TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LADY MANSFIELD.

MADAM,

You ought not to think strange of an address of this kind from a Churchman, to the Grand-daughter of that great Magistrate, who, while he held the Seals for the King and Constitution, besides the most exemplary attention to the proper business of his Office, was elegantly ambitious to give the last polish to his Country, by a patronage of Learning and Science. Into this equal passion, he resolved all his private satisfactions. He took early into his notice, and continued long in his protection, every great Name in Letters and Religion, from CUDWORTH, who died in the reign of Charles the Second, to PRIDEAUX, who lived under George the First. It was the care and culture of an Age: and in spite of a dissolute, abandoned Court, he made the reign of Charles the Second to be, what it is now likely to be always esteemed, OUR GOLDEN AGE OF LITERATURE.

The

The glory of bearing this relation to so faithful a Guardian of the human Faculties in their non-age, Providence, in reward of your virtues, hath doubled, in a still nearer relation to One, who, in his high Station, may with the same justice be esteemed the great support of Civil Liberty; and is now engaged in the like generous task for the very BEING of a free Community, which the other so successfully accomplished for that chief Ornament of it, LITERATURE and SCIENCE.

But the honours you derive from others, you preserve untarnished, by the splendor of those you have acquired for yourself, in the course of a sober and enlightened Picty; which makes you an example to the best of your Sex, as the patriotic Virtues of your illustrious Consort will make him, to the wisest of his.

I have the honour to be,

MADAM,

Your LADYSHIP'S

Most obliged and faithful Servant,

W. GLOUCESTER.

Dec. 24, 1766.

SERMON XVIII.

Preached at Lincoln's-Inn Chapel, on the first public Fastday after the Calamity of Lisbon, 1755.

NATURAL AND CIVIL EVENTS THE INSTRUMENTS OF GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT.

LUKE xiii. 1, 2, &c.

THERE WERE PRESENT, AT THAT SEASON, SOME THAT TOLD HIM OF THE GALILEANS, WHOSE BLOOD PILATE HAD MINGLED WITH THEIR

SACRIFICES.

1

AND JESUS ANSWERING, SAID UNTO THEM, SUPPOSE YE THAT THESE GALILEANS WERE SINNERS ABOVE ALL THE GALILEANS, BECAUSE THEY SUFFERED SUCH THINGS?

I TELL YOU, NAY: BUT, EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.

OR THOSE EIGHTEEN UPON WHOM THE TOWER OF SILOAM FELL, AND SLEW THEM, THINK YE THAT THEY WERE SINNERS ABOVE ALL MEN THAT DWELT IN JERUSALEM?

I TELL YOU, NAY: BUT, EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.

ΤΗ

HIS solemn reproof hath been commonly understood, and often quoted, as a condemnation of the opinion which ascribes "the general

VOL. X.

B

calamities

calamitics effected by natural or civil causes, to God's displeasure against sin;" but surely with little reason; for that opinion is founded in the very essence of Religion. What the text condemns is the superstitious abuse of it, which uncharitably concludes, that "the sufferers in a general calamity are greater sinners than other men."

That this was the case, I shall endeavour to shew -from the character of the speaker-from the state and circumstances of the hearers-and from the very words of the text itself.

1. He who goeth about to instruct others in the knowledge of God, whether commissioned from Heaven or prompted by his own Charity, must needs conceive that the moral Governor of the universe, whose essential character it is, not to leave himself without a witness, doth frequently employ the physical and civil operations of our system, to support and reform the moral. For such a Governor will manifest his dominion in whatever world he is pleased to station and exercise his accountable and probationary creatures. In man's state and condition here, natural and civil events are the proper instruments of moral government. The teacher therefore of Religion, or of a moral Governor, will be naturally led to inculcate this truth, that general calamities, though events merely physical or civil, were (amongst other ends) ordained by the Author of all nature to serve for the scourge of moral disorders. For to suppose, that physical or civil events, whether friendly or adverse, such as peace or war, fertility or dearth, health

or