of the Christian world still deserve the prophet's reproach? the workman melteth a graven im

* L. IV. 3. 21. Metu aurea catena devinxere simulacrum, aræque Herculis, cujus numini urbem dicaverant, inseruere vinculum, quasi illo Deo Apollinem retenturi.

age, the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold. Have ye not known? have ye not heard?' Blessed be God, we are quite free from this kind of idolatry! But how many idolaters of the second kind do I see?

Ye, who, in order to avert public calamities, satisfy yourselves with a few precautions of worldly prudence, and oppose provisions to scarcity, medicines to mortality, an active vigilance to the danger of a contagion; and take no pains to extirpate those horrible crimes, which provoke the vengeance of heaven to inflict punishments on public bodies; ye are guilty of this second kind of idolatry, ye stand exposed to this malediction, 'Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm,' Jer. xvii. 5. your confidence placed in God, ye would endeavour to avert national judgments by purging the state of those scandalous commerces, those barbarous extortions, and all those wicked practices, which are the surest forerunners, and the principal causes, of famine, and pestilence, and war.

Were

Desolate family, ye who rested all your expectations upon one single head; ye, who made one single person the axis of all your schemes and hopes, ye, who lately saw that person cut down in the midst of his race, and carried away with the torrent of human vicissitudes; ye, who see nothing around you now but indigence, misery, and famine; who cry in the bitterness of your grief, no more support, no more protector, no more father: ye are guilty of this second kind of idolatry. Ye 'trusted in man, ye made flesh your arm.' Were God the object of your trust, ye would recollect, amidst all your grief, that providence is not enclosed in your patron's tomb: ye would remember, that an invisible eye incessantly watches over, and governs, this world; that God, who feedeth the fowls of heaven, and clothes the lilies of the valley,' (Luke xii. 24. 28.) that a God so good and compassionate, can easily provide for the maintenance and encouragement of your family.

And thou, feeble mortal, lying on a sick bed, already struggling with the king of terrors, (Job xviii. 14.) in the arms of death; thou, who tremblingly complainest, I am undone! physicians give me over! friends are needless! remedies are useless! every application is unsuccessful! a cold sweat covers my whole body, and announces my approaching death! thou art guilty of this second kind of idolatry, thou hast trusted in man,' thou hast made flesh thine arm.' Were God the object of thy trust, thou wouldest believe, that though death is about to separate thee from men, it is about to unite thee to God: thou wouldest preclude the slavish fear of death by thy fervent desires: thou wouldest exult at the approach of thy Redeemer, Come, Lord, come quickly! Amen.' Rev. xxii. 20. How easy would it be, my brethren, to enlarge this article!

'Dearly beloved, flee from idolatry,' (1 Cor. x. 14.) is the exhortation of an apostle, and with this exhortation we conclude this discourse, and enforce the design of the prophet in the text. 'Flee from idolatry,' not only from gross idolatry, but from that which, though it may appear less shocking, is no less repugnant to the spirit of religion. 'Why sayest thou, O Jacob; why speakest thou, Ŏ Israel; My way is hid from the Lord; my judgment is passed over from my God?' The guardianship of you is that part of the dominion of God of which he is most jealous. His love for you is so exquisite, that he condescends to charge himself with your happiness. The happiness which ye feel in communion with him, is intended to engage you to him: and the noblest homage that ye can return, the purest incense that ye can offer, is to say to him, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? there is none upon earth I desire besides thee. It is good for me to draw near to God,' Ps. lxx ii. 25. 28.

If ye place your hopes upon creatures, ye depend upon winds, and waves, and precarious seasons: upon the treachery, iniquity, and inconstancy, of men: or, to say all in one word, ye depend upon death. That poor man is a self-deceiver, who, like the man in the gospel, saith within himself, 'My soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry,' Luke xii. 17. 19. But, I expect to find him, yes, I expect to find him, at the sound of that voice, which may this very night require his soul, I expect to find him in a sick bed. There, all pale, distorted, and dying, let him assemble his gods; let him call for his treasures, and send for his domestics, and acquaintances; in that fatal bed let him embrace his Drusillas and Dalilahs; let him form harmonious concerts, amuse himself with fashionable diver. sions, or feast his eyes with gaudy decorations, the vacuity and vanity of which, in spite of himself, he will be obliged to discover.

