and things vary as every particular man's circumstances vary; but as every event in the world is managed by the superintendency of Providence, so every providence has in it something instructing, something that calls upon us to look up, or look out, or look in.

Every one of those heads is big with particular explanations, but my business is not preaching, I am making observations and reflections, let those make enlargements who read it; in a word, there is scarce any particular providence attends our lives, but we shall find, if we give due weight to it, that it calls upon us, either

1. To look up, and acknowledge the goodness of God in sparing us, the bounty of God in providing for us, the power of God in delivering and protecting us; not forgetting to look up, and acknowledge, and be humble under the justice of God in being angry with and afflicting us.

2. Or to look out, and take the needful caution and warning given of evil approaching, and prepare either to meet or avoid it.

3. Or to look in, and reflect upon what we find Heaven animadverting upon, and afflicting us for taking notice of the summons to repent and reform.

And this is, in a word, what I mean by listening to the voice of Providence.

CHAPTER SIX

OF THE PROPORTION BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN WORLD

HAVE said something of this already in my inquiry after the state of religion in the world, but upon some reflections which fell in my way since, I think it may offer further thoughts, very improving, as well as diverting. When we view the world geographically, take the plane of the globe, and measure it by line, and cut it out into latitude and longitude, degrees, leagues, and miles, we may see, indeed, that a pretty large spot of the whole is at present under the government of Christian powers and princes, or under the influence of their power and commerce, by arms, navies, colonies, and plantations, or their factories, missionaries, residences, &c.

But I am loath to say we should take this for a fulfilling the promise made to the Messiah, that His kingdom should be exalted above all nations, and the Gospel be heard to the end of the earth; I was going to say, and yet without any profaneness, that we hope God will not put us off so. I must acknowledge I expect, in the fulfilling of these promises, that the time will come when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, that the Church of God shall be set open to the four winds, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted above the tops of the mountains, and all the nations shall flow into it (Isaiah ii. 2);

that is to say, that the Christian religion, or the profession of the doctrine of the Messiah, shall be made national over the whole globe, according to those words (Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark xiii. 13; Luke xxiv. 17). But this may be a little too apocalyptical or visionary for the times; and it is no business of mine to enter upon the interpretation of Scripture difficulties, whatever I may understand or believe myself about them, but rather to make my observations, as I have begun, upon things which now are, and which we have seen and know; let what is to come be as He pleases who has ordered things past, and knows what is to follow.

The present case is to speak of the mathematical proportion that there is now to be observed upon the plane of the globe, and observe how small a part of the world it is where the Christian religion has really prevailed and is nationally professed - I speak of the Christian religion where it is, as I call it, national, that is, in its utmost latitude; and I do so that I may give the utmost advantage, even against myself, in what I am going to say; and therefore, when I come to make deductions for the mixtures of barbarous nations, I shall do it fairly also.

I have nothing to do with the distinctions of Christians: I hope none will object against calling the Roman Church a Christian Church in this respect, and the professors of the Popish Church Christians; neither do I scruple to call the Greek Church Christian, though in some places so blended with superstition and barbarous customs, as in Georgia, Armenia, and the borders of Persia and Tartary, likewise in many parts of the Czar of Muscovy's dominions, that, as before, the name of Christ is little more than just spoken of, and literally known, without any material knowledge of His person,

nature, and dignity, or of the homage due to Him as the Redeemer of the world.

The nations of the world, then, where Christ is acknowledged, and the Christian religion is professed nationally, be it Romish Church or Greek Church, or even the Protestant Church, including all the several subdivisions and denominations of Protestants, take them all as Christians, I say, these nations are as follow:

1. In Europe: Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Muscovy, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.

2. In Asia Georgia and Armenia.

3. In Africa: no place at all, the few factories of European merchants only excepted.

4. In America: The colonies of Europeans only, as follow:

1. The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, the coasts of Chili, Carthagena, and St. Martha, and a small colony at Buenos Ayres on the Rio de la Plata.

2. The Portuguese in the Brazils.

3. The British on the coast of America, from the Gulf of Florida to Cape Breton, on the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or the great river of Canada, also a little in Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay.

4. The French in the river of Canada and the great river of Mississippi.

5. The English, French, and Dutch on the islands called the Caribbees, &c.

The chief seat of the Christian religion is at present in Europe. But if we measure the quarter of the world we call Europe upon the plan of the globe, and cast up the northern, frozen, and indeed uninhabitable part of it, such as Laponia, Petzora, Candora, Obdora, and the Samoiedes, with part of

Siberia, they are all pagans, with the eastern unpeopled deserts bordering on Asia, on the way to China, and the vast extent of land on that side, which, though nominally under the dominion of Muscovy, is yet all pagan, even nationally so — under no real government, but of their own pagan customs.

If we go from thence to the south, and take out of it the European Tartars, viz., of Circassia, the Crimea, and Budziack - if you go on, and draw a line from the Crim Tartary to the Danube, and from thence to the Adriatic Gulf, and cut off all the Grand Seignior's European dominions I say, take this extent of land out of Europe, and the remainder does not measure full two-thirds of land in Europe under the Christian government, much of which is also desert and uninhabited, or at least by such as cannot be called Christians and do not concern themselves about it, as, particularly, the Swedish and Norwegian Lapland, the more eastern and southern Muscovy, beyond the Volga, even to Karakathie, and to the borders of Asia, on the side of India - I say, taking in this part, not above one-half of Europe is really inhabited by Christians.

The Czar of Muscovy, of the religion of whose subjects I have said enough, is lord of a vast extended country; and those who have measured it critically say his dominions are larger than all the rest of Europe, that is to say, that he possesses a full half as much as Europe; and in those dominions he is master of abundance of nations that are pagan or Mahomedan, as, in particular, Circassia, being conquered by him, the Circassian Tartars, who are all Mahomedans, or the most of them, are his subjects.

However, since a Christian monarch governs them, we must, upon the plan I laid down, call this a Christian country; and that alone obliges me to give two-thirds of Europe to the Christians.