fidered, he admired. But when he rebelled against his God, the creatures renounced their allegiance to him, and became, in the hands of their common Creator, inftruments of his punishment.

The beafts of the field" were no longer "at peace with him." Yet in confequence of the new covenant and promise to redeem man and the world, we find it faid after the flood-" The fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beaft of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the fea." So far is the fuperiority of the human species still preserved, that "every kind of beafts, and of birds, and of ferpents, and things in the fea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind."+ In fome cafes, for the fake of eminently holy perfons, favoured by heaven on that account, the inftincts of the most savage and ravenous have been fufpended; as when fome of every kind affembled and lodged together in the ark, and when the mouths of the lions were stopped in the den of Babylon, while the righteous and greatly beloved Daniel was there. The Redeemer of the world endued his difciples with the original privilege"Behold I give you power to tread on ferpents, and on fcorpions; and nothing fhall by any means hurt you." And, agreeably to fuch promife, St. Paul hook off the viper into the fire, and felt no harm." The viith pfalm is a beautiful reprefentation of the extent of this privilege, as it was poffeffed, at the beginning, by the firft Adam, and as it hath been fince reftored to the fecond-" O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who haft fet thy glory above the heavens. Out

Gen. ix. 2.
₫ Luke x. 19.

† James iii. 7. | Acts xxviii. 5.

Out of the mouth of babes and fucklings haft thou ordained ftrength, because of thine enemies, that thou mighteft ftill the enemy and the avenger. When 1 confider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou haft ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful-of him; and the fon of man that thou visitest him? For thou haft made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madeft him to have dominion over the works, of thy hands; thou haft put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen, yea and the beafts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the fea, and whatsoever paffeth through the paths of the feas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

Let us indulge a few reflections on the foregoing particulars.

-The imagination naturally endeavours to form fome idea of the fenfations that must have arisen in the mind of the firft man, when, awaking into existence, with all his fenfes and faculties perfect, he beheld the glory and beauty of the new created world. Faded as we muft fuppofe its glory and its beauty now to be, enough ftill remains, to excite continual wonder, praife, and adoration. Yet it is represented in the Scriptures of truth, as lying under a curfe, as groaning and travailing in pain, and as little better than a prison, from which all, who are truly fenfible of its condition, and their own, with and pray to be delivered, into the liberty of the children of God. But if fuch be our priẻ fon, what notions are we led to form of those manfions, which our Lord is gone before to prepare for us, in his Father's houfe? Creation was finifhed in fix days, and we read, that, " on the seventh, God

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God refted from all his work whieh he created and
· made."*
But the tranfgreffion of man would not
fuffer him to rest. "My Father," fays the bleffed
Jefus, "worketh hitherto, and I work"† Sin
made its way into the first creation, and is gradu-
ally destroying it, as a moth fretteth a garment-
"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon
the earth beneath; for the heavens fhall vanifh
away like smoke, and the earth fhall wax old like
a garment, and they that dwell therein fhall die în
like manner."‡ "But we, according to his pro-
mife, look for new heavens, and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness." || We read of
one, who, in vifion, "faw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth
were paffed away."§ When the new creation fhall
be finished and prepared, an act of Omnipotence
will be exerted, fimilar to that which paffed at the
formation of Adam. The Lord God will again
"form man out of the duft of the ground, and
breathe into his noftrils the breath of life." From
his long fleep in the chamber of the grave, he will
awake to behold the never fading glories of a world,
which will have no need of the fun neither of
the moon to shine in it, for the Lord God and the
Lamb," thofe brighter and inextinguishable lumi-
naries, fhall enlighten it for ever.¶ The Almighty
fhall again with complacency furvey the works of
his hands, and pronounce every thing he has made
to be "very good;" he fhall again reft on the se-
venth day; the children of the refurrection fhall
enter into his rest, and keep an eternal fabbath.
Let us
"comfort one another with thefe words.”

4

A view

+ Ifai li. 6.
¶ Rev. xxi. 23.

·

A view of the different materials of which man is compofed, may teach us to form a proper estimate of him. He ftands between the two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, and partakes of both. His body is material, but its inhabitant defcends from another fyftem. His foul, like the world from which it comes, is immortal; but his body, like the world to which it belongs, is frail and perishable. From its birth it contains in it the feeds and principles of diffolution, towards which it tends every day and hour, by the very means that nourifh and maintain it, and which no art can protract beyond a certain term. In fpite of precaution and medicine, "the evil days will come, and the years draw nigh, when he fhall fay, I have no pleasure in them.' Pains and forrows will fucceed each other, as "the clouds return after the rain,' blackening the face of heaven, and darkening the fources of light and joy. The hands, thofe once active and vigorous" keepers of the house," grown paralytic, fhall tremble;" and "the ftrong men," thofe firm and able columns which fupported it, fhall "bow themfelves," and fink under the weight. The external" grinders" of the food, the teeth,"fhall cease, because they are few," and the work of mastication fhall be imperfectly performed. Dim fuffufion shall veil the organs of fight, "they that look out of the windows fhall be darkened." "The doors," or valves," fhall be fhut in the streets," or alleys of the body, when the digestive powers are awakened, and "the found of the" internal "grinding is low." Sleep, if it light upon the eye-lids of age, will quickly remove again, and "he will rife up" at the time when the first "voice: of the bird" proclaims the approach of the morning.. "All the daughters of mufic fhall be brought low;" he:

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,

he will hear no more the voice of finging men, and finging women. Timidity and diftruft will predominate, and he will be alarmed at every thing; " he shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears fhall be in the way." As the early "almond tree,' when it flourishes in full bloffom, his hoary head fhall be confpicuous in the congregation, the fure prognoftic not of fpring, alas, but of winter; he. who, like "the grafhopper," in the feafon of youth was fo fprightly in his motions, now fcarce able to crawl upon the earth, "fhall be a burden" to himfelf, and the organs of fenfe being vitiated and impaired, "defire" and appetite "fhall fail." The spinal marrow, that "filver cord," with the infinite ramifications of the nerves, thence derived, will be relaxed, and lofe its tone;" and the golden bowl," the receptacle of the brain, from which it proceeds, "fhall be broken." The veffel, by which as a "pitcher," the blood is carried back to the heart for a fresh fupply, "shall be broken at the fountain, and the wheel," or inftrument of circulation, which throws it forth again to the extremities of the body," fhall be broken at the ciftern." *. When this highly finished piece of mechanism fhall: be thus disjointed and diffolved, "then shall the duft," of which it was framed,. "return to the earth as it was, and the fpirit fhall return to Godwho gave it." Learn we from hence, to bettow on cach part of our compofition that proportion of time and attention, which, upon a due confideration of its nature and importance, it fhall appear to claim at our hands.

To.

* See the Portrait of Old Age, in a Paraphrafe on the fix former verfes of the xii chapter of Ecclefiaftes, by JoHN SMITH, M. D. of the COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; reprinted in 1752, for E. WITHERS, at the Seven Stars, between the two Temple-Gates, Fleet-ftreet.