SERMON queftion then is, whether human testi

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mony be fufficient to prove it which will fall under an article of future difcuffion; being a point of enquiry, with which in the prefent cafe we are not concerned. Nothing more is in this ftate of the fubject contended for; than that God can fuperfede the general laws of nature, without incurring the rash imputation of violating them.

But the author was led into this argument, by narrow notions of the divine agency. He has adverted to the Deity, as an artist; and to the structure of this world, as a complicated machine, of his framing; confifting of a variety of mechanic powers, which he puts into motion, affigning general movements to every diftin&t part; turns the piece of finished mechanifm out of his hands, and leaves it in its various parts to pursue its destined operations: which it will invariably perform, unless fome derangement of the parts impede and in

terrupt

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terrupt its motions. Now were this re- SERMON prefentation of the Deity adequate and juft; the argument adduced must be

admitted of no inconfiderable weight.

For as the great machine must have come out of the hands of its Creator perfectly good, and was left without further attention to continue the course, He had prescribed to it; every deviation from the order and courfe, He had fo prescribed, would be a deterioration of his work.

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But doth fuch an idea comport with the Creator of heaven and earth? And indeed what human idea will? Certainly however the idea of God, at first creating and giving movements to the world, and then leaving it to purfue those mo tions no longer under his inspection, without his farther regard, without fup-: portfuch idea: doth furely ill fuit the attributes of omnifcience and omniprefence. In his operations he knows neither beginning, middle, nor endi With

SERMON With Him no diftance diftinguishes

II.

time or place: He looks neither backwards nor forwards; the idea of FIRST, or LAST, notes not his actions: who is always, every where; and at one comprehenfive glance views every minute movement of every part of his innumerable works, in every period of their operations.

When at the firft, if, in application to God, we may properly ufe fuch a term as FIRST, He made the element of water yield, to the impreffion of the human step; He made it alfo on a particular occafion to refift it: and the one particular occafional power was as much the given power of God, and as early given, as the other. And this given power to that part of nature, which performs it, is his law. With the fame almighty FIAT, which put the world in motion, He for a moment stopped the movements of fome of its parts. At the fame moment, He saw them perform their accuftomed

II.

tomed revolutions, and faw them halt: SERMON when, in fcripture language, the fun food fill on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. At the fame inftant, and with the same glance, he fees the fun travelling in his ftrength, and the moon's reflected beams enlivening the gloom of night; and alfo beholds, at the destined period of their diffolu tion, the one turned into blood, and the face of the other darkened: His hand alike directs both operations. Refpecting Him, with whom time is not, when we speak of periods and of times; we fhould keep ever in mind, that we use thofe terms, because we know not how to exprefs our ideas of Him more fuitably. But thus far our ideas of God may attain that acting always, as He demonftratively does, and prefent every where, as He neceffarily is, when the operations of nature are most eccentric, equally as when moft regular, they perform the divine will: and the unerring rectitude, with which He rules, or stops,

her

II.

SERMON her motions, ever preferves the course, that nature may pursue, from the imputation of VIOLATION.

III. The point, which under the arti→ cle of God's existence I proposed in the third and laft place to confider, was the general principle of Materialifm: as of tendency to degrade the divine nature. For when we magnify matter above its juft claim and pretenfions, and ascribe to it perfections, which it doth not possess ; when we attribute to it perception, memory, reflection, thofe intellectual faculties, a ray of divinity, if indeed the image of God be in any degree stamped upon us we must take care we be not led step by step, at laft to degrade the divine nature, and materialife even the Deity himself.

That fuch dangerous tendency in the principles of materialism is not matter of vain prefumption, but of fact; the direct acknowledgment of one of the

most