A Descant upon Creation

If the reader pleases to look back on page 132; -*- he will find me engaged, by a promissory note, to subjoin a descant upon creation.

To know the love of Christ; to have such a deep apprehension of his unspeakable kindness, as may produce in our hearts an adoring gratitude and an unfeigned faith; this, according to St. Paul’s estimate, is the highest and happiest attainment in the sacred science of Christianity*. What follows is an attempt to assist the attentive mind in learning a line or two of that best and greatest lesson; it introduces the most conspicuous parts of the visible system, as so many prompters to our dull affections; each suggesting a hint adapted to the important occasion, and suited to its respective character.

Can there be a more powerful incentive to devout gratitude, than to consider the magnificent

* Eph. iii.19.

and delicate scenes of the universe, with a particular reference to Christ, as the Creator? Every object, viewed in this light, will surely administer incessant recruits to the languishing lamp of divine love. Every production in nature will strike a spark into the soul, and the whole creation concur to raise the smoking fl<tx into a flame.

Can any thing impart a stronger joy to the believer, or more effectually confirm his faith in the crucified Jesus, than to behold the heavens declaring his glory, and the firmament showing his handy-work? Surely it must be matter of inexpressible consolation to the poor sinner, to observe the honours of his Redeemer written with sunbeams over all the face of the world.

We delight to read an account of our incarnate Jehovah, as he is revealed in the books of Moses and the prophets, as he is displayed in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles. Let us also endeavour to see a sketch of his perfections, as they stand delineated in that stately volume, where every leaf is a spacious plain; every line, a flowing brook; every period, a lofty mountain.

Should any of my readers be unexercised in such speculations, I beg leave (in pursuance of my promise) to present them with a specimen, or to offer a clue, which may possibly lead their minds into this most improving and delightful train of thinking.

Should any be inclined to suspect the solidity of the following observations, or to condemn them as the voice of rant, and the lawless Might of fancy; 1 must entreat such persons to recollect, that the grand doctrine, the hinge on which they all turn, is warranted and established by the unanimous testimony of the inspired penmen, who frequently celebrate Immanuel, or Christ Jesus, as the great Almighty Cause of all; assuring U9, that all things were created by him and for him, and that in him all tilings consist*.

On such a subject, what is wonderful is far from being extravagant. To be wonderful, is the inseparable characteristic of Cod and his works, especially of that most distinguished and glorious even of the divine works, redemption; so glorious, that ’ all the miracles in Egypt, and the marvellous acts in the field of Zoan;’ all that the Jewish annals have recorded, or the human ear has heard, all dwindle into trivial events, are scarce worthy to be rememberedt, in comparison of this infiuitt-ly grand and infinitely gracious transaction. Kindled, therefore, into pleasing astonishment by such a survey, let me give full scope to my meditations; let me pour out my whole soul on the boundless subject; not much regarding the limits which cold criticism, or colder unbelief, might prescribe.

O ye angels, that surround the throne; ye piinces of heaven ’ that excel in strength,’ and are clothed with transcendent brightness; he, who placed you in those stations of exalted honour, and dignified your nature with such illustrious endowments; he, whom you all obey and all adore; he took not on him the angelic form, but was made flesh, and found in fashion as a man. Like us wretched mortals, he was subject to weariness, pain, and every infirmity, sin only excepted; that we might one day be raised to your sublime abodes, be adopted into your blissful society, and join with your transported choir in giving glory to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb tor ever and everj.

* Col. i. 16, 17. Before my reader enters upon the following descant, he is desired to peruse the note, page 101.

+ Tsai. xliii. 18. X Rev. v. 13.

O ye heavens, whose azure arches rise immensely high, and stretch immeasurably wide; stupendous amphitheatre! amidst whose vast expansive circuit, orbs of the most dreadful grandeur are perpetually running their amazing races; unfathomable depths of aether! where worlds unnumbered float, and, to our limited sight, worlds unnumbered are lost; he who adjusted your dimensions with his span, and formed the magnificent structure with his word; he was once wrapt in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger; that the benefits accruing to his people, through his most meritorious humiliation, might have no other measure of their value than immensity; might run parallel, in their duration, with eternity.

Ye stars, that beam with inextinguishable brilliancy through the midnight sky; oceans of flame and centres of worlds, though seemingly little points of light! he who shone with essential effulgence, innumerable ages before your twinkling tapers were kindled, and will shine with everlasting majesty and beauty when your places in the firmament shall be known no more; he was involved for many years in the deepest obscurity; lay concealed in the contemptible city Nazareth j lay disguised under the mean habit of a carpenter’s son; that he might plant the heavens * as it were with new constellations, and array these clods of earth, these houses of clay, with a radiancy far superior to yours; a radiancy which will adorn the very heaven of heavens, ‘when you shall vanish away like smoket,

* Isai.li. 16.

* Alluding to a passage in- Isaiah, which is, I think, grand and elevated beyond ali comparison. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like

I 2 or expire as momentary sparks from the sniitUa steel.

Comets, that sometimes shoot into the illimitable tracts of aether, farther than the discernment of our eye is able to follow; sometimes return from the Jong, long excursion, and sweep our affrighted hemisphere with your enormous fiery train; that sometimes make near approaches to the sun, and burn almost in his immediate beams; sometimes retire to the remotest distance, and freeze for ages in the excessive rigors of winter: he, who at his sovereign pleasure withdraws the blazing wonder, or leads forth the portentous stranger to shake terror over guilty kingdoms; he was overwhelmed with the most shocking amazement, and plunged into the deepest anxiety; was chilled with apprehensions of fear, and scorched by the flames of avenging wrath; that I, and other depraved rebellious creatures, might not be eternally agitated with the extremes of jarring passions; opposite, yet on either side tormenting; far more tormenting to the soul than the severest degrees of your heat and cold to the human sense.

