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189 of the gospel, and renders it a witness to them; and by this means the purposes of Providence are carrying on, with regard to remote ages, as well as to the present. "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good," Eccles. xi. 1, 6. We can look but a very little way into the connections and consequences of things: our duty is to spread the incorruptible seed as widely as we can; and leave it to "God to give the increase," 1 Cor. iii. 6. Yet thus much we may be almost assured of, that the gospel, wherever it is planted, will have its genuine effect upon some few; upon more, perhaps, than are taken notice of in the hurry of the world. There are, at least, a few persons in every country and successive age, scattered up and down, and mixed among the rest of mankind; who, not being corrupted past amendment, but having within them the principles of recovery, will be brought to a moral and religious sense of things, by the establishment of Christianity where they live; and then will be influenced by the peculiar doctrines of it, in proportion to the integrity of their minds, and to the clearness, purity, and evidence, with which it is offered them. Of these our Lord speaks in the parable of the sower, "as understanding the word, and bearing fruit, and bringing forth, some an hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty," Matt. xiii. 23. One might add that these persons, in proportion to their influence, do at present better the state of things; better it even in the civil sense, by giving some check to that avowed profligateness, which is a contradiction to all order and government, and, if not checked, must be the subversion of it.

These important purposes, which are certainly to be expected from the good work before us, may serve to show how little weight there is in that objection against it, from