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others so keenly feel, stultifies their apprehension of future evils. [See 189, 565, 688.]

662. ORATORY, PUBLIC SPEAKING.

Swift. In oratory, the greatest art is to hide art.

Ed. The art of successful oratory is to be artless.

Ib. An impressive orator must first have impressive sentiments, and then, by his motions and sounds, convey them exactly, and the work is done.

Anon. The orator and musician fall short of the full power of their arts, if the hearer is left in possession of himself. [See 281, 822.]

663. ORDER, GRADATION.

Edwards. Order is one of the most necessary of all external means of the spiritual good of God's church.

Franklin. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Pope. Order is heaven's first law.

Colton. There is no chasm in the operations of nature. The mineral world joins the vegetable, the vegetable the animal, and the animal the intellectual, by mutual, but almost imperceptible gradations. The adaptations of each to its neighbor, are reciprocal, the highest parts of the lower ascending a little out of their order, to fill the receding parts of that which is higher, until the whole universe becomes one well arranged and connected whole. Man is that compound being, created to fill the wide hiatus that must have otherwise remained unoccupied, between the natural world and the spiritual.

Order and method render all things easier.

Ed. Complete order runs through all the works of God, from the most magnificent to the most minute, and from one period to another, through all time, space, and duration. But the wicked, who overlook his chief end, complicated designs, and marvellous works, foolishly imagine that the whole foundations of the earth are out of course. The best contrived watch, is confusion, when compared with the clock of God's universe, and will so appear at the great day. "Whatsoever God doeth,

ORIGINALITY, ORIGINAL SIN.

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shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it."

664. ORIGINAL, ORIGINALS, ORIGINALITY. Colton. If we can advance propositions both true and new, these are our own by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old, more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest.

Ib. Shakspeare's want of erudition forced him back upon his own resources, which were exhaustless. His invention made borrowing unnecessary.

One casual, original thought, may open to us an unexplored apartment in the palace of truth, and prove a key to unknown intellectual treasures.

Em. The powers and capacities of the human mind, should embolden the sons of science to aim to be originals. They are strong enough to go alone, if they only have sufficient courage and resolution. They have the same capacities, and the same original sources of knowledge, that the ancients enjoyed. All men are as capable of thinking, of reasoning, and of judging for themselves, in matters of learning, as in the common affairs and concerns of life. And would men of letters enjoy the pleasures of knowledge, and render themselves the most serviceable to the world, let them determine to think and judge for themselves. The way to outstrip those who have gone before us is, not to tread in their steps, but to take a nearer course. What philosopher can expect to overtake Newton, by going over all the ground which he travelled? What divine can expect to come up with Mede, Baxter, or Edwards, while he pursues their path? Or what poet can hope to transcend Homer and Milton, so long as he sets up these men as the standards of perfection? If the moderns would only employ nature's powers, and converse freely and familiarly with nature's objects, they might rise above the ancients, and bear away the palm from all who have gone before them in the walks of science.

665. ORIGINAL SIN.

Ed. Original sin—the first actual sin of Lucifer, of Eve and Adam, or, if you please, of their several descendants. The

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ORIGINAL SIN, OSTENTATION.

distinction between original and actual sin, is a distinction without a difference. The sacred writers carry actual sin back to the birth, the very commencement of our separate existence, and this is far enough, in all good conscience, to carry personal sin. Those who carry it farther, are ultras and enthusiasts, who reckon without their host, and reason without knowing whereof they affirm.

Clarendon. If we did not take great pains, and were not at great expense to corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us.

Woods. I am not aware that any intelligent Christian can be found, who maintains that infant children, not guilty of any actual sin, either outwardly or inwardly, will be doomed to misery in the world to come. If any one speaks of our natural pravity, as deserving the Divine displeasure, he must intend to speak of it as developed in moral action. (2, p. 340–342.) 666. OSTENTATION.

Either intellectual or moral greatness, will annihilate ostentation.

Beware of a gaudy exterior. The wise will infer a lean interior.

Sh. We wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Secker. Some persons are like hens, which no sooner drop their eggs, than they begin to cackle.

Bunyan. The hen, so soon as she an egg doth lay,
About the yard a cackling she doth go,

To tell what 't was, she at her nest did do.
Just thus it is with some professing men,

If they do aught that's good, they, like our hen,

Cannot but cackle on 't where'er they go,

And what their right hand doth, their left must know.

Ed. If ostentation is indicative of declension, we have, at least, some pretty strong indications of degenerate times, in the boasting and vanity of the age. [See 81, 278, 969.]

OVERCOMING, OVERDOING, PAGANS.

667. OVERCOMING.

887

Overcome injuries by kindness, distress by fortitude, and evil examples and influences by firmness of principle.

Ed. Overcome Satan, sin, and self, during the momentary life that now is, and you will be enabled to celebrate the victory, in everlasting, ever-increasing, and incomparable triumph.

Ib. Nothing short of overcoming, or persevering in righteousness to the end, will win the heavenly inheritance. This, therefore, is the watchword for all probationers.

668. OVERDOING.

He that runs fast, will not run long.

It is not the burden, but the over-burden, that kills the beast. Too many irons in the fire, some will burn.

Men are generally too much harassed and exhausted in the contest for gain, to take any interest in the contest with error. Ed. Overdoing is under doing, and evil doing.

Ib. Over doers make more work than they perform.

Ib. Those prone to overdo, would do well to make familiar the maxims, — The world was not made in one day; Moderation is the life of business; and try to forget the maxim,

'Tis better to wear out, than to rust out.

669. PAGANS, HEATHENS, IDOLATERS.

There is no ground to hope that any of the heathens will be saved, while they remain totally ignorant of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. It does not appear from the past dispensations of grace, that God ever sends his Spirit where he does not send his Gospel. The Apostle demands, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” The whole tenor of Scripture plainly intimates, that all who are living in pagan darkness, are strangers to the covenants of promise, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. It is, therefore, as much to be desired, that these guilty and miserable creatures should have the Gospel preached to them, as that they should escape the wrath to come, and secure the salvation of their souls.

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PARADISE, PARADOXES.

670. PARADISE OF MOHAMMED.

Koran, chap. 2. True believers, who do good works, shall enjoy the immense pleasures of Paradise, wherein flow many rivers; they shall there find all sorts of fair and savory fruits, which God hath prepared for them. They shall there have wives, fair and delicate, and shall dwell in eternal felicity. 671. PARADISE OF GOD.

Montgomery. If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,

How beautiful, beyond compare,

Will Paradise be found!

Rev. 7:16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any

more.

Mat. 22 30. They neither marry, nor are given in marriage. 672. PARADOXES, PARADOXICAL APHORISMS. Paradoxes seldom bear a close scrutiny.

The more we serve God, the better we serve ourselves. They who are contented with a little faith, have none. Spring, Dr. S. We are absolutely dependent in every instance, and yet entirely free.

As the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens.

Ed. It is the beauty of the world, that it is constantly fading and vanishing away, thus wafting the righteous home; the wicked, where they cease from troubling; and saying with such a clear, and strong, and perpetual voice to mortals, "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."

Ib. Who helps the cause of God, helps his own cause.
Ib. Who dies to sin, lives to righteousness.

Ib. Who spends till he is spent in a good cause, lays up faster than he spends.

Ib. A liberal man blesses himself in making others blessed. Ib. Who mourns over sin, is travelling to heaven rejoicing. Ib. Who thirsts after righteousness, is drinking it in. Ib. Payments to God differ from other payments: the more we pay, we owe him but the more.

"As

Ib. The most finished paradox is the real Christian. sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," he fears alway, while he is

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