Ye planets, that, winged with unimaginable speed, traverse the regions of the sky; sometimes climbing millions and millions of miles above, sometimes descending as tar below the great axle of your motions: ye that are so minutely faithful to the vicissitudes of day and night, so exactly punctual in bringing on the

a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die like the feeble insect; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation shall not be abolished, Isai. li. 6. — With the great Vitringa, I translate the words *1D *DD not, in like manner, but like the feeble insect; which renders the period more complete, the sense more emphatical, and is more agreeable to the genius of the sacred original.

changes of your respective stations: he ‘who launched you at first from his mighty arm; who continually impels you with such wonderful rapidity, and guides you with such perfect regularity; who fixes ’ the habitation of his holiness and his glory,’ infinite heights above your scanty rounds; he once became a helpless infant, sojourned in our inferior world, fled from the persecutor’s sword, and wandered as a vagabond in a foreign land; that he might lead our feet into the way of peace; that he might bring us aliens near to God, bring us exiles home to heaven.

Thou sun, inexhausted source of light, and heat, and comfort! who, without the assistance of any other fire, sheddest day through a thousand realms, and not confining thy munificence to realms only, extendest thy enlightening influences to surrounding worlds; prime cheerer of the animal, and great enlivener of the vegetable tribes! so beautiful in thyself, so beneficial in thy effects, that erring heathens addressed thee with adorations, and mistook thee for their Maker! He who filled thy orb with a profusion of lustre, before whom thy meridian splendors are but a shade; he divested himself of his all-transcending distinctions, and drew a veil over the effulgence of his divinity; that, by speaking to us face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend, he might dispel our intellectual darkness. His ’ visage was marred*,’ and he became the scorn of men, the outcast of the people; that, by this manifestation of his unutterably tender regard for our welfare, he might diffuse many a gleam of joy through our dejected minds; that, in another state of things, he might clothe even our

Isai. lii. 14.

fallen nature with the honours of that magnificent luminary, and give all the righteous to shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Thou moon, that walkest among the host of stars, and in thy lucid appearance art superior to them all; fair ruler of the night; sometimes half restoring the day with thy waxing brightness; sometimes waning into dimness, and scarcely scattering the nocturnal gloom; sometimes covered with sackcloth, and alarming the gazing nations: he who dresses thy opake globe in beaming but borrowed silver; he whose dignity is unchangeable, underived, and all his own; he vouchsafed to wear a body of clay; he was content to appear as in a bloody eclipse, shorn of his resplendent beams, and surrounded with a .night of horror, which knew not one reviving ray. Thus has he empowered his church and all believers, to tread the moon under their feet*. Hence, inspired with the hope of brighter glory and more enduring bliss, are they enabled to triumph over all the vain anxieties and vainer amusements of this sublunary, precarious,mutable world.

Ye thunders, that, awfully grumbling in the distant clouds, seem to meditate indignation, and form the first essays of a far more frightful peal, or, suddenly bursting over our heads, rend the vault above, and shake the ground belqw, with the hideous, horrid crack: ye that send your tremendous volleys from pole to pole, startling the savage herdst, and astonishing the human race: he who permits terror to sound her trumpet in your deep, prolonged, enlarging, aggravated roar; he uttered a feeble infantile cry in the stable, and strong expiring groans on the

♦Rev, xii.i. t Psal. xxix. 8.

accursed tree; that he might, in the gentlest accents, whisper peace to our souls, and at length tune our voices to the melody of heaven.

O ye lightnings, that brood, and lie couchant in the sulphureous vapours; that glance, with forked fury, from the angry gloom, swifter and fiercer than the lion rushes from his den; or open into vast expansive sheets of flame, sublimely waved over the prostrate world, and fearfully lingering in the affrighted skies: ye, that formerly laid in ashes the licentious abodes of lust and violence; that will, ere long set on fire the elements, and co-operate in the conflagration of the globe: he who kindles your flash, and directs you when to sally, and where to strike; he who commissions your whirling bolts, whom to kill and whom to spare; he resigned his sacred person to the most barbarous indignities, submitted his beneficent hands to the ponderous hammer and the piercing nail, yea withheld not his heart, his very heart, from the stab of the executioner’s spear; and, instead of flashing confusion on his outrageous tormentors, instead of plunging them to the depths of hell with his frown, he cried — in his last moments, and with his agonizing lips, he cried, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do! — O! what a pattern of patience for his saints! what an object of admiration for angels! what a constellation of every mild, amiable, and benign virtue; shining, in this hour of darkness, with ineffable splendor and beauty *! —

* One can hardly forbear animadverting upon the disingenuous temper and perverse taste of Celsus, who attempts to turn this most distinguishing and ornamental part of our Lord’s life into ridicule nd a reproach. Having spoken of Christ as despitefully used, and arrayed in a purple robe, crowned with thorns, and holding, by way

