its doctrines as from the weight of its motives. It encourages virtue and represses vice, by appealing to considerations of eternal importance. On the one hand, it presents to the obstinate impenitent transgressor, divine justice arrayed in all the terrors of almighty power, and on the other holds out to the humble penitent believer the atoning blood of the Son of God. Divine truth proclaims to the world, that "the hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrecton of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation." Without embracing, believing and obeying the gospel, we can have no hope of eternal life; but must remain in a "fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation." The death and resurrection of Christ have dispersed the shades which hung over the valley of death, and disclosed the glories and terrors of the eternal world. All that is great, sublime and terrific, on earth, in heaven or hell, is now addressed to the hopes and the fears of men. Those, therefore, who reject the gospel, and spurn at its precepts and its discipline, must be deemed irreclaimable, and be consigned to destruction.

We may in the next place observe, from the preceding discourse, the wisdom and goodness of God in making such ample provision for the happiness of man, by endowing him with such various and noble powers. How great are his obligations to use and improve these as God requires! The great objects of all human knowledge are, God, nature and man. For the knowledge of the first, especially of what are called his moral perfections, we must recur to divine revelation. None but God can know and comprehend his own nature and his own determinations; and none but he can disclose them. In our knowledge of nature and man, we must be guided wholly by facts, by observation and experience. In nature we see what God does; in revelation, why he does it. The study of nature is the best preparation for the reception of revelation. In both is displayed the same great good and incomprehensible being. The only ground on which we can infer his existence from his works, is their incomprehensibility. For if we could comprehend the

works of God, we could measure them by our own powers, and resolve them into a being no greater than ourselves. The visible universe is a theatre of effects; and we know that these must proceed from adequate causes. Nature is an external display of God. Powers and causes are hidden and invisible; and the proper objects of intellect. In studying into the works of nature, we should avoid speculative hypotheses, and be guided wholly by facts. But we must remember that facts are not principles, and that mathematical demonstrations are no proof of the existence of physical powers. Reason is the proper instrument of truth. In the investigations of physical science, experiments merely furnish the mind with facts. These, reason arranges, compares, combines and reduces under facts still more comprehensive; and these facts we are obliged to consider as ultimate, until some more general can be discovered. In all parts of nature, within and without us, above and below, we meet and feel the invisible God. Through all his works, all is life and motion; a 'ceaseless circle of change, of generation, growth, decay, dissolution and revivification. Nothing is lost, —nothing annihilated. Matter was never seen in a state of rest -this would destroy it-It came from God in a state of activity: For that whose essence is life and energy,could never produce inactivity and death. The whole of visible nature is comprised in matter and motion. These have their origin in one common principle; and that principle is power. This originates, modifies, preserves, perfects and dissolves every portion of temporary nature. This is a world of effects, and these are all produced by motion. Without this we could exercise no power over the smallest particle of matter, nor could the laws of nature exist. The splendid and ever varying phenomena of the universe would cease; and all its various parts, with their majestic decorations, would revert to their original source. How far creation extends from its lowest to its highest limit, we cannot determine; but this we know, that God has reserved to himself, as his peculiar prerogative, the power of creation and annihilation. Within these limits all that is called nature exists, all her laws operate, and all her phenomena are displayed. Nature is a system of living laws, flowing from God; and in their

endless variety of combinations and results, producing all possible effects, except those which are peculiar to almighty power. What an august, what a magnificent scene is nature! Whether we survey this lower world with its appendages, or ascend into the vast ampitheatre of God above us, we are filled with astonishment and awe, and are forced to exclaim, “These are thy works, parent of good, Almighty!"

From the preceding discourse we may farther remark, that the internal constitution of man is wonderfully adjusted to his external condition. Designing wisdom is no where more legible than in the laws which bind man to all parts of nature. The same principles of order and symmetry, of succession and variety, which govern the powers and operations of mind, extend to the larger portions of the universe, pervade their structure, and bind them together in one vast and magnificent system. The innumerable forms of matter which occupy this august spectacle, astonish the mind of man, and while they spread delight through all his faculties, proclaim him the priest and the monarch of nature. The whole visible universe is the hand-writing of God, and speaks a language known in wisdom's ear, and calculated to excite man's curiosity, to rouse all his powers into the most vigorous exertion; to elevate and expand his hopes, and to accelerate his course along the shining path of immortality.

God has connected man with all his works, and exhibited in his constitution an epitome of the universe. By his corporeal frame, he is allied to matter; by his animated organization, to the whole vegetable and animal world; by his moral and intellectual powers, to God and all intelligent beings. What a noble being is man! works of God!

What an exalted station does he hold in the What vast extremes does he combine in his nature! On the one hand, he ranks with the highest angel that burns before the throne of God, and on the other with the meanest worm that crawls on earth! His present state is the beginning of his existence, and is rapidly passing away. He is travelling on to higher hopes and brighter scenes. Though he is doomed to sink into the dust and become a prisoner of the tomb; yet when the wheels of time shall have run their destined course; when nature shall have arrived at the utmost limit of all her

processes and powers, the voice of God will call him forth to share his lofty destiny and run an endless race of glory. We may rest assured that God will suffer none of his works to be lost; and however they at present groan under the bondage of corruption, yet they will assuredly be brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God! To this result, all the laws which obtain through the whole sphere of fallen nature, directly tend; and are holding on in their undeviating course, through the innumerable mutations, compositions and dissolutions incident to a state of disjoined and warring elements. The material universe is a mere temporary creation, which will soon pass away. It is rapidly rolling on through innumerable changes towards its final destiny. Nature will then throw off her visible material form, assuming her spiritual properties, and shining in all her primeval glory. Time and place, succession and change will then cease; for these are merely the adjuncts of visible and tangible forms; and can have no existence when these forms shall cease, when God from heaven shall proclaim, "Behold I make all things new."

Let us not then despond, though we are subjected to vanity. God has subjected us in hope. Let us rather exult and rejoice, knowing that he who has promised is the unchanging God of truth. Let us cheerfully submit to him; and view with rapturous emotions, the grand and majestic march of nature, through the long train of fleeting, changing and perishing forms of visible matter, until we reach our ultimate limit in a disencumbered and renovated world; in "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." The laws of nature will then have accomplished their ultimate destination-matter will be transmuted and sublimed into its primordial principles-every atom will have found its station, and will be poised on its immoveable centre-the conflicting elements of fallen nature will be harmonized under the empire of love; pain, and sorrow, and death shall no longer have a name or a place in the works of God— and one boundless tide of glory shall pervade the universe!

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