may not unnaturally exclaim, I am a worm, and no man: when he reviews his services, he may pronounce them too worthless to be remembered of God: when he reviews his sins, he may believe them so great, as to cut him off from every reasonable hope of a share in the divine attention. But, notwithstanding his insignificance, fears, and doubts, he is not forgotten here; and will not be forgotten in the day, when God makes up his jewels. The tears, which he has shed; the prayers, which he has offered up; the two mites, which he has consecrated to God; the cup of cold water, which he has given to a fellow disciple; were neither unnoticed nor unregarded. God was present, when each act of humble and sincere obedience was performed; marked it with his eye; recorded it in his book; and will acknowledge it at the final day.

From this constant, kind, and merciful regard of his Maker, no situation, no circumstances, will preclude him, even for a moment. However lowly, however solitary, however forgotten of mankind, his course through life may be; himself and his interests, his wants and his woes, are tenderly, as well as continually, regarded by his God.

In seasons of sorrow, of sickness, bereavement, or desertion; when he has lost his parents, or his children; or is forsaken by his former friends and companions when the world begins to seem to him a desert, and life to be a burden: God is then at hand, his Father, and everlasting Friend; and will be better to him than sons and daughters. The Physician of the body, as well as of the soul, will administer healing to his diseased frame; pour the balm of consolation into his wounded spirit; and enable him to say, Why art thou cast down, O my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

When those around him become hostile to his character, and to his religion; when he himself is hated, despised, and persecuted: when for help he looks through the world in vain, and is ready to sink in the gulf of despair: let him remember, that God has been present, to behold all his sufferings; and will effectually guard him from every fatal evil. He may indeed be persecuted, but he will not be forsaken; he may be cast down, but he will not be destroyed. Let him also remember, that his afflictions, though they may seem heavy, are but for a moment, and are, therefore, really light; and that they will work for him an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

In seasons of temptation, when his resolution to resist, his fortitude to endure, his patience to suffer, his wisdom to devise means of escape, and his diligence and faithfulness to use them, fail and decline or even when, immersed in sloth and security, he ceases to watch over himself, and to guard against impending evil: God still is present, to supply all his wants; to renew his vigour; to support his yielding constancy; to awaken in him new vigilance; to quicken in him a contrite sense of his backsliding; to deliver him from the

unequal contest; and to bless him with returning hope, peace, and safety.

When self-confidence, self-flattery, and self-righteousness, inflate, deform, and betray him, when no Christian friend is near, to know, to pity, or to rescue him: God, even then, is present, to humble, to guide, and to restore him: and to enable him to find a safe path over the otherwise insurmountable obstacles to his continuance in the way of life.

Does he, with other humble followers of the Redeemer, mourn in Zion the hidings of God's face, his own backslidings, or the depression and sufferings of his fellow-christians; and feel, as if both himself and the Church were deserted and forgotten? Let him remember, that, although his heavenly Father hath smitten him for his sins with a rod, and for his iniquities with stripes; yet his covenant he will not take away, nor forget his mercy; that the walls of Zion are continually before him; and that she is graven on the palms of his hands; that, although a woman may forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb; yet will her Redeemer not forget his Church; and that He will keep her in the hollow of his hand, and preserve her as the apple of his Let him remember, that JEHOVAH will soon lift upon him, and his fellow-saints, the light of his countenance; and will soon appoint, unto them all, beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

eye.

Is he come to a dying bed? Is Eternity, with all its amazing scenes, beginning to be unveiled? Is his final trial ready to commence? Is his account even now to be given; his sentence to be pronounced; and his endless allotment to be fixed? Behold on the throne of Judgment that glorious person, who has promised, that he will never leave him, nor forsake him. He is the Judge, by whom he is to be tried; the Rewarder, by whom his destiny is to be fixed for ever. This divine Redeemer will now remember him as one of those, for whom he died; as one of those, for whom he has made unceasing intercession before the throne of the Majesty in the Hea

vens.

8thly. What an affecting and amazing display will be made of the Omniscience of God, at the last Judgment!

On this solemn day, all mankind will be judged according to the deeds done in the body. That these may be the foundation of the righteous judgment of God, it is indispensable, that they should be known clearly and certainly the sins, together with all their aggravations and palliations; the virtues, with all their diminutions and enhancements. To the same end it is equally necessary, that the system of retribution should also be perfectly comprehended; so that every administration of reward, both to the righteous and the wicked, should, throughout Eternity, be measured out to each individual exactly as his whole character demands. Of course, the knowledge, which will here be indispensable, will be a perfect

1st. place, The vastness and multitude of the things which were created.

The world, which we inhabit, is itself a vast and amazing work. The great divisions of Land and Water; the Continents and Oceans, into which it is distributed; nay, the Mountains and Plains, the Lakes and Rivers, with which it is magnificently adorned; are, severally, sufficiently wonderful and affecting to fill our minds, and to engross all the power of Contemplation. Nor are our thoughts less deeply interested by the vast multitude of plants, trees, and animals, with which every part of the Globe is stored at every period of time. All these, also, rise and fall in an uninterrupted succession. When one perishes, another immediately succeeds. No blank is permitted, and no vacuity found: but creating energy, always operating, produces a continual renovation of that which is

lost.

When we lift up our eyes to the Heavens, we are still more amazed at the sight of many such worlds, composing the planetary system. The Comets, which surround our Sun, greatly increase our amazement by their numbers, the velocity of their motions, and the inconceivable extent of their circuits. It is still more enhanced by the union of these numerous worlds in one vast system, connected by a common centre, and revolving round that centre with a harmony, and splendour, worthy of a God.

