fuggefting advantageous Rules for the Con-SERM. V. duct of Life, if he hath our eternal Interest at Heart. The Philofophy now in vogue allows, that God continually acts upon Matter; and that whatever Motion there is in the great Bodies of the Universe, is owing to his immediate Operation. But if God acts continually and immediately upon Matter; it will be hard to affign any fufficient Reafon, why he fhould not act upon, what is much nobler than Matter, the fpiritual World.

There are very few, who have not, Tome time or other, juft as they were upon the Point of perpetrating a bad Action, felt a fudden Check or Refraint upon them, which has rendered their Design abortive. Something, they knew not what, at that very Crifis, when, if they had gone a Step farther, it had been too late to retreat, hath withheld them from finning. A chill Fearfulness and Trembling hath come upon them, that were Strangers to Fear; and an unusual Damp hath overcaft the Soul, which had been inured to hardy Attempts. When any good Suggeftion without any antecedent Train of Ideas arifeth in our Minds, we know not how or from what VOL. II. Quarter,

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SERM. V. Quarter, we ought to look upon it as a Beam of Light darting in upon our Minds from the great Father of Lights; and let us improve, cultivate and ripen it, till it breaks forth into correspondent Actions.

IVthly, I fhall make two or three Reflections and fo conclude.

I. Let us learn from hence to form the most august Ideas of the divine Nature, of which ours is capable.

Look how wide and fpacious this Earth is, on which we live: Yet this Earth is as it were but one petty Province of God's univerfal Empire, one little Wheel of the vaft Machine, the whole World. How astonishingly great then is that Being who fets each Wheel in Motion, and regulates the whole Circumference of the Creation; where there are Diverfities of Adminiftrations, but the fame God, which worketh All in All? It is his Power, which wields fo many mafly Bodies, and bids the Planets go their everlasting Round; it is his Wisdom, which adjusts fuch Variety of Movements without the leaft Confufion; it is his Goodness, which has enriched the Universe with fuch a Profufion of Good, beautified it with fuch

fuch Order and Harmony, and ennobled it SERM. V. with fuch Magnificence and Grandeur.

Yet this Earth, all thefe Worlds, which move above us, far more, than the naked Eye, than Glaffes, than the Imagination can reach, are but before him (in the Language of the Prophet Isaiah) as a Drop of a Bucket, and are counted as the fmall Duft of the Balance: Behold he taketh up the Ifles, as a very little Thing: That is, the Illes and indeed the whole Universe are in bis Hands, what a light infignificant Weight is in ours, which we take up and manage at our Eafe, without being in the least encumbered by it. What is your Spirit amidft fuch a Multitude of Spirits, as probably inhabit thefe Worlds? No more, than a Drop amidst the vast Collection and Affemblage of Waters. Yet you are as much the Care of the great Author of all thefe Worlds, and Father of all these Spirits, as if there were no Creature for him to protect and love but you. No Perfon howfoever little or infignificant, who regards him, can be unregarded by Him, who, with one Glance of Thought can know every Thing, without Study and painful Researches and with one Motion of his Will can do eM 2 very

SERM. Vvery Thing, without Toil or laborious Efforts. He hath preferved your Going out, and your Coming in, comforting you in Troubles, directing you in Difficulties, fav ing you from feveral Dangers, which you know nothing of, and conducting you through this Maze of Life.

2dly, Inftead of fcaring yourfelf with melancholy Views, and letting your Heart fail you for Fear, and for looking after thofe Things, that are to come upon the Earth, when Wickedness and Irreligion. prevail; let it be a Matter of Joy and Comfort to you, that amidst all the Confufion and Madness of the World, Men cannot fafter perplex and entangle Things, than God can unravel them; or embroil the World, than he can bring Order out of Confufion that the Wicked are under the fecret Control of his Providence; that the Lord is King, be the People never fo impatient; he fitteth between the Cherubims, be the Earth never fo unquiet; that he can make the Machinations of wicked Men an accidental Occafion of Good, and serve his gracious Defigns, in Oppofition to their own.

Laftly, let us never do any Thing to

throw ourselves out of his Protection. Let SERM. V. us confider how vain all Schemes of Happinefs are, out of which He, the Fountain Head of Happiness, is left, who can dafh the Joys of Profperity with fuch unpalatable Ingredients, as render them no Joys at all; and qualify the Bitterness of Poverty with fuch Infufions of Joy and Gladnefs, as shall make it eafy and tolerable. And perhaps He, who made the Soul, can alone make it thoroughly happy or miferable: He can pierce it through and through with Sorrow and Pain, and make it, when incorrigibly bad, irretrievably wretched; or he can pervade it, and fill the whole Capacity of it with unconceivable Blifs. Then, and not till then, we are intirely undone, when God has caft out our Soul, caft it from his Prefence, from the Comforts of his Prefence. For his Prefence is every where: But it is to the Good and the Wicked; juft what it was to the Ifraelites and Egyptians before the Red Sea To the former a Pillar of Light to brighten up every Thing around them; to the latter a Cloud and Darkness to trouble and difquiet them. While we enjoy the Light of the divine Countenance, we need not be dejected at the Frowns of the whole

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