all manner of good practice, and the mightiest aggravation of sin, if well known and pondered, hath so little force and efficacy on us? From experience therefore this argument may seem scarce sufficiently inculcated. We may add that discourse on this attribute (which above all other attributes doth render God peculiarly admirable and amiable) hath this special advantage beyond other discourses, that it doth, if our hearts conspire therewith, approach most nearly to the formal exercise of the most high and heavenly parts of devotion, praise and thanksgiving; that it more immediately conduces to the breeding, the nourishing, the augmenting in us the best and noblest of pious affections, love and reverence to God; trust and hope in him; willing resolutions to please and serve him; whence it is consequent that we cannot too much employ our thoughts, our words, or our attention on this point. Besides so much reason, we have also good example to countenance us in so doing we have the precedent of the holy psalmist, resolving to make it his constant and continual employment: 'I will sing,' saith he, ' of the mercies of the Lord; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.' And, Every day will I bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever and ever;' (that blessing and praising God, the context shows to have consisted especially in the declaration of God's great goodness:) and, It is a good thing,' saith he again, to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O thou most High: to show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.' Such were his intentions, and such his judgment about this practice; and we find him in effect true and answerable to them; every song of his, every meditation, every exercise of devotion chiefly harping on this string; and he earnestly wishes that others would consent and consort with him therein he earnestly exhorts and excites them thereto : O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!' Praise the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever.' That one example might sufficiently authorise this practice; but we have innumerable others, and those the highest that can be, to encourage and engage us thereto even the whole choir of heaven, whose

perpetual business and happy entertainment it is to contemplate with their minds, to celebrate with their voices, the immense goodness of God; They have,' as it is in the Revelation, no rest day or night from performing this office.' Such is the subject of our discourse, the which our text most plainly and fully expresses; asserting not only the goodness of God, but the universal and boundless extent thereof; The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies (or his bowels of affection and pity) are over all his works.' And that God indeed is such, we shall first endeavor to declare, then shall briefly apply the consideration thereof to practice.

That God the Lord, and Maker of all things, is of himself, in regard to all his creatures, especially to us men, superlatively good, that is, disposed never without just or necessary cause to harm us, and inclinable to do us all possible and befitting good, the universal frame of nature and the constant course of Providence do afford us sufficient reason to conceive, and most frequent, most express testimonies of holy Scripture do more fully demonstrate. There is no argument from natural effects discernible by us, which proveth God's existence, (and innumerable such there are, every sort of things well studied may afford some,) the which doth not together persuade God to be very kind and benign; careful to impart to us all befitting good, suitable to our natural capacity and condition; and unwilling that any considerable harm, any extreme want or pain should befal us. (I interpose such limitations, for that an absolute, or universal and perpetual exemption from all kinds or all degrees of inconvenience, an accumulation of all sorts of appearing good on us, doth not become or suit our natural state of being, or our rank in perfection among creatures; neither, all things being duly stated and computed, will it turn to best account for us.) The best (no less convincing than obvious) argument, asserting the evidence of a Deity, are deduced from the manifold and manifest footsteps of admirable wisdom, skill, and design apparent in the general order, and in the particular frame of creatures; the beautiful harmony of the whole, and the artificial contrivance of each part of the world; the which it is hardly possible that any unprejudiced and undistempered mind should conceive to proceed from blind chance, or as blind

necessity. But with this wisdom are always complicated no less evident marks of goodness. We cannot in all that vast bulk of the creation, and numberless variety of things, discover any piece of mere pomp or dry curiosity; every thing seems to have some beneficial tendency; according to which it confers somewhat to the need, convenience, or comfort of those principal creatures, which are endued with sense and capacity to enjoy them. Most of them have a palpable relation to the benefit (to the subsistence or delight) of living creatures: and especially in an ultimate relation to the benefit of man and the rest, although their immediate use be not to our dim sight so discernible, may therefore be reasonably presumed in their natural designation to regard the same end. Wherefore as on consideration of that ample provision which is made in nature for the necessary sustenance, defence, and relief, for the convenience, delight, and satisfaction of every creature, any man, who is not careless or stupid, may be induced to cry out with the psalmist, ' O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all' so may he with no less reason and ground after him pronounce and acknowlege; The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord' The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy' Thy mercy is great unto the heavens: Thy mercy is great above the heavens.' It is indeed because divine goodness is freely diffusive and communicative of itself; because essential love is active and fruitful in beneficence; because highest excellency is void of all envy, selfishness, and tenacity, that the world was produced such as it was; those perfections being intrinsical to God's nature, disposed him to bestow so much of being, of beauty, of pleasure on his creatures. • He openeth his hand, they are filled with good :' it is from God's open hand, his unconfined bounty and liberality, that all creatures do receive all that good which fills them, which satisfies their needs, and satiates their desires. Every pleasant object we view, every sweet and savory morsel we taste, every fragrancy we smell, every harmony we hear the wholesome, the cheering, the useful, yea, the innocent and inoffensive qualities of every thing we do use and enjoy, are so many perspicuous arguments of divine goodness; we may not only by our reason collect it, but we even touch and feel it with all our senses.

