effect. And that this is the real cause, we may very possibly be convinced in a short time.

But alas! why should we not be convinced sooner, while that conviction may avail, that it is not chance which governs the world? Why should we not now, before London is as Lisbon, Lima, or Catanea, acknowledge the hand of the Almighty, arising to maintain his own cause? Why, we have a general answer always ready, to screen us from any such conviction: "All these things are purely natural and accidental; the result of natural causes." But there are two objections to this answer: first, it is untrue: secondly, it is uncomfortable.

First. If by affirming, "All this is purely natural," you mean, it is not providential, or that God has nothing to do with it, this is not true, that is, supposing the Bible to be true. For supposing this, you may descant ever so long on the natural causes of murrain, winds, thunder, lightning, and yet you are altogether wide of the mark, you prove nothing at all, unless you can prove that God never works in or by natural causes. But this you cannot prove; nay, none can doubt of his so working, who allows the Scripture to be of God. For this asserts, in the clearest and strongest terms, that "all things" (in nature) "serve him;" that (by or without a train of natural causes) he "sendeth his rain on the earth;" that he "bringeth the winds out of his treasures," and "maketh a way for the lightning and the thunder;" in general, that "fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil his word." Therefore, allowing there are natural causes of all these, they are still under the direction of the Lord of nature: nay, what is nature itself, but the art of God, or God's method of acting in the material world? True philosophy therefore ascribes all to God, and says, in the beautiful language of the wise and good man,―

Here like a trumpet, loud and strong,

Thy thunder shakes our coast;
While the red lightnings wave along,
The banners of thy host.

A second objection to your answer is, It is extremely uncomfortable. For if things really be as you affirm; if all these afflictive incidents entirely depend on the fortuitous concourse and agency of blind, material causes; what hope, what help, what resource is left for the poor sufferers by them? Should the murrain among the cattle continue a few years longer, and consequently produce scarcity or famine, what will there be left for many of the poor to do, but to lie down and die? If tainted air spread a pestilence over our land, where shall they fly for succour? They cannot resist either the one or other; they cannot escape from them. And can they hope to appease

Illachrymabilem Plutona ?—Inexorable Pluto, king of shades? Shall they intreat the famine or the pestilence to show mercy? Alas! they are as senseless as you suppose God to be.

However, you who are men of fortune can shift tolerably well, in spite of these difficulties. Your money will undoubtedly procure you food as long as there is any in the kingdom. And if your physicians cannot secure you from the epidemic disease, your coaches can carry you from the place of infection. Be it so: but you are not out of all danger yet, unless you can drive faster than the wind. Are you sure of this? And

are your horses literally swifter than the lightning? Can they leave the panting storm behind? If not, what will you do when it overtakes you? Try your eloquence on the whirlwind. Will it hear your voice? Will it regard either your money, or prayers, or tears? Call upon the lightning. Cry aloud; see whether your voice will "divide the flames of fire." O no! it hath no ears to hear! It devoureth and showeth no pity!

But this is not all. Here is a nearer enemy. The earth threatens to swallow you up. Where is your protection now? What defence do you find from thousands of gold and silver? You cannot fly; for you cannot quit the earth, unless you will leave your dear body behind you. And while you are on the earth, you know not where to flee to, neither where to flee from. You may buy intelligence, where the shock was yesterday, but not where it will be to-morrow,-to-day. It comes! The roof trembles! The beams crack! The ground rocks to and fro! Hoarse thunder resounds from the bowels of the earth! And all these are but the beginning of sorrows. Now, what help? What wisdom can prevent, what strength resist, the blow? What money can purchase, I will not say deliverance, but an hour's reprieve? Poor honourable fool, where are now thy titles? Wealthy fool, where is now thy golden god? If any thing can help, it must be prayer. But what wilt thou pray to? Not to the God of heaven; you suppose him to have nothing to do with earthquakes. No; they proceed in a merely natural way, either from the earth itself, or from included air, or from subterraneous fires or waters. If thou prayest, then, (which perhaps you never did before,) it must be to some of these. Begin: "O earth, earth, earth, hear the voice of thy children! Hear, O air, water, fire!" And will they hear? You know it cannot be. How deplorable, then, is his condition, who in such an hour has none else to flee to! How uncomfortable the supposition, which implies this, by direct necessary consequence, namely, that all these things are the pure result of merely natural causes!

