that goodness, it is then that adversity disappears, as adversity,— that there is no evil which we may not convert into a source of advantage; because what is most afflicting is only the lesson, or the trial, or the consummation of our virtue ;—that all nature is embellished to us by the divine presence, as the scene of actions which it is noble to perform, or of sufferings which, when borne with the feelings with which the virtuous bear them, it would scarcely be too strong an expression to term delightful.

God, then, who has poured on us so much enjoyment, of which it is virtuous to partake, in the whole system of nature, and in the frame of our mind, is manifestly benevolent, in calling to us to enjoy; and though less manifestly, he is not less truly benevolent in the evils which he has given to our virtue to bear, the common wants, by the influence of which the whole multitudes of our race are formed into a society, active in the reciprocation of mutual services,—and the greater occasional sufferings, or voluntary perils, which excite the compassion, or the veneration of others, and cherish, in the heroic sufferer himself, a spirit of gentle or sublime virtue, without the consciousness of which, the moral scene would scarcely be an object of delightful interest, even to human regard.

If the system of things has thus been framed by a God of benevolence, it is under the moral government of a benevolent God, that the world subsists,-under the government of a God, who has shown too clearly, by the universal feeling which he has given to all his moral creatures, his love of virtue and his disapprobation of vice, to leave any doubt as to the nature of his own high estimate of human actions. If it be impossible for ourselves not to feel the approbation of certain actions, and the delinquency that is implied in certain other actions, it is impossible for us not to extend these feelings to other minds, which we suppose to consider with the same freedom from passion, and the same accurate knowledge of every circumstance, the same actions that are approved or condemned by ourselves. To believe, that pure generosity and pure malice, which every human being loves in the one case, and hates in the other case, as soon as he contemplates them,-as if pointed out to his love and hatred, by the author and enlightener of the heart,-are, to that very author and enlightner of the heart, the same in every respect, except as he has chosen to distinguish

them in our judgment,-would be as difficult for us or almost as difficult, as to believe that a circle and a triangle have different properties, only as conceived by us, and appear to involve exactly the same proportions and relations, to that perfect Intelligence, whom some of the Greek philosophers have distinguished by the title of the Supreme Geometer.

What we regard with moral approbation or disapprobation, we are led then by our very nature, to regard as objects of approbation or disapprobation, not to all mankind only, but to every Being whom we imagine to contemplate the actions, and especially to Him, who, as quickest to perceive and to know, must as we think, by this very superiority of discernment, be quickest also to approve and condemn.

It is of this moral approbation or disapprobation in the divine nature, that we speak, when we speak of what is commonly termed the justice of God. The merit or demerit, which it is impossible for us not to feel, we consider as felt by him who has thus distinguished them to our heart, and who has the power of making happy what he approves, and of verifying to the wicked the anticipations of their own remorse. The divine justice, as it is an object of conception to human beings, is nothing more than the ampler developement of these human feelings,-feelings that are human indeed, in our transient love or hatred, but the reference of which to the Deity depends on a principle of our nature, as universal as that which leads us to the very conception of the Deity, as a power existing now, and existing before the world was made. It is by the analogy of human design, that we infer in the universe the operation of a mightier designer; by the analogy of human sentiment, we infer, in like manner, in the Creator and Ruler of the universe, those moral feelings by which he is not the creator and ruler only of mankind, but their judge,—a judge whose approbation is already felt in the conscience of the good, as his disapprobatlon is already not less felt, in the gloomy and trembling conscience of the guilty.

Such are the views of the nature of the Divine Being to which we are led, from those traces of his character which the universe, as formed by him, and especially our own spiritual frame, which is to us the most important part of the universe, exhibit. The most interesting of all inquiries, terminates in the

most pleasing of all results. Whatever power it might have been that created us, benevolent or cruel, to that power we must have been subject, without any manner of shelter, because there was no superior sovereign of nature, who might protect and avenge us. We might have been, in misery, what our imagination, after bringing together all the forms of torture which the oppressions of this earth can afford, would be too poor of images to represent. Instead of a tyrant, however, in the heavens, we discover a power from which we have no need to fly for succour; since whatever might be the kindness to which we might wish to fly, it would be a kindness less than that from which we fled,-a kindness far less than that, which created for us this glorious abode, and which gave us the means of rising, with the consciousness of virtue, from all that is excellent on earth, to sublimer and happier excellence, in progressive stages of immortality.