O give me more solid foundations for my hopes! May I never build my house upon the sand, endangered by every wind and wave; may the edifice of my felicity be superior to human vicissitudes, and 'like mount Sion, which cannot be removed,' Ps. cxxv. 1.) may I build upon the rock of ages, and be able in public calamities and in my private misfortunes, above all, in the agonies of death to appopriate those precious promises which God hath made to his church in general, and to every individual in it: The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,' Isa. liv. 10.

To this God, of whose grandeur we form such elevated notions, and upon whose promi ses we found such exalted hopes, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The text that we have read to you, my brethren, and which, though very short, hath doubtless already excited many grand ideas in your minds, is a homage which the prophet Jeremiah paid to the perfections of God, when they seemed to counteract one another. To make this plain to you, we will endeavour to fix your attention on the circumstances in which our prophet was placed, when he pronounced the words. This is the best method of explaining the text, and with this we begin.

Jeremiah was actually a martyr to his ministry, when he addressed that prayer to God, of which this text is only a part. He was reduced to the disagreeable necessity of not being able to avail himself of the rites of religion, without invalidating the maxims of civil government. This is one of the most difficult straits, into which the ministers of the living God can be brought; for, however they may be opposed, people always regard them, if not with entire submission, yet with some degree of respect, while they confine themselves to the duties of their own office, and while, content with the speaking of heavenly things, they leave the reins of government in the hands of those to whom Providence has committed them. But when religion and civil policy are so united that ministers cannot discharge their functions without becoming, in a manner, ministers of state, without determining whether it be proper to make peace or to declare war, to enter into alliances or to dissolve them: how extremely delicate and difficult does their ministry become! This was our prophet's case. Jerusalem had been besieged for the space of one year by Nebuchadnezzar's army, and it was doubtful whether the city should capitulate with that prince, or hold out against him. God himself decided this question, by the ministry of the prophet, and commanded him in his name, to address the Israelites: Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he

shall take it. And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans; but shall surely be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon . . . though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper,' ver 3-5.

A prediction so alarming was not uttered with impunity: Jeremiah was thrown into prison for pronouncing it: but before he could well reflect on this trial, he was exercised with another that was more painful still. God commanded him to transact an affair, which seems at first sight more likely to sink his ministry into contempt, than to conciliate people's esteem to it. He commanded him to avail himself of the right, which every Israelite enjoyed, when his nearest relation offered an estate to sale: a right founded upon an institute recorded in Leviticus. God required the Israelites to consider him as their sovereign, and his sovereignty over them was absolute, Lev. xxv. They cannot be said to have possessed any thing as proper owners; they held every thing conditionally, and in trust; and they had no other right in their patrimonial estates than what they derived from the arbitrary will of God. In order to preserve in them a sense of this dependence, they were forbidden to sell the lands which they inherited from their ancestors: 'The lands shall not be sold for ever (saith the Levitical law,) for the land is mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with me,' ver. 23. This was not unknown to the heathens, for Diodorus of Sicily says, that the Jews could not sell their inheritances."*

But as it might happen that a landholder might become indigent, and be reduced by this prohibition to the danger of dying with hunger, even while he had enough to supply all his wants, God had provided, that, in such a case, the lands might be sold under certain restrictions; which were proper to convince the seller of that sovereignty, from which he would never depart. The principle of those restrictions were two; one, that the estate should be rather mortgaged than sold, and, at the jubilee, should return to its first mas

* The case of the daughters of Zelophehad, related in Numb. xxvii. 8, procured a general law of inheritance. If a man died without a son, his daughters were to inherit: if without children, his brethren were to inherit: if without brethren, his uncle was to inherit: if without uncle, his nearest relation was his heir. Grotius says that this law, which preferred an uncle before a nephew, passed from the Jews to the Phonicians, and from the Phenicians into all Africa. Saurin. Dissert. Tom. II. Disc, vii.

ter and hence it is, that to sell an estate for ever, in the style of the Jewish jurisprudence is to mortgage it till the jubilee. The other restriction was, that the nearest relation of him who was obliged to sell his land, should have the right of purchasing it before any others, either more distant relations or strangers.

