SERMON XIX.

God has done all things well.

GOD, Sovereign Ruler of the universe, Father of

fpirits, of mankind, of all that is and lives and thinks, that we likewise are thy creatures, thy fubjects, thy children; that we likewise are placed under thy inspection and providence, and are ruled and governed by thee: we here publicly together rejoice before thee; that thou, the Lord God Omnipotent, reigneft; for thy fceptre is a fceptre of righteousness and clemency, thy government is the pure emanation of wisdom and benignity. Oh happy we, that we are not the offspring of chance, that we are not abandoned to ourselves, that we are not the masters of our own destinies! Well for us, that thou haft fet bounds to our liberty and our faculties, prescribed us rules of conduct, held out to us a fixt and glorious prize, and fhewn us thyfelf the way that leads directly to it! How boldly may the creature truft to his creator, the child to

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his parent, the wifeft, the tendereft parent! How calmly to him refign himself and his for unes and expect from him the establishment of them! How undauntedly walk the way marked out and appointed to him by fovereign wifdom and benignity! Oh might we but always more clearly perceive, always more inwardly feel the relations and connections in which we stand to thee, our creator and father, always more and more rejoice in them, and always learn more firmly to believe that thy ordinances and institutions are incapable of melioration, that thy laws are just and holy, thy difpenfations and decrees fupremely wife and kind, and that the final aim of thy administration is and can be nothing elfe but the progreffively greater perfection and happiness of us and all thy creatures. Do thou ftrengthen us thyfelf in this confolatory faith, o Father of mercies, and let us continually more fully experience its force and efficacy. Yes, to fubmit entirely to thy will, and to acquiefce in thy determinations, willingly and gladly to obey thy laws, to accept both good and ill with gratitude from thy hand, to honour thee with implicit confidence, and to expect conftantly of thee what is beft: be this our fervent pursuit as the fource from whence all our fatisfactions and comforts must flow! Blefs then to that end the doctrines of religion that are now to employ our reflection. Let us fee them in fuch a perfpicuous point of view, be fo thoroughly sensible of their truth, that they may be a leading principle of

our

our fentiments and behaviour. Profeffing ourselves the difciples of Jefus Chrift thy fon, may we find by a conduct strictly conformable to fo divine a religion as his, that favour in thy fight which thou haft expressly promised us by him; through whom we offer up to thee our fupreme praises and everlafting homage: Our father, &c.

MARK Vii. 37.

And were beyond measure astonished; faying: he hath done all things well he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

WE have often obferved to you, my pious hearers,

that the doctrines of religion can only fo far act upon us, improve and confole us, as they are present to our mind and intimately blended with all the rest of our ideas and fenfations. As long as they are foreign from our thoughts; as long as we but faintly recollect them or must call them up with effort; as long as they do not spontaneously present themselves in all their luftre as indubitable truths; as long as we are not in the practice of applying them to every particular object and occurrence: fo long will they, like a dead grain of feed in the field, lie cold and barren in our hearts; we fhall, amidst all the riches that we poffefs, be poor and defolate, amidst all our refreshments weak and impotent. Thus it is with the important

religious

religious doctrine, which the words of our text furnish us with an opportunity to confider. If the jews, at fight of the wonders which Jefus performed before their eyes, had juft caufe to exclaim: he hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to fpeak; we have the most cogent reasons at all that God ordains, commands, decrees, permits, achieves, to cry out: he has done and does all things well, he difpofes all things to the best ends, all his ways are full of wisdom and benignity. This is one of the leading, most momentous principles of all wisdom and all religion, one of the main pillars of human virtue and happiness; a principle effentially inherent in christianity, and which should everywhere accompany the christian, be always present to his thoughts, the foul and guide of all his judgments, difpofitions, actions, hopes and views. Indeed moft chriftians have it frequently in their mouths; talk much of this grand, comprehenfive principle, fo foothing to the heart and mind with but few however does it effect that which it might and fhould effect, fince but few have made themselves thoroughly acquainted and familiar with it. Do we wish for this happy attainment; are we defirous of experiencing it in all its force and felicity: we must blend it with our whole fyftem of thought and perception, we must learn to apply it to every particular inftance that can poffibly occur: to fupply you with fome direction on this head, my pious hearers, is the defign of my prefent difcourfe.

Let us therefore proceed to apply the principle God has done and does all things well, to all his arrangements, institutions, commands, difpenfations, and dealings with mankind. Let us fee how true, how fertile in ferious confequences, how comfortable and foothing it is in these several respects and connections.

God has done all things well, is applicable in the first place to the arrangements and inftitutions which God has established in nature, to the laws which he has prescribed to the innumerable hoft of his inanimate and animate creatures. As furely as his infinite intelligence comprehends and furveys all things, and his boundless power operates in all and through all: fo furely are likewise the several parts of that whole adjusted, connected, inferted together, and dependent on each other in fuch manner as is neceffary and adapted to the prefervation and to the greatest poffible beauty and perfection of the immense univerfe. He has given to every one of the numberlefs orbs that befpangle the vault of heaven, to every fun, to every planet, the magnitude, the gravity, the form, the force, affigned it the place, prescribed it the motion or the course, and placed it in the combination with the reft, in which and by which alone it can be and fubfift and act, and attain the wife, beneficent ends of its creator and ruler. All is one immenfe, clofe compacted whole, the feveral parts whereof in various ways infinuate together, confine each other, advance, retard, impel,

uphold,