On the ground of their utter impotence, their incapacity to do good or to do evil to their votaries-to save or to destroy, the heathen deities, are not unfrequently, in terms of sarcastic irony, and of a kind of sublime derision, challenged by the prophets in the name of Jehovah, to comparison and competition. (Isa. xli. 21–24 Jer. x. 3—16.)

tous or unpropitious incident to some or their common calamities-that it was malignant power of evil. But polytheistic Jehovah, the God of Israel, the only God. superstition, though admitting what it calls by the name of deity,-" Gods many, and lords many," is represented in the Scriptures as only one of the forms of atheism. Of the religion to which human nature has all along shown its proneness, there was an abundant profusion amongst those who "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, But we, my hearers, may be ready to and creeping things, and who worshipped say-we are very little in danger from this and served the creature rather than the source of error-the error of acknowledgCreator:" and yet of them it is said, "They ing other gods-the fantastic or detestable did not like to retain God in their know- absurdities of Heathen Mythology. This ledge." But if they did not retain God in is not, you think, (and you think truly) their knowledge, they were in reality one of your temptations. And I will not atheists. That surely is not religion, of at present urge upon you the various poswhose feelings and acts of homage, the sibilities of idolatry without your falling objects are either nonentities, or possess a down to stocks and stones, or prostrating being whose qualities are as opposite to yourselves to the lights of heaven. Neither those of Deity as darkness is to light-will I press upon you, how the world, in and atheists their worshippers are accord-all its forms of ambition, and avarice, and ingly denominated: "Not knowing God, pleasure, may take away your hearts from they did service to them which by nature God, and become the idol of your unfeigned are no gods," (Gal. iv. 8):-they were "without God" (atheists)" in the world," (Eph. ii. 12.)

and undivided devotion. I will not demand your attention to the proposition, true as it is, that whatever occupies that place in Again:- while the religion to which your affections and desires, which God human nature has ever been prone is in himself ought legitimately to hold, is your truth irreligion and atheism, there has dis- idol; although the Scripture unequivocally covered itself, wherever the knowledge of justifies and sanctions the proposition, by the true God has been imparted, a mourn- pronouncing covetousness idolatry, and the fully consistent propensity to forget Him-covetous mun an idolater, and affirming, to overlook his superintendence-to leave" If any man love the world, the love of him out of our thoughts. Thus it was with the Father is not in him." But there is the Jews. They required to be incessantly one species of idolatry, or of atheism, more reminded of God. They were ever, per- immediately connected with our present versely aud infatuatedly, prone to the su- subject, which comes under our third perstitious extreme-to let slip the remem- head, and to which, for a few moments 1 brance of their own Jehovah, and to sub-must solicit your attention. stitute for Him the gods of the surrounding III. Divine agency may be regarded in heathen, imputing events to their agency contradistinction to an exclusive attention rather than to that of the God of Israel. to SECOND CAUSES. The text was meant, like many others, to How frequently is something called remind them that Jehovah reigned; that NATURE-( a name which, though someJehovah was the author alike of their ca- times used for the God of nature, expresses, lamities and their blessings-that the latter not seldom, a kind of mystical personificawere his unmerited favours, the former his tion of some unknown existence, the emdeserved corrections-that to HIM they ployment of the term hardly, if at all were to cultivate gratitude-that to HIM suggesting any thought of God)-how they were to exercise submission:-that frequently is something called Nature, in it was not Baal, it was not Moloch, it was language and in thought, in a manner not Melcom, or Ashtoreth, or Dagon, or deified!--and not less frequently, second the Queen of Heaven, or any other of or subordinate causes are so contemplated those senseless idols, which they had multiplied to themselves "according to the number of their cities," that brought upon those cities, at any time, their respective

and insisted on, as to indicate an exclusion from the mind of the great originating cause of all being, and the supreme uncou trolled Director of all events! In account

may say, in terms of the text-If " without our heavenly Father a sparrow falleth not to the ground,"-how then,“ shall there be evil in a city,"-evil which affects the condition, whether temporal or spiritual, of intelligent and immortal beings,—of beings who are susceptible, not merely of physical suffering, but of all the pains that arise from the tender sensibilities of social life, the sweet and powerful" charities of father, son, and brother," from which it is in times of public calamity, that the most exquisite distresses arise?

What I wish, then, first of all, to impress on the minds of my hearers, and on my own, is, that in the heavy gloom that hangs over our city, in the variety and accumulation of personal and domestic, bodily and mental suffering that is endured, whether occasioned by the state of trade or the state of health, it is "no chance that has come upon us.” It is the hand of the allseeing and all-disposing Ruler of the Universe that is laid upon us, and laid upon us in a merited and righteous judgment.

of God." At every turn of its historical details, we meet his eye, we discern his hand. No such thing as chance is admitted by its writers, in even the smallest matters. It is much more consistent with itself than the systems of some philosophical speculators, who would grant a providence in great, but question it in little things;-forgetting, first, that the true majesty of God consists in the unembarrassed universality of his superintendence,-in its embracing, without confusion, and without an effort of thought, all the endless complication of events, and all the immense variety of being;-and forgetting, secondly, how intimately and inseparably great events and small are involved and linked together-so that the continuity of the chain depends as much upon the least of the links as upon the greatest, the working and efficiency of the complicated machinery, and the evolution of the designed results, upon the minutest wheels as upon the largest and most prominent and imposing. The machinist, when he looks at the great wheels, is well aware, although his eye does not penetrate to them, any more than that of of IDOLS. the novice, on what little, secret, and I have said, that there is a natural seemingly trivial movements the effective atheism in the human heart. This is a revolutions of these depend; so that, position which some may be inclined to were a single pin taken out, or the small-dispute, as not only painfully degrading to est wheel in the unseen interior shifted our nature, but contrary to fact. Where, or broken, all might be impeded or brought it will be asked, do we find men without to a stand. Thus it is in the intricate some form or other of religion? And if movements of Divine Providence; as we might show you by ten thousand striking exemplifications, of which not a few, and the most satisfactory of all occur in the inspired history.

