A Meditation for the First of May
What astonishing variety of artifices, what innumerable millions of exquisite works, is the God of nature eng-aged in every moment! How gloriously are his all-pervading wisdom and power employed in this useful season of the year, this spring of nature! What infinite myriads of vegetable beings is he fonning this very moment, in their roots and branches, in their leaves and blossoms, their seeds and fruit! Some indeed begun to discover their bloom amidst the snows of January, or under the rough cold blasts of March: Those flowers are withered and vanished in April, and their seeds are now ripening to perfection. Others are shewing themselves this day in all their blooming pride and beauty; and while they adorn the gardens and meadows, with gay and glowing colors, they promise their fruits in the days of harvest. The whole nation of vegetables is under the divine care and culture, his hand forms them day and night with admirable skill and unceasing operation, according to the natures he first gave them, and produces their buds and foliage, their flowery blossoms, and rich fruit in their appointed months: Their progress in life is exceeding swift at this season of the year; and their successive appearances, and sweet changes of raiment are visible almost hourly.
But these creatures are of lower life, and give but feebler displays of the Maker’s wisdom. Let us raise our contemplations another story, and survey a nobler theatre of divine wonders. What endless armies of animals is the hand of God moulding and figuring this moment throughout his brutal dominions! What immense flights of little birds are now fermenting in the e(rg heaving and growing towards shape and life! What vast flocks of four-footed creatures, what droves of large cattle are now framed in their early embryos, in the dark cells of nature! and others perhaps are moving toward liberty, and just preparing to see the light. What unknown myriads of insects in their various cradles and nesting-places are now vsorking toward vitality and motion! and thousands of them with their painted wings just beginning to unfurl and expand themselves into fluttering and day-light; while other families of them have forsaken their husky beds, and exult and glitter in the warm sun-beams!
An exquisite world of wonders is complicated even in the body of every little insect, an ant, a gnat, a mite, that is scarce visible to the naked eye. Admirable engines! which a whole academy of philosophers could never contrive; which the nation of poets hath neither art nor colors to describe; nor has a world of mechanics skill enough to frame the plainest, or coarsest of them. Their nerves, their muscles, and the minute atoms which compose the fluids fit to run in the little channels of their veins, escape the notice of the most sagacious mathematician, with all his aid of glasses. The active powers and curiosity of human nature are limited in their pursuit, and must be content to lie down in ignorance. — “Hitherto shall ye go, and no further.”
It is a sublime and constant triumph over all the intellectual powers of man, which the great God maintains every moment in these inimitable works of nature, in these impenetrable recesses and mysteries of divine art! And the month of May is the most shining season of this triumph. The flags and banners of almighty wisdom are now displayed round half the globe, and the other half waits the return of the sun, to spread the same triumph over the southern world. This very sun in the firmament is God’s prime minister in this wondrous world of beings, and he works with sovereign vigor on the surface of the earth, and sjDreads his influences deep under the clods to every root and fibre, moulding them into their proper forms, by divine direction. There is not a plant, nor a leaf, nor one little branching thread, above or beneath the ground, that escapes the eye or influence of this beneficent star: An illustrious emblem of the omnipresence and universal activity of the Creator.
But has this all-wise Creator, this supreme Lord of all nature, no intellectual prime minister at all in these his dominions? Has he delegated all his powers to that bulky globe of fire which we call the sun, that inanimate and unthinking mass of matter? Is this huge burning and senseless body commissioned to penetrate every dark cranny of nature either with its light or heat, and to animate every atom in the vegetable and animal kingdoms; and yet no intellectual being, no spirit so much a-kin to God, as to be favored with the like extensive vicegerency? Though the light of reason does not tell his name, yet has not revelation informed us? Yes, surely, there is a man after God’s own heart, the fairest image of the Creator, and nearest a-kin to liira, among all the works of his liaiids: There is a man, and his name is Jesus, who holds most intimate and personal union with the Godhead, in whom all divine wisdom dwells bodily, and to his care has the Father committed all the infinite varieties of the vegetable and animal worlds. By him are all these wonders produced in the course of providence, as by an under-agent in the kingdom of nature. Is not the government of heaven and earth put into his hands: Is he not made Lord of principalities and powers, of men, angels, and devils, and of all their works? And can we think that he has been denied the government of the lower parts of his Father’s workmanship? Does he not manage all things in the world of grace? Surely then we may infer, he rules us wisely and as spaciously in the upper and lower regions of the creation, as an intellectual and conscious instrument of the providence of his Father, God. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. I and my Father are one. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying. Blessing and honor, and glory and power, be to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.” Amen.