BY THE REV. RICHARD WATSON.

For in Him we live, and move, and have our being,' Acts xvii, 28.

THE important sentiment contained in the text stands among many others which would be equally new and wonderful to the philosophers, and inquisitive men of Athens.' That they were not without all knowledge of the true God, is certain. St. Paul quotes a passage, in proof of this, from one of their own poets; and several of their philosophic sects admitted one supreme God, of whom they sometimes spake eloquently and nobly. Like other idolaters, however, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.' They confined him chiefly to his own celestial dominion; conceived of him as an inactive spectator of the works of men; parcelled out the management of the universe among inferior deities; and transferred that trust and honor, which ought to have been exclusively reserved for the One God, to beings of their own invention, or to the spirits of departed kings, heroes, and sages of ancient times: and amidst the elaborate and pompous religious services which they rendered to these idols, they forgot God.'

To hear that the very Being, whom they thought so distant and so unconcerned with human affairs, was ever employed in arranging all the events of their lives, and had 'fixed the bounds of their habitation;' that he had done this in his mercy, in order 'that they should seek after him and find him ;' that he is not far from any one of us;' but is indeed so near, that if any dark and bewildered spirit would but feel after him,' he should find him; so near, that 'in him we live, and move, and have our being; these indeed were new truths; and, happily, they were not preached to the Athenians in vain. Some indeed mocked ;' others said, 'We will hear thee again of this matter;' but the foundation of a church, never entirely to perish from Athens, was VOL. II.-July 1831. 21

then laid Certain men clave unto him, and believed; among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.'

That such truths, after so great a lapse of time, and even among those professing to receive the doctrine of St. Paul, should still need to be preached, is a problem, which will, at first sight, be either questioned or pronounced difficult to solve. Yet, is it so, that, in the full and true meaning of these words, all who profess faith in the New Testament, believe that God appoints the bounds of our habitation,' and regulates the affairs of men by constant control and guidance? that he is so near,' that a seeking soul shall find a present God, and break out of its natural darkness into the light of his manifested presence? and that in him 'we live, and have our being; that is, are kept in existence, not by a sort of general law, but by incessantly repeated acts of upholding' and succour? We meet, I fear, with many sad and affecting proofs of the contrary. We have not, it is true, exchanged Christianity for Pagan philosophy; but we have philosophized upon it in a Pagan manner; and still holding, with professed reverence, the letter of the truth, we have given to it a Gentile interpretation.

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This is one of the errors of the day. In the revelations of this sacred volume, God is brought near to us; so near to us, that we are told that in him 'we live, and move, and have our being.' much of the philosophy which wears the garb of Christianity, he is again placed far from us; not so far indeed that he is removed quite out of sight, and wholly unacknowledged and forgotten; but so far as to weaken the foundations of our trust in his power and grace; and to chill those warm and lively emotions of the affections toward him, in which our piety has both its joy and its strength.

This is the subject now brought before you; and I shall select some illustrations of the errors against which we need to be guarded; and by showing their fallacy, endeavour to prepare our minds to receive a stronger impression of those great and comprehensive truths which the text either contains or suggests.

1. Our first illustration may be taken from that arranged and exquisitely ordered material world, with which we are surrounded, and of which we form a part.

The philosophy to which I allude is often, with reference to those great and impressive phenomena, far from comporting with the doctrine of the text. It acknowledges indeed God to be the Creator, and also the Upholder, and Conservator, of all things; but still its theory is but a Christianized Paganism. It is continually substituting for the God in whom all things live, and move, and have their being, some invention of its own; and though this should be nothing more than a set of terms and phrases, which, in point of fact, have no meaning, it rests in them, fully satisfied with

the discovery. Thus it resorts to its laws of nature,' and to its second causes;' and these it multiplies again, till it throws back the FIRST and only efficient Cause to an unmeasurable distance; weakens or denies the doctrine of his immediate agency; and, in fact, puts God 'far from us.' If the earth wants rain, it directs my attention to the laws of the atmosphere, the influence of the winds, the process of evaporation from the ocean, or the causes on which that may depend; and then beyond this vast space, filled by intervening agents, it indeed allows me to see God. If I am sick, or in health, I am forbidden to think immediately upon the hand which smites, or the power which heals me;-constitutional peculiarities, medicine, air, diet, and other second causes come in ; and, in this case, again put God far from me. These instances are sufficient for illustration; and the fault which is charged upon these philosophizing Christians is not that secondary causes are investigated, arranged, and exhibited by their industry; but that too frequently they do this in an atheistical manner; and that these second causes are used, not as manifestations of God, but as veils to hide him from the sight of his creatures :-in a word, as criminal contrivances to forget him.

