of human nature. What a scene of most astonishing revolutions and transformations! What diversity of life and enjoyment of life, of thoughts never yet conceived and emotions never yet imagined! What a harvest from the fowing of all ages, of all the thousands of years that have elapfed fince the first to the last of mortals! What a glorious unravelment of all that appears to us now mysterious and incomprehenfible in the ways of providence and the fortunes of mankind! And this I then expect with the firmer faith, as all that I fee before me, leaves me no room to doubt the inexhaustible vital energy of God and his continual fuperintendance over all his creatures; as I here fo diftinctly perceive, how glorious the Almighty is, in his care to preserve, to renew, to tranfmute, to transform, and reinftate all things, even the least and the meaneft, and to conduct them higher from step to step and to bring them nearer to perfection. And in this belief, in this expectation I no longer fhudder at the thoughts of the grave, am ready without repining to commit my clay-formed body to its parent earth, and in the mean time gladden myself with the idea, that it will hereafter as affuredly proceed forth of it, reanimated and glorified, as affuredly as the Almighty, who cloaths the fpring and raises the caterpillar into a winged infect, fuffers none of his creatures to perish, and leaves nothing, that is capable of life, under the dominion of death.

Thefe, my pious hearers, are fome of the thoughts,

fome

fome of the fentiments, which render the view and enjoyment of beautiful nature at once cheering and instructive to you, and will never allow you to feel any want of matter for rational reflection, nor of incentives to genial emotions. Would ye maintain the dignity of the human, the dignity of the christian character, my dear friends, would ye be as cheerful and as happy, as it is poffible for you to be agreeably to your capacities and your flation; oh beware of that heedleffnefs and infenfibility which would fo deeply degrade you and deprive you of so many fatisfactions. Open your fenfes to the ravishing fpectacle, that is reprefented before you let all that is beautiful and glorious in the univerfe of God, act freely and fully upon you; be all eye, all ear, all feeling in the view and enjoyment of thefe miracles of sovereign wisdom and benignity. At the fame time reflect upon them; enlarge as much as poffible, the fphere of your vifion and comprehenfion; inquire into the causes, the views, the uses, the combination of things; confider them now fingly, now in the aggregate, and from what ye are able to difcover and understand of them, draw conclufions concerning what is still concealed from you. Take farther a cordial intereft in the joy of all living things, in the joy of the humming fly as in that of the lark mounting in matin carols or the nightingal tuning his foft melodious notes, in the obtufe founds of the beetle buzzing in the duft as in the fonorous lowings of

the herd, in the dull fenfation of the smallest worm as in the clear confcioufnefs and the extreme fenfibility of your brethren of mankind. Defpife none of your inferior fellow creatures; be not infenfible and indifferent to them. Perhaps ye formerly stood on the fame ftep where they now ftand; and perhaps they will in futurity rife to the higher step which ye now occupy. They too are creatures of your God and father; on them too he deigns to bestow his providential care; upon them too he looks down with complacency; for them too he has replenished his world with fo many beauties and goods; they too are parts of the immenfe whole to which ye belong, links of the chain which connects and holds you and all beings together. Their existence is as dear to them as yours to you, and their joy is always harmlefs and the expreffion of it always real and undif guifed. Even in them and through them the Allwife, the Allgracious, who is all in all, operates and reveals himself to man. In a word, lift up your minds and your hearts to him, the difpenfer of joy, to him, the creator, preferver, vivifier and father of nature. Confider, revere every energy as an effluence from his, every motion, every life as effects of his will, every beauty as a ray of his glory, every fatisfaction and pleasure as a boon of his parental tenderness, as an emanation of his infinite and ineffable felicity, Learn thus to feel his nearer prefence, and triumph in the fentiment of his immediate efficacy and kind

nefs,

nefs, of his and your exiftence and the existence of all your fellow creatures, and thereby confirm yourfelves in the fure and certain hope that he will make both them and you, that he will render all that he has created, in every state and at every period of time as perfect and as happy, as is poffible.

SERMON XIV.

Moral Contemplations on the Appearance of the Spring.

GOD, the heavens declare thy glory, the firmament fheweth thy handy-work. One day telleth another, one night certifieth another, how great, how powerful, how wife, how kind thou art. And likewise the earth and its inhabitants are thy work, the work of thy paternal grace and love; even they testify of thee and of thy majefty. Yes, all that furrounds us, all that we fee and hear, whatever we are ourselves and have and can do, diftinctly fays to us: great and manifold are the works of the Lord, in wisdom he has made them all, the earth is full of his goodness. Yes, to thee all nature lifts the choral hymn, thee every feason of the year extols, the fpring above all, in her festive attire, in her youthful beauty and vigour, celebrates thy praise. All that lives and moves is glad in thee, its creator and father, and all in heaven and on earth cheerfully, immediately and fully obey thy will. And shall we, the nobleft of thy creatures

here