man, cultivate the earth, and tame the animals, and those that will not be tamed destroy; the poisonous extirpate, the ravenous restrain; and seek to subdue all things to wholesome laws, and be ourselves subject to the same. This is all that is in our power: and, when thus the creature hath been im- proved to the utmost, look around you, in this very island, and behold whether the crimson dye hath been taken out of it. No, there it is; kept out of sight as much as may be; but defying all power beneath the moon to alter it. You might as well think to clear the air of tempests, or the sea of storms, or the earth of stubborn unwillingness to yield any thing of herself better than thorns and briers, as think to cure or remedy the stern law of pain and death, and obstinate resistance unto man, under which the creatures have come.

Yes, I will tell you what more we can do after we have done all that British civilization-and there is none so perfect in the world-hath brought about. We can understand the account which God hath given us of this the evil constitution of the creatures we can search into his revelation concerning it; and, finding that it was not so in the beginning, but came by sin, for the fault of man, we can hate sin the more bitterly; while we the more poignantly repent of our sins, and drop a tear for this suffering creation; and lead upwards to heaven's gate the doleful song of our common suffering; and pray for that redemption in which we are taught to believe; and bless the Redeemer the more diligently; and call upon the sun and moon and stars, whose brilliancy the thick clouds hath obscured; and call upon the air, whose balmy sweetness Satan hath poisoned; and

upon the woods and the waters, which savage beasts have usurped, for a concealment whence to come forth against man, their sovereign lord; and the earth, and every plant which drinks the dew, and every beast which crops the herb, and every thing that hath a being, can we, yea, ought we, and will we, when thus schooled, call upon to praise and bless the Redeemer, who preserved them from instant death, hath continued them in an embryo life, and will bring them into perfect, glorious, and eternal harmony and well-being for ever.

And, of man, dearly beloved brethren, of man, made to be the ruler of all these things whose desecration I have been setting forth, how great is the degradation in himself, and the hard inflexible law of evil under which he hath been bound! Look at him, as you find him without the helping and healing hand of law; behold him as he traverseth the deserts, and roameth in the woods; or look at him in a civilized state, when any thing hath loosened the bit and bridle of government with which his mouth is held, as he was in France some thirty years ago; or look at him within the bounds of law, intoxicating himself, degrading himself beneath the brutes; fighting, raging, and rioting in every possible disguise; or look at him when escaping the law, prowling about like the wolf, and more cunning than the fox, more fell than the tiger, and more diligent in tracking his prey than the staunchest of the blood-hound tribes. But, oh! behold his wars; the fury of his onset, the stoutness of his battle, the havoc of his victory. For example's sake, behold a man who hath overtopped law, and reached the liberty of shewing what is in man-a Napoleon, for in

stance-see millions fall before him, and fall behind him; his own eye unbedewed, his own cheek unblanched, his heart unconscious of a pang, while he lets slip the last pack of his blood-hounds. Oh! oh! surely man, the master of all, who hath fallen from the greatest height of all, hath also fallen to the greatest depth of all.

Nor can this be helped: for if civilized states will not study war, and stand in an offensive attitude, then, as heretofore, the barbarous people, with which the earth teems, allured on by the scent of prey, will come down upon them like the wolf upon the fold, and cast the world long centuries back into the dreary waste of ignorance and lawlessness. It is as vain to talk of peace and peace-societies, in the present dispensation, as to talk of a cloudless sky and an untempestuous sea. And it is vain to decry the calling of a soldier, as if it were not as necessary to the well-being of any state as the calling of a hunter and a husbandman: the first, to bridle savage nations and arrest ambitious men; the second, to clear the woods and coverts of destructive creatures; and the third, to clear the earth of thorns and briers and bristly forests. These vain theories of a federal union of kingdoms to abolish war; and of the gradual influence of the people over their rulers, preventing wars; and of the common interest which commerce engenders gradually making war to cease, are all vague and unsound, and based upon a false assumption, that man is able to alter the iron conditions into which the Fall has brought him, and in which the Almighty Will doth keep him till the Redeemer shall come to take possession of the purchased inheritance. So also are

the theories, which in these infidel years have crept in, concerning crimes and punishments, and all legal restraints, as if they were cruelties and arbitrary impositions upon the subject; as if it were highly unphilosophical, as they are pleased to term it, to make man responsible for what his circumstances necessarily engender in him. As if man had no power to say I will not, as if he had no conscience to say I must not. And the philosophical destroyers have come the length of saying, that he is not responsible for his faith ; which truly is to say, that he is not responsible for knowledge, or feeling, or action, which all contribute in their spheres to a soil and atmosphere for faith. The reprobates have passed all bound; they are ready to burst all barriers: they have become fanciful, notional, empirical, with respect to every reasonable principle of human well-being, and axiom of human life. And ever and anon, as they destroy another timber in the structure, and pull down another stone in the foundation, they say, 'See what discoveries we are making! see what knowledge we have attained to! Oh what fools our fathers were! oh what wise men we! Such an age of light it is! Wonderful what achievements of liberal principles! Surely the world will be perfected in our time!' To me it is manifest, from these very occurrences, that the ship is breaking up, when, in the midst of a perilous voyage, (for this all allow,) the carpenters are giving her as thorough a repair as if she were in the dock.

But come nearer, and let us look into ourselves, and see the working of this law of the flesh, and the obscuration of the higher faculties of man within Here be ye all the judges: and tell me truly,

us.

if the body be not brought under a base thraldom to the meats and drinks which are naturally produced by the earth, or ingeniously prepared from its productions; if intemperance be not the native element of the sense, and lasciviousness the natural element of the eye, and infidelity the natural element of the mind, and indifference the natural element of the heart of man. Tell me truly, brethren, if you do not feel that the light of God within you is oppressed under the darkness of the sense; and if it be not with the most awful strugglings that you are able to carry into effect any of the commandments of God. Even we, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, do we not feel the bondage of this corruptible estate, of this body of sin and death, of this fallen world? Is not the natural man, with all his servants of the animal and vegetable creation, opposed to the Spirit of God? They best know the violence of the stream who have swum up against the stream; and these are the servants of the living God, who are struggling after their redemption. To you, little need be said of the hard service which we have to serve, and the extreme bondage under which we are bound. But, alas! I think that even we have forgotten our bondage and oppression. There is an universal compromise and league, which the children of God have struck with the beautiful daughters of nature. I say not that the incestuous marriage hath been consummated; but there is that kindly feeling, that delicate treatment, that open courtesy, that dalliance with the creature, which bespeaks us not far from the consummation of the marriage. And I am very sure, that, while such feelings exist towards those