who should last stand in want of it,-nor yet riches to men of understanding, who you would think best qualified to acquire them, nor yet favour to men of skill, whose merit and pretences bid the fairest for it, but that there are fome fecret and unseen workings in human affairs, which baffle all our endeavours, and turn afide the course of things in fuch a manner, that the most likely caufes difappoint and fail of producing for us the effects which we wished and naturally expected from them. You will fee a man, of whom, was you to form a conjecture from the appearances of things in his favour,- -you would fay was fetting out in the world, with the fairest profpect of making his fortune in it; with. all the advantages of birth to recommend. him, of perfonal merit to fpeak for him, - and of friends to help and push him forwards you will behold him, not withstanding this, difappointed in every effect you might naturally have looked for, from them;every step he takes towards his advancement, fomething invifible should pull him back,

-

•fome un

foreseen obftacle fhall rife up perpetually

VOL. II.

B

in

in his way, and keep there.--In every

-fome untoward

application he makes,circumftance fhall blaft-He fhall rite early, late take reft,---and eat the bread of carefulness,yet fome happier man fhall ftill rife up, and ever step in before him, and leave him struggling to the end of his life, in the very fame placé, in which he first begun it.

The hiftory of a fecond, fhall in all respects be the contraft to this. He fhall come into the world, with the moft unpromifing appearance,fhall fet forwards without fortune,--without friends,--without talents to procure him either the' one or the other. Nevertheless, you will fee this clouded profpect brighten up infenfibly, unaccountably before him; every thing presented in his way, fhall turn out beyond his expectations,-in fpight of that chain of unfurmountable difficulties which firft threatened him, time

and chance fhall open him a way,-a feries of fuccessful occurrences fhall lead him by the hand to the fummit of honour and fortune, and in a word, without

giving him the pains of thinking, or the credit of projecting it, fhall place him in fafe poffeffion of all that ambition could wish for.

The hiftories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of inftances of this-nature, where favourable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wifdom or skill could not: and there is scarce any one who has lived long in the world, who upon looking backwards will not difcover fuch a mixture of these in the many fuccessful turns which have happened in his life, as to leave him very little reafon to difpute against the fact, and I fhould hope, as little upon the conclufions to be drawn from it. Some, indeed from a fuperficial view of this reprefentation of things, have atheistically inferred, that because there was fo much of lottery in this life,and mere cafualty feemed to have fuch a share in the disposal of our affairs,that the providence of God stood neuter and unconcerned in their several workings, leaving them to the mercy of time and chance, to be furthered or disapppointed as fuch blind agents directed.

B 2

Whereas

Whereas in truth the very oppofite conclufion follows. For confider,-if a fuperior intelligent power did not fome-times crofs and over-rule events in this world, then our policies and defigns in it, would always answer according to the wisdom and ftratagem in which they were laid, and every cause, in the course of things, would produce its natural effect without variation. Now, as this is not the cafe, it neceffarily follows from Solomon's reasoning, that, if the race is not to the swift, if knowledge and learning do not always fecure men from want,-nor care and industry always make men rich, -nor art and skill infallibly raise men high in the world; that there is fome other cause which mingles itself in human affairs, and governs and turns them as it pleases; which caufe can be no other than the firft caufe of all things, and the fecret and over-ruling providence of that Almighty God, who though his dwelling is fo high, yet humbleth himself to behold the things that are done in earth, raifing up the poor out of the duft, and lifting the beggar from the dunghill, and contrary to all hopes, fetting him with

princes,

princes, even with the princes of his people; which by the way, was the case of David, who makes the acknowledgment ! And no doubt-one reafon, why God has felected to his own difpofal, fo many inftances of this, where events have run counter to all probabilities,- -was to give teftimony to his providence in governingthe world, and to engage us to a confideration and dependence upon it, for the event and fuccefs of all our undertakings *. For undoubtedly-as faid,-it should feem but fuitable to nature's law, that the race should ever be to the swift, and the battle to the strong;-it is reafonable that the best contrivances and means fhould have beft fuccefs,-and fince it, often falls out otherwise in the cafe of man, where the wifeft projects are overthrown,-and the *most hopeful means are blafted, and time and chance happen to all;-You must call in the deity to untye this knot,-for though at fundry times-fundry events fall out,-which we who look no further than the events themfelvs, call chance, because they fall out quite contrary both

Vid. Tillotson's fermon on this fubject.

B3

to