The like conclusion may be inferred from the observation of divine Providence. Every signification, or experiment, whence we may reasonably infer that divine power and wisdom do concur in upholding, managing, and directing the general state of things, or the particular affairs of men, being well examined and weighed, would afford reason apt to persuade, that the Governor of the world is graciously affected toward his creatures and subjects. The general preservation of things in their natural constitution and order; the dispensing constant vicissitudes of season, so as may serve for the supply of our needs; the maintaining such a course of things in the world, that, notwithstanding the great irregularity of will, and violence of passion in so many persons; yet men do ordinarily shift so as to live tolerably on earth in peace and safety, and enjoyment of competent accommodations for life; with the aids and consolations arising from mutual society; the supports, encouragements, and rewards of virtue many times in a strange manner administered; the restraints, disappointments, and seasonable chastisements of wickedness, especially when it grows exorbitant and outrageous, unexpectedly intervening, with the like passages of providence, will, to him that shall regard the works of the Lord, and the operation of his hands,' sufficiently declare as the other glorious attributes, (wisdom, power, and justice,) so especially the goodness of him, who presides over the world; assuring that he is a friend to the welfare, and dislikes the misery of mankind. He that shall well observe and consider how among so many fierce and hardhearted, so many crafty and spiteful, so many domineering and devouring spirits, the poor and weak, the simple and harmless sort of people do however subsist, and enjoy somewhat, cannot but suspect that an undiscernible hand, full of pity and bounty, doth often convey the necessary supports of life to them, doth often divert imminent mischiefs from them; cannot but acknowlege it credible, what the holy Scripture teacheth, that God is the friend, and patron, and protector of those needy and helpless people, redeeming their soul from deceit and violence,' as the psalmist speaks; that he is, as the prophet expresseth it, a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is

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as a storm against the wall.' He that shall remark how frequently, in an unaccountable way, succor and relief do spring up to just and innocent persons; so that in a whole age, as the psalmist observed, such persons do not appear destitute or forsaken; how also iniquity is commonly stopped in its full career, and then easily receives a check, when its violence seemed uncontrollable; how likewise many times the world is rescued from confusions and distractions unextricable by any visible wit or force; with other like occurrences in human affairs; must admit it for a reasonable hypothesis (fit to render a cause of such appearances) that a transcendent goodness doth secretly interpose, furthering the production of such effects: he must on such observation be ready to verify that of the psalmist: Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is a God that judgeth the earth.' St. Paul instructs us that in past times (that is, in all generations from the beginning of things) God did attest himself to be the governor of the world: How? dyalomov, by his beneficence; giving to men showers from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness' competent evidences, it seems, these were of his providence, and withal (supposing that) certain demonstrations of his goodness: although some have abused this kind of testimony, or argumentation, so valid in itself, unto a contrary purpose; alleging that if God ruled the world, so much wickedness and impiety would not be tolerated therein; that ingrateful and evil men could not so thrive and flourish; that more speedy and more severe vengeance would be executed; that benefits would not be scattered among the crowd of men, with so promiscuous and undistinguishing a freeness. But such discourses, on a just and true account, do only infer the great patience and clemency, the unconfined mercy and bounty of our Lord; that he is in disposition very different from pettish and impatient man, who, should he have the reins put into his hands, and in his administration of things should be so often neglected, crossed, abused, would soon overturn all things; and, being himself discomposed with passion, would precipitate the world into confusion and ruin.

Things would not have subsisted hitherto, and continued in

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VOL. IV.

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