II. We consider the prophet as distinguishing the agency of Jehovah from that

religion, in some form or other, is everywhere to be found, it must certainly be natural to man. Nor am I disposed, taking the term in a vague amplitude of accepta tion, to dispute the truth of this; though In what strong and delightful terms is it may be remarked in general, that it is the doctrine of a universal and particular not easy to separate, in such matters, beprovidence expressed by Him who "spake tween what may be the suggestions of naas never man spake!" Are not two ture, and what the corrupted remnants of sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of an early tradition. Suppose it true. The them shall not fall on the ground without religion to which men are thus naturally your Father. But the very hairs of your disposed, we dare not, without impiety, head are all numbered. Fear ye not there- admit to be worthy of the name:-it is fore, ye are of more value than many spar- only one of the many forms of irreligion. rows." (Matt. x. 29-31.) There is The truth seems to be, that there is a hardly any thing we can imagine less in tendency to two opposite extremes, both apparent magnitude, in itself or in its equally at a distance from truth and recconsequences, than the death of a sparrow: titude,-the extremes of atheism and su-and, in the words I have just quoted, perstition. Superstition is the offspring the inference is drawn from the less to of guilty fears; and the general character the greater, in a form, and with an em- of the gods of the Heathen, in many cases, phasis, most encouraging and cheering to indicated by their very forms, accords with all the intelligent creatures of God, and the nature of their origin. Superstition especially to all his redeemed children. On ascribes every thing to some dreaded suthe principle of inferential reasoning, we pernatural agent or other, every calami

tous or unpropitious incident to some or their common calamities-that it was malignant power of evil. But polytheistic Jehovah, the God of Israel, the only God. superstition, though admitting what it calls On the ground of their utter impotence, by the name of deity,-" Gods many, and their incapacity to do good or to do evil lords many,”—is represented in the Scrip- to their votaries-to save or to destroy, tures as only one of the forms of atheism. the heathen deities, are not unfrequently, Of the religion to which human nature has in terms of sarcastic irony, and of a kind all along shown its proneness, there was of sublime derision, challenged by the an abundant profusion amongst those who prophets in the name of Jehovah, to com"changed the glory of the incorruptible parison and competition. (Isa. xli. 21-24 God into an image made like to corruptible Jer. x. 3—16.) man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, But we, my hearers, may be ready to and creeping things, and who worshipped say-we are very little in danger from this and served the creature rather than the source of error-the error of acknowledgCreator:" and yet of them it is said, "They ing other gods-the fantastic or detestable did not like to retain God in their know- absurdities of Heathen Mythology. This ledge." But if they did not retain God in is not, you think, (and you think truly) their knowledge, they were in reality one of your temptations. And I will not atheists. That surely is not religion, of at present urge upon you the various poswhose feelings and acts of homage, the sibilities of idolatry without your falling objects are either nonentities, or possess a down to stocks and stones, or prostrating being whose qualities are as opposite to yourselves to the lights of heaven. Neither those of Deity as darkness is to light:will I press upon you, how the world, in and atheists their worshippers are accord-all its forms of ambition, and avarice, and ingly denominated: "Not knowing God, pleasure, may take away your hearts from they did service to them which by nature God, and become the idol of your unfeigned are no gods," (Gal. iv. 8):-they were and undivided devotion. I will not demand "without God" (atheists)" in the world," your attention to the proposition, true as (Eph. ii. 12.) it is, that whatever occupies that place in Again: while the religion to which your affections and desires, which God human nature has ever been prone is in himself ought legitimately to hold, is your truth irreligion and atheism, there has dis-idol; although the Scripture unequivocally covered itself, wherever the knowledge of justifies and sanctions the proposition, by the true God has been imparted, a mourn- pronouncing covetousness idolatry, and the fully consistent propensity to forget Him-covetous man an idolater, and affirming, to overlook his superintendence-to leave" If any man love the world, the love of him out of our thoughts. Thus it was with the Father is not in him." But there is the Jews. They required to be incessantly one species of idolatry, or of atheism, more reminded of God. They were ever, per- immediately connected with our present versely aud infatuatedly, prone to the su- subject, which comes under our third perstitious extreme-to let slip the remem- head, and to which, for a few moments I brance of their own Jehovah, and to sub-must solicit your attention. stitute for Him the gods of the surrounding III. Divine agency may be regarded in heathen, imputing events to their agency contradistinction to an exclusive attention rather than to that of the God of Israel. to SECOND CAUSES. The text was meant, like many others, to How frequently is something called remind them that Jehovah reigned; that NATURE-( a name which, though someJehovah was the author alike of their ca- times used for the God of nature, expresses, lamities and their blessings-that the latter not seldom, a kind of mystical personificawere his unmerited favours, the former his tion of some unknown existence, the emdeserved corrections-that to HIM they ployment of the term hardly, if at all were to cultivate gratitude-that to HIM suggesting any thought of God)-how they were to exercise submission:-that frequently is something called Nature, in it was not Baal, it was not Moloch, it was language and in thought, in a manner not Melcom, or Ashtoreth, or Dagon, or deified!-and not less frequently, second the Queen of Heaven, or any other of those senseless idols, which they had multiplied to themselves "according to the number of their cities," that brought upon those cities, at any time, their respective

or subordinate causes are so contemplated and insisted on, as to indicate an exclusion from the mind of the great originating cause of all being, and the supreme uncoutrolled Director of all events! In account