Not in the rational creation only we discern the fatal evils of this accursed thing. The whole creation groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now." Once it died of a dropsy of waters, in the days of Noah; and shortly will expire in a fever of flames, when" the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Even now the husbandman, conscious of the sickliness of nature, acts like physician to the earth. Sometimes he opens her veins with the plough, and covers with soil, as with a strengthening plaster; sometimes lays her asleep, by suffering her to lie fallow for a time.Without these necessary precautions, she would refuse to yield her increase, and cleanness of teeth would be in all our borders.

Is it a small thing for sin thus to affect the whole creation? The garden of Gethsemane knows, and Calvary can tell, how sin hath affected even the great Creator. Bread of life, why wast thou hungry? Fountain of life, why wast thou thirsty? Why wast thou a man of sorrows, O thou Consolation of Israel? Thou glory of the human race, wherefore wast thou a reproach of men, and despised of the people? Thy visage was more marred than any man, and thy form than the sons of men. Sin nailed thee to the cross; sin stabbed thee to the heart; sin, like a thick impenetrable cloud, eclipsed thy Father's countenance to thy disconsolate soul; sin laid thee in a grave, O thou resurrection and the life!

Who would have believed, that the enemy would have entered within the gates of the heavenly Jerusa lem, pulled angels from their thrones, and brought even God himself from his high habitation, from excellent glory, from ineffable joys, to poverty and reproach, to sorrow and tribulation, and to the most inglorious death!

O heavy burden! under whose weight such multitudes of creatures groan, which made the mighty God, clothed with our flesh, to sweat great drops of blood, though sinners walk lightly on beneath the

mighty load. dreadful plague! O formidable sickmess! not to be chased away by a less costly medicine than the most precious blood of Christ, by whose stripes we are healed. O deadly poison! even when presented in a golden cup, and sweet unto the taste, it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder, and never fails to prove bitterness in the latter end.Nor can it be expelled by any other way than lifting up the Son of man, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. O mighty debt, whose payments could impoverish him, whose is the silver and the gold; who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich!" O ugly stain ! O inveterate pollution! not to be washed away by all the rivers that run into the sea. In vain we take unto us nitre and much soap; in vain we use our most vigorous endeavors to purge away our blot. Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, and the leopard his spots. The only Fuller that is equal to this mighty work, is he who purges the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.— The blood of the Lamb is the only purgatory that makes you whiter than the snow..

When, O when, shall I hate thee with a perfect hatred, thou worse than death? When shall I be afraid of thee alone, and be ashamed of thee alone? O thing exceeding sinful! When shall I be delivered from thy abhorred dominion? O when shall thy destructions have a perpetual end ?

Ou man's extreme misery by sin.

WHO can refrain from tears, whose eye of reason hath snatched but a cursory glance of mankind's numerous woes? Who but he whose heart is made of stone, and is lost to every impression of benevolence? As the dancing spark flies upward, so man is born unto trouble. Unhappy creatures, that kept not your

primeval state! Full early you revolted from your Creator God, in whose smile alone your happiness might dwell. The sparkling crown of innocence is fallen from your head. Hence all these fatal evils of your race. Ah me! what ghastly spectres are these! See moon-struck madness replenishing the melancholy bedlam, and torturing despair, a terror to herself, and all around her. See there oppression with iron hands, and heart of steel; poverty with her hollow eyes, her tattered garments, and sordid habitation; and all the family of pain, who tear the pillow from beneath their head, while sleep affrighted flies from our eye-lids.Shall I mention in the next place, drudgery with her grievous looks, toiling at the oar, or stooping under the burden? Alas! with what laborious efforts do mortals spend their vitals, to gain a wretched sustenance for themselves and their tender offspring, to be defended from the gnawings of hunger, and the power of chilling cold?

