Be ye sure that the Lord he is God, it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

THAT there is a God, is a truth so universally known and received, that it may appear unnecessary to repeat this first principle of our religion, the proof of which every man bears in his own creation. But, if we consider how many there are, even in the present age, who seem from the whole tenor of their lives to doubt the

certainty of a Superior Being, or at least to question His providence, it may not prove entirely useless to resume a subject, worthy our most serious attention.

In the following discourse, I shall endeavour to shew, that the Lord.he is God, who hath made us, and not we ourselves, and from thence infer the necessity of frequent prayer and thanksgiving to him, as the Father of all. If we cast our eye back to the remotest ages of the world, to those regions, that were never instructed in the written law of God, and barely furnished with the light of nature, even there we shall find some notion of a Deity existing, however extravagant and almost impious it may be. This will serve to convince us, that amongst all mankind there is no nation so wild and barbarous as not to believe the existence of a God; though they may differ in their apprehension of the nature of his providence, yet all

acknowledge his Being. Nor is it difficult to account for this natural inclination in man to confess a Superior Power; the use of reason alone is sufficient to teach us, that we did not make ourselves; that this curious and beautiful frame of the universe, the order and harmony that appear in every branch of the creation, the ample provision that is made for the nourishment of all creatures ;-in a word, the whole astonishing system of heaven and earth never could be the effect of inactive matter or blind chance; nothing less than a Being of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, could be the author of so perfect a work; nor is it possible to conceive, that any one who has sense enough to reflect on the various appearances of this visible world, after all the clear manisfestations of a Deity that are every where to be discovered, can at last permit himself to say in his heart, "There is no God!"

invincible indeed must be the folly and impiety of him who can persist to deny a Providence, when the whole creation, from the human race to the lowest of insects, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss upon the wall, must declare their absolute dependence upon a First Cause, the Author and Fountain of all being, motion, and life; but as it appears from present experience, as well as the histories of former times, that all nations, however they have differed in their manners, institutions, and customs, were yet agreed in having some Deity to worship, it remains to be considered who that God is, that only eternal and self-existent Power who made heaven and earth. This was probably the intention of the Royal Psalmist in the text; for it seems to have been directed to some persons in his time, who were either inclined to idolatry, or wavering in their belief of the living God; for this reason