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SECTION XIX.

What are the real and Solid Enjoyments of Human Life.

Ir must be admitted, that unmixed and complete happiness is unknown on earth. No regulation of conduct can altogether prevent pafsions from disturbing our peace, and misfortunes from wounding our heart. But after this concefsion is made, will it follow, that there is no object on earth which deferves our purfuit, or that all enjoyment becomes contemptible which is not perfect? Let us furvey our ftate with an impartial eye, and be juft to the various gifts of Heaven. How vain foever this life, confidered in itself, may be, the comforts and hopes of religion are fufficient to give folidity to the enjoyments of the righteous. In the exercise of good affections, and the teftimony of an approving confcience; in the fenfe of peace and reconciliation with God, through the great Redeemer of mankind; in the firm confidence of being conducted through all the trials of life, by infinite. wifdom and goodness; and in the joyful profpect of arriving, in the end, at immortal felicity, they possess a happiness which, defcending from a purer and more perfect region than this world, partakes not of its vanity.

Befides the enjoyments peculiar to religion, there are other pleasures of our present state, which, though of an inferior order, must not be overlooked in the estimate of human life. It is necefsary to call attention to thefe, in order to check that repining and un

thankful fpirit to which man is always too prone. Some degree of importance must be allowed to the comforts of health, to the innocent gratifications of fense, and to the entertainment afforded us by all the beautiful fcenes of nature; fome to the purfuits and harmlefs amufements of focial life; and more to the internal enjoyments of thought and reflection, and to the pleafures of affectionate intercourfe with thofe whom we love. These comforts are often held in too low eftimation, merely because they are ordinary and common; although that is the circumftance which ought, in reafon, to enhance their value. They lie open, in fome degree, to all; extend through every rank of life, and fill up agreeably many of those spaces in our prefent existence, which are not occupied with higher objects, or with ferious cares.

From this reprefentation it appears that, notwithftanding the vanity of the world, a confiderable degree of comfort is attainable in the prefent ftate. Let the recollection of this ferve to reconcile us to our condition, and to reprefs the arrogance of complaints and murmurs.-What art thou, O fon of man! who having fprung but yefterday out of the dust, dareft to lift up thy voice against thy Maker, and to arraign his providence, because all things are not ordered according to thy with? What title haft thou to find fault with the order of the univerfe, whose lot is fo much beyond what thy virtue or merit gave thee ground to claim? Is it nothing to thee to have been. introduced into this magnificent world; to have been admitted as a spectator of the Divine wisdom and works; and to have had accefs to all the comforts which nature, with a bountiful hand, has poured

forth around thee? Are all the hours forgotten which thou haft passed in ease, in complacency, or joy? Is it a small favour in thy eyes, that the hand of Divine Mercy has been ftretched forth to aid thee, and, if thou reject not its proffered assistance, is ready to conduct thee into a happier state of existence? When thou compareft thy condition with thy defert, blufh, and be ashamed of thy complaints. Be filent, be grateful, and adore. Receive with thankfulness the blessings which are allowed thee. Revere that government which at prefent refuses thee more. Reft in this conclufion, that though there are evils in the world, its Creator is wife and good, and has been bountiful to thee.

BLAIR.

SECTION XX.

Scale of Beings.

THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world; by which I mean, that fyftem of bodies, into which nature has fo curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the feveral relations that those bodies bear to one another; there is ftill, methinks, fomething more wonderful and furprifing, in contemplations on the world of life; by which I understand, all thofe animals with which every part of the univerfe is furnished. The material world is only the hell of the univerfe: the world of life are its inhabitants.

If we confider those parts of the material world, which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore fubject

to our obfervations and inquiries, it is amazing to confider the infinity of animals with which it is ftocked. Every part of matter is peopled: every green leaf fwarms with inhabitants. There is fcarcely a fingle humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. We find, even in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities, which are crowded with fuch imperceptible inhabitants, as are too little for the naked eye to difcover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the feas, lakes, and rivers, teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures. We find every mountain and marsh, wildernefs and wood, plentifully ftocked with birds and beafts; and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniences, for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it.

The author of "the Plurality of Worlds," draws a very good argument from this confideration, for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very probable, from the analogy of reafon, that if no part of matter, with which we are acquainted, lies wafte and useless, those great bodies, which are at such a distance from us, are not defert and unpeopled; but rather, that they are furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations.

Existence is a blefsing to thofe beings only which are endowed with perception; and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any farther than as it is fubfervient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lie under our obfervation, that matter is only

made as the bafis and support of animals; and that there is no more of the one than what is necessary for the existence of the other.

Infinite Goodness is of fo communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in conferring existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation, which I have often pursued with great pleafure to myself, I fhall enlarge farther upon it, by confidering that part of the scale of beings, which comes within our knowledge.

There are fome living creatures, which are raised but just above dead matter. To mention only that fpecies of fhell-fifh, which is formed in the fashion of a cone; that grows to the surface of feveral rocks; and immediately dies, on being fevered from the place where it grew. There are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other fense than that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others, of fmell; and others, of fight. It is wonderful to obferve, by what a gradual progress the world of life advances, through a prodigious variety of fpecies, before a creature is formed, that is complete in all its fenfes: and even among these, there is fuch a different degree of perfection, in the fenfe which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, that though the fenfe in different animals is diftinguished by the fame com. mon denomination, it feems almost of a different na ture. If, after this, we look into the feveral inward per fections, of cunning and fagacity, or what we generally call instinct, we find them rifing, after the fame manner, imperceptibly one above another; and receiving additional improvements, according to the species in

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