when our bodies are mouldering in the duft, they will still retain their being and their powers; they are immortal, and nothing can. shorten or destroy their existence, but that almighty Being who firft created them, and who, as he is unchangeable, the fame yesterday to day and for ever, we may be fure will not.

CAN we now confider what we are, with what wonderful contrivance our bodies are formed, and what noble faculties our fouls poffefs, and not have the deepest sense of the goodness of that great and gracious Being, from whom we derived our exiftence? Can our fouls forbear praising him for the benefit of our creation ?-But our preservation no lefs calls for our thankfulness and praise.

WHEN the various parts of the human frame are confidered, and the number of thofe

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thofe delicate fibres, which are neceffary to the prefervation of life, and yet are capable of being difordered by the slightest accident, we ftand amazed at the continuance of our being, and fenfible how unable we are of ourfelves to fecure them from injury, and even to guard against the external annoyances to which we are exposed; we are led to acknowledge with the utmost lowliness, that it is through the Lord that we have been holden up ever fince we were born, and that he only can make us dwell in fafety. And this is the cafe not merely with refpect to our bodies, but the health and peace of our fouls alfo depend upon the fupport of God's providence. If we have ever feen the moft melancholy fpectacle which human eyes can behold-one of our fellow creatures deprived of the due ufe of his reason, we shall not need any arguments to convince us how ineftimable a bleffing it is to poffefs a found mind, altho, like the

bleffing

bleffing of bodily health, it be but little confidered by the generality of mankind. The fame in proportion is true of all the other faculties of our fouls; on God's fupport they all depend: were that withdrawn for a moment, confufion would enfue. But our gracious Father's goodness fhews itself alfo in the manner in which our being is continued to us.

THIS globe upon which we are placed, is furnished not only with things neceffary for our fupport, but with numberless comforts and delights; indeed there is scarce an object which ferves barely for ufe, and has not in fome degree the power of affording us pleasure: we feldom confider, perhaps, how much the goodness of God is manifeft in the pleasure which attends our taking in our daily food; in the prevalence of agreeable smells over thofe which are difagreeable; of harmonious and sweet founds

founds above thofe which offend the ear; in furfaces which are pleafing to the touch; and in the effects of light and colour on the fight. We can easily imagine how all the purposes neceffary to our existence might have been attained, without thofe agreeable fenfations which are annexed to them, and must therefore allow thofe pleafing circumstances to be an additional proof of the goodness of God. Our daily food might have equally fupported us, tho' it had the fame effect upon our palate as the most naufeous medicine; our fmell might have ferved to affift us in difcovering the qualities of things, tho' we had never been gratified with the scent of the rofe; the neceffary purposes of hearing had been answered, tho' every tone of the human voice, every found uttered by bird or beaft or occafioned by inanimate things, had been harsh and grating; our feeling might have contributed to fecure us from injury, and affifted us to

form

form juft notions of the fize and shape of things, tho' the touch of the fofteft down had been like that of the roughest stone; and our eyes might have given us every requifite benefit of fight, tho' we had never viewed the glory of the fun, the majestic grandeur of the heavens, the varied verdure of the landscape, or the ftupendous expanfe of the ocean; in fhort every necessary purpofe of the productions of nature might have been effected for our existence without those various fources of delight with which they are accompanied.

IF from the natural productions of God's providence for our being and welfare, we afcend to the confideration of focial intercourse; of the afliftances and pleasures which we receive from the various arrangements of regular government and civil fubordination; how the combined powers of mind and body, of intellect and strength

are