for the most irreproachable and eminent of man kind, to renounce all arrogant pretensions; to lay aside every assuming air; to take nothing but shame and confusion to themselves? A holy prophet and a holy prince, felt such humbling impressions, from a glimpse of the uncreated purity. I abhor myself in dust and ashes, was the declaration of the one; I am a man of unclean lipst, the confes sion of the other.-Should not this teach us all, to adore the divine mercies, for that precious purifying fountain, which was foretold from the foundation of the world; but was opened at that awful juncture, when knotty whips tore the flesh; when ragged thorns mangled the temples; when sharpened nails cut fresh sluices for the crimson current; when the gash of the spear completed the dreadful work, and forthwith flowed there, from the wounded heart, blood and water. Especially, since God himself saw no blemish in ishly nice critic; or to those persons who dream of (I know not what) dignity in our failen nature: but it seems, in preference to every other interpretation, suitable to the sacred context; and is far, far from being injurious to the character of that apostate race, which is " altogether be" come abominable," and "is as an unclean thing."-On this supposition, there is not only an apparent, but a very striking contrast, between the purity of God, and the pol lution of man: the purity of the most high God, which outshines the moon, and eclipses the stars; the pollution of degenerate man; which, exclusive of a Saviour, would render him as loathsome to the all-seeing eye, as the vilest vermin are in ours.-Without assigning this sense to the passage, I cannot discern the force of the antithesis, nor indeed the propriety of the sentiment. Worms, in the general, give us an idea of meanness and infirmity; not of defilement and impurity: unless they are insects, hatched amidst putrefaction, and considered in such noisome circumstances.-The two words of the original, and nyin, are evidently used in this signification, by Moses and Isaiah: by the former, to denote the vermin which devoured the putrefied manna; by the latter, to express the reptiles which swarm in the body that sees corruption. Exod. xvi. 20. Isa. xiv. 11. In that day there shall be a Fountain, opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness, Zech, xiii, 1. his dear Son. He looketh to the moon, and it shineth not yet his all-penetrating and jealous eye discerned nothing amiss, nothing defective, in our glorious Redeemer. Nothing amiss? He bore this most illustrious testimony, concerning his holy child Jesus: "In Him I am pleased; I am well "pleased; I acquiesce, with entire complacency, "and with the highest delight, in his person; his "undertaking; and the whole execution of his "office."-How should this thought enliven our hopes; while the other mortifies our pride? Should not our hearts spring within us, and even leap for joy, at the repeated assurance given us by revelation, that such a divinely excellent person is our mediator? What apparent reason has every be liever to adopt the blessed Virgin's exclamation! "My soul doth magnify the Lord for his transcen"dent mercy; and my Spirit rejoices, not in wide "extended harvests, waving over my fertile 66 glebe; not in armies vanquished, and leaving "the peculiar treasure of nations for my spoil*; "but in an infinitely richer, nobler blessing, even "in God my Saviour."-That a person so sublime and perfect has vouchsafed to become my surety; to give Himself for my ransom, in the world below; and act as my advocate, in the royal presence above: yea, to make my recovery, the reward of his sufferings; my final felicity, the honour of his mediatorial kingdom! When an innumerable multitude of bodies, many of them more than a hundred thousand The inspired penman, from these two occasions of distinguished joy, sets forth the incomparably greater delight, which arises from the gift of à Saviour, and the blessing of redemption, Isai. ix, ver. 3. compared with ver. 6. + This refers, not only to the planets, which pass and repass about our sun, but also to the other planetary worlds, which are supposed to attend the several fixed stars. P But how much more marvellous is that magnificent œconomy, which poised the stars with inex pressible nicety, and meted out the Heavens with a span! Where all is prodigiously vast, immensely various, and yet more than mathematically exact. Surely, the wisdom of God manifests itself in the skies, and shines in those lucid orbs: shines on the contemplative mind, with a lustre incomparably brighter than that which their united splendors transmit to the eye. Behold yonder countless multitude of globes; consider their amazing magnitude; regard them as the sovereigns of so many systems, each accompanied with his planetary equipage. Upon this supposition, what a multiplicity of mighty spheres must be perpetually running their rounds in the upper regions! Yet none mistake their way, or wander from the goal; though they pass through trackless and unbounded fields. None fly off from their orbits into extravagant excursions; none