But supposing the earthquake which made such havoc at Lisbon should never travel so far as London, is there nothing else which can reach us? What think you of a comet? Are we absolutely out of the reach of this? You cannot say we are; seeing these move in all directions, and through every region of the universe. And would the approach of one of these amazing spheres be of no importance to us? especially in its return from the sun; when that immense body is (according to Sir Isaac Newton's calculation) heated two thousand times hotter than a red-hot cannon ball. The late ingenious and accurate Dr. Halley (never yet suspected of enthusiasm) fixes the return of the great comet in the year 1758; and he observes that the last time it revolved, it moved in the very same line which the earth describes in her annual course round the sun; but the earth was on the other side of her orbit. Whereas, in this revolution, it will move, not only in the same line, but in the same part of that line wherein the earth moves. And who can tell," says that great man, "what the consequences of such a contact may be ?"

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Who can tell! Any man of common understanding, who knows the very first elements of astronomy. The immediate consequence of such

a body of solid fire touching the earth must necessarily be, that it will set the earth on fire, and burn it to a coal, if it do not likewise strike it out of its course; in which case, (so far as we can judge,) it must drop down directly into the sun.

But what, if this vast body is already on its way? if it is nearer than we are aware of? What, if these unusual unprecedented motions of the waters be one effect of its near approach? We cannot be certain that it will be visible to the inhabitants of our globe, till it has imbibed the solar fire. But possibly we may see it sooner than we desire. We may see it not as Milton speaks,—

From its horrid hair
Shake pestilence and war;

but ushering in far other calamities than these, and of more extensive influence. Probably it will be seen first drawing nearer and nearer, till it appears as another moon in magnitude, though not in colour, being of a deep fiery red; then scorching and burning up all the produce of the earth, driving away all clouds, and so cutting off the hope or possibility of any rain or dew; drying up every fountain, stream, and river, causing all faces to gather blackness, and all men's hearts to fail; then executing its grand commission on the globe itself, and causing the stars to fall from heaven.* O, who may abide when this is done? Who will then

be able to stand?

Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cæli
Ardeat; et mundi moles operosa laboret ?

[When the sea, the land, and the court of heaven, wrapt in flames, shall burn; and the mighty fabric of the universe shall labour?]

What shall we do? do now, that none of these things may come upon us unawares? We are wisely and diligently providing for our defence against one enemy; with such a watchful wisdom and active diligence, as is a comfort to every honest Englishman. But why should we not show the same wisdom and diligence in providing against all our enemies? And if our wisdom and strength be sufficient to defend us, let us not seek any farther. Let us without delay recruit our forces, and guard our coasts against the famine, and murrain, and pestilence; and still more carefully against immoderate rains, and winds, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and comets; that we may no longer be under any painful apprehensions of any present or future danger, but may smile, Secure, amidst the jar of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds!

But if our own wisdom and strength be not sufficient to defend us. let us not be ashamed to seek farther help. Let us even dare to own we believe there is a God; nay, and not a lazy, indolent, epicurean deity, who sits at ease upon the circle of the heavens, and neither knows nor cares what is done below; but one who, as he created heaven and earth, and all the armies of them, as he sustains them all by the word of his power, so cannot neglect the work of his own hands. With pleasure we own there is such a God, whose eye pervades the whole sphere of

*What security is there against all this, upon the Infidel hypothesis? But upon the Christian, there is abundant security for the Scripture prophecies are not yet fulfilled.

created beings, who knoweth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names; a God whose wisdom is as the great abyss deep and wide as eternity;

Who, high in power, in the beginning said,

Let sea, and air, and earth, and heaven be made;
And it was so: And when he shall ordain

In other sort, hath but to speak again,

And they shall be no more:

Yet more; whose mercy riseth above the heavens, and his faithfulness above the clouds; who is loving to every man, and his mercy over all his works. Let us secure him on our side; let us make this wise, this powerful, this gracious God our friend. Then need we not fear, though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea; no, not though the heavens being on fire are dissolved, and the very elements melt with fervent heat. It is enough that the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of love is our everlasting refuge.

