SERMON III.

ACTS xvii. 27, 28.

THAT THEY SHOULD SEEK THE LORD, IF HAPLY THEY MIGHT FEEL AFTER, AND FIND HIM; THOUGH HE BE NOT FAR FROM EVERY ONE OF US: FOR IN HIM WE LIVE, AND MOVE, AND HAVE OUR BEING.

The

HERE feems to be a tincture of the Epicurean doctrine, unobferved, perhaps, by themselves, in the notion of those persons who tell us, that it is a more excellent and godlike thing to create a world that fhall be able to fub

fift of itself, and perform, unaffisted, every intended operation, than to produce such a system as calls for the continual interpofition of it's Creator.

It is convenient, indeed, for man to have his little works fubfift without his help; because he cannot help them without difficulty, and expenfe, and often not at all, as in distant places at the fame moment: his attention is care, and his work labour: he is oppreffed with weight, and distracted by variety. But to apply these ideas to God's government of his rational creatures, is furely to difhonour both Him and them: it is at the fame time to degrade the freedom of their will to mechanism, and to ascribe their imperfections to the Almighty.

If there be no trouble, disturbance, or difficulty to the Godhead in interpofing in the affairs of men; why should we queftion

question his agency? or be fo anxious to ease him of what is no burden?

But do you fuppofe, that the fupreme Being is continually working miracles?

The Scripture supposes, or rather afferts, that he is not an unconcerned or indolent fpectator of what paffes in his world: can any hide himself in fecret places, Jer. xxiii. that I fhall not fee him, faith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, faith the Lord?

The

24.

12.

eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, 1 Pet. iii. and his ears are open unto their prayers. The pr. xxxiv. righteous cry, and the Lord heareth them, 17.

and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

He keepeth all his bones, fo that not one of Pf. xxxiv.

20.

them is broken. It is the fame God that I Cor. xii. worketh all in all. But which of his 6. works you will please to call miraculous, is a point which, after all, may depend upon yourselves.

For,

For, fuppofing a courfe of nature carried on according to general laws; if you call every act of Divine interpofition a miracle, it is admitted that these interpofitions obtained by prayer are miracles.

But if you name only thofe acts miraculous, by which the fupreme Being causes, in the course of nature, an alteration difcernible to men; then you fee, on the other hand, that his interpofitions are not always miraculous; and then only become so, when they are to be known and distinguished.

Nor is it inconceivable that there fhould be innumerable events of a middle nature, I mean fuch, concerning which it cannot be known, but is left to be conjectured, with more or less probability, as the cafe may be, whether they are, or are not, the effects of the particular will

of