use which a summer's day may make unfit to be kept amidst the living, and which so rapidly dissolve. into shapeless dust,-retain their proportions, their form, their use and their vigor, after our heart has beat fifty or a hundred millions of times; if, after ten thousand exposures, known and unknown, they are still firm and undecayed, need no repairs after the wear and accidents of many years, are not these bodies more than raiment? And what if wrinkles mar our faces, and the skin looks shrivelled on our hands, and grey hairs are here and there upon us, or even thick upon our heads? what, too, if the pulse of life beats somewhat more feebly, are not all these circumstances, memorials of many years of care and kindness — of skill and power, renewing the life and the body, even until now? Is not the life of the man in middle and advanced age; -is not the life of the old man, than meat, and the body than raiment ?" Amidst the lessons of the summer, let then our youth, and our aged more our young men and maidens, our old men and children, "praise the name of the Lord, for his name. alone is excellent his glory is above the earth and heavens." Let them "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." SERMON III. THE WARRANT TO FAITH FROM THE FOWLS OF THE AIR AND LILIES OF THE FIELD. MATTHEW 6: 26 & 30. Behold the fowls of the air: for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?— If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, Oh ye of little faith? THE proper end for which our Savior calls us to consider the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, is the exercise of faith in God, as our present and everlasting Helper. Amidst our wants and fulness, our fears and hopes, our despondency and presumption; the birds fly before us, and are fed, and the lilies shine in their glory, to check our vain boasting, to raise us from our despair; offering a warrant for faith in God. 1. The fowls of the air, and the lilies of the field, furnish specimens of the skill and power which are engaged to feed and clothe us. These perfect specimens of all that is needful to each order of beings in kind, warrant the conclusion that God will provide for us, in our kind, with equal skill and power. There is a perfect arrangement and provision for the lily, according to its vegetable nature, resulting in the perfect growth and glory of the plant and flower; and for the bird according to its animal nature-its instinctive sagacity, resulting in its adequate supply amidst the accidents which belong to its higher nature; and the conclusion is warranted that our bodies, themselves more than raiment, and endowed with a life more marvellous than the food by which it must be sustained, will have their wants as faithfully supplied. If we saw in the work-shop some sets of instruments of the most perfect workmanship, we might fairly trust the same power and skill to finish any that we saw at present incomplete. So, if in our sensible experience, we find at the point of our hopes and fears, a lack — which tempts us to presumption and despair, we have but to look around us upon the lilies of the field, and the fowls of the air, to be assured that God will provide all that belongs to our nature in all its duration. This conclusion would be just, if we were of no more value than the lilies; if like them we were insentient creatures, without pleasure or pain, and perishing like them in a day. 2. The warrant is enhanced in view of the sensible necessities of our animal nature, by God's tender mercies to the fowls of the air. Their lack is with animal suffering like our own their supplies comfort and cheer their animal natures as we are comforted and cheered. As we see, then, our heavenly Father supplying their wants with pity and in abundance, we are warranted to conclude that he will, with equal faithfulness and power, regard ours that our sensibility to the pains of hunger, and to the strength and gladness which come from supply, is in view of our heavenly Father an additional reason, for our being fed as kindly and as bountifully as we see in all the feathered tribes around us. Thus, is the warrant enhanced by our weakness and our pains; by our capacity of suffering and the conclusion would be just, the warrant would be perfect, if we were no better than the fowls of the air. God would not leave his work half done, if we were mere animals, capable only of present sensation, and losing in an instant all sensibility to pain and pleasure, with the passing away of our mortal life. 3. But the warrant is still further enhanced in view of our greater capacity of suffering and enjoyment from the mysterious connection of our minds with our bodies. Are we not much better than the fowls of the air? Our need of food and raiment belongs properly to our animal nature - to a nature which we have in common with the birds; but our sufferings in consequence of these necessities are increased, and even mainly produced by our minds. If we were mere animals, we should suffer probably only the actual pains of hunger and cold; but by means of our mind, by means of thought, that suffering is increased; and even when we are full, pains, a hundred fold greater than actual hunger or cold, may be produced by fear and apprehension. Such fear and apprehension are not absurd: they belong to us as beings at once capable of animal want and of anticipating the future; are no more to be annihilated than the pains of hunger are; and are felt at some times, intensely, by every human being, must be, by every thinking animal. We, perhaps, never in our life-time, have suffered the want of daily food; who of us can say that he never suffered intensely from fear and apprehension of lacking a supply? Here then it is, that the warrant is enhanced. So much the better as we are than the fowls of the air, so much the more capable as we are than they, so much the more reason have we for confidence in God for the supply of our animal wants. Thus marvellously does our greater liability to, suffering enhance the warrant which relieves us'; that which adds intensity to our pain, gives us the reason which changes it. to joy. How false, then, even to natural religion-how perversely false to the divine interpretation, is the stoical conclusion, which disgraced the pagan - which is not yet dismissed from the Christian world: that the body is not to be cared for, by an intelligent and immortal soul. Have we not the divine warrant for faith in regard to our animal wants, so much the more, because the mind is capable of enhancing them? Inasmuch as we are mentally capable of suffering more in view of hunger and exposure than the fowls of the air, so much the more reason have we to trust in God for food and raiment; for all that is needful for the body. But at this point explanation is needful; in view of the exceptions in fact to the provision so confidently |