Would the obligation be increased if the hand that built should also furnish it! And not only furnish it with all that is commodious and comfortable, but ornament it also with whatever is splendid and delightful! This has our most indulgent Creator done in a manner infinitely sur. passing all we could wish or imagine. The earth is assigned us for a dwelling.-The skies are stretched over us, like a magnificent he (in subordination to God's glory) is the end of its creation.--Other animals, 'tis true, partake of the Creator's benefits; but then they partake under the notion of man's domestics, or on the foot of retainers to him, as creatures which bear some relation to his service, and some way or other contribute to his good: so that still he is the centre of the whole; or, as our incomparable Milton, equally master of poetry and divinity, expresses himself, All things live for man. Par. Lost. book xi. 161. Mr. Pope, in his Ethic Epistles, is pleased to explode this tenet as the height of pride and a gross absurdity. -For my part, I see no reason for such a charge. With all submission to so superior a genius, it seems very remote from pride to be duly sensible of favours vouchsafed, to contemplate them in all the extent of their munificence and acknowledge them accordingly. I should rather imagine, that to contract their size when they are immensely large, to stint their number when they are altogether innumerable, that such a procedure savours more of insensibility than our hypothesis of presumption, and has more in it of ingratitude than that of arrogance. And how can it be deemed an absurdity, to maintain that God gave us a world for our possession; when it is our duty to believe, that he gave us his only Son for our propitiation? Sure it can be neither difficult nor extravagant to suppose, that he designed the habitable globe, with its whole furniture, for our present use; since he with-held not his holy child Jesus, but freely delivered bim up, for our final salvation Upon the whole; I cannot but conclude, that the attempt of our famous poet is neither kind, with regard to bis fellow-creatures-nor grateful, with regard to his Creator-neither is his scheme, in fact, true. The attempt not kind, with regard to man; because it robs him of one of the most delightful and ravishing contemplations imaginable. To consider the great author of existence as having me in his eye, when he formed universal nature; as contriving all things with an immediate view to the exigencies of my particular state; and making them all in such a manner as might be most conducive to my particular advantage; this must occasion the strongest satisfactions, whenever I cast a glance on the objects that surround me. Not grateful with regard to God; because canopy, dyed in the purest azure, and beautified, now with pictures of floating silver, now with colourings of reflected crimson.-The grass is spread under us as a spacious carpet, wove with silken threads of green, and damasked with flowers of every hue.-The sun, like a golden lamp, is hung out in the etherial vault, and pours his effulgence all the day to lighten our paths. When night approaches the moon takes up the friendly office; and the stars are kindled in twinkling myriads, to cheer the darkness with their milder lustre, not disturb our repose by too intense a glare.-The clouds, besides the rich paintings they hang around the heavens, act the part of a shifting screen, and defend us by their it has the most direct tendency to diminish our sense of his kindness, and by that means to throw a damp upon our gratitude. It teaches us to look upon ourselves as almost lost among a crowd of other beings, or regarded only with an occasional and incidental beneficence: which must certainly weaken the disposition, and indeed slacken the ties, to the most adoring thankfulness.-To which, I apprehend, we may justly add; neither is the scheme, in fact, true: for, not to mention what might be urged from the sure word of revelation, this one argument appears sufficiently conclusive. The world began with man; the world must cease with man; consequently, the grand use, the principal end of the world, is, to subserve the interest of man. It is on all sides agreed, that the edifice was erected, when man was to be furnished with an habitation; and that it will be demolished, when man has no farther need of its accommodations. When he enters into the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, "the earth, and all the works that are therein, shall "be burnt up." From which it seems a very obvious and fair deduction, that man is the final cause of this inferior creation. So that I think my readers and myself privileged (not to say, on the principles of gratitude, obliged) to use those lovely lines of our author with a propriety and truth equal to their elegance and beauty: For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, seasonable interposition from the scorching beams of summer. May we not also regard them as the great watering-pots of the globe? which, wafted on the wings of the wind, dispense their moisture evenly through the universal garden, and fructify with their showers whatever our hand plants. The fields are our exhaustless granary. The ocean is our vast reservoir.-The animals spend their strength to dispatch our business, resign their clothing to replenish our wardrobe, and surrender their very lives to provide for our tables. In short, every element is a storehouse of conveniencies, every season brings us the choicest productions; all nature is our caterer.