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The philosophy of the Scriptures bears a very different character. Does the rain fall? It is our Father in heaven' who sends it 'upon the just and the unjust.' Is the earth vested with verdure? It is 'God who so clothes the grass of the field.' Do day and night succeed each other? It is he that turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that maketh the seven stars, and Orion.' Do the elements rage? Flames of fire are his messengers,' and 'stormy winds fulfil his word.' Am I sick? His 'rod' is upon me. Am I in health? He healeth all my diseases.' So the inspired writer, collecting, as it were, the whole universe of creatures, and all their agencies, into one view, exclaims, All things serve thee,'-run on thy messages, fulfil thy commands, execute thy counsels.

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Where then lies the fallacy which in this plausible philosophy cheats us out of that sense of the ever-present, ever-working, yet unwearied Power of which we ought always to be sensible? There is no need, in order to preserve and uphold this doctrine, at once the most pious, and the most noble, to deny any thing that is said of subordinate causes. That they exist, it were absurd to question; and indeed their existence is a part of the grandeur of the doctrine of the text, rightly understood; for true theology is always true philosophy; and where the theology is bad, the philosophy will ever be vain.' That text resolves the whole: In him we live, and move, and have our being.' Life is from him; motion is from him; and that which lives and moves, even our very essence, is unceasingly dependent upon him. But then this is not to be taken generally, and in mass: it is as true of every individual as of the whole race; as true of every individual particle of which our

frame is composed, as of the whole frame itself: it is true of the first subordinate cause, which the supreme power puts in motion, and by which we may be affected for good or for evil; and it is equally true of the second, which as much lives, and moves, and has its being' in God as the first; and the third as the second; and the fourth as the third. Multiply these as you please, God is in and with that agent which reaches me at last. He is so as immediately as with the distant first. It is thus that we gain the glorious truth, that 'He is not far from any one of us.' No distance extends itself between me and God; no creature separates me from him, but is the very instrument by which he comes to me. For if there be a chain of causes and effects, he not only sustains it, but lives and acts along its whole line; and thus may we 'foresee him always before us,' all in all,' and all in every thing. The creature derives its whole force from God; and we, and all that concerns us, are in his hand.'

II. Our second illustration may be taken from what is usually called Providence. That branch of his government, so designated, to which I refer, respects the affairs of men; and where it is allowed that God governs his creatures, this very doctrine itself might be supposed necessarily to imply such a control on his part, and interpositions so marked, as shall make it obvious to reason, that he is not far from any one of us;' although, as to sense, the hand which moves every thing should remain without that visible manifestation which took place in the times of old.'

So various, however, are the inventions of this philosophizing Christianity to put God far from us, even in his government of men, that we are in danger of quite forgetting him; and the whole case is often so cautiously stated, that we are liable to the charge of fanatical presumption, if we believe and maintain, in the full sense of the text, that we both ‘live,' and 'move,' as well as have our being' in him.

Hence we have the law of moral causes and effects. It might be startling language to call the decays and reverses of a nation, 'divine judgments; or to attribute national prosperity and strength to God's blessing. We must proceed more philosophically, and remember that by a moral law of our being, national weakness and decay are linked to national vices, as these naturally spring from wealth, ease, and luxury; and, on the contrary, that the strength of a country, by the same law, results from its public and private virtues.

These call forth, both

We have also the law of circumstances. as to nations and individuals, their good or their bad qualities; and are more or less favorable and inciting to the full development of both. We thus account for the whole moral phenomena presented by ancient and modern states, and by the individuals who surround us.

But to what does this affected verbiage amount? What real