Hence, hence it is, that we are not trembling under the lightnings of Mount Sinai; that we are not

of mock majesty, a reed instead of a sceptre (for he enters into all these circumstances, which is a testimony to their truth even from the mouth of an enemy) he adds: T/ oux, ei y.rj zrgovQev, oCK7.ot. pup youv Seiov rt fmZetxwTai; koh rg ouoyyrnstocutijs eaiiTOv pver»tf xai rovt; u^ovTa? Big sauTOv T6 xou tov araTepa &xaiO<; Orig. contra Cels, p. 81. i. e. Why, in the name of wonders, does he not, on this occasion, at least, act the god? Why does he not deliver himself from this shocking ignominy, or execute some signal vengeance on the authors of such injurious and abusive insults, both of himself and his Father?’ — Why, Celsus? Because he was meekness and gentleness itself; whereas your deitres were slaves to their own turbulent and resentful passions. Because they were little better than savages in human shape, who too often made a merit of slaughter, and took a horrid pride in spilling blood; while Christ was the Prince of Peace, and came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save. B-ecause any madman on earth, or fury from hell, is capable of venting his rage; but who, amidst such unsufferable provocations and barbarities; who, having in his own hand the power to rescue himself, the power to avenge himself, could submit to all with an unruffled serenity of patience] and not only not be exasperated, but overcome, in so triumphant a manner, evil with good? None but Christ! none but Christ! This was compassion worthy of a god; clemency and charity truly divine.

Therefore the calumny raised by the same virulent objector in another place carries its own confutation, or rather falls with a weight of infamy on his dunghill deities; while it bears a most honourblasted by the flames of divine vengeance; or doomed to dwell with everlasting burnings.

Ye frowning wintry clouds; oceans pendant in the air, and burdening the winds: he, in whose hand you are an overflowing scourge, or by whose appointment an arsenal of warlike stores *: he who opens your sluices, and a flood gushes forth, to destroy the fruits of the earth, and drown the husbandman’s hopes; who moulds you into frozen balls, and you are shot, linked with death t, on the troops of his enemies: he, instead of discharging

able testimony to the majestic and invincible meekness of our Saviour. 1lj fxtv, says he to the Christian, rot a,yct{x<xT<x toutcuv Koilopwv xarayeAa;, og auTov ye Toy Aiovvsrov rj tcv HpctxXtot waqovrv, at %Xo <8 po £77 a ‘<xg, ovx av icwg yatptvv afl-yjAAaac’ tov ye gov ©eoi, wapovru. KXTaeivovreg xat xoKoiovreg, oi/Sev oi TctVTot hpet.ara.vrtg we7ro),$ocGiv9 ibid. p. 404. i. e. ‘You, indeed, take upon you to deride the images of our deity; but if Bacchus himself or Hercules had been present, you would not have dared to offer such an affront; or if you had been so presumptuous, would have severely smarted for your insolence. Whereas they who tormented the very person of your God, and even extended him with mortal agony on the cross, suffered no effects of his displeasure.’

* Juvenal seems to consider the clouds under this same character in that beautiful line,

Quidquid habent telorum armamentaria cceli.

t Job has informed us, for what purpose the magazines of the firmament are stocked with hail. That they may be ready against the day of battle and war. Job xxxviii. 23. Joshua has recorded what terribler slaughter has been made by those missive weapons of t*hc Almighty. Josh. x. 11.

the furiousness of his wrath upon this guilty head, poured out his prayers, poured out his sighs poured out his very soul, for me and my fellow-transgressors; that by virtue of his inestimable propitiation, the overflowings of divine good-wi!l might be extended to sinful men; that the skies might pour down righteousness; and peace, on her downy wings, peace with her balmy blessings, descend to dwell on earth.

Ye vernal clouds, furls of finer air, folds of softer moisture: he who draws you in copious exhalations from the briny deep, bids you leave every distasteful quality behind, and become floating fountains of sweetest waters: he, who dissolves you into gentle rain, and dismisses you in fruitful showers; who kindly commissions you to drop down fatness as you fall, and to scatter flowers over the field: he, in the unutterable bitterness of his spirit, was without any comforting sense of his Almighty Father’s presence; he, when his bones were burnt up like a firebrand, had not one drop of that sacred consolation which, on many of his afflicted servants, has been distilled as the evening dews, and has ’ given songs in the night’ of distress; that, from this unallayed and inconsolable anguish of our all-gracious Master, we, as from a well of salvation, might derive large draughts of spiritual refreshment.

Thou grand ethereal bow, whose beauties flush

Modern historians relate, that when Edward III. invaded France, a shower of hailstones descended, of such a prodigious size, that six thousand horses, and one thousand men, were struck dead instantaneously. But the most dreadful description of this great ordnance of the heavens is given us in Rev. xvi. 21. There fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent.

the firmament, and charm every spectator: h« who paints thee on the iluid skirts of the sky, who decks thee with all the pride of colours, and bends thee into that graceful and majestic figure; at whose command thy vivid streaks sweetly rise, or swiftly fade: he, through all his life, was arrayed in the humble garb of poverty, and at his exit wore the gorgeous garment of contempt; insomuch that even his own familiar friends, ashamed or afraid to own him, hid as it were their faces from him *;’ to teach us a becoming disdain for the unsubstantial and transitory glitter of all worldly vanities; to introduce us, in robes brighter than the tinges of thy resplendent arch, even in the robes of his own immaculate righteousness, to introduce us before that august and venerable throne, which the peaceful rainbow surrounds, surrounds as a pledge of inviolable fidelity and infinite mercy.

