ness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity can hide themselves from God." Were the designers of evil to dig a passage to the centre, and, buried from the eye of man, and the penetration of day, to sit in midnight council there; even in that deep recess, every individual in the circle would be seen, every syllable in the dark consultation would be overheard by the omnipre sent witness. Nor can any virtuous and generous trans. action, of however private a nature, escape the observation, or lose the plaudit, of the divine spectator. When modesty conceals from the public eye the bounty bene volence bestows; when delicacy hides from the object it relieves, the hand that administers the relief; the generous secret is known to heaven, and by heaven it shall be, one day, proclaimed and applauded.

But the principal use I wish to make of the divine omnipresencé, so far as it relates to moral inspection, is to consider it as a forcible and continual appeal to that sense of honour and shame, which is implanted in our nature. Were any one habitually to hold in his mind the consideration, not only that infinite power will hereafter punish or reward him, accordingly as he acts well or ill in this world, but that even now, at this very moment, the eye of infinite penetration, and of infinite purity, is stedfastly fixed upon him, he would find it the strongest imaginable check upon every impropriety of conduct, and irregularity of thought; and the most spurring of all incentives to the performance of honorable actions, and the entertainment of generous sentiments. Praise and blame form no small part of human pleasure and pain. There are many who have performed handsome actions, for the sake of exciting the applause of mankind, which, but for that inducement, they would have left undone : and multitudes have been guilty of dishonourable conduct, to which they would not have consented, if they had not depended on its being kept a secret from the world. When the mask drops, does not the countcnance it covered fall?-Can detected villainy lift up its eye?-Dares he, who has lost its esteem, look the world in the face?-Does not folly blush before the grave rebuke of wisdom?--Is not the presence of a man, eminent for piety, and for worth, a restraint upon licentious conver

sation?-Do not "the young men see him, and hide themselves?"

But men are visible observers, and audible reprovers. We read indignation in their eye; we hear it in their voices; we see it in their manner. The divine spectator is unseen. He keeps perpetual silence. Whether we act well or ill, no Expression of his approbation, or displeasure, is presented to our senses. When cruelty tramples upon innocence, no thunders murmur; no lightnings flash; no earthquakes rock the angry ground. Or when an act of generosity is performed, which kindles all the rapture of gratitude, and all the enthusiasm of applause, no celestial glories encircle the head of him that did it; there comes no voice from heaven to say, "It is well done." We should, however, reflect, that, although we can neither see, nor hear the divine disapprobation, when we do wrong, that it does as actually exist, at the moment in which we do it, as the indignation that frowns upon the brow, that flashes from the eye, of man; that a pure and holy witness of all we do, is as truly present upon the spot where we act, overlooking every motion both of our bodies and our minds, as if we beheld a miraculous manifestation of his presence.

The regular and vivid recollection of this truth, is the best shield that can be held before the heart of man, to repel the attacks of temptation. Were a dissipated youth, in an hour of riot and folly, by some circumstance led, during a pause of the uproar, to call up before him the image of his absent father, venerable in age; strict in manners; severely virtuous; whose doctrine had "distilled as the dew" upon him, in the days of his innocence and purity: were he strongly to imagine the holy man an indignant and disappointed spectator of his son's degeneracy; I cannot but figure him to myself, holding down his head, for a moment at least, in the presence of the angry apparition; and blushing before the offended and afflicted shade. Let him, then, who would preserve himself pure and spotless, as he passes through this dangerous world, never forget, that he who is holier than all, never, for one instant, takes off his eye from his inmost thought.

In a peculiar degree will the consideration of the divine omnipresence operate, to counteract the fear of that

contempt, with which the licentious look upon religious principles and sober manners. Is any one tempted to profess opinions which he does not entertain, or to comply with practices which he does not approve, and to which his inclinations do not lead him, by an idle dread of human derision? Let him bring down God to his side, by remembering that he is by; and oppose his approba tion to the laughter of fools. Fortified by the felt presence of the deity, he will soon learn to scorn the scorners, and to pant for no applause but that of conscience and of heaven.

To these reflections I will only add, that the constant thought of an omnipresent God, is not more an inducement to become virtuous, than a support to them that are so, under the loss of their good name. When defamation breathes upon their reputation, and sullies its lustre; when ignorance and prejudice load them with unmerited reproaches; rejoicing in the presence and ap probation of that great being, in whose esteem no malevolent misrepresentations of men are able to injure them; they can support, with patience, the departure of that fair fame which is justly dear to every social nature, and meet the eye of misjudging mankind, with an unabashed and steady countenance.

