The Nature, Poffibility and Truth, of a particular Providence set forth.

PSALM CXIII. 5.

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Who is like unto the Lord our God, who hath his Dvelling fo high; and yet humbleth himself to behold the Things that are in Heaven and Earth?

T is one great Recommendation of the SERM. V.
Sacred Writings, that they have ex-

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preffed themselves with more Juftness of Thought concerning the Nature of God, than any other Compofitions whatever. What the Vanity of Science, falfely fo called, has afcribed to Nature, or to fecond Causes, exclufively of the First, is by them refolved into the immediate Will and Providence of God. This is the trueft Philofophy, as well as the best Divinity. For what is Nature? is it an understanding Being? or is it not? If it be not, how can an unde

SERM. V. figning Being produce plain Notices of Contrivance and Defign? If it be an UnderStanding Being, who acts throughout the Universe; then it is that great Being, whom we call GOD. For Nature, Neceffity, and Chance, mere Phantoms, which have no Reafon, Wisdom, or Power, cannot act, with the utmoft Exactness of Wisdom, powerfully, inceffantly, and every where. And here I would obferve, that no Words are more undetermined in their Signification, than thofe, which pafs current in common Converfation. We never question, but that we clearly understand Terms, which are daily in use, and familiar to us: Whereas thofe Words are often mere Sounds, without Senfe, or any fettled Sgnification. Thus few feem to know (though it is the only clear and determinate Meaning of it) that Nature in this Cafe means nothing, but the conftant and flated Operation of God upon Matter.

We have no less Reafon to beg our daily Bread of Almighty God, than the Ifraelites had to pray for their Suftenance, when they were fed with Manna from Heaven, For that a Handful of Corn fhould multiply to a prodigious Degree, and that the Fields. fhould

fhould ftand fo thick with Corn, that they SERM. V. Should laugh and fing, must be afcribed to God; as well as that the Food of Angels was given from above to the Ifraelites: Because a regular, conflant and uniform Effect, in which there are evident Traces of Wisdom and Benevolence, ftands as much in need of the Operation of a wife and benevolent Being, equal to the Effect, to produce it conftantly at fet Times and Seafons; as an occafional, infrequent and extraordinary Phænomenon does to produce it now and then, when an extraordinary Occafion offers.

The Generation of a human Body in the ordinary Way is no more to be accounted for by the Laws of Mechanifm, than the Raifing of a dead Body from the Grave: And the only affignable Motive, why we attribute the latter to the immediate Agency of God, and not the former; is that the latter is an unusual Operation of the Deity. If we saw Bodies commonly rife from the Grave, as we do Corn from Seed fown in the Earth; we should endeavour to explain this Effect, just as we do the other, from philofophical Caufes exclufive of the First*.

* See Dr. Clarke's Reply to Leibnitz, Page 351.

SERM. V. No Beings, but what have Life and

Senfe, can, in Propriety of Speech, be termed Causes: All other Things, being dead and unactive, are only like Tools in the Hand of a Workman: And whatever we afcribe to Matter a paffive Being, must be resolved into his Will, who ufeth Matter as an Inftrument. Can Matter, which refifts every Change of State, effect what it refifts, not only move itself, but change its Motion from a ftraight to a circular one, and give itself a new Direction; as the Planets muft do to defcribe their Orbits round the Sun ?

But I need not infift upon this Point any longer. For to deny a Providence in general, is, in effect, to deny a God. If there be a God invefted with the Attributes of infinite Power, Wisdom and Goodness; Providence is nothing but the Exercife of those Attributes, viz. his Wisdom, Power and Goodness on the Creation in general. It cannot be fuppofed, that he will let those Attributes lie dormant in Him in a State of Inaction, without exerting them at all.

A general Providence then must be granted: But a particular Providence is clogged with fome Difficulties. I shall therefore, to remove them,

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