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Let us then adore his name for its commodious figure and, while we culture our valleys, admire his handy-works: for not a plant, herb, nor flower, grows in them, but sheweth forth the glory and wisdom of their Maker. And seeing we cannot fully comprehend how a single pile of grass begins to vegetate and strike forth its roots in the earth, let us lie low in the valley of humility, nor dare to arraign the divine decrees, but say, with the father of the faithful, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Gen. xviii. 25.

Next, the majestic appearance of the forests should strike our minds with a due sense of that majesty and power which made and reared their lofty plants; and of that goodness which hath made them of such utility to man and beast. And as for the rivers, not to speak of what use they are for preserving and nourishing their finny inhabitants, which so plentifully furnish our ta- bles; they are of absolute necessity for the support and nourishment of both animal and vegetable life.

In them, not only all men, but all the beasts of the earth, may freely quench their thirst which sheweth the boundless beneficence of our Almighty Creator. Rivers are thereby fit emblems of the water of life, to which all the sons of Adam are invited to come and drink freely, without money and without price. Isaiah lv. 1. Rev. xxi. 17.

It is wonderful, that all the rivers are exhaled in vapours from the sea by the heat of the sun; refined in the clouds, distilled in gentle showers on the earth, and return thither again. Doth not the wisdom and goodness of God appear greatly in this? For, if the vapours were not thus drawn forth from the deep, refined and distilled, we could neither have fresh water nor rivers, and so no life or vegetation on the earth. And, on the other hand, if those vapours did not return again to the ocean in rivers, the earth would soon be deluged, and become unfit for the habitation of man or beast;---nay, in process time, become a sea itself, while the ocean became a dry land.

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Let us then bless the most high God for this wise disposal of things; and, as we have our life and being from him, as the showers accomplish the end for which they are sent on the earth, and then again return to the sea; so may we answer the end for which we were sent into the world, and at last return, through the merits of Christ, to God in heaven, the fountain of our being and happiness!

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Turn we now to the ocean itself: what a world of waters are there! and what a water of wonders! In this "" great and wide sea are 'things creeping innumerable, both small "and great beasts: There go the ships; there “is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to "play therein," saith David, Ps. civ. 25, 26.

This heap of great waters would soon prove the death of all the inhabitants in the earth, as well as its own, was it not kept from stagnating, and thereby putrifying, by the continual ebbing and flowing of the tide, every wave of which bespeaketh the wisdom and power of its almighty Maker, while they lash

the shore, and threaten to overwhelm the world. No sooner do they reach the decreed place, than they begin to retreat with apparent reluctance, still renewing their hostile attempts, and as often losing ground; till at length, by an invisible power, they are entirely beaten back to the main ocean.

If it were not for the seas, how could commerce be carried on with the different parts of the world? If all were dry land, that would be next to impracticable; nor could the gospel and civilization be spread through the globe. And may we not see a manifestation of divine wisdom in making every sea to have communication one with another, the Dead Sea and Caspian excepted; so that trading can be freely expedited and carried on through the world. A less heap of waters would not so well answer this end, and more were unnecessary.

Should not then that power, wisdom, and goodness, which created that vehicle of commerce, and made and discovered the power of the loadstone, by which means navigation

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is arrived at such perfection, draw forth our affections to our bountiful Creator? And do not the different species of animals, which inhabit air, earth, and water, all proclaim the wisdom and goodness of their and our almighty Lord?

The fowls, destined to fly in the open firmament of heaven, are all provided with wings and tails of convenient lengths, which serve as sails and rudders, to waft and steer their bodies through the aerial ocean; while their beautiful, glossy plumage, supports them aloft with ease, and sheweth forth to every intelligent being, that their Creator must be glorious, good, and wise, seeing he hath decked them with such graceful pinions, and otherwise qualified them for performing the functions of animal life.

How admirably are they suited with bills! whereas, if their mouths had been large, and in their heads, as those of quadrupeds are, how could they then have taken up small particles of grain from the earth, or digged insects out of the mould? whereas now, by

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