What creatures are not armed against thee, O man, who all espouse their Maker's quarrel ? There are, whom the angels of darkness harass with dreadful temptations, and still more dreadful possessions.—The angels of light loathe and detest such polluted beings, and frequently have been the executioners of direful vengeance. I might relate the numerous ills to which we are exposed from the inhabitants of the air, the beasts of the earth, and even the fishes of the sea.How hateful to men the holiest race of scaly serpents, hissing adders, ravenous lions, prowling wolves, hideous and weeping crockadiles? And even the puny race of locusts and caterpillars have scourged guilty nations for their crimes.

How frequently have fire and water, these ser viceable elements, made horrid insurrections, disastrous to the human race? Populous cities, with gilde palaces and lofty temples, have smoked fiery ruins; and, in old time, the dwellings of sinful men were swept away by a watery inundation.- -In vain the shrieking wretches betook themselves for safety to the

lofty battlements of houses, the tops of highest trees, or even the summits of the aerial mountains. Hear how the earth groans under the burden of thy sins! Here she spreads a barren wilderness, and idle desert; there lifts a frightful ridge of rocks, whence in many places we look down with giddy horror. In some countries she belches fire and smoke from dreadful volcanoes, tremendous indeed to all who hear, but much more terrible to those who live in the neighboring city, or in the villages of the circumjacent plain. Be it so that these awful phenomena of nature, and others of like threatening aspect, bespeak not this our globe to be the habitation of an accursed race; what shall we say to useless choking weeds, and poisonous plants, of which she is a willing parent, whilst she refuses to produce the foodful grain, unless when much caressed and importuned? How frequently she disappoints our fond hopes, and baulks our expectations!

When she refuses to yield her increase, then it is we have cleanness of teeth in all our borders, while pale famine walks abroad with her evil arrows. The staff of bread is broken, and feeble man totters, and falls, and dies.-At other times she expands her jaws, and swallows up alive vast multitudes of rational beings. Earthquake! men tremble when thou art but named Who can think of thee without horror? O what dire consternation in that dreadful moment !Whither, ah! whither can we fly from the doleful calamity? Avert it, heaven. Execute not thy threatened vengeance upon these guilty lands, and our proud metropolis.. If thou hast a mind to punish us, O visit with some milder rod, some gentler minister of wrath.

Not the earth alone, on which we tread, but the air in which we live, aud move, and have our being, proves dreadful to our wretched race. Sometimes she summons her stormy winds, her roaring tempests, and bids them shake the walls of stone, and dash the wallbuilt vessel on the rock. Vain is the help of tough

cables and tenacious anchors. The mighty waters at once receive the valuable cargo, and the despairing mariners. How often is she infected with the widewasting pestilence? Then death's shafts fly thick, and the hungry grave rejoices at the uncommon fare.Yet, ugly monster! she never says, it is enough.But, with no greater calamity can you be visited, ye sons of men, than those which claim your own species for their original. Fell are the monsters of the Lybian deserts! but not to be compared with the abhorred productions of the human heart. Hence matchless killing envy, filthy slander; hence persecution with torturing engines, war with her odious din, and bloody garments. How can you have peace among yourselves, when warring with your God?

Nor is there any period of life wherein we are exempted from wó. Not even the smiling infant is secured against the most fatal disasters. The miseries of childhood are apparent. Affliction spares not the blooming youth, nor reverences the venerable old man. Even age itself, what is it? An incurable distemper, always terminating in death. See how the countenance is shriveled up with wrinkles, the shoulders stoop, the hands tremble, the strong men bow themselves, and they that look out of the windows are darkened!

Neither can any station or condition rescue from these incumbent miseries. The rich, the honorable, and they who swim in tides of pleasure, can bear witness. Why else would Ahab sicken for Naboth's vineyard, and Haman lay so sore to heart the refractory behavior of Mordecai? If treasured riches, if sensual delights, added even to knowledge and wisdom, could satisfy the heart, then might thou, Solomon, enjoyed a heaven upon earth, nor complained of vanity and vexation, nor that he who encreaseth knowledge, encreaseth sorrow. Alas! even our greatest comforts prove killing; and far from issuing in contentment, we still complain even in large abundance of worldly delights.