obey his fupreme Lord, and to acknowledge the Author of these great and good Gifts: So far from it, that God was in a manner expelled from his own Creation, and Stocks and Stones and the Beasts of the Field were exalted and set up to receive the Honour and Worship due to the Creator. The Morality of the World became anfwerable to the Religion of it; and no Wonder: For why fhould he not turn Brute himself, who can be content with a Brute for his God? The Wonder lies on the other Side, that God fhould continue his Care and Concern for fuch Creatures; that he should be willing not only to forgive their Iniquities, but that he should contrive the Means of their Redemption; and that in fo wonderful a Manner, as to fend his own Son into the World, not only to inftruct and reform them, but to redeem them by making Atonement for their Sins by his own Blood. Who that confiders this can help faying with the Pfalmist, What is Man that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man, that thou vifiteft him?

Though thefe Reflections should naturally lead us to admire and adore the Goodness of God, who has done fo much, when we deserved fo little; for what stronger Motive can there be for Gratitude, than undeserved

X3

Favour?

Favour? yet have they oftentimes another Effect: For, when Men confider that God does nothing without Reafon, and at the fame time fee fo little Reafon why God should do so much for them, they begin to suspect whether he has done it or no, and to imagine that the whole Hiftory of the Redemption is a cunningly devifed Fable. To confider the Son of God coming down from Heaven, living among Men, and at last shedding his Blood for them, fills them with Wonder and Astonishment; And when they look on the other Side, they can fee nothing in Man that bears any Proportion to this Concern fhewed for him, or that yields any Argument to justify the Wisdom of God in this Method of his Redemption.

It must be owned, there is fomething plaufible in this Way of reasoning; and the more fo, as it pretends to do Justice to the · Wisdom of God, and cannot be charged with any great Injustice done to the Character of Man, But this Prejudice, be the Foundation of it good or bad, lies as strongly against the Works of Nature, as it does against the Works of Grace: For it is as hard to conceive that God fhould create this World for the fake of placing in it fuch Creatures as we are, as it is to conceive that he fhould

fend

fend his Son to redeem us. If you can justify the Wisdom and Goodness of God in making fuch Creatures, it will be no hard Thing to justify his Wifdom and Goodness in redeeming them: For to open a Way for Men to escape out of a State of Mifery is a more divine and beneficent Act, than the putting them into it. If you ftumble at the Dignity of the Redeemer, and think that the Son of God was too great a Perfon to be concerned in faving Men; for the fame Reafon you fhould think that God, or the Son of God, was too great a Perfon to be concerned in making fuch Creatures as Men: and from these and the like Confiderations you may as well conclude that God never made the World, as you do that he never redeemed it. But, in fpight of all these Reasons, you fee plainly, that this Earth was made for the Habitation of Men, wicked and inconfiderable as they are. Since therefore your Confequence will not hold in this Cafe, you have no Reafon to depend on it in the other; but rather to think that, fince it was agreeable to the Wisdom and Goodnefs of God to exert his Power to make fuch Creatures, it was alfo confiftent that he fhould exert his Power to fave and to redeem them.

It can ferve to no good Purpose to give Men a great Opinion of themselves, and of the confiderable Figure they make in the Univerfe; nor can it be done with Truth and Justice. Experience, which fhews us daily our own and the Follies of those about us, will be too hard for all Reafonings upon this Foot: and the Mind of Man, conscious of its own Defects, will fee through the Flattery, which ascribes to it Perfections and Excellencies with which it feels itself to be unacquainted. Or, could a Man, in fpight of his own Experience, be perfuaded to think himself very confiderable, and worthy of all that God has done for him; this Opinion could tend only to make him proud and conceited, and to think the Dispensations of Providence with regard to himself to be rather Acts of Juftice, and due to his Merit, > than the Effects of Goodness and Benignity Lin the Governor of the World. Such an Opinion would in a great Measure exclude a Senfe of Dependence, and in a greater still a Senfe of Gratitude; which are vital and fundamental Principles in Religion. now But, if we fet out with taking a proper View of ourselves in the first place, and with confidering the many Imperfections and Follies to which we are liable as rational

P

Agents,

Agents, the many Weakneffes and Infirmities which furround us as animal Creatures: and then survey the Works of Providence, and the great Care of God over us, manifefted in his various Difpenfations in the natural and moral World; we fhall eafily enter into the true Spirit of the holy Pfalmift's Reflection, What is Man, that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man, that thou vifiteft him? It is a Reflection naturally proceeding from the Sense of our Dependence on God, and leading to the highest Degree of Gratitude, whilft we contemplate with Admiration the greateft of his Favours, and confider ourselves as unworthy of his leaft.

This is the natural Sense which the Reflection in the Text fuggefts to us: Yet has it, as I obferved before, been used to other Purposes; and fome have thought it unworthy of God to fuppofe that in the great Works of Providence he had any special Regard to fo inconfiderable a Part of the whole, as the Race of Men appears to be. The Objection, they think, grows stronger, when the Scheme of Providence displayed to us in the Gofpel of Christ for the Salvation of Man is laid before them; and it appears to them aftonishing, that God fhould intereft himself fo particularly in an Affair, which

feems,