profperity commonly accelerates their growth. If our enjoyments be numerous, we lie more open on different fides. to be wounded. If we have poffeffed them long, we have greater caufe to dread an approaching change. By flow degrees profperity rifes; but rapid is the progrefs of evil. It requires no preparation to bring it forward. The edifice which it coft much time and labour to erect, one inaufpicious event, one fudden blow, can level with the duft. Even fuppofing the accidents of life to leave us untouched, human blifs muft ftill be tranfitory; for man changes of himself. No courfe of enjoyment can delight us long. What amufed our youth, lofes its charm in maturer age. As years advance, our powers are blunted, and our pleafurable feelings decline. The filent lapfe of time is ever carrying fomewhat from us, till at length the period comes, when all must be fwept away. The profpect of this termination of our labours and purfuits, is fufficient to mark our state with vanity. "Our days are a hand breadth, and our age is as nothing." Within that little fpace is all our enterprise bounded. We crowd it with toils and cares, with contention and ftrife. We project great defigns, entertain high hopes, and then leave our plans unfinished, and fink into oblivion.

This much let it fuffice to have faid concerning the vanity of the world. That too much has not been faid, muft appear to every one who confiders how generally mankind lean to the oppofite fide; and how often, by undue attachment to the prefent ftate, they both feed the moft finful paffions, and " pierce themfelves through with many forrows."

M BLAIR

SECTION XIX.

WHAT ARE THE REAL AND SOLID ENJOYMENTS OF HUMAN LIFE.

Ir must be admitted, that unmixed and complete happinefs is unknown on earth. No regulation of conduct can altogether prevent paffions from difturbing our peace,and misfortunes from wounding our heart. But after this conceffion 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 just to the various

gifts of Heaven. How vain foever this life, confidered in itfelf, may be, the comforts and hopes of religion are sufficient to give folidity to the enjoyments of the righteous. In the exercife 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 Wisdom and Goodnefs; and in the joyful profpect of arriving, in the end, at immortal felicity, they poffefs 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 prefent ftate, which, though of an inferior order, must not be overlooked in the estimate of human life. It is neceffary to call attention to these, in order to check that repining and unthankful spirit to which man is always too prone. Some degree of importance must be allowed to the comforts of health, to the innocent gratifications of fenfe, and to the entertainment afforded us by all the beautiful scenes of nature; fome to the purfuits and harmless amusements of focial life; and more to the internal enjoyments of thought and reflection, and to the pleafures of affectionate intercourse with those whom we love. Thefe comforts are often held in too low estimation, merely because they are ordinary and common; although that is the circumftance which ought, in reason, to enhance their value. They lie open, in fome degree, to all; extend through every rank of life, and fill up agreeably many of thofe fpaces in our present existence, which are not occupied with higher objects, or with ferious

cares.

From this reprefentation it appears that, notwithstanding the vanity of the world, a confiderable degree of comfort is attainable in the present state. 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 sprung but yesterday out of the duft, dareft to lift up thy voice against thy Maker, and to arraign his Providence, becaufe all things are not ordered according to thy wish? What title hast thou to find fault, with the order of the universe, 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 access to all the comforts which nature, with a bountiful hand, has poured forth around thee? Are all the hours forgotten which thou haft paffed in ease, in complacency, or joy? Is it a small favour in thy eyes, that the hand of Divine Mercy has been stretched forth to aid thee; and, if thou reject not its proffered affiftance, is ready to conduct thee into a happier state of existence? When thou comparest thy condition with thy defert, blush, and be afhamed of thy complaints. Be filent, be grateful, and adore. Receive with thankfulness the bleffings which are allowed thee. Revere that government which at present 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.

SECTION XX.

SCALE OF BEINGS.

* BLAIR,

THOUGH there is a great deal of pleafure in contemplating the material world; by which I mean, that system of bodies, into which nature has fo curiously wrought the mafs of dead matter, with the feveral relations that thofe bodies bear to one another; there is ftill, methinks, something more wonderful and furprising, in contemplations on the world of life, by which I understand, all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the universe the world of life are its inhabitants.

If we confider thofe parts of the material world, which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject 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 glaffes do not difcover myriads of living creatures. We find even in the moft folid 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 discover. On

the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we fee the feas, lakes, and rivers, teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures. We find every mountain and marsh, wildernets and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beafts; and every part of matter affording proper neceffaries 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 feems very probable, from the analogy of reafon, that if no part of matter, with which we are acquainted, lies waste and useless, thofe great bodies, which are at fuch a distance from us, are not defert and unpeopled; but rather, that they are furnished with beings adapted to their refpective fituations.

Existence is a blefling 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 confcious 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 neceffary for the existence of the other.

Infinite Goodness is of fo communicative a nature, that it feems to delight in conferring existence upon every des gree of perceptive being. As this is a fpeculation, which I have often purfued with great pleasure to myself, I fhal! enlarge farther upon it, by confidering that part of the fcale of beings, which comes within our knowledge.

There are fome living creatures, which are raised but juft above dead matter. To mention only that fpecies of thell fith, which is formed in the fafhion of a cone; that grows to the furface of feveral rocks; and immediately dies, on being fevered from the place whereit grew. There are many other creatures but one remove from thefe, which have no other fenfe 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 progrefs the world of life advances, through a prodigious variety of fpecies, before a creaturé 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 common denomination, it seems almoft of a different nature. If, after this, we look into the feveral inward perfections of cunning and fagacity, or what we generally call inftinct, we find them rifing, after the fame manner, imperceptibly one above another; and receiving additional improvements, according to the fpecies in which they are implanted. This progrefs in nature is fo very gradual, that the most perfect of an inferior fpecies, comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately above it.

The exuberant and overflowing goodnefs of the Supreme Being, whofe mercy extends to all his works, is plainly feen, as I have before hinted, in his having made fo very little matter, at least what falls within our knowledge, that does not fwarm with life. Nor is his goodness lefs feen in the diverfity, than in the multitude of living creatures. Had he made but one fpecies of animals, none of the reft would have enjoyed the happiness of existence: he has therefore, fpecified, in his creation, every degree of life, every capacity of being. The whole chafm of na ture, from a plant to a man, is filled up with diverse kinds of creatures, rifing one after another, by fuch a gentle and eafy afcent, that the little tranfitions and deviations from one fpecies to another, are almost infenfible. This intermediate fpace is fo well hufbanded and managed, that there is fcarcely a degree of perception, which does not appear in fome one part of the world of life. Is the goodnefs, or the wifdom of the Divine Being, more manifefted in this his proceeding?

There is a confequence, befides thofe I have already mentioned, which feems very naturally deducible from the foregoing confiderations. Is the fcale of being rifes by fuch a regular progrefs, fo high as man, we may, by parity of reafon, fuppofe, that it fill proceeds gradually through thofe beings which are of a fuperior nature to him; fince there is infinitely greater space and room for different degrees of perfection, between the Supreme Be ing and man, than between man and the moft despicable infect.

In this great fyftem of being, there is no creature fo

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