and inanimate beings, with all their variegated hues, the exquisite formation of their parts, their individual symmetry, their harmonious configuration, their wonderful adaptation to their respective ends. Can we conceive a richer feast for our eyes ? Behold how the earth is strewed with flowers, that cast their perfumes to the wind, and regale us with their odours ! Where, amongst all the contrivances of art, will any thing be found to equal the fruits of the earth, in the variety and richness of their flavour ? or where will the sons of har- mony produce such exquisite notes as the feathered tribes gratuitously afford to the meanest cottager ? Take the feelings for which so many myriads of mankind sacrifice their eternal interests ; and we will venture to affirm, that even those are called forth with keener sensibility and richer zest in the way of God's appointment, than they ever can be in a way of licentious and prohibited indulgence. What need have we then of forbidden fruit ? If nothing were left us in this world but the favour of God and the testimony of a good conscience, we should have a feast which nothing but heaven can excel : but when, together with these, we have all that can conduce to the comfort of the body; when we have " the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come," is it not madness to seek for happiness in sin ; to relinquish " the fountain of living waters, and to hue out to ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water ? " Let us but learn to enjoy God in every thing, and every thing in God, and we shall find that this world, polluted as it is, is yet a Paradise : with God's favour, pulse is better than royal delicacies, and the meanest dungeon is a palace.]
2. With what abhorrence should sin be viewed
by us !
[Look through the creation which God pronounced to be very good, and see how all things are out of course : the earth that should nourish us, struck with barrenness ; the elements that should administer to our comfort, armed against us for our destruction. See the smallest insects in the creation invading us with irresistible force, and by their united efforts desolating our fairest prospects. Look at man himself, once the image of his Maker ; see with what malignant dispositions he is filled. See him passing his time here in labour and sorrow, and generation after generation swept away from the face of the earth. Follow him into the eternal world, and behold him banished from the presence of his God, and cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, there to endure the full penalty of all his crimes. Behold all this, I say, and consider that this is the work of sin. One sin introduced it all ; and successive generations have lived only to complete what our