Ye storms and tempests, which vex the continent, and toss the seas; which dash navies on the rocks, and drive forests from their roots: he, whose breath rouses you into such resistless fury, and whose nod controls you in your wildest career; he, who holds the rapid and raging hurricane in streightened reins, and walks, dreadfully serene, on the very wings of the wind: he went, all meek and gentle, like a lamb to the slaughter for us; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Thus are we instructed to bear, with decent magnanimity, the various assaults of adversity; and to pass, with a

* Isai. lii. 3. U»D CDUD nnDOD Fuit tanquam aliquis, a quo quisquc faciem occultaret. He whs as some flagitious and abandoned wretch, from whom every one, disdaining such a character, and disclaiming such an acquaintance, studiously hid his face.

becoming tranquillity of temper through all the rude blasts of injurious treatment. Thus are we delivered from the unutterably fiercer storms of incensed and inexorable justice, from the ’ fire, the brimstone, and the horrible tempest, which will be the final portion of the ungodly.’

Thou pestilence, that scatterest ten thousand poisons from thy baleful wings, tainting the air, and infecting the nations; under whose malignant influence, joy is blasted, and nature sickens; mighty regions are depopulated, and once crowded cities are left without inhabitants: he, who arms thee with inevitable destruction, and bids thee march before his angry countenance *; to spread desolation among the tents of the wicked, and be the forerunner of far more fearful indignation: he, in his holy humanity, was arraigned as a criminal; and, though innocence itself, yea, the very pattern of perfection, was condemned to die like the most execrable miscreant. As a nnisance to society and the very bane of the public happiness, he was hurried away to execution, and hammered to the gibbet; that by his blood, he might prepare a sovereign medicine, to cure us of a more fatal distemper than the pestilence which walketh in darkness, or the sickness which destroyeth at noon-day; that he might himself say to our last enemy, ‘O death, I will be thy plague; O grave, I will be thy destruction t.’

Heat, whose burning influence parches the Libyan wilds, tans into soot the Ethiopian’s complexion, and makes every species of life pant, and droop, and languish: Cold, whose icy breath glazes yearly the Russian seas, often glues the frozen sailor to the cordage, and stiffens the traveller into a statue of rigid flesh: he, who some-

* Before him went the pestilence, Hab. iii. 5. t Hos, xiii. 14.

times blends you both, and produces the most agreeable temperature; sometimes suffers you to act separately, and rage with intolerable severity: that King of Heaven, and Controller of universal Nature, -when dwelling in a tabernacle of clay, was exposed to chilling damps and smitten by sultry beams. The stars, in their midnight watches, heard him pray j and the sun, in his meridian fervors, saw him toil. Hence are our frozen hearts dissolved into a mingled flow of wonder, love, and joy; being conscious of a deliverance from those insufferable flames, which, kindled by divine indignation, burn to the lowest hell.

Thou ocean, vast world of waters! he, who sunk that capacious bed for thy reception, and poured the liquid element into unfathomable channels; before whom all thy foaming billows and floating mountains are as the small drop of a bucket; who, by the least intimation of his will, swells thy fluid kingdoms, in wild confusion, to mingle with the clouds; or reduces them in calm composure to slumber on the shores: he, who once gave thee a warrant to overwhelm the whole earth, and bury all its degenerate inhabitants in a watery grave; but has now laid an everlasting embargo on thy boisterous waves, and bound thee, all fierce and madding as thou art, in chains stronger than adamant, yet formed of despicable sand: — all the waves of vengeance and wrath, of tribulation and anguish, passed over his crucified body, and his agonizing soul; that we might emerge’ from those depths of misery, from that abyss of guilt, into which we were plunged by Adam’s fall, and more irretrievably sunk by our own transgressions; that, at the last, we might be restored to that happy world, which is represented, in the vision of God, as having ’ no sea*;’

* Rev. xxi. 1.

Co denote its perpetual stability and undisturbed serenity.

Ye mountains, that overlook the clouds, and project a shade into distant provinces; everlasting pyramids of nature, not to be shaken by conflicting elements, not to be shattered by the bolts of thunder, nor impaired even by the ravages of time; he who bid your ridges rise so high, and your foundations stand so fast; he, in whose scale you are lighter than dust; in whose eye you are less than nothing: he sunk, beneath a load of woes; woes insupportable, but not his own; when he took our iniquities upon himself, and heaved the more than mountainous burden from a guilty world.

Ye verdant woods, that crown our hills, and are crowned yourselves with leafy honours: ye humble shrubs, adorned in spring with opening blossoms, and fanned in summer by gentle gales: ye, that in distant climes, or in cultivated gardens, breathe out spicy odors, and embalm the air with delightful perfumes: your all-glorious and ever blessed Creator’s head, was incircled with the thorny wreath; his face was defiled with contumelious spitting, and his body bathed in a bloody sweat; that we might wear the crown, the crown of glory which fadeth not away; and live for evermore, surrounded with delights, as much surpassing yours, as yours exceed the rugged desolations of winter.

Thou mantling vine; he who hangs on thy slender shoots, the rich, transparent, weighty cluster; who, under thy unornamented foliage, and amidst the pores of thy otherwise worthless bough, prepares the liquor — the refined and exalted liquor, which cheers the nations, and fills the cup of joy: Trees, whose branches are elevated and waving in air, or diffused in easy confinement along a sunny wall: he, who bends you with a lovely burden of delicious fruits, whose genial warmth beautifies their rind, and mellows their taste; he, when voluntarily subject to our wants, instead of being refreshed with your generous juices, or regaled with your luscious pulp; had a loathsome potion of vinegar, mingled with gall, addressed to his lips; that we might sit under the shadow of his merits with great tranquillity and the utmost complacency; that, ere long, being admitted into the Paradise of God, we might eat of the Tree of Life#, and drink new wine with him in his Father’s kingdom.

