ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Sermons are sent to the press precisely in the same form in which they were prepared for the pulpit. Their unusual length obliged the author to omit, in the delivery, some parts, which he thought the least interesting. He hopes, however, that to serious and impartial readers he need make no apology for directing the whole to be printed. Conscious as he is of his own defects in the arts of reasoning, and in the graces of style, he does not presume to set up any claim to literary reputation from these Discourses. They were written with a sincere desire of doing justice to the subjects which the author had occasion to treat in the presence of two very respectable congregations; and they are now submitted to the candour of the public, partly in deference to the judgment of some learned friends, and partly for the sake of the Charityschools in this City, to the support of which such profits as may arise from the sale will be applied.

SERMON I.

PREACHED IN NORWICH CATHEDRAL,

December 25, 1779.

GALATIANS, iv. 4.

When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son.

IT may be ranked among the distinguishing characteristics of the present age, that the authority of prescription is openly disavowed, and that inquiry is carried on with a spirit of incredulity, which, in respect to the subjects upon which it has been sometimes employed, may be called rigorous to excess. That Christianity, by the singularity of its pretensions, by the dignity of its professed origin, and the importance of its end, should, in such an age, attract the notice of speculative men, cannot, I think, surprise any judicious believer; and it ought not to alarm even the most pious, since the abilities displayed in the defence of the Gospel bear no dishonourable proportion to the exertions of those by whom it has been secretly undermined, or openly assaulted.

When the controversy turns either upon facts which sacred history has recorded, or upon doctrines which the Gospel has delivered, it is seldom

difficult to reach the true point of decision. But the words of my text direct our thoughts towards a series of very different topics; such, I mean, as have been hitherto discussed by the aid of abstract reasonings, or by the consideration of circumstances, which, however minute, when separately viewed, are, in their collective force, neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. Among these topics we may place the late appearance of Christianityits partial propagation-its imperfect efficacy.

If the cavils that have been started upon these points had no other tendency than to let loose the illiberal exultations of the enemies to our Religion, it would be our duty to encounter them with the most accumulated strength of evidence, and the most vigorous efforts of reasoning. But when they become the occasions of embarrassment and extreme dejection to those who wish to support a better cause e; when they damp the ardour of piety, or unhinge the steadiness of faith, they cannot be passed over without all the disgraceful appearance, and all the fatal effects, of tacit approbation; without danger to the innocence of other men, and invidious suspicions concerning our own sincerity. In the present discourse, therefore, I shall first endeavour to establish the validity of those principles, by which objections of the kind just mentioned to you may be proved unphilosophical as well as irreligious; and secondly, by a more distinct examination of the objections themselves, I shall hope to expose their real futility, and to counteract their malignant operation.

Whether our researches be employed upon the physical or the moral constitution of the world, the schemes of God are ever found progressive in their execution; and however they may sometimes unfold themselves to an accurate and humble observer of what has been done, they often clash with the hypotheses of men who affect to penetrate into the counsels of their Maker, and who presume to dictate what it becomes him to do. Now the redemption of mankind, in its various proofs, and its various uses, extends back to the first design of God in creating this system, and stretches forward to the eternal interests of many beings who are ordained to act in it. We may presume, therefore, that all the causes, whether ordinary or extraordinary, mediate or immediate, which might be requisite to its completion, were arranged with the nicest exactness in the general order of things.

But, in a scheme so wide and so complicated, it is by no means surprising that some parts should totally escape our observation, or that others should be imperfectly understood, from their connection with facts either forgotten or undiscovered, with many past events which influence the present, with more that are yet to come, and are themselves relative to a long succession of causes and effects, where the least are essential to the greatest, and the most remote affect the most near.

From this intricate and almost boundless chain that links together the works of God, it becomes impossible for us to catch more than a faint and scanty glimmering of his purposes. For as the most