motives and principles on which he has acted in life, and the measure of his obedience and disobedience to the dictates of his reason, the suggestions of his conscience, and the rules of his religion; by possessing this knowledge, whether learned or unlearned, he is a competent judge of God's conduct to him: and when he has considered as well as he can, and as impartially and exactly as he can, the merit and demerit of his thoughts, words, and deeds, during his life; then let him make a serious and solemn appeal to his heart, and ask himself whether God has or has not been a severe master to him: and as I am sure he must acknowledge and confess that God has upon the whole dealt most graciously and indulgently by him, and will acknowledge with David in the 145th Psalm, "The Lord is loving unto every

man, and his mercy is over all his works;" let him then be persuaded, that God has the same love, affection, and kindness, for his other intellectual creatures in general, as for him in particular; and therefore that he has dealt, and does deal, graciously and kindly by them all, frequently as much by punishing as in rewarding them. Let him only adopt this just mode of deciding on the conduct of God, and, if he is a man of any fairness, candour, or reason, he will never in future think of arraigning God's government of the world in any one particular, or say or think there is

any imperfection in it, arising either from the promiscuous and indiscriminate distribution of the good things in this life, or from the misery that apparently exists in it. On the contrary, he will greatly admire the excellency of God's moral government in this important particular; that, whilst the flagitiousness of man's conduct occasions the prevalence and infliction of so much misery in the world, to those characters, who consider it as their chief duty and proper ambition to love, honour, and obey their God, he allows the charming, the exhilarating privilege of availing themselves of his gracious promises; that in the day of trouble they may consider him as a strong rock and fortress, to which they may always resort; as a castle, into which they may enter and be safe. He exempts them from the apprehension of evil tidings, and grants them his peace; the possession of which infallibly secures to them, amidst all the bustle, confusion, and misery of the world, a considerable portion of comfort and enjoyment in it; with a constant persuasion, that, whenever they quit it, through his goodness, and the merits of their blessed Redeemer, they shall be admitted into the kingdom of heaven, and there enjoy a state of endless felicity.

OBJECTION IV. Events in human life are perpetually occurring of a nature entirely repugnant

to what our reason would lead us to suppose could happen, if the world was governed by the providence of a wise and just God; and therefore the occurrence of these events justify the adoption of the opinion, that human concerns are left to the guidance or decision of chance,

Lord Bacon observes in his Essays, that he would rather believe all the fables in the Talmud, Legends, and Koran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And Cicero observes, since no man in his senses ever believed that a temple even was built by chance, what can equal the absurdity of supposing the world to have been so, or that it can be governed by it. And Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, observes, that Hermes, Orpheus, Euripides, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, in effect all learned men of judgment, acknowledge the providence of God. And the most sensible men have always been of opinion, that the continuance of the world as much depends on God's constant support and government, as its original existence did on his creation of it; and that, as the Poet observes, "all chance " is direction which we cannot see:" in other words, that what we call chance, is one of the modes of God's government, which for wise reasons it is his pleasure to adopt. And the reason of man cannot upon any fair principle object to the occasional adoption of a mode in which chance

seems to be implicated, since man himself has often recourse to this very mode, as the very best which in many cases can be adopted; as Dr. Paley proves in his Natural Theology. However, it may be observed, that even in cases which seem more than any other to depend on mere chance, and which unskilful men consider as wholly depending on it, men of more sagacity and knowledge think very differently; and that these very cases are reducible to system: for example, in those games which are particularly denominated games of chance, those men who are skilful in them know how to calculate the chances, as they are termed, so as by their skill to acquire a very decided superiority over those with whom they contend, and who do not possess this knowledge; which proves that it is ignorance only which favours the opinion that things are governed by chance. But, allowing the utmost strength to the objection that its abettors can desire, nothing can be more unjust or unphilosophical than to argue against a rule from an occasional exception to that rule, when that exception may be fairly and reasonably accounted for. The general rule of God's providence, with respect to the human species, appears in these things; that having created such an intellectual free agent as man, with a design that he should enjoy a considerable portion of happiness in this life, and eternal happiness in another, on

certain stipulated conditions; these conditions have always been made clear and intelligible to him. And that it should be fully in his power to accomplish these conditions, God has been pleased to ingraft in his soul, in the first place, a persuasion of the existence of a supreme Being, who has an authority over him, who can control the affairs of men, and whose favour it is his highest interest to obtain in the second place, he has planted in the soul an idea of a future state, and of some rewards and punishments in that state: and in the third, he has given him a moral sense, which, if uninfluenced and unsophisticated, leads him to make and to observe a distinction between good and evil. These ideas may be said to be imprinted on the soul of man, though in different degrees of perfection: they prevail in some degree in all nations, however barbarous, or however civilized; and therefore, as Cicero observes, what is thus universal, may be justly denominated to be the nature and character of the species: reason does not create these ideas, but she improves them, and revelation perfects them. Thus, by the providence of God, man has such an outline given him for his conduct, as is suitable to his character as a free agent and probationary being; and which outline, if he fills up according to the suggestions of reason and conscience, where there is no revelation, and according to reason, conscience, and revela