→→→ And, which is a most endearing recommendatiou of these favours, they are all as lovely as they are useful. You observe nothing mean or inele gant; all is clad in beauty's fairest robet, and regulated by proportion's nicest rule. The whole This circumstance, amidst abundance of other delicate and edifying remarks upon the wonders of nature, is finely touched in the Philosophical Transactions recorded in the book of Job, chap. xxxiii. ver. 18. LOWS Who hath divided a water-course for the overflowing of waters -The Hebrew is so pregnant and rich with sense, that no translation can do it justice. The following paraphrase, perhaps, may represent the principal ideas comprehended in the expressive original.-Who has branched out, and with admirable judgment disposed, a variety of aqueducts, for that immense collection of waters which float in the sky? Who distributes those pendulous floods through all the borders of the earth? Distributes them, not in dreadful cataracts, or promiscuous gluts of rain; but in kindly drops, and refreshing showers; with as much regularity and economy, as if they were conveyed by pipes from a conduit?-To whom shall we ascribe that niceness of contrivance, which now emits, now restrains them: sometimes drives their humid train to one place, sometimes to another: dispenses them to this soil in larger, to that in smaller communications: and, in a word, so manages the mighty fluid, that every spot is supplied in exact proportion to its wants; none destroyed by an undistinguishing deluge? Perhaps it was from such an observation, that the Greeks, those critical and refined judges of things, expressed the mundane system by a word, which signifies δεονέκόσμος scene exhibits a fund of pleasures to the imagi. nation, at the same time that it more than supplies all our wants. -Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that rebellest against thy Maker. He surrounds thee with unnumbered benefits, and follows thee with an effusion of the richest, noblest gifts. He courts thy affections; he solicits thy gratitude; by liberalities which are never intermitted, by a bounty which knows no limits. Most blessed Lord, let this thy goodness, thy unwearied goodness, lead us to repentance. Win us to thyself, thou Fountain of Felicity, by these sweet inducements. Draw us to our duty, thou God of our salvation, by these "cords of love." What a living picture is here of, the beneficial effects of industry! By industry and cultivation, this neat spot is an image of Eden. Here is all that can entertain the eye, or † regale the smell. Whereas, without cultivation, this sweet garden had been a desolate wilderness: vile thistles had made it loathsoine, and tangling briers inaccessible. Without cultivation, it might have been a nest for serpents, and the horrid haunt of venomous creatures: but the spade and pruning-knife in the band of industry have improved it into a sort of terrestrial paradise. How naturally does this lead our contemplation to the advantages which flow from a virtuous education, and the miseries which ensue from the neglect of it!-The mind, without • "Those several living creatures, which are made for our ❝service or sustenance, at the same time either fill the woods with their music, furnish us with game, or raise "pleasing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their ap pearance. Fountains, lakes, and rivers, are as refresh"ing to the imagination, as to the soil through which they 4f pass," Spect. vol. v. No. 387. Hor. + Omnis copia narium. Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris, Her. early instruction, will, in all probability, become like the "vineyard of the sluggard." If left to the propensities of its own depraved will; what can we expect, but the most luxuriant growth of unruly appetites; which, in time, will break forth into all manner of scandalous irregularities? What--but that, anger, like a prickly thorn, arm the temper with an untractable. moroseness: peevishness, like a stinging nettle, render the conversation irksome and forbidding: avarice, like some choking weed, teach the fingers to gripe, and the hands to oppress: revenge, like some poisonous plant, replete with baneful juices, rankle in the breast, and meditate mischief to its neighbour: while unbridled lusts, like swarms of noisome insects, taint: each rising thought, and render "every imagination of the heart only evil "continually."Such are the usual products of savage nature! Such the furniture of the uncultivated soul!.. Whereas, let the mind be put under the "nur "ture and admonition of the Lord;" let holy discipline clear the soil; let sacred instructions sow it with the best seed; let skill and vigilance dress the rising shoots, direct the young ideas how to spread, the wayward passions how to move:-Then, what a different state of the inner man will quickly take place! Charity will breathe. her sweets, and hope expand her blossoms; the personal virtues display their graces, and the social ones their fruits: the sentiments become This transformation of the heart, and renewal of the life, are represented in scripture by similitudes very nearly allied to the images used above.--God, by his sanctifying Spirit, will make the soul as a watered garden. Under the operation of this divine principle, the deserts shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. Wherever it exerts the refining and ennobling energy, instead of the thorn, shall come up the fr-tree; and instead of the brier, the myrtle-tree. Jerem. Xxxi, 12. Isa, xxxv. 1. lv. 13. |