who is not touched with lively sensations of pleasure While the everlasting Father scattering blessings through his whole family, and crowning the year with his goodness, who does not feel his breast overflowing with a diffusive benevolence?My heart, I must confess, beats high with satisfaction, and breathes out congratulatory wishes upon all the tenants of these rural abodes: "Peace "be within your walls, as well as plenteousness "around your dwellings." Live, ye highly fa voured; live sensible of your benefits, and thankful to your benefactor. Look round upon these prodigiously large incomes of the fruitful soil, and call them (for you have free leave) all your own.-Only let me remind you of one very im portant truth. Let me suggest, and may you never forget, that you are obliged to Christ Jesus for every one of these accommodations, which spring from the teeming earth, and the smiling skies.

1. Christ made them, when they were not.

When I ascribe the work of creation to the Son, I would by no means be supposed to withhold the same honour from the eternal Father, and ever-blessed Spirit. The acts of those inconceivably glorious persons are, like their essence, undivided and one. But I choose to state the point in this manner, because this is the manifest doctrine of the New Testament; is the express belief of our church; and a most noble peculiarity of the gospel revelation.I choose it also, because I would take every opportunity of inculcating, and celebrating, the divinity of the Redeemer. A truth, which imparts an unutterable dignity to Christianity: a truth which lays an immoveable foundation for all the comfortable hopes of a Christian: a truth, which will render the mystery of our redemption the wonder and delight of eternity: and with this truth every one will observe my assertion is inseparably connected.

If any one questions, whether this be the doctrine of our church, let the Creed, which we repeat in our most solemn devotions, determine his doubt: I believe," says that form of sound words, " in one Lord Jesus Christ, "very God of very God, by whom all things were made --If it be farther inquired, from whence the Nicene Fathers derived this article of their faith? I answer, from the writings of the beloved disciple, who lay on the Saviour's bosom; and of that great apostle, who had been caught up into the third heaven. John i. 3. Coloss. i. 16.

He fetched them up from utter darkness, and gave them both their being and their beauty. He created the materials of which they are composed, and moulded them into this endless multiplicity of amiable forms and useful substances. He arrayed the heavens with a vesture of the mildest blue, and clothed the earth in a livery of the gayest green. His pencil streaked, and his breath perfumed, whatever is beautiful or fragrant in the universe. His strength set fast the mountains, his goodness garnished the vales; and the same touch which healed the leper, wrought the whole visible system into this complete perfection..

2. Christ recovered them, when they were forfeited. By Adam's sin we lost our right to the comforts of life, and fruits of the ground. His disobedience was the most impious and horrid treason against the King of Kings. Consequently his whole patrimony became confiscated; as well the portion of temporal good things settled upon the human race during their minority, as that everlasting heritage reserved for their enjoyment when they should come to full age. But the

Seed of the Woman," instantly interposing, took off the attainder, and redeemed the alienated inheritance. The first Adam being disinherited, the second Adam was appointed heir of all

Heb. i. 2.--In this sense, at least, Christ is the Saviour of all men: the former and latter rain; the precious fruits of the earth; food to eat, and raiment to put on ;-all these he purchased, even for his irreclaimable enemies. They eat of his bread, who lift up their heel against him. We learn from hence, in what à peculiar and endearing light the Christian is to comtemplate the things that are seen. Heathens might discover an eternal power, and infinite wisdom, in the structure of the universe; heathens might acknowledge a most stupendous liberality, in the unreserved grant of the whole fabric, with all its furniture, to the service of man. But the Christian should ever keep in mind his forfeiture of them, and the price paid to redeem them. He should receive the gifts of indulgent providence, as the Israelites received their law, from the

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things, visible as well as invisible. And we hold our possession of the former; we expect an instatement in the latter; purely by virtue of our alliance to him and our union with him.

3. Christ upholds them, which would other wise tumble into ruin.-By him, says the oracle of inspiration, all things consist. His finger rolls the seasons round, and presides over all the ce lestial revolutions. His finger winds up the wheels, and impels every spring of vegetative nature. In a word, the whole weight of the creation rests upon his mighty arm, and receives the whole harmony of its motion from his unerring eye.This habitable globe, with all its rich appendages and fine machinery, could no more continue, than they could create themselves. Start they would into instant confusion, or drop into their primitive nothing; did not his power support, and his wisdom regulate them every moment. In conformity to his will they subsist stedfast and invariable in their orders, and wait only for his sovereign nod to "fall away like water that runneth "apace."

