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earth, and stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain; "who measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, and metes out heaven with a span; who comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." Oh! let us learn to draw, both from the heaven and from the earth, subjects that shall inspire us with devotion, and gratitude, and joy. Wherever we walk abroad, with the glories of creation spread around us, let us often stop and tune our hearts to raise the animated strain,

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.

3. All things being his creatures, all should serve him. This is the equitable law, and the universal proclamation, of nature. Let all things serve God. We especially, his rational creatures, are loudly called upon to praise, to worship, and to glorify him. Let us then consecrate our powers, our faculties,

our time, and talents, to his service. By his power we are made, by his care preserved, and by his bounty fed. What rebellion, what ingratitude, if we do not present ourselves, our souls and bodies, a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable service! Shall the child throw off its duty to the parent without reproach? shall the thing formed lift up its hand against him that formed it? shall we live to ourselves, who did not make ourselves? or to the world, which was made for us, not we for it? or to the devil, who has ruined, and would utterly destroy us? Rather, while we live, let us live unto the Lord, remembering that over and above the claim which arises from our creation, he has another, even yet greater, founded upon our redemption. He made us, and when we had destroyed ourselves he redeemed us; redeemed us too with the precious blood of his dearly beloved Son, so that we are not our own, for we are bought with a price. Therefore let us glorify God, in our bodies and in our spirits, which are his. Thus only shall we answer the end of our creation; and thus only will it eventually

be a blessing to us. If we live without the fear of God, servants to sin, better had it been for us if we had never been born; for thus we shall fall under the final wrath of God, and be doomed to eternal punishment and woe. Let us then be zealous candidates for glory, and honour, and immortality. Our bodies must die, because of sin. Out of the dust we were made, and unto dust must we return: but our souls may live, may live eternally, in the presence and glory of our Maker. Be this the object of our most anxious desire, of our most earnest pursuit.

SERMON II.

DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH.

GENESIS ii. 3.

And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made.

THE great eternal Creator of all things has a right to the service of all his creatures, and he who set "lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years," may well claim for himself such portions of these days and years as he sees fit. It has pleased him to claim a seventh. Every seventh day is to be set apart by man, that he may remember his God, and ceasing on that day from all his usual earthly toil, may appropriate it to the solemn worship of his Maker.

The work of creation, as we saw in the last sermon, had proceeded for six days, and was then finished; and God "rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had made." Not that he required rest as one that was weary, but he ceased from any further exercise of his creating power. In token thereof he appointed that day to be a day of holy rest for man, that, while he gazed on the works of creation, and ate its fruits, he might never be forgetful of the glorious Creator. In the foundation of the world, therefore, was the Sabbath ordained. To the first man, in his dwelling of paradise, before sin entered, the Sabbath was given, and stands as the first appointment of God unto his creatures. Hence it is of universal and perpetual obligation. While the races of mankind proceed in succession from Adam, and while the works of creation continue to stand before their eyes, the rest of the Sabbath must remain as a part of their duty, a holy day to be observed by all their generations, so long as the sun and moon endure.

That the observance of the Sabbath is of

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