In this view of the wisdom, and power, and benevolence of the Supreme Being is involved, what is commonly termed our duty to God. In one sense of the word, indeed, all our duties are duties which we owe to him, who has endowed us with every gift which we possess, and who has commended these duties, by that voice of conscience which speaks in every breast. But the duties, to which I now allude, are those which have their divine object more immediately in view, and which consider him, in those gracious characters, in which his work revealed him to us. It is our duty to love the benevolence to which we owe so much, to feel pleasure in tracing every display of that benevolence, in the happiness of every thing that lives, and, in all that we value most in ourselves, to rejoice in feeling its relation to the Goodness from which it was derived, and in expressing our dependence, not as if the expression of it were a task enjoined, but with the readiness of love, that overflows in acknowledgments of kindness received, only because it overflows with gratitude for the kindness. If a mere earthly friend, whose affection we have delighted to share, is separated from us, for any length of time, by the ocean or a few kingdoms that lie between, how delightful to us is every memorial of his former presence. Our favourite walks and favourite seats, continue still to be favourite walks and favourite seats, or rather they acquire new beauty, in the thought that they were beautiful to other eyes that now are absent. There is no

conversation so pleasing to us, as that of which his virtues are the subject; and even the rudest sketch of his drawing, or the verses which he may have left unfinished, are regarded by us with far more delightful admiration, than paintings and poems, which surpass them in every charm, but that which friendship alone could give. We not merely feel all this affection for our friend, but we feel too, that it would be a sort of crime against friendship, to regard with indifference any thing which related to him; and if this be a crime with respect to earthly friendship, it is surely not less a crime, when its object is the friendship that has been the source of all the happiness which we have felt. To be surrounded with the divine goodness, and yet to feel no joy in contemplating the magnificent exhibition of it,-to admire any works, rather than those of God, and far from delighting to speak or think of his moral perfections, to give our thoughts and our conversation, in preference, to the virtues, or still more gladly, to the vices, of those of whom the name is, perhaps, almost all that is known to us,—this is to fail, with respect to the Noblest of Beings, in a duty, which, if that noblest of beings could divest himself of his perfections, and become, with far less kindness to us, a creature like ourselves, we then should blush to violate to our mortal benefactor.

Our first duty, then, to the Deity, is to dwell with delight on the contemplation of his perfections,-to cultivate our devout feelings, as the happiest and noblest feelings of which our nature is capable, and to offer that worship of the heart, which is the only offering that can be made by man to his Creator. "Primus est Deorum cultus, Deos credere; deinde reddere illis majestatem suam, reddere bonitatem, sine qua nulla maje stas est:-scire illos esse, qui præsident mundo, qui universa vi sua temperant, qui humani generis tutelam gerunt, interdum curiosi singulorum. Hi nec dant malum nec habent; ceterum castigant quosdam, et coercent; et irrogant pœnas, et aliquando specie boni puniunt. Deos propitiare? bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est."* Would you propitiate the Gods? Be good. Whoever has imitated them, has already offered to them the most acceptable worship.

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Next, in order to the duties of veneration, and devout acknowledgment of the Divine goodness, is the duty of that unrepining submission to his will, without which there can be no real belief of the providential goodness, which the lips, indeed, may have professed to believe, but the lips only. If it would be our duty to give ready obedience to the arrangements which an earthly sovereign makes, for the security and general happiness of his little state, in some season of peril, though it involve the sacrifice of many of our personal comforts,-to quit, perhaps, our peaceful homes, and expose ourselves, in the band of our fellow citizens, to the inconveniences and dangers of a protracted warfare, that is foreign to all our tranquil habits, or to send to the same perilous warfare, those whose life of rising virtues is the only earthly thing, to which we have been accustomed to look, for the happiness of our own declining years,-if we should feel it guilt and disgrace to withhold the offering, when the happiness of a single state is the object, and when he who requires the sacrifice is but a fallible being like ourselves,-how much greater guilt and moral disgrace must it be, to hesitate in making those sacrifices, or to repine when they are made, which are demanded by wisdom that is considered by us to be incapable of error, for purposes which, as our own hearts have declared, must be purposes benefi cent to mankind. Shall the warrior rejoice in dying in battle for his country, or even for his prince! and shall we feel no joy in finishing a life that has been accordant with the Divine will, in whatever manner the same Divine will may require it of us; or, if the easy offering of life be not that which is required, in bearing a little longer for the whole community of mankind, any of those evils, which we should never shrink from bearing, for that small portion of the community which our country comprehends? "Shall others say, O beloved city of Cecrops," exclaims Marcus Aurelius, and shall I not rather say, "O beloved city of our God!"

These views of the Divinity,-the habitual love of his perfections, and ready acquiescence in the dispensations of his universal providence, are not more suitable to the Divine nature, than productive of delight and consolation to him who entertains them. They distinguish, indeed, the virtuous from the rest of mankind, in serenity of happiness, as much as in the purity of heart, from which that delightful serenity is derived.