4. Christ † actuates them, which would other

hand of a mediator. Or rather, to him they should come, not only issuing from the stores of an unbounded bounty, but swimming (as it were) in that crimson tide which streamed from Immanuel's veins.

Col. i. 17. I beg leave to subjoin St. Chrysostom's pertinent and beautiful note upon the passage; by which it will appear, that the sentiment of these sections is not merely a private opinion, but the avowed belief of the primitive church. Tules, says the eloquent father, ç αυτόν κρεμάται η παντων υπόςασις. Η μόνον αυτός αυτά εκ το μη οντος εις το είναι παρηβαίον, αλλα και αυτός αυτα συγκρατει νυν ως αν αποσπάσθη της αυτό προνοίας, απολωλε και διεφθαρίας.

+John v. 17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; or, I exert that unremitting and unwearied energy, which is the life of the creation.-Thus the words are paraphrased by a masterly expositor, who has illustrated the life of our blessed Lord, in the most elegant taste of criticism, with the most amiable spirit of devotion, and without any mixture of the malignant leaven, or low

wise be lifeless and insignificant.-Pensioners they are, constant pensioners on his bounty; and bor. Tow their all from his fullness. He only has life, and whatever operates, operates by an emanation from his all-sufficiency. Does the grape refresh you with its enlivening juices? It is by a warrant received and virtue derived from the Redeemer: Does bread strengthen your heart, and prove the staff of your life? Remember, that it is by the Saviour's appointment, and through the efficacy of his operation. You are charmed with his melody, when the " time of the singing of "birds is come, and the voice of the nightingale " is heard in your land." You taste his goodness in the luscious fig, the melting peach, and the musky flavour of the apricot. You smell his sweetness in the opening honeysuckle, and every odoriferous shrub.

Could these creatures speak for themselves, they would, doubtless, disclaim all sufficiency of their own, and ascribe the whole honour to their Maker." We are servants," would they say, "of "him who died for you. Cisterns only, dry cis. "terns, in ourselves, we transmit to mortals no

more than the uncreated fountain transfuses "into us. Think not, that from any ability of

our own, we furnish you with assistance, or "administer to your comfort. 'Tis the divine " energy, the divine energy alone, that works in us, and does you good.-We serve you, O ye "sons of men, that you may love him who placed "us in these stations. O! love the Lord, there"fore, all ye who are supported by our ministry, "or else we shall groan with indignation, and "regret at your abuse of our services.-Use us, "and welcome; for we are yours, if ye are

singularities, of a party. See the Family Expositor, vol. i. sect. 47.

Rom. viii, 22.

"Christ's. Crop our choicest beauties, rifle all "our treasures, accommodate yourselves with "our most valuable qualities; only let us be in"centives to your gratitude, and motives to your "obedience."

Having surveyed the spacious sky, and sent a glance round the inferior creation; 'tis time to descend from this eminence, and confine my attention to the beautiful spot below.-Here Na. ture, always pleasing, everywhere lovely, appears with peculiar attractious. Yonder she seems dressed in her deshabille, grand but irregular. Here she calls in her handmaid Art, and shines in all the delicate ornaments which the nicest cultivation is able to convey. Those are her com mon apartments, where she lodges her ordinary guests; this is her cabinet of curiosities, where she entertains her intimate acquaintance.-My eye shall often expatiate over those scenes of univer. sal fertility: My feet shall sometimes brush through the thicket, or traverse the lawn, or stroll along the forest glade: but to this delightful retreat shall be my chief resort. Thither will I make exeursions, but here will I dwell.

If, from my lowest procedure, I may form an allusion to the most exalted practices, I would observe, upon this occasion, that the celebrated Erasmus, and our judicious Locke, having trod the circle of the sciences, and ranged through the whole extent of human literature, at length be. took themselves solely to the Bible. Leaving the sages of antiquity, they sat incessantly at the feet of Jesus. Wisely they withdrew from that immense multiplicity of learning, from those endless tracts of amusing erudition, where noxious weeds are mixed with wholesome herbs; where is generally a much larger growth of prickly shrubs than of fruitful boughs. They spent their most mature hours in those hallowed gardens, which God's own wisdom planted, which God's own