Ye luxuriant meadows; he who, without the seedsman’s industry, replenishes your irriguous lap with never-failing crops of herbage, and enamels their cheerful green with flowers of every hue: Ye fertile fields; he who blesses the labours of the husbandman, enriches your well-tilled plains with waving harvests, and calls forth the staff of life from your furrow; he, who causes both meadows and fields to laugh and sing for the abundance of plenty; he was no stranger to corroding hunger, and parching thirst; he, alas! eat the bitter bread of woe, and had plenteousnes.s of tears to drink.’ that we might partake of richer dainties than those which are produced by the dew of heaven, and proceed from the fatness of the earth; that we might feed on * the hidden manna,’ and eat the bread which giveth life, eternal life, unto the Trorld.

Ye mines, rich in yellow ore, or bright with veins of silver; that distribute your shining treasures as far as winds can waft the vessel of commerce; that bestow your alms on monarchs, and have princes for your pensioners: Ye beds of gems, toy-shops of nature! which form, in dark retirement, the glittering stone; diamonds, that sparkle with a brilliant water; rubies, that glow

* Rev. ii. 7.

with a crimson flame; emeralds, dipped in the freshest verdure of spring; sapphires, decked with the fairebt drapery of the sky; topaz, emblazed with the golden gleam; amethyst, impurpled with the blushes of the morning: lie who tinctures the metallic dust, and consolidates the lucid drop; he, when sojourning on earth, had no riches but the riches of disinterested benevolence; had no ornament, but the ornament of unspotted purity. Poor he was in his circumstances, and mean in all his accommodations; that we might be rich in grace, and ’ obtain salvation with eternal glory;’ that we might inhabit the new Jerusalem, that splendid city, whose streets are paved with gold; whose gates are formed of pearl; and the walls garnished with all manner of precious stones*.

Ye gushing fountains, that trickle potable silver through the matted grass: Ye fine transparent streams, that glide in crystal wa%’C3 -along your fringed banks: Ye deep and stately ris’ers, tnat wind and wander in your course, to spread your favours wider; that gladden kingdoms in your progress, and augment the sea with your tribute: he who supplies all your currents from his own ever-flowing and inexhaustible liberality; he, when his nerves were racked with exquisite pain, and his blood inflamed by a raging fever, cried, I thirst, and was denied (unparalleled hardship!) in this great extremity, was denied the poor refreshment of a single drop of water; that we, having all-sufficiency in all things, might abound to every good work; might be filled with the ful* ness of his spiritual blessings here, and hereafter be satisfied with that fulness of joy which is at God’s right hand for evermore.

Ye birds, cheerful tenants of the bough, daily dressed in glossy plumage; who wake the morn, and solace the groves with your artless lays:

Rev, xxi. 19, 21.

inimitable architects! who, without rule or line, build your pensile structures with all the nicety of proportion; you have each his commodious nest, roofed with shades and lined with warmth to protect and cherish the callow brood; but he, who tuned your throats to harmony, and taught you that curious skill; he was a man of sorrows, and had not where to lay his head; had not where to lay his head, till lie felt the pangs of dissolution, and was laid in the silent grave; that we, dwelling under the wings of omnipotence, and resting in the bosom of infinite love, might spend an harmonious eternity in ’ singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb.’

Bees, industrious workmen! that sweep, with busy wing, the flowery garden; and search the blooming heath; and sip the mellifluous dews: strangers to idleness! that ply, with incessant assiduity, your pleasing task, and suffer no opening blossom to pass unexplored, no sunny gleam to slip away unimproved: most ingenious artificers! that cling to the fragrant buds, drain them of their treasured sweets, and extract (if I may so speak) even the odoriferous souls of herbs, and plants, and flowers; you, when you have completed your work; have collected, refined, and securely lodged the ambrosial stores; when you might reasonably expect the peaceful fruition of your acquisitions; you, alas! are barbarously destroyed, and leave your hoarded delicacies to others: leave them to be enjoyed by your very murderers. I cannot but pity your hard destiny! How then should my bowels melt with sympathy, and my eyes flow with tears*, when I remember, that thus, thus it fared with your and our

* Canst thou, ungrateful man, his torments see, Nor drop a tear for him, who pour’d his blood for thee? Pitt’s Poems.

Incarnate Maker! After a life of the most plary and exalted piety; a life, filled v-iii of beneficence and labours of love; he wicked hands, crucified and siain. He left the honey of his toil, the balm of his blood, and the riches of his obedience, to be shared among others; to be shared even among those, who too often crucify him afresh, and put him to opensphame.

Shall I mention the animal*, which -pins hei soft, her shining, her exquisitely fine silken thread; whose matchless manufactures lend an ornament to grandeur, and make royalty itself more magnificent? shall I take notice of the cell, in which, when the gaiety and business of life are over,

* No one, I hope, will be offended at my introducing, on such an occasion, creatures of so low i. rank, since, even the voluir.es of inspiration seem to lend me the sanction of their sa’jrd authority; as they disdain not to compare the blessed Jesus to a door, a highway, &c. And perhaps all comparisons, which respect a Being of infinite dignity, are not only mean, but equally mean and unworthy.

