Israelite indeed, such as those people ought to be, who were gathered into the fold of the church, and had God for their shepherd. But when God had mercy upon all, and the Jew and Gentile became one fold in Christ Jesus, then this distinction was set aside. However, to all readers of the bible, the moral or spirit of this law is as much in force as ever. Wild, subtile, fierce, unclean manners, are as hateful in Christians, as they were of old in heathens: and the heathens were taken into the church, on condition that they should put off their savage manners; as the unclean creatures had before put off their natures and became tame, when they were admitted into the ark of Noah, a figure of the church. This change was again to happen under the gospel; and the prophet foretells the conversion of the heathens under the figure of a miraculous reformation of manners in wild beasts: the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together; and though they were once so fierce and terrible that a man dared not to come near them, they shall be so changed, that a little child may lead them-they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.

Authors of natural history divide their sub

ject into three parts, under the heads of animals, plants, and minerals-I would follow the same order to keep my subject within a moderate compass.

Plants are applied to explain the growth of the mind, with its different qualities and productions. Thus preached John the Baptist : The ax is laid unto the root of the trees; therefore every tree which beareth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. At the transgressions of former times God had winked, and suffered men to walk in their own ways; but now the serious day of reformation was come, and men were commanded to repent or to look for speedy execution; which accordingly came upon the unbelieving Jews, who did not take the Baptists warning. The ax was sharp; and the hand that held it being just and irresistible, it soon laid them level with the ground.

In the first psalm, the righteous man is described as a tree flourishing by the water side, and bringing forth its fruit in due season. Such is he whom the grace of God attends, and whose delight is in meditating day and night upon the law of the Lord; while the ungodly are like unprofitable chaff, driven away by the wind. No fruitless tree will be permitted to

remain in the plantation of God, nor be able to stand when the storm of judgment arises. Christians who do not persevere, but fall away into a sinful and unprofitable life, are compared to trees whose fruit withereth, twice dead, plucked up by the roots: dead once by nature, and dead again unto grace, after they had been revived by the reception of the gospel of such there is no hope.

:

The transitory nature of man in this mortal life is shewn by the herbs of the field; and the scripture draws this picture with such beauty as far surpasses the most laboured poetical elegies on mortality-In the morning it is green and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, dried up and withered *.-All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:-the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever †. In their decay, the herbs of the field are patterns of man's mortality; but in the order of their growth, from seeds dead and buried, they give a natural testimony to the doctrine of the resurrection; and the apostle therefore speaks of bodies rising from the dead as of so many seeds springing from the ground. The prophet Isaiah speaks as expressly upon the same subject:

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thy

*Psalm xc.

+ Isaiah xl. 6.

thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead *.

Much instruction is to be gathered from the treasures which men take (with other views) from beneath the earth: for perishable riches are figures of the true riches, which give in substance what the other give in shadow: these are the riches of the mind; and though of little esteem with the generality of the world, they are yet of infinite value to those that possess them. The apostles of Jesus Christ were poor in appearance, but could boast of being able to make many rich in faith and knowledge. The gifts of God to the mind are represented in one of the parables as so many talents of money, entrusted to men by the Lord of all things, with which they are to traffick in this state of probation, and improve them to the best of their power. He who makes no improvement will lose what he has got, and then he is poor indeed.

In the prophecy of Daniel, the four monarchies of the world were signified by the chief metals which are taken from the earth, all united in that visionary image which appeared

Isaiah xxvi. 19.

to

to Nebuchadnezzar. The head of gold meant the Assyrian monarchy; the breast of silver was the Persian; the brazen part was the Grecian; and the legs

clay were the Roman.

and feet of iron and

The last was inferior

to all the rest in quality, but exceeded them in strength, as iron breaks all other things in pieces. The kingdom of Christ, arising in the time of the fourth monarchy, is meant by the stone cut out of the mountain (that is, out of the church) without hands, to smite this mighty image of worldly power upon the feet, and overthrow it. Accordingly, as christianity grew stronger, the Roman empire declined, and was soon reduced nearly to the state in which we now see it *.

We have taken a review of the natural creation, so far as the compass of these Lectures will permit, and have seen how the scripture has applied the several parts of it for the increase of our faith and the improvement of our understandings. Thus we are taught how to make the best and the wisest use to which this world can be applied. The Creator himself hath made this use of it, in revealing his will by it, and referring

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* The reader may see the three kingdoms of plants, animals, and minerals, considered more at large in Three Discourses preached at Fairchild's Lecture, by the author of this work. Printed for Messrs. Robinson, Pater-noster-row.