exult in thy own existence and the existence of all thy fellow-creatures; expect for them and for thyself continually the best from him, who can will and do nought but good, eternal progrefs, eternal approximation to perfection; inceffantly and unweariedly pursue that perfection even now, and affift alfo others in their pursuit of it, as far as thy sphere of action extends. At the fame time let no apparent diforder and incongruity disturb thy faith in infinite wisdom and confummate love, no deformity, no corruption, no follies and vices of mankind rob thee of the hope, that under the administration and government of the Alonewife and Allgracious nothing can entirely fail of its defign, nothing abfolutely and forever deftroy the beauty and perfection of his world, nothing can be irrecoverably wicked and unhappy, and that all of us, fooner or later fhall admire all his works as unblamable, from inward conviction approve all his regulations and dealings, and triumph with all creatures in heaven and on earth in his eternal never failing clemency, and be bleffed in the adoration and fruition of him.

SERMON XIII.

Contemplations in the Spring of the Year.

GOD

OD, Creator and Parent of the universe, eternal fource of light, of life, of joy, of happiness, all the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting. To thee all angels raise their fongs; the heavens and all the powers therein refound thy praise. The bleffed inhabitants of the realms of blifs, who have been witnesses to the wonders of thy creative might, magnify thee. To thee the fpirits of glory continually exclaim: Holy art thou, Lord God of hofts; heaven and earth are full of the majefty of thy glory, Those ministering beings that bow in humble adoration before thy throne, and the worm that creeps in the fod praise and magnify thy glorious name, In thee whatever is and lives is glad, all that we behold and hear on this our earth is joyful in thee, for thou haft infpired them with fresh energies and renewed their lives, thou haft arrayed them in fresh beauty and magnificence. In thee

alfo

alfo we rejoice, whom thou haft placed on a higher ftage of being and of life and formed capable of a nobler, purer happiness than the creatures that furround us. Yes, herein do we rejoice, that we can fee and feel and enjoy these wonders of thy wisdom and benignity, that we can behold and feel thee, the Only-wife, the Allgracious, in these thy works, afcend to thee, draw nigh to thee and have correspondence with thee. God, how great, how inconceivable is thy glory! How beautiful, how admirable are all thy works! How clear and diftinct is their teftimony of thy paternal providence and favour! How audibly do they fummon us to the profoundest adoration of thy immenfe greatness and power, to inward joy in thy existence and our own, and in the bleffed relations in which we stand towards thee! Yes, worfhip and honour and praise and thanksgiving be to thee, the Eternal, the Infinite, from whom and by whom and to whom are all things! To thee be glory for ever! Worship and honour and praife and thanksgiving be to thee, the difpenfer of joy, for the fources of pleafure which thou openeft to us, and for the capacities thou haft granted us for the enjoyment of it! Oh let us all with innocence and fimplicity of foul, with cheerful and grateful hearts draw from them, and raise our minds to thee, and in the thought of thee and in the fentiment of thy nearer prefence enjoy the pureft, most fublime felicity whereof created beings are fufceptible. Blefs in this view the meditations, which

are

are now to employ us. Let them be inftrumental in rendering us more attentive to thy voice in thy creation, and in heightening and fanctifying the joy which the view of it infpires. We pray thee therefore in the name of thy son Jefus, and call upon thee farther in firm reliance on his promises as he vouchfafed to teach us: Our father, &c.

PSALM Civ. 30.

Thou reneweft the face of the earth.

B

UT few people, my pious hearers, are so thoughtless and insensible, as not to be at all affected by the arrival of spring, at the fight of nature reviving and putting on her gay embroidery. The impref fions made by this change on our organs of fenfe, are too various and too agreeable for allowing us to suppose that any one of a found mind and a heart not entirely depraved can be infenfible to them. We behold fo many beautiful, new forms, that mixture of mild, rich, vivid tints fo agreeable to the eye, fuch a variety of motion in all that was apparently dead; we hear fo many dulcet notes inviting all around to joy; fo many clear and diftinct expreffions of life and extafy; we inhale so much fragrance from the teeming earth, from the bushes, the trees, the blof foms, and the opening flowers; we are imbathed by fuch a foft, refreshing atmosphere, feel ourselves fo

much

much more free and easy, so much more apt for any motion and for any business and so much more capable of amusement: that we have no need either of a remarkably vigorous intellect, or of a very delicate fenfibility, for taking more or less intereft in these several beauties, elegances, advantages and fatisfactions, and for being joyful at the approach of spring and the renovated afpect of the earth. But how much more various and vivid might these emotions, how much more rational and refined might thefe fatisfactions be, were we more attentive to the voice of nature, were we to unite more reflection with the view and the fentiment of their beauties, were we to raise ourselves more to their author and father, were we thus to draw with all our faculties and according to our feveral capacities from the fountains of pleasure and felicity that pour their ftreams around us! Come then, my pious hearers, I will communicate to you fome of the thoughts and emotions, that croud as it were upon the man of reflection and fentiment, on his entering this theatre of the divine glory, and as he roves amidst these marvellous works of confummate wisdom and benignity.

First sentiment, first thought: What a diversity of animation furrounds me! What a ftirring and bustling! Everything in motion, above, below, in the air and on the ground! How powerfully everything is at work, within itself and without, through all and upon all! Yes, the vivifying energy of

nature,