in

falling under the curse of barrenness, be sufficient, as surely it must, to alarm our fears, let it send us to embrace without delay the means of safety. That the ministers of Christ may not rise up the judgment against us, let us with candour and impartiality, with simplicity, and sincerity, listen to their instructions, and apply them faithfully to the discipline of our hearts, and the regulation of our conduct. It will essentially contribute to this end, if we bring home every sermon we hear to our own business and bosoms, and apply to our particular characters and circumstances, every moral precept, every affecting argument, every pressing exhortation to eschew evil and do good. But since neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase, to him that alone openeth the understanding and converteth the soul, to him, as often as we assemble in his house of prayer, let the fervent desire of our hearts ascend in humble petition, that he would "give unto us increase of grace to hear meekly his word, to receive it with pure affection, and to bring forth the fruits of the spirit."

SERMON XIX.

PSALM viii. v. 3, 4, 5.

When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained: What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

FROM the magnificent spectacle here presented, it is natural to conclude that the devout Psalmist went out to meditate in the silence of a serene night, when the moon was shining in unclouded majesty, and the stars around her, in all their various magnitudes and splendours, were gloriously decorating the vault of heaven. Struck with amazement in contemplation of the stupendous firmament, he suddenly turns his view inwardly upon himself, and impressed with the littleness and insignificance of the creature man, in comparison with the grandeur and immensity

of the sun, and moon, and stars, he naturally exclaims, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?" But looking forward in his prophetic character to the immortal destiny of man, he reverses his views of human nature as visited with the salvation of the gospel, and thus crowned with glory and honour. The text then obviously presents two topics for our consideration, the abasement and the exaltation of man, his abasement as a fallen creature, subject to vanity and death; his exaltation as recovered from his fall by the power of religion, and as reinstated in his original dignity and felicity by the work and the mercies of redemption.

I. Convincingly to impress upon our minds the physical and moral infirmity and helplessness of man, let us follow him through the scenes of that vain life which he spendeth as a shadow. His infancy is a long season of helpless imbecility and of suffering. Increasing years bring with them but increase of sorrow. Who can count over the various infirmities, accidents, and diseases, to which our frail bodies are liable? They are fearfully as well as wonderfully made; the extreme delicacy of the organs which compose their structure exposes them to serious injury from such trivial causes, that their continuance in life seems

a perpetual miracle. The principle of mortality which we bring with us into the world grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength, and the very food we take to sustain our bodies accelerates their decay and dissolution. During our brief abode in these sickly tabernacles, each passing day is marked with the groans of sorrow or the cries of distress. A large portion of mankind are condemned by incessant toil to earn the bare necessaries of life; many thousands have no means of subsistence; and as for those whom the world calls happy, the sighs which escape them, the listlessness, the languor, and discontent, which inwardly prey upon them, are if possible a more striking demonstration of the misery of humanity, and of the truth of the scriptural record, that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards." And as for our boasted reason, how precarious is its guidance, how easily is it led astray. It is a feebly-burning torch, extinguished by the gust of every rising passion. We know not the things it is most important for us to know, and the efforts of our reason to discover them are like those of a blindfold person to disengage his eyes, or of a bewildered traveller to find his way. Were we not fallen creatures, reason would be our faithful and unerring guide and counsellor. But it is the

deplorable consequence of the fall of Adam, that the reasoning faculty is in subserviency to the lower affections and appetites of the animal man. The miserable effects of this moral bondage are feelingly lamented in those words of the apostle to the Romans: "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Who that now hears me does not experience every day a similar contest within his own breast of opposing irreconcilable inclinations and desires, the law of the mind inclining him to obey the law of God, the law of the members disposing him to obey the law of sin? We form pious resolutions, temptation comes across them, we yield, we repent, we sin again. The heart is the very seat of the disease inflicted by the fall of man. The heart is a mysterious fountain. sending forth sweet waters and bitter. The heart is the source of every noble and generous sentiment; the heart is also the source of every moral evil, of pride, and malice, and sensuality, and all those fatal passions which disturb the peace and deform the face of society. We call infancy the