and fubject to the government of his will. He has all power, and wifdom: and these attributes have been amply exerted in acts of goodness. He is the Father of the Univerfe. The methods indeed of his Providence are to us often incomprehenfible: yet have we fufficient reason to believe that he guides himself by the rule of right; So that when we conform to the same rule we comply with his will, and concur with him in his designs.

Confider now what encouragement this is to the practice of virtue. When you are doing good, you are doing what God doth, and what he wishes you to do. You are employed in the very fame work with your Creator, and affifting him to accomplish his divine undertakings. You are advancing the end for which the earth itself was created; and according to your measure, may say, with the Redeemer himself, my Father worketh hither- John v. to, and I work.

Or

17.

Or if, in contemplating that principal part of the Creator's work exposed to your inspection, the nature and state of man, you difcern that it was not the indifcriminate communication of good that was intended, by him who made us, but the welfare especially of the good and virtuous, of the discreet, the diligent, the temperate, and the juft; then let this, in like manner, be your object. Do you good especially to the well-deferving; relieve the neceffitous, but those most, who Rom. xii. are fober and induftrious. He that giveth, let him do it with fimplicity indeed, but with prudence; he that fheweth mercy, with cheerfulness, and yet with difcernment.

8.

Pf.cxlv.9.

The Lord is loving unto every man ; Prov. xii. but they that deal truly are his delight. He Matth. v. maketh his fun to rife on the evil and on the

22.

45.

12.

Pet. iii. good; but the eyes of the Lord are over the

Pf. xxxiv. righteous, and he delivereth the fouls of his fervants. Draw as near as you can to the

15, 22.

divine pattern, and be perfect even as your Matth. v. Father which is in heaven is perfe&t.

Or laftly, if you have been able to penetrate fo far into the divine counfels, as to difcover that it is not the happi nefs even of good men, that is intended in this world, but only their fupport in it, and their improvement in piety and virtue while they are paffing through it to a better; let it be your care to ad, vance this step alfo in your imitation of. God, and pursue the intentions of him who made you to the utmoft.

48.

Do good to all, efpecially to them who are Gal.vi.10. of the houshold of faith; and among thefe most of all to the beft, and do to them and all others the best service, by promoting above all things their future welfare. This all perfons, even the pooreft, may do by a pious example; others by that and many other ways,

which

Rom. ii. 20.

which will readily occur to fuch as have a heart disposed to find them.

Thus may your mite, proportioned to your ability, and coming from a good heart, be to you, as if you had fed the hungry, clothed the naked, vifited the fick and imprisoned; as if you had been a guide of the blind, an instructor of the foolish; a preacher and an Apoftle. Though I Tim. vi. poor, thus rich in good works; however 2 Tim. iii. ignorant, wife unto falvation; you shall Dan.xii.3. Shine as the brightness of the firmament, and, turning many to righteousness, as the ftars for ever and ever.

I Tim. ii.

7.

18.

15.

SER

肉

銀粥

SERMON II.

JOHN xiv. I.

YE BELIEVE IN GOD; BELIEVE ALSO

A

IN ME.

MIDST innumerable and undeniable marks of divine wisdom and goodness, we find in the world confufion, fin and mifery. Revelation informs us that it was not created in this disordered ftate; that a great change has taken place in it, occafioned by the fault of a human pair, it's first inhabitants; by which