I am sensible, likewise, that in this paragraph and some others, all the circumstances are not completely correspondent; but if, in some grand particulars, the reddition answers to the description, this, I trust, will be sufficient for my purpose, ;<nd satisfactory to my readers. Perhaps, it would T>e no mistaken caution, to apply the same observation to many of .the beautiful similitudes, parables, and allegories, used by our Lord; such as the brazen serpent, the unjust steward, the thief in i he night, &c. which, if scrupulously sis ted, or rigorously strained for an entire coincidence in •rry circumstance, must appear to great disadvan- ‘>£?, <xd lead into palpable inconveniences.

A DESCANT UPON CREATION. 1<JJ the little recluse immures herself and spends the remainder of her days in retirement? Shall i jather observe the sepulchre, winch, when cloyed with plea-sure and v-eary of the world, she prepares tor her own interment? Or how, when a stated period is elapsed, she wakes from a death-like inactivity, breaks the inclosure of her tomb, throws off the dusky shroud, assumes a new form, puts on a more sumptuous array, and, fiom au insect creeping on the ground, becomes a winged inhabitant of the air r Ko: this is a poor reptile; and therefore unworthy to serve as an illustration, when any character of the Son of God comes under consideration. But let me correct myself. Was not Christ (to use the language of his own blessed Spirit) a worm, and no man*? in appearance such, and treated as such? Did he not also bequeath the fine linen of his own most perfect righteousness to compose the marriage-garment t

* Psalm xxii. 6-

+ This and several other hints interspersed in this woik, refer to the active and passive righteousness of Christ, imputed to believers for their justification; which, in the opinion of many great expositors, is the mystical and the most sublime meaning of the wedding-garment, so emphatically and forcibly recommended by the Teacher sent vrom God, Matt. xxii. 11; a doctrime, which some of those who honour my meditations with a perusal, probably may not receive with much, if any, approbation. 1 hope the whole performance wall not be cashiered for one difference in sentiment: and I beg, that the sentiment itself may not hastily be rejected without a serious hearing. Tor 1 have the pleasure of being intimately acquainted with a gentleman of good learning and distinguished sense, who had once as strong prepossessions against this tenet as can well be imagined; ytt now he K for our disarrayed and defiled souls? .Did he not* before his flesh saw corruption, emerge triumphant

not only admits it as a truth, but embraces it as the joy of his heart, and cleaves to it as the rock of his hopes.

A clear and cogent treatise, entitled ‘Submission to the Righteousness of God,’ was the instrument of removing his prejudices, and reducing him to a better judgment; in which he has been happily confirmed by the authority of the most illustrious names, and the works of the most eminent pens, that have ever adorned our church and nation. In this number are — Bishop Jewel, one of our great reformers; and the other venerable compilers of our homilies — Archbishop Usher, that oracle of universal learning — Bishop Hall, the devout and sprightly orator of his age — the copious and fervent Bishop Hopkins — the singularly good and unaffected Bishop Beveridge — that everlasting honour of the bench of judicature, Lord Chief Justice Hales — the nervous, florid, and persuasive Dean Stanhope — the practical and perspicuous Mr. Burkit — and, to summon no other evidence, that matchless genius Milton, who in various parts of his divine poem inculcates this comfortable truth, and in one passage represents it under the very same image which is made use of above, Book X. 222.

I had almost forgot to mention that the treatise entitled ‘Submission, &c.’ was written by Mr. Benjamin Jenks; whose * Book of Devotions ’ has deservedly passed through eleven editions, is truly admirable for the sublimity, spirituality, and propriety of the sentiments, as well as for the concise form and pathetic turn of the expression; whose * Book of Meditations,’ though no less worthy of general acceptance, has for a considerable time been almost unknown ard extinct, but is now f/om the grave; and not only mount the lower firmament, but ascend the heaven of heavens, take possession of those sublime abodes, in our name, and as our forerunner?

Ye cattle, that rest in your inclosed pastures; ye beasts, that range the unlimited forest; ye fish, that rove through trackless paths of the sea; sheep, clad in garments, which, when left by you, are wore-by kings; kine, who feed on verdure, which, transmuted in your bodies, and strained from your udders, furnishes a repast for queens; lions, roaring after your prey; leviathan, taking your pastime in the great deep; with all that wing the firmament, or tread the soil, or swim the wave: He who spreads his ever-hospitable board, who admits you all to be his continual guests, and suffers you to want no manner of thing that is good; he was destitute, afflicted, tormented; he endured all that was miserable and reproachful, in order to exalt a degenerate race, who had debased themselves to a level with the

revived, and is lately republished, in two octavo volumes, by Mr. James Kivington; for which service he has my thanks; I flatter myself, he will have the thanks of the public: as I am persuaded, could religion and virtue speak, he would have their acknowledgments also; since few treatises are more happily calculated to represent religion in its native beauty, and to promote the interests of genuine virtue: on which account, I trust, the candid will excuse me, and the judicious will not condemn me, even though the recommendation of those devotions and of these meditations may appear to be a digression from my subject.

N.B. Should the reader be inclined to examine the afore-mentioned tenet, he will find it stated, discussed, and applied to its due improvement, in a piece entitled Theron and Aspasio.’ beasts that perish, unto seats of distinguished and immortal honour, in order to introduce the slaves of sin and heirs of hell into mansions of consummate and everlasting bliss.

Surely, the contemplation of such a subject, and the distant anticipation of such a hope, may almost turn earth into heaven, and make even inanimate nature vocal with praise. Let it then break forth from every creature. Let the meanest feel the inspiring impulse; let the greatest acknowledge themselves unable, worthily to express the stupendous goodness.

