mixtures and forms confpire in every plant, every animal, every individual of mankind, to fuch various purposes and effects, and how substances, apparently most oppofite, are fo accurately combined, fo indiffolubly implicated, and act fo concordantly with and through each other. See, how fubfervient, how indispensable the plants are to the animals, one fpecies of animal to another, the animals and the plants to mankind; how useful, how indifpenfable one man is to another, the countryman to the citizen and the citizen to the countryman, the rich to the poor and the poor to the rich, how one is occupied for all and all for one, how no one can fubfift and be happy without another; and thence conclude how diverfe and accurate is the connection of all the works of the Lord, of all living and lifeless, rational and irrational creatures, and how manifeft their tendency is to the perfection of the whole and to the common, greatest poffible welfare of all fenfible and thinking beings.

Confider however fifthly the gradual progress of all things to higher perfection. See, how the plant, the tree expands, grows, flourishes, arrives at maturity, bears fruit, propagates and multiplies, from a feed fo fmall as to be indifcernable to thy naked eye; how the crawling maggot rifes into a butterfly, how every animal gradually acquires and communicates to others his agility, his powers, his habitudes, how the infant grows into the stripling, the youth into the man, and the man into the citizen of

another world. See, how bufily employed all nature is in forming out of the raw materials of the earth organic particles, irritable fibres, the primary elements of animal and human fenfation and thought; by what various, artificial tranfmutations, feparations, commixtures, filtrings and refinings, the prepares for the plants, for the animals, for mankind, their bodies, their forms, their juices; how great and uninterrupted the gradation on the scale of things, how all lend mutual aid to climb the afcent of being; how nothing in nature runs to waste, nothing is abfolutely annihilated, nothing retrogrades, nothing attains its entire and final deftination at once; how they rather all, from the meanest plant to man, tend upwards, rife from one step of perfection to another, become gradually fufceptible of all kinds of irritability, of fenfation, of life, of activity, and fo are tranflated from one clafs into another. See in fhort, how man in particular proceeds from fenfation to thought, from a merely fenfual to the intellectual life, to wisdom and to virtue and is ever advancing in it; through what a multiplicity and variety of exigencies, casualties, dangers, exercises, reverses, joys and forrows, the human race in general and each individual member of it in particular, gradually attains to its maturity, and is capable of the tranflation into a fuperior ftate, into another and better life; and then fay, whether this unceafing endeayour and progress of all creatures towards the term of perfection, fhould not confer upon all the works of

of the Lord, which thou feeft and contemplateft, an additional value, a great importance and infinitely multiply thy fatisfaction in them?

Confider finally, o thou, who obferveft the works of the Lord, and haft pleasure therein, confider the magnitude and inexhaustibility of the energies which animate and actuate all nature; those energies, which operate fo uniformly and filently and yet fo powerfully and irresistibly in all and through all; those energies which are in perpetual exertion through all fucceffive evolutions, renovations, transformations of the whole innumerable hoft of creatures, and through all their efforts and effects, and in fuch various methods; thofe energies, which from what appears to be confufion and ftrife, produce the fairest harfrom what we term death and deftruction, inceffant life and action.

mony,

If thou thus attend to the works of the Lord, my christian brother, my fellow-worshipper of God and his glory, if thou thus contemplate with emotion the multitude and variety of the creatures of the earth, their beauty, their connection thus confider and feel the life and the joy of its inhabitants, their progress to superior perfection and the magnitude of the energies exerted in them and through them, and thy heart dilates with sentiment: oh then ascend in thought to the original, eternal energy, from whence these powers are derived, to the original, eternal fount of life, from whence thefe feveral kinds of life and efficacy flow, to the fupreme difpenfer

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penfer of all that joy which fills the capacity of thy foul, -to that God, who predifpofed, accomplished, and called them into being, who bears, upholds, connects, enlivens and rejoices all, who through them all reveals himself to his intelligent creature, man, speaks to him by a thousand voices, appears to him in a thousand varied forms, and in all and by all as author, benefactor, father. Let these fentiments, the moft grand and noble that thou art capable of conceiving, entirely pervade thy foul, let them fhed light and renewed life and fuperior dignity on all that thou beholdeft, let them render the Invisible in fome fort vifible to thee, and make thee fenfible to that which thou canst neither comprehend nor conceive, the boundless power and wifdom and tendernefs, the all-replenishing and allanimating presence of the Eternal and Infinite, who is also thy creator and father, and in whom and by whom thou liveft and movest and haft thy being!

And then conclude from the whole, what thou mayst hope for and expect from this God, from this father, from this fupreme, always and everywhere efficacious wisdom and benignity, how calmly thou mayst resign thyself to his providence and government, how boldly thou mayst lift thy eyes to him, how with childlike franknefs thou mayft draw nigh to him, how fecurely thou mayft commit to him thy present and future deftinies and caft all thy cares upon him. Thence judge, whether he, who pro

vides with fuch parental tenderness for the inferior orders of his creatures will not much more provide for thee; whether he, who annihilates nought of all that he has made, will annihilate thee, the noblest of his creatures on the earth, the only intelligent worshipper of his glory on it; whether he, who conducts and advances all gradually will not much more lead thee, on whom he has beftowed fuch greatly promifing predifpofitions and capacities, to progreffively higher perfection and happiness.

Thence however likewife judge, whether this God deferves not thy profoundest homage, thy most inward, cordial love, thy moft willing obedience, thy utmost confidence; whether thou couldst be better and happier, than in drawing nigh to him, in all things looking up to him, in continually walking in his prefence, in willing nothing but what he wills, and in doing nothing but what is well-pleafing to him.

And if this be acknowledged and believed by thee, and the fire of devotion glows within thy breast, oh then in the due fenfe of his greatness and glory and in the fentiment of thy own felicity proftrate thyself before him; pour out thy foul in adoration to him, the Almighty, the Allwife, the Allgracious, the Creator and Father of the universe; love him, thy Creator and thy Father, love him with all thy heart, with all thy foul and with all thy ftrength; rejoice in his existence, in his nearness, in his continual efficacy diffufing pure felicity;