But this system, great and wonderful as it is, is a mere speck, compared with the real extent of the Creation. Satisfactory evidence exists, that every star, which twinkles in the firmament, is no other than a Sun, a world of light, surrounded by its own attendant planets, formed into a system similar to ours. Forty-five thousand such stars have been counted, by the aid of the Herschellian Telescope, in so small a part of the Heavens, that, supposing this part to be sown no thicker than the rest, the same Telescope would reach at least seventy-five millions in the whole sphere. By means of new improvements in the same optical instrument, they have been found to be numerous to a degree still more astonishing. Every one of these is, in my view, rationally concluded to be the Sun, and Centre, of a system of planetary and cometary worlds. Beyond this, I think it not at all improbable, that, were we transported to the most distant of the visible stars, we should find there a firmament expanding over our heads, studded in the same manner with stars innumerable. Nay, were we to repeat the same flight, and be again wafted through the same distance, it is not improbable, that we should behold a new repetition of the same sublimity and glory. In this manner immensity appears, in a sense, to be peopled with worlds innumerable, constituting the boundless empire of Jehovah. How amazing, then, must be the power and greatness of Him, who not only telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names, but with a word spoke them all into be.

2dly. The peculiar nature and splendour of many of these work strongly impress on our minds the greatness of creating power.

Of this nature are all those vast works in the Heavens, which I have mentioned under the last head.. To single out one of them; how glorious a work is the Sun! Of what astonishing dimensions! Of what wonderful attraction! Possessed of what supreme, unchangeable, and apparently immortal glory! Of what perpetual, and incomprehensible influence on the world, which we inhabit: not only causing it to move around its orbit with inconceivable rapidity, but producing, over its extensive surface, warmth and beauty, life and activity, comfort and joy, in all the millions of beings, by which it is inhabited!

Magnificent, however, as this object is, one mind is a more wonderful, more important, more illustrious display of creating power, than the whole inanimate universe. Suns with all their greatness and glory are still without life, without consciousness, without enjoyment; incapable, in themselves, of action, knowledge, virtue, or voluntary usefulness. A mind, on the contrary, is possessed of all these exalted powers, and is capable of possessing all these sublime attributes. A mind can know, love, and glorify, its Creator; can be instamped with his image, and adorned with his beauty and loveliness; and can appear desirable and delightful to his eye. It can reflect, as a mirror, the glory of the Lord, (for so ought the passage* to be translated) and be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. It can love, and bless, its fellow-minds; be loved, and blessed, by them; and become an useful and honourable instrument of advancing endlessly the universal good of the intelligent kingdom. In all these glorious attainments it can advance with an unceasing progress throughout Eternity. In this progress, it can rise to the heights, where angels now dwell; and, passing those heights, can ascend higher, and higher, till, in the distant ages of endless being, it shall look down on the most exalted created excellence, which now exists, as the mere dawnings of infantine intelligence. Worlds and Suns were created for the use of minds; but minds were created for the use of God.

3dly. The same impressions are strongly made, when we regard God as the Author of life.

The communication of life is a creative act, entirely, and illustriously, superior to the mere communication of existence. In the wonderful power, manifested in this communication, the glory of God, in the character of the Creator, is pre-eminently displayed. Accordingly the living God, and the living Father; that is, the God, who has life, originally, and independently, in himself, and is the source of it to all living beings; are titles, chosen to unfold especially the glory of the Divine nature. In the same manner, also, our Saviour challenges this wonderful attribute to himself, as a direct and unquestionable proof of his divinity. As the Father, saith he, hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth; even

2 Cor. iii. 18.

so the Son quickeneth whom he will. In the same manner, it is elsewhere said, It is the Spirit, that quickeneth.

The possession of life confers on every thing, which is the subject of it, a distinction, by which it is raised at once above all inanimate matter. Even Vegetables, of which life is predicated in a figurative sense only, derive from it a total superiority to all those beings, which are found in the mineral Kingdom. Animal life, which is life in its humblest degree, raises the being, in whom it exists, totally above all those things, which are not animated, by making them, at once, objects on which the emotions of the soul may be employed, and subjects of pleasure or pain, happiness or misery. Of these great distinctions, every one knows, no part of the mineral or vegetable world is susceptible.

Rational life is an attribute, of importance and distinction far higher still; and is the most wonderful display of the divine energy, which the Universe contains. Indeed, it is in a sense the end, for which all things else were created, and without which there is no probability, that they would ever have been. In exact accordance with the views, which I have expressed on this subject, we find a peculiar attention rendered to it by God, in the creation of Man. Other things had been called into being, antecedently to this event; and Man, as the most important of all terrestrial beings, and the end, for which they were made, was reserved to be the closing work. The World, his magnificent habitation, was finished, before the Tenant was formed, by whom it was to be occupied. Then God held a solemn consultation on this new and interesting work, and said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness. This consultation, holden by the Persons of the Godhead on the subject of communicating rational life, plainly and affectingly declares it to be a higher and more noble object of divine power, than all those which had preceded. From this pre-eminent importance it arises, that the termination of it, usually denominated annihilation, is in the view of the mind, invested with intense gloom, and the deepest horror; and that immortality, or the endless continuance of rational life, is an object always encircled with radiance, and regarded with exultation and rapture.

4thly. The manner, in which the Scriptures exhibit the work of Creation as being performed, most forcibly impresses on our minds the greatness of Creating power.

The greatness of power is discerned not only in the magnitude of the effects which it produces; but in the ease, also, with which they are produced. In this we are led rationally and indeed irresistibly, to discern, that the whole of the power possessed is not exerted; and that other and greater effects would, of course, spring from superior efforts, of which the same power is obviously capable. When God created the Heavens and the Earth, he said, Let there be light: Let there be a Firmament: Let the waters be gathered into one place; and Let the dry land appear. All these and other