ders, of enjoying the good things which an Almighty Creator hath prepared for their comfort. All orders of beings propagate their kind, and thus provision is made for a successive communication of happiness. Individuals yield to the law of dissolution, which is inseparable from the structure of their bodies, yet no gap is thereby left in existence. Their place is occupied by other individuals, capable of participating in the goodness of the Almighty.d

e

What an infinite fulness of life and being, what an immense and inexhaustible treasury of all good, must that be, whence all this life and being was derived! How infinitely rich is the glorious and eternal God! Out of his own fulness he hath brought forth worlds: and worlds replenished with myriads and myriads of creatures furnished with various powers and organs, capacities and instincts; and out of his own fulness, continually and plentifully, supplieth them with all the necessaries of existence. Still his fulness remaineth the same, unemptied, unimpaired; and he can yet bring out of his fulness, worlds and worlds without end!

с

Seeing then how great a Being this Creator is, must we not conclude, in relation to us, that he is not only our Sovereign Lord, and Ruler, but our Preserver! Ought we not so to reverence

his power, as always to fear before Him? ought we not so to love him for his love, and for his goodness, as to worship and serve him with the whole heart; sincerely to comply with his holy will, and obey him in all things he hath either forbidden or enjoined ?

Purity and innocence are so necessarily concomitants of divine worship, according to Cicero, that he makes them the mark which distinguishes religion from superstition, when he says: "But that religion, that worship of God is the best, the holiest, the fullest of piety; by which we always worship with a pure, upright, undefiled mind and voice; for not only the philosophers, but our forefathers have distinguished superstition from religion."

F

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN.

WHEN we see a person who has, at his command all kinds of enjoyment, appropriating them solely to his own gratification, do we not think such a one has banished from his heart every disposition which enters into the composition of real goodness?

And if we contemplate the contrast of this shall we not conclude, that perfection of goodness could not be more unquestionably demonstrated, than in the communication of real happiness? Goodness was then the principle of creation; it was the foundation of God's works; consequently goodness, alone, must run through them all, from first to last. That happiness was dispensed to man in a high degree, may be inferred from

the declaration:

In the image of God created

he him; male and female created he them." Man coming out of the hands of his Creator, in such a state, must have been an emblem of divine innocence and purity, from which true happiness is inseparable. His body consisted of no higher material than the dust of the ground, but his mind was of nobler extraction; for God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. "The inspiration of the Almighty giveth us understanding ;" Job xxxii, 8; the excellence of which appears in a surprising variety of inventions and discoveries. It is this faculty which penetrates into the most secret recesses of nature; judges of, and admires the beauty and construction of the universe; traces the footsteps of the most astonishing wisdom in the situations and motions of the heavenly bodies. By this we can review generations and actions, characters and events; look forward to futurity as far as to the final period of this world. By this we conceive, though but negatively, eternity itself; form ideas of the state and felicity of beings far superior to ourselves. By this we can extend our thoughts to the highest excellency, and contemplate the nature of the infinitely perfect Being; while instinct only