In virtue of this law, Jeremiah had a right to purchase an estate, which Hanameel, the son of Shallum, had offered to sale. The land lay at Anathoth, a town in the tribe of Benjamin, where our prophet was born, and was actually occupied by the Chaldeans at that time. Jerusalem was besieged, and Jeremiah was fully persuaded, and even foretold that it would be taken; that the Jews would be carried away into captivity; and would not be re-established in their own country till their return from Babylon at the expiration of seventy years. What a time to purchase an estate! What a season to improve a right of redemption!

But this command of God to the prophet was full of meaning; God gave it with views similar to, but incomparably surer than, those which the Romans had, when they publicly offered to sell the land where Hannibal was encamped when he was besieging the city of Rome. What the prophet was commanded to do, was designed to be an image of what the Jews should have the liberty of doing af ter their re-establishment. Ye may ascertain that this was the design of the command given to Jeremiah, if ye attend to the words which he addressed to God himself, in the twenty-fourth verse of this chapter: Behold the mounts, the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans: and thou hast said unto me, O Lord God, buy thee the field for money,' ver. 25. 27. To this the Lord answers, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is there any thing too hard for me? Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast, it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences,' ver. 42-44.

Jeremiah entered into these views, obeyed the command, and believed the promise: but, to fortify himself against such doubts as the distance of its accomplishment might perhaps produce in his mind, he recollected the eminent perfections, and the magnificent works, of him from whom the promise came. when I had delivered the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch (says the prophet,) I pray ed unto the Lord, saying, Ah! Lord God, behold thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.

Now

Thou art the great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is thy name, great in counsel, and mighty in work.'

The considering of the circumstances that attended the text is a sufficient determination of its end and design. The prophet's meaning, which is quite clear, is, that the wisdom of God perfectly comprehended all that would be necessary to re-establish the Jewish exiles

in their own land; and that his power could effect it. The words are, however, capable of a nobler and more extensive meaning, and in this larger view we intend to consider them. God is great in counsel,' either, as the words may be translated, 'great in designing, and mighty in executing' or, as the same phrase is rendered in Isaiah,' wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working," xxviii. 29. We will endeavour to give you a just notion of this sublime subject in two different views.

I. We will consider the subject speculatively.

II. We will consider it in a practical light. We intend by considering the subject speculatively, to evince the truth of the subject, the demonstration of which is very important to us. By considering it practically, we in tend to convince you on the one hand, of the monstrous extravagance of those men, those little rays of intelligence, who, according to the wise man, pretend to set their wisdom and counsel against the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 30; and on the other, of the wisdom of those, who, while they regulate their conduct by his laws alone, commit their peace, their life, and their salvation, to the care of his providence. This is what I propose to lay before you.

I. O Lord, thou art great in counsel, and mighty in work.' Let us consider this proposition speculatively. I shall establish it on two kinds of proofs. The first shall be taken from the nature of God: the second from the history of the world, or rather from the history of the church.

1. My first proofs shall be taken from the nature of God; not that it belongs to a preacher to go very deeply into so profound a subject, nor to his auditors to follow all the reflections that he could make: yet we wish, when we speak of the Supreme Being, that we might not be always obliged to speak superficially, under pretence that we always speak to plain people. We wish ye had sometimes the laudable ambition, especially when ye assist in this sacred place, of elevating your minds to those sublime objects, of the meditation of which, the occupations, to which your frailties and miseries, or, shall I rather say, your vitiated tastes, enslave you, ye are deprived in the ordinary course of your lives.

The nature of God proves that he is great in counsel.' Consider the perfect knowledge that he has of all possible beings, as well as of all the beings which do actually exist. We are not only incapable of thoroughly understanding the knowledge that he has of possi ble beings; but we are even incapable of forming any idea of it. I am not sure that the reduction of all the objects of our knowledge to two ideas is founded in reason. I do not know whether we be not guilty of some degree of temerity in comprising all real existences in two classes: a class of bodies, and a class of spirits. I leave this question to philosophers; but I maintain, that it argues the highest presumption to affirm, even allowing that every being within our knowledge is elther body or spirit, that every thing must be reducible to one of these classes, that not only all real existence, but even all possible exist ence, must necessarily be either body or spirit.