The high Value and Excellence of the Human Soul. MATTHEW XVI. 26.—What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lofe his own foul? or what shall a man give The Value or the Importance of the Doctrine of our JOHN xi. 25, 26.—I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and The Value, or the Importance, of the Hope of a blessed Immortality, confidered as the principal Source of our Satisfaction and Serenity of Mind. 1 Cor. xv. 19.-If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we JOHN vii. 17.-If any man will do his will, he fhall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself, SERMON I. Wherein the Dignity of Man Confifts. GREAT and manifold are thy works, o God, in heaven and on earth: all abundant in wifdom and loving-kindness! We alfo, Almighty and all Bountiful, we also are the work of thy hands; and, of all the creatures of the earth, the foremost, the moft glorious! Formed after thy likeness; capable of knowing thee, of loving thee, of having commu nion with thee; capable of understanding, of feeling, of enjoying all the beautiful works and all the effects of kindness, which thou haft fo liberally fhed upon thy world, our abode; of elevating our minds to thee, the fource of beauty and perfection, of coming ever nearer to thee, of becoming ever more like thee, and in thee of enjoying ever purer delight and blifs! O God! what is man, that thou haft exalted him fo far above all the inhabitants of the earth, endowed him with fuch capacities and powers, allotted him this place in thy dominion, brought VOL. I. B him him fo near to thy fon Jefus and through him to thee, his father and our father, and opened to him fuch profpects in remote futurity in all the glories of thy creation! O God! what joy, what transports fhould it raife in our hearts that we are men; that we are thy children, thy image; that we are brethren of thy fon Jefus; that we are immortal, and may hope to become ever more perfect and ever more happy! with what gratitude, with what love towards thee, our creator, fhould it not imprefs our fouls; what lofty fentiments kindle in us; to what good and great actions incite us!-O let this grand, this blissful sentiment of our dignity and thy favour be ever present with us! o let it even now in a fuperior degree be active and effective in us, thoroughly penetrate and warm us, and fo entirely take poffeffion of us, that it may never more by any thing be weakened or fuppreffed! No; conftantly let us be impreffed with the excellence of our nature, our origin from thee and our high vocation, and conftantly think and live conformably with what we now are and can do, and what we hereafter fhall be and may perform! Blefs, in this respect, our meditations on these important doctrines; let thy fpirit ftrengthen and exalt our fouls, that they may feel the whole value of their privileges and powers, and rejoice in their existence and their connection with thee! We afk it as the difciples of him, who taught us to address thee as, Our father, &c. PSALM PSALM viii. 5. Thou haft made him a little lower than the angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour. MAN may be confidered two different ways. In defective being. one we find him a very limited, feeble, and Little fuperior, at best, to the beasts of the field, in many refpects apparently below them more circumfcribed, more impotent, more unhappy than they. Confidered in another light, he difcovers the faireft difpofitions, and the greateft capacities. Look at the effects of his external force; they indicate a being far more elevated than the inanimate or the animal creation: He per forms actions which excite and deserve univerfal admiration; but the operations and productions of his mind, give demonftrations of his affinity with the Father of Spirits, and prove him to be, in the moft exalted fenfe, the son of GoD. Confidered on one fide, human nature appears an object of compaffion. And they who thus view it, take all poffible pains to difmay us by derifion, by representing our pretenfions to dignity as the fancies of a foolish pride. On the other fide, man seems to merit the greatest esteem and veneration. And fuch as regard him in this light, exalt him far above all furrounding creatures, make him capable |