Praise him, ye insects that crawl on the ground; who, though high above all height, humbled himself to dwell in dust. Birds of the air, waft on your wings, and warble in your notes, his praise, who, though Lord of the celestial abodes, while sojourning on earth, wanted a shelter commodious as your nests. Ye rougher world of brutes, join with the gentle songsters of the shade, and howl to him your hoarse applause, who breaks the jawbones of the infernal lion, who softens into mildness the savage disposition, and bids the wolf lie down, in amicable agreement, with the lamb. Bleat out, ye hills; let broader lows be responsive from the vales; ye forests catch, and ye rocks retain, the inarticulate hymn; because Messiah the Prince feeds his flock like a shepherd; he gathereth the lambs with his arm; he carries them in his bosom, and gently leads those that are with young*. Wave, ye stately cedars, in sign of worship, wave your branching heads to him, who meekly bowed his own on the accursed tree. Pleasing prospects, scenes of beauty, where nicest art conspires with lavish nature to form a paradise below, lay forth all your charms, and in all your charms confess yourselves a mere blank,

♦Isai. xl. 11.

compared with his amiableness, who is * fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.’ Drop down, ye showers; and testify, as yoli fall; testify of his grace, which descends more copiously than the rain, distils more sweetly than the dew. Let sighing gales breathe, and murmuring rivulets flow; breathe and flow in harmonious consonance to him, whose Spirit is far more reviving than the cooling breeze, who is himself the Fountain of living Waters.

Ye lightnings, blaze to his honour; ye thunders, sound his praise; while reverberating clouds return the roar, and bellowing oceans propagate the tremendous anthem. Mutest of creatures, add your silent oratory, and display the triumphs of his meekness; who, though he maketh the clouds his chariot, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea; though the thunder is his voice, and the lightning his sword of justice; yet, amidst the most abusive and cruel injuries, was submissive and lifted not his hand, was ’ dumb and opened not his mouth.’ Great source of day, address thy radiant homage to a far sublimer sun. Write, in all thy ample round, with every lucid beam, O! write a testimony to him, who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, who is the Sun of righteousness to a sinful world; and is risen, never to go down; is risen, to be our everlasting light. Shine clear, ye skies; look gay, thou earth; let the floods clap their hands, and let every creature wear a smile: for he cometh, the Creator himself cometh, to be manifested in the flesh; and with him comes pardon, peace, and joy; every virtue and all felicity comes in his train. Angels and archangels, let your songs be of Jesus, and. teach the very heavens to echo with his adored and majestic name. Ye beheld him, with greater transports of admiration, when you attended his agony in the garden, and saw him prostrate on the ground; than when you beheld universal nature rising at his call, and saw the wonders of his creating might. Tune to loftiest notes your golden harps, and waken raptures, unknown befoie even in heavenly breasts; while all that has breath swells the concert of harmony; and all that has being unites in the tribute of praise.

Chiefly, let man exalt his voice; let man, with distinguished hosannas, hail the Redeemer. For man, he was stretched on the racking cross; for man, he was consigned to the gloomy sepulchre; for man, he procured grace unmeasurable, and bliss inconceivable. However different, therefore, in your age, or more different in your circumstances, be unanimous, O men, in magnify ingv a Saviour, who is no respecter of persons; who gave himself a ransom for all. Bend, ye kings, from your thrones of ivory and gold; in your robes of imperial purple, rail prostrate at his feet; who forsook a nobler throne, and laid aside more illustrious ensigns of majesty, that you might reign with God for ever and ever. Children of poverty, meanest of mortals (if any can be called poor, who are thus enriched; if any can be accounted mean, who are thus ennobled); rejoice, greatly rejoice, in God your Saviour, who chose to be indigent, was willing to be contemned; that you might be entitled to the treasures, and be numbered with the princes of heaven. Sons of affliction, though harassed with pain, and inured to anguish, O! change your groans into songs of gratitude; let no complaining voice, no jarring string be heard in the universal symphony; but glorify the Lamb even in the fires*, who himself bore greater torment than you feel, and has

* Ioai. xxiv. 15.

promised you a share in the joy which he inherits; who lias made your sufferings short, and will make your rest eternal. Men of hoary locks, bending beneath a weight of years, and tottering on the brink of the grave; let Christ be your support under all infirmities; lean upon Christ, as the rock of your salvation. Let his name, his precious name, form the last accents which quiver on your pale expiring lips. And let this be the first that lisps on your tongues, ye tender infants: remember your Redeemer in your earliest moments; devote the choicest of your hours to the learning of his will, and the chief of your strength to the glorifying of his name; who, in the perfection of health, and the very prime of manhood, was content to become a motionless and ghastly corpse; that you might be girt with the vigor, and clothed with the bloom of eternal youth.

Ye spirits of just men made perfect, who are released from the burden of the fiesh, and freed from all the vexatious solicitations of corruption in yourselves, delivered from all the injurious effects of iniquity in others; who sojourn no longer in the tents of strife, or the territories of disorder; but are received into that pure, harmonious, holy society, where every one acts up to his amiable and exalted character; where God himself is pleased graciously and immediately to preside: you find, not without pleasing astonishment, your hopes improved into actual enjoyment, and your faith superseded by the beatific vision. You feel all your former shyness of behaviour happily lost in the overflowings of unbounded love; and all your little differences of opinion entirely bore down by tides of invariable truth. Bless, therefore, with all your enlarged powers, bless his infinitely larger goodness; who, when he had overcome the sharpness of death, opened the gates of paradise, opened the kingdom of hfaven to all nenerations, and to every denomination of the faithful.