But how shall we secure the favour of this great God? How, but by worshipping him in spirit and in truth; by uniformly imitating him we worship, in all his imitable perfections? without which the most accurate systems of opinions, all external modes of religion, are idle cobwebs of the brain, dull farce and empty show. Now, God is love: Love God then, and you are a true worshipper. Love mankind, and God is your God, your Father, and your Friend. But see that you deceive not your own soul; for this is not a point of small importance. And by this you may know: If you love God, then you are happy in God; if you love God, riches, honours, and the pleasures of sense are no more to you than bubbles on the water: You look on dress and equipage, as the tassels of a fool's cap; diversions, as the bells on a fool's coat. If you love God, God is in all your thoughts, and your whole life is a sacrifice to him. And if you love mankind, it is your one design, desire, and endeavour, to spread virtue and happiness all around you; to lessen the present sorrows, and increase the joys, of every child of man; and, if it be possible, to bring them with you to the rivers of pleasure that are at God's right hand for evermore.

But where shall you find one who answers this happy and amiable character? Wherever you find a Christian; for this and this alone, is real, genuine Christianity. Surely you did not imagine that Christianity was no more than such a system of opinions as is vulgarly called faith; or a strict and regular attendance on any kind of external worship. O no! Were this all that it implied, Christianity were indeed a poor, empty, shallow thing; such as none but half-thinkers could admire, and all who think freely and generously must despise. But this is not the case; the spirit above described, this alone, is Christianity. And, if so, it is no wonder that even a celebrated unbeliever should make that frank declaration, "Well, after all, these Christian dogs are the happiest fellows upon earth!" Indeed they are. Nay, we may say more; they are the only happy men upon earth; and that though we should have no regard at all to the particular circumstances above mentioned; suppose there was no such thing as a comet in the universe, or none that would ever approach the solar system; suppose there had never been an earthquake in the world, or that we were assured there never would

be another; yet what advantage has a Christian (I mean always a real, Scriptural Christian) above all other men upon earth!

What advantage has he over you in particular, if you do not believe the Christian system! For suppose you have utterly driven away storms, lightnings, earthquakes, comets, yet there is another grim enemy at the door; and you cannot drive him away. It is death. "O that death," (said a gentleman of large possessions, of good health, and a cheerful natural temper,) "I do not love to think of it! It comes in and spoils all!" So it does indeed. It comes with its "miscreated front," and spoils all your mirth, diversions, pleasures! It turns all into the silence of a tomb, into rottenness and dust; and many times it will not stay till the trembling hand of old age beckons to it; but it leaps upon you while you are in the dawn of life, in the

The morning flowers display their sweets,
And gay their silken leaves unfold,
Unmindful of the noon-tide heats,

And fearless of the evening cold.

bloom and strength of your years.

Nipp'd by the wind's unkindly blast,
Parch'd by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,

The short-lived beauties die away.

And where are you then? Does your soul disperse and dissolve into common air? Or does it share the fate of its former companion, and moulder into dust? Or does it remain conscious of its own existence, in some distant, unknown world? It is all unknown! A black, dreary, melancholy scene! Clouds and darkness rest upon it.

But the case is far otherwise with a Christian. To him life and immortality are brought to light. His eye pierces through the vale of the shadow of death, and sees into the glories of eternity. His view does not terminate on that black line,

The verge 'twixt mortal and immortal being;

but extends beyond the bounds of time and place, to the house of God eternal in the heavens. Hence he is so far from looking upon death as an enemy, that he longs to feel his welcome embrace. He groans (but they are pleasing groans) to have mortality swallowed up of life. Perhaps you will say, "But this is all a dream. He is only in a fool's paradise!" Supposing he be, it is a pleasing dream.

Maneat mentis gratissimus error!

[May this delightful delusion of the mind continue !]

If he is only in a fool's paradise, yet it is a paradise; while you are wandering in a wide, weary, barren world. Be it folly; his folly gives him that present happiness which all your wisdom cannot find. So that he may now turn the tables upon you and say,

"Whoe'er can ease by folly get,
With safety may despise
The wretched, unenjoying wit,
The miserable wise."

Such unspeakable advantage (even if there is none beyond death) has a Christian over an Infidel! It is true, he has given up some pleasures before he could attain to this. But what pleasures? That of eating till he is sick; till he weakens a strong, or quite destroys a weak, constitution. He has given up the pleasure of drinking a man into a beast, and that of ranging from one worthless creature to another, till he brings