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pations of his liberality,this man should unhappily forfeit this ruler's favour and friendship, by repeated acts of hostility and delinquency; if instead of punishing his base ingratitude with unrelent ing severity, he followed him in all his wanderings, preserved him from ten thousand dangers, provided for all his wants, and used every method which wisdom and power could invent, to cause him to return to his own happiness: if, after receiving every insult, abuse and injury, from this ungrateful man, this faithful friend should rescue him from a premature death, which his guilt was bringing upon him, by offering himself an expiatory sacrifice for the atonement of his complicated guilt, the just for the unjust; I say, after all these tokens of infinite love, would it not be offering an insult to the common sense of the man, who received all these favours, to solicit him to love his friend and benefactor? Most assuredly it would. According to the old adage, "seeing is believing, but feeling is the naked truth;" who then, I would ask,

has not felt that God is good; that has not participated the plenitude of his divine liberality? Not one! The similitude therefore needs no application, it is obvious to the meanest capacity. Well might Epictetus affirm, that "the only foundation of true piety is this, to have right opinions and apprehensions of God." Hence, there is a dead faith and a living faith, one of which overcomes the world, and the other is overcome by the world." How, I would ask, can a man possess true faith, who entertains the most erroneous and contemptible apprehensions, of the true and living God; that self-existent Being, who only is absolute in dominion, infinitely benevolent, supremely just, pure, holy, happy and beautiful, the source of all being, and the sum total of all excellence. His mode of existence is impenetrable, as his immensity and essence are indescribable; his boundless goodness, and inimitable beauty, known only to himself; he is at once the most sublime, and the most simple of all intelligences! he cannot err, nor

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do any thing but what is both just and good; this is the being I both love, admire and fear; and whose impartial justice and goodness I feel the most cogent desire to vindicate. But alas! it is impossible for me, or even all the men in the world, in conjunction with all the angels in heaven to exhibit, or delineate the thousandth, thousandth thousandth part of the immutability of his justice, the infinitude of his goodness, and the magnitude of his sovereigu beauty. In attempting to display even a particle thereof in these strictures, I feel like a child endeavouring to exhibit the brilliancy of the sun with the light of a candle. The divine goodness must be infinite, amazing and divine, or it never could endure such ingratitude, rebellion and manifold delinquencies, as have been observable in my life and conduct for many years. His amazing power is permanently displayed in the planetary system:

"The unwearied sun from day to day,
Doth his Creator's pow'r display,

And publishes to every land,

The work of an Almighty hand."

It has been ascertained almost to a mathematical certainty, that our sun and its attendant planets, are but a very small part of the works of God. The fixed stars are considered the centre of systems, as magnificent as our solar system, with an appropriate number of planets moving round each of them; as therefore the fixed stars are innumerable, we may fairly conclude from analogy, that there are innumerable systems in creation. When we consider for a moment, the prodigious number of stars to be seen, with a good telescope, on the milky-way, we must be astonished at the architecture of the great Jehovah. Indeed the famous Dr. Herschel, has seen with his incomparable telescope, in 41 minutes 258,000 stars in the milky-way. If we take our intellectual eyes from the starry skies, and view the roaring seas, we shall see specimens of the Creator's power. Let any intelligent man, if he does not wish to view the ocean, only take a drop of water, and view it through a good microscope, and he

will no doubt, see many animalcules, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, and yet, each of these diminutive. animals, are as perfect in their kind, as a whale; each of them possessing the whole apparatus of animal life, such as heat, bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, lungs, veins, viscera, animal spirits, &c. &c. Let us for a moment view the fecundity of fishes, that we may appreciate in some manner the power and wisdom of God. The celebrated naturalist Lenwenhock, counted nine million eggs in a common sized cod; shad, herrings, and many other species of fish, are also exceedingly prolific! Indeed, the inhabitants of Norway, Lapland, and many other parts of the world, live principally upon fish, provided by the energy and goodness of God. We need not then look only to the enormous whale, which could scarce find sufficient room to swim in the river Delaware, for a specimen of the wonderful works of God, but look through a drop of water, and view animalcules swimming as perfectas in theirformation

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