Ye men of holy conversation and humble tempers, think of him who loved you, and washed you from your sins in his own blood; think of him on your silent couch, talk of him in every social interview; glory in his excellencies, make your boast of his obedience, and add, still continue to add, the incense of a dutiful life, to all the oblations of a grateful tongue. Weakest of believers, who go mourning under a sense of guilt, and conflicting with the ceaseless assaults of temptation; put off your sackcloth, and be girded with gladness; because Jesus is as merciful to hear, as he is mighty to help; because he is touched with the tenderest sympathizing concern for all your distresses; and he lives, ever lives, to be your advocate with the Father. Why then should uneasy doubts sadden your countenances? Why should desponding fears oppress your souls r Turn, turn those disconsolate sighs into cheerful hymns, since you have his powerful intercession, and his inestimable merits, to be your anchor in all tribulations, to be your passport into eternal blessedness.

Most of all, ye ministers of the sanctuary; heralds commissioned from above; lift, everyone, his voice like a trumpet, and loudly proclaim the Redeemer: get ye up, ye ambassadors of peace, get yp up into the high mountains, and spread far and wide the honours of the Lamb, ’ that was slain, but is alive for evermore.’ Teach every sacred roof to resound with his fame, and every human heart to glow with his love. Declare, as far as the force of words will go, declare the inexhaustible fulness of that great atonement, whose merits are commensurate with the glories of the divinity*. Tell the sinful wretch what pitj yearus in Immanuel’s bowels; what blood he has spilt, what agonies he has endured, what wonders he has wrought for the salvation of his enemies. Invite the indigent to become rich; entreat the guilty to accept of pardon; because with the crucified Jesus is plenteous redemption, and all-sufficiency to save. While you, placed in conspicuous stations, pour the joyful sound; may I, as I steal through the vale of humble life, catch the

* If in this place and others, I have spoke magnificently of the blood of Christ, and its insuperable efficacy to expiate guilt, I think it is no more than is expressed in a very celebrated hymn, written by one of the greatest wits, who had also been one of the greatest libertines, and afterwards commenced one of the most remarkable penitent3, in France; a hymn, which even Mr. Bayle confesses to be a very fine one; which another great critic calls an admirable one; and which, a genius superior to them both, recommends as a noble one. (See Spect. Vol. VII. No. 513.)

The author, having acknowledged his crimes to be, beyond measure heinous, and almost beyond forgiveness provoking: so provoking, as to render tears from such eyes offensive, and prayers from such lips abominable: — composes himself to submit, without the least repining sentiment; to submit, even with praise and adoration to the most dreadful doom. Accordingly, he stands in resigned expectation of being instantly struck by the bolts of vengeance: but, with a turn of thought equally surprising and sprightly; with a faith properly founded, and happily firm, he adds,

Yet where! O where! can ev’n thy thunders fall? Christ’s blood o’erspreads and shields me from them all.

K2 pleasing accents! For me, the author of all blessings became a curse: for me, his bones were dislocated, and his flesh was torn: he hung with streaming veins, and an agonizing soul, on the cross for me O! may I, in my little sphere, and amidst the scanty circle of my acquaintance, at least whisper these glad transporting things; whisper them from my own heart, that they may surely reach, and sweetly penetrate theirs

But, when men and angels raise the grand hymn; when all worlds, and all beings, add their collective acclamations, this full, fervent, and universal chorus will be so inferior to the riches of the Redeemer’s grace, so disproportionate to the magnificence of his glory, that it will seem but to debase the unutterable subject it attempts to exalt. The loud hallelujah will die away in the solemn mental eloquence of prostrate, rapturous, silent adoration.

O goodness infinite! goodness immense!

And love that passeth knowledge! Words are

vain; Language is lost in wonders so divine. * Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.’

THE NIGHT.

Night is fair virtue’s immemorial friend:

The conscious moon, through ev’ry distant age,

Has held a lamp to wisdom.

Night-Thoughts, No.V.

Exhibits a view of the nocturnal heavens. On the top of an observatory, two persons examine the celestial bodies with their telescopes; instruments, which gave rise to the most important improvements in the science of astronomy.

An aged philosopher is represented, instructing his pupils. He describes, with his compasses, the order and courses of the planets, according to the Newtonian hypothesis, intimated by a book bearing that great author’s name. The whole tenor of the lecture, in concert with the whole structure and economy of the skies, enarrant gloria m Dei, professedly declare the glory of God. Behind the philosopher stands one of his scholars, with an air of close attention, computing on his fingers the distances, the magnitudes, the velocities of the planetary orbs. Another at his right-hand, attending to the description of the stupendous system, is struck with surprise, and impressed with awe. — A third, with conscious humiliation in his countenance, holds a scroll, inscribed with a diagram; expressing the joint action of the centrifugal and centripetal forces; as by the one, the planets are continually endeavouring to fly off; but by the other, are perpetually drawn towards the centre of their motion: sic gratia Dei, such is the operation of divine grace: correcting the irregular impulse of our natural depravity; determining our desires to the centre of happiness; and directing our goings in the circle of duty. — A youth on the left, overwhelmed with veneration for the Almighty Maker, in a transport of gratitude, and a posture of adoration, pours out his soul in those emphatical words: -’ When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained: — Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the son of man, that thou visitest him?’ Psal. viii. .3, 4.