sight short of the Divine; and it follows incontestably, that the prediction and the accomplishment of it were both from God. The king's restoration to power and grandeur had also been predicted; and this took place at the predicted time, independently of any natural cause, and without the use of any human means. And the evidence of these extraordinary occurrences,

of the prediction, the fall, and the restoration, is perhaps the most undeniable of any thing that rests upon mere human testimony. The king himself, upon his recovery, published a manifesto in every part of his vast empire, giving an account of all which had befallen him, and in conclusion giving praise and honour to the King of heaven; acknowledging that "all his works are truth, and his ways judgment, and that those who walk in pride he is able to abase." The evidence of the whole fact therefore stands upon this public record of the Babylonian empire, which is preserved verbatim in the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, of which it makes indeed the whole. That chapter therefore is not Daniel's writing, but Nebuchadnezzar's.

Nothing can so much fortify the minds of the faithful against all alarm and consternation, nothing so much maintain them in an unruffled composure of mind, amid all the tumults and concussions of the world around them, as deep conviction of the truth of the principle inculcated in my text, and confirmed by the acknowledgment of the royal penitent Nebuchadnezzar, "that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men." But as this doctrine, so full of consolation to the godly, is liable to be perverted and abused by that sort of men who wrest the Scriptures to the destruction of themselves and others, notwith

standing that my discourse has already run to a greater length than I intended, the present occasion demands of me to open the doctrine in some points more fully, and to apply it to the actual circumstances of the world and of ourselves.

It is the express assertion of the text, and the language, indeed, of all the Scriptures, that God governs the world according to his will; — by which we must understand a will perfectly independent and unbiassed by any thing external; yet not an arbitrary will, but a will directed by the governing perfections of the Divine intellect-by God's own goodness and wisdom; and as justice is included in the idea of goodness, it must be a will governed by God's justice. But God's justice, in its present dispensations, is a justice accommodated to our probationary state, a justice which, making the ultimate happiness of those who shall finally be brought by the probationary discipline to love and fear God its end, regards the sumtotal and ultimate issue of things, - not the comparative deserts of men at the present moment. To us, therefore, who see the present moment only, the government of the world will appear upon many occasions not conformable, in our judgments, formed upon limited and narrow views of things, to the maxims of distributive justice. We see power and prosperity not at all proportioned to merit; for "the Most High, who ruleth in the kingdom of men, giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men," men base by the turpitude of their wicked lives, more than by the obscurity of their original condition; while good kings are divested of their hereditary dominions, dethroned, and murdered: insomuch, that if power and prosperity were sure marks

of the favour of God for those by whom they are possessed, the observation of the poet, impious as it seems, would too often be verified;

"The conqueror is Heaven's favourite; but on earth, Just men approve and honour more the vanquish'd.'

As at this moment the world beholds with wonder and dismay the low-born usurper of a great monarch's throne, raised, by the hand of Providence unquestionably, to an eminence of power and grandeur enjoyed by none since the subversion of the Roman empire, -a man whose undaunted spirit and success in enterprise might throw a lustre over the meanest birth, while the profligacy of his private and the crimes of his public life would disgrace the noblest. When we see the imperial diadem circling this monster's brows, -while we confess the hand of God in his elevation, let us not be tempted to conclude from this, or other similar examples, that he who ruleth in the kingdom of men delights in such characters, or that he is even indifferent to the virtues and to the vices of men. It is not for his own sake that such a man is raised from the dunghill on which he sprang; but for the good of God's faithful servants, who are the objects of his constant care and love, even at the time when they are suffering under the tyrant's cruelty for who can doubt that the Seven Brethren and their mother were the objects of God's love, and their persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes of his hate? But such persons are raised up, and permitted to indulge their ferocious passions, - their ambition, their cruelty, and their

* Victrix causa Diis placuit; sed victa Catoni.

revenge, as the instruments of God's judgments for the reformation of his people; and when that purpose is answered, vengeance is executed upon them for their own crimes. Thus it was with the Syrian we have just mentioned, and with that more ancient persecutor Sennacherib, and many more; and so, we trust, it shall be with him who now "smiteth the people in his wrath, and ruleth the nations in his anger." When the nations of Europe shall break off their sins by righteousness, the Corsican" shall be persecuted with the fury of our avenging God, and none shall hinder."

Again, if the thought that God ruleth the affairs of the world according to his will were always present to the minds of men, they would never be cast down beyond measure by any successes of an enemy, nor be unduly elated with their own. The will of God is a cause ever blended with and over-ruling other causes, of which it is impossible from any thing past to calculate the future operation: what is called the fortune of war, by this unseen and mysterious cause may be reversed in a moment.

Hence, again, it follows, that men persuaded upon good grounds of the justice of their cause should not be discouraged even by great failures in the beginning of the contest, nor by sudden turns of ill fortune in the progress of it. Upon such occasions, they should humble themselves before God, confess their sins, and deprecate his judgments: but they should not interpret every advantage gained by the enemy as a sign that the sentence of God is gone forth against themselves, and that they are already fallen not to rise again. When the tribe of Benjamin refused to give "the children of Belial which were in Gibeah"

up

to the just resentment of their countrymen, the other tribes confederated, and with a great force made war upon them. The cause of the confederates was just; the war, on their part, was sanctioned by the voice of God himself; and it was in the counsel and decree of God that they should be ultimately victorious: yet, upon the attack of the town, they were twice repulsed with great slaughter. But they were not driven to despair they assembled themselves before the house of God, and wept and fasted. They received command to go out again the third day. They obeyed. They were victorious: Gibeah was burnt to the ground, and the guilty tribe of Benjamin was all but extirpated. An edifying example to all nations to put their trust in God in the most unpromising circum

stances.

the

Again, a firm belief in God's providence, overruling the fortunes of men and nations, will moderate our excessive admiration of the virtues and talents of men, and particularly of the great achievements of bad men, which are always erroneously ascribed to their own high endowments. Great virtues and great talents being indeed the gifts of God, those on whom they are conferred are justly entitled to respect and honour but the Giver is not to be forgotten, centre and source of all perfection, to whom thanks and praise are primarily due even for those benefits which are conveyed to us through his highly-favoured servants. But when the brilliant successes of bad men are ascribed to themselves, and they are admired for those very actions in which they are the most criminal, it is a most dangerous error, and often fatal to the interests of mankind; as, in these very times, nothing has so much conduced to establish the power