read of that was embalmed in Egypt, where this manner prevailed, it was very probably of Hebrew original.

The vicissitudes of night and day instructs us farther on the same subject. The sun sets to rise again; the year dies away into the winter, and rises to verdure and beauty in the spring. Sleep is a temporary death from which we daily awake; insomuch that in many passages of the scripture, sleep and death are the same thing, and he that rises from the dead is said to awake out of sleep*. The furrow of the field is a grave, out of which the seeds that are buried rise to a new and better state. Their death and burial, which seems to be their end, is the beginning of their life: It is not quickened except it die. The allusion to plants and seeds is very common in the scripture, to illustrate the present and future state of man and if it reminds us, that all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field; it makes us amends, by assuring us, that our bones shall flourish as an herb, and that every seed shall have its own body.

VIII. The destruction of the world by fire is the last doctrine I shall take occasion to

* See Daniel xii. 2.

speak

speak of: which, though never unreasonable, and admitted even by Heathens of old time, is now more apparent than ever, from the late improvements in experimental philosophy. Indeed, we may say, the world is already on fire: for as Sinai, with its smoke and flame, was a positive, so is every volcano a natural prelude to the burning of the last day. The earth, the air, the clouds, the sea, are all replete with a subtile penetrating fire, which, while at rest, is neither felt nor observed, and was absolutely unknown to some of the most learned for ages; till accidental discovery hath now laid open the treasures of fire in heaven and earth to all that have the use of their sight and senses. The publication of the philosophy of fire hath been so sudden and so universal, and is so wonderful in itself, that it seems to be second to the publication of the Gospel at least, there is no event in philosophy or literature that comes near to it.

In this element we live and move; and, perhaps, so far as our frame is mechanical, we are moved by it. When excited to action, it turns into a consuming fire, which no substance can exclude, no force can resist. The matter of lightning, which seems to break out partially

partially and accidentally, is now found to be constitutional and universal in the system of Nature: so that the heavens, which, according to the language of the scripture, are to melt with fervent heat, want no foreign matter to convert them into fire. What is called phlogiston can rise in a moment from a state of quiescence to a state of inflammation; and it discovers itself in many bodies where we should little expect to find it. The earth, and the works that are therein, carry within them the seeds of their own destruction; and may be burnt up by that element which now resides within them, and is only waiting for the word from its Creator.

Upon the whole then, philosophy, so far as the term signifies a knowledge of God's wisdom and power in the natural creation, which is the best sense of the word; this philosophy, Ι say, is so far from being adverse to true religion, that with all the common evidences of Christianity in reserve, we may venture to meet the philosopher upon his own ground: we have nothing to fear from the testimony of Nature: we appeal to it: we call upon every man of science to compare the gospel which God hath revealed, with the world which God hath created; under an assurance,

that

that he will find the latter to be a key unto the former, as our noble philosopher hath well asserted. We have ventured to try this comparison upon the general plan of Christianity, and we see how it answers.

And if Nature answers to Christianity, it contradicts Deism: and that religion cannot be called natural which is contradicted by the light reflected upon our understandings from natural things. The Socinian is nearly in the same situation with the Deist: and they may both join together in calling upon Nature, from morning until night, as the Priests of Baal called upon their Deity; but there will be none to answer; and philosophy must put out one of his eyes before it can admit their doctrines. In short, take any religion but the Christian, and bring it to this test, by comparing it with the state of Nature, and it will be found destitute and defenceless. But the doctrines of our faith are attested by the whole natural world. Wherever we turn our eyes, to the heaven or to the earth, to the sea or the land, to men or to beasts, to animals or to plants, there we are reminded of them. They are recorded in a language which hath never been confounded: they are written in a text which shall never be corrupted.

The

The Creation of God is the School of Christians, if they use it aright. What is commonly called the World, consists of the forms, manners, diversions, pursuits, and prospects, of human society. But this is an artificial world, of man's making; the subject of his study, the object of his ambition. The natural world, of God's making, is full of wonder and instruction; it is open to all, it is common to all. Here there can be no envy, no party, no competition; for no man will have the less for what his neighbour possesses. The world, in this sense, may be enjoyed without fraud or violence. The student in his solitary walk, the husbandman at his labour, the saint at his prayers, may have as much as they can desire, and have nothing to repent of: for they will thus draw nearer to God, because they will see farther into his truth, wisdom, and good

ness.

Some have expressed their astonishment at the choice of hermits, and men of retirement, as people who have fled from all the enjoyments of life, and consigned themselves to melancholy and misery. They are out of the world, it is true; but they are only out of that artificial world of man's making, in which so many are hastening to disappointment and ruin :