press in upon their centre with too near an approach. None interfere with each other in their perennial passage, or intercept the kindly communications of another's influence. But all their haps, this remarkable expression may be intended to intimate, not only the extreme niceness, which stated the dimensions of the world in general, or in the gross; but also that particular exactness, with which the very smallest materials, that constitute its frame (not excepting each individual atom), were calculated and disposed-q. d. Tis a small thing to say, no such enormous redundancies, as unnecessary ridges of mountains, were suffered to subsist: there was not so much as the least grain of sand superfluous, or a single particle of dust deficient-As the grand aim of the description is, to celebrate the consummate wisdom, exemplified in the creation; and to display that perfect proportion, with which every part tallies, coincides, and harmouizes, with the whole; I have taken leave to alter the word of our English translation comprehend, and introduce in its stead a term, equally faithful to the Hebrew, and more significative of the prophet's precise idea, The interception of light, by means of an eclipse, happens very rarely; and then is of so short a continuance, as not to be at all inconvenient: nay, it is attended with rotations proceed in eternal harmony; keeping such time, and observing such laws as are most exquisitely adapted to the perfection of the whole. While I contemplate this "excellent wisdom, "which made the Heavens," and attunes all their motions; how am I abashed at that mixture of arrogance and folly, which has, at any time, inclined me to murmur at thy dispensations, O Lord! What is this, but a sort of implicit treason against thy Supremacy, and a tacit denial of thy infinite understanding?-Hast thou so regularly placed such a wonderful diversity of systems through the spaces of the universe-Didst thou, without any probationary essays, without any improving retouches, speak them into the most consummate perfection?-Dost thou continually superintend all their circumstances with a sagacity that never mistakes the minutest tittle of propriety? And shall I be so unaccountably stupid as to question the justness of thy discernment in "choosing my inheritance, and fixing the bounds "of my habitation?"-Not a single erratum, in modelling the structure, determining the distance, and conducting the career of unnumbered worlds! And shall my peevish humour presume to censure thy interposition with regard to the affairs of one inconsiderable creature, whose stature, in such a comparative view, is less than a span, and his present duration little more than a moment? such circumstances, as render it rather useful, than prejudicial. The sun in particular (and let this serve as a specimen of that most curious exactness with which the other celestial bodies are constituted, and all their circumstances regulated), the sun is formed of such a determinate magnitude, and placed at such a convenient distance" as "not to annoy, but only refresh us, and nourish the ground "with its kindly warmth. If it was larger, it would set "the earth on fire; if smaller, it would leave it frozen "if it was nearer us, we should be scorched to death; if "farther from us, we should not be able to live for want of heat." Stackhouse's History of the Bible. O! thou God! "in whose hand my breath is, "and whose are all my ways," let such sentiments as now possess my thoughts be always lively on my heart! these shall compose my mind into a cheerful acquiescence and a thankful submission, even when afflictions gall the sense, or disappointments break my schemes. Then shall I, like the grateful patriarch, in all the changes of my condition, and even in the depths of distress, erect an altar of adoring resignation, and inscribe it with the Apostle's motto, To God only wise. Then, shouldst thou give me leave to be the carver of my own fortunes, I would humbly desire to relinquish the grant, and recommit the disposal of myself to thy unerring beneficence; fully per suaded, that thy counsels, though contrary to my froward inclinations, or even afflictive to my flesh, are incomparably more eligible than the blind impulse of my own will, however soothing to animal nature. On a careless inspection, you perceive nó accuracy or uniformity in the position of the heavenly bodies: they appear like an illustrious chaos, a promiscuous heap of shining globes, neither ranked in order, nor moving by line.-But what seems confusion is all regularity; what carries a show of negligence, is really the result of the most masterly contrivance. You think, perhaps, they rove in their aerial flight, but they rove by the nicest rule, and without the least error. Their circuits, though seemingly devious, their mazes, though intricate to our apprehensionst, are marked out, not indeed with golden compasses, but by the infinitely more exact determinations of the all-wise Spirit. So, what wears the appearance of calamity, in See Gen. xii. 7, 8. Eccentric, intervolv'd; yet regular Then most, when most irregular they seem. |