IV., Reflections on God as our creator.

THE Contemplation of God in the light of a creator, cannot fail to excite in us the most profound veneration. This idea of deity is adapted to plunge us into the depths of that astonishment, into which it is pleasing to the mind of man to be thrown by a sublime object. He who has pleasure in looking at what is grand in the highest degree, will hither repair to receive it. He that delights to have his mind distended to the utmost stretch of admiration, must come to this idea for his delight.

It is impossible to think of the maker of all things, without being fixed in all the stillness and stupor of astonishment; whether we consider the amazing multiplicity and magnificence of his productions, or the complcte sense in which he is the author of them, compared

with the imperfect sense, in which man is the maker of what are called the works of man. If some of the greater works of man excite our amazement, how much more is. his idea adapted to awaken it, who made the materials out of which those works were framed; who formed the fingers by means of which they were fashioned; and who inspired the understandings by the light of which they were designed. If we admire the inventors of inanimate machines that move, with what admiration must we think of him who made the moving creature that hath life." All the works of all the human race combined, all the fa. brics they have constructed, all the systems of matter or motion they have composed, how complicated soever their parts, or extensive their dimensions, or beautiful their appearance, or powerful their effect, or excellent their uses, are proofs of a faint and feeble power, compared with the production of a fly. All the engines which human ingenuity has framed, whatever the variety, or the vigour, or the value, of their movements, display a hand that shrinks into nothing before that energy, that rolls the blood through the veins of a reptile; that communicates to a worm its faculty of creeping upon the earth; that indues the meanest creature, which moves and feels, with its wondrous power of willing and perceiving.Where is the artist, beneath the sun, who can breathe into insensate clay the breath of life? who can kindle a soul of the dullest degree? who can animate, for one moment, one particle of dust?

The consideration that God is our maker makes it evident, that he must be our preserver. This inference cannot be made with respect to any human artist; because no human artist is the framer of any thing, in that radical and strict sense, in which the almighty is the former of all things. That which man has made may continue to be what he made it, when its maker is distant, when its maker is dead. The work of man may subsist in the absence, may survive the dissolution of its author: it may exist for successive ages, and for successive ages remain " a work to wonder at," when the hand, that gave it its beauty and excellence, has lost its cunning for ever. The statue may continue to mimic life, when centuries have rolled over the sculptor's grave. But though the breathing stone may continue to breathe, when be,

whose touches taught it to imitate animation, is breathless himself, the breathing animal cannot breathe a moment, without the vivifying influence of him who first breathed. into him the breath of life. The moving machine, which man sets a going, may continue to go, when its maker is motionless for ever. But the moving creature that hath life, cannot move a moment without the presence and operation of him, who put it into motion at first.

For want of deeply reflecting upon this difference be tween the forming hand of the creature, and that of the creator of all, we are some of us apt, perhaps, carelessly and inconsiderately, to conceive of our continuance in life as depending upon certain powers and properties in our animal composition, which were originally communicated to it by its author, but which are now entirely its own; inherent in itself, without hanging on the divine support. We do not, with sufficient closeness to the idea, consider, that he who put together, and put into motion, the great machinery of nature, is its author in a sense, which requires the incessant action of his hand, in order to hold it together, and to support its operations.

It is not so proper to say, that the creator has communi、 nicated a principle of life to the animated world, as that he is himself the great principle of universal vitality. It is not so accurate to say, that he has laid down laws for nature to observe, as that he himself perpetually operates with that benignant regularity which is necessary to the wel. fare of his living works. He is the great spring and impulse that actuates all things. He is himself the attract ing power that holds the particles of all bodies together, and combines all bodies into the beautiful systems we see them compose. He is himself the living soul that inhabits, and animates every living thing; that propels every drop through every vein; that produces every pulsation of every artery, every motion of every limb, every action of eve. y organ, throughout the whole ani mal kingdom. Every operating principle, through the ample compass of things, is God, that moment willing, God, that moment acting. He is the life of the world: at once the maker, the inspector, and the mover, of all things. Water we call the element of one animal: air, we say, is the element of another: the vital presence of

T