THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION, DEVOUTLY AND MORALLY ILLUSTRATED; OR A HUMBLE WALK WITH GOD. Pfal. lxxvii. 12. I will meditate alfo of all thy work; and talk of thy Pfal. civ. 34. My meditation of him fall be fweet; I will be glad in the Lord. Pfal, xix. 14. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my ལན ར་་ར ་ རན་རར་་ By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE, D. D. ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF AIR. The profits, if any, to be immediately remitted to the London fociety, AIR: PRINTED BY JOHN & PETER WILSON. The fubfcriptions being a free-will offering of the Town and Parish, though occafionally a religious performance has been made ufe of, is to be understood as their gratuity alone. 1908 To SUSANNA DALRYMPLE, Mrs MARGARET WHITESIDE,› Mrs WILLIAMINA RAMSAY TENNANT, MIS SARAH STEWART. My Dear Children, YOU have been, from the time of your capacity to apprehend any thing of importance, accuftomed to join in Family Worship, and, to the praife of Divine Grace, never, that I can recollect, difcovered a weariness, but the contrary. This leads me to hope that devotion, so natural a mother to every virtue, is, and always will be agreeable to you. So good has Almighty God been, as to give all of you, who have families, tuneful voices, which ought to make finging with melody in your hearts, a frequent employment along with this, in abfence of your hufbands. If a small portion of scripture be read, and such a paraphrafe of the Lord's Prayer as you are provided with, or the Lord's Prayer alone, this will make your houfes temples to the Moft High. When the children grow up they may do both for you. Accuftom them, if you please, to choose other short plain forms annexed to Sermons on Family Worship; and I truft your godlinefs and content A 2 ment together will make the provifion, under Heaven made by very tender partners, great gain. Their regularity hitherto, in methods which accord to their own conviction, makes me forefee death, after what our Divine Saviour has gone through on our account, as an enemy stripped of his worft terrors. Grant the above as what may be understood to be one important dying requeft, and when we part it will, I truft, be to meet very foon in his prefence where there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand where there are rivers of pleasure for ever more. Your affectionate, and I must add Obliged Father, W. D. PREFACE. ΜΑ AN is a fpectator capable of beholding the beauty of the univerfe, which ought not only to be his amufement, but to be understood by him as his special prerogative. It is a study of immenfe extent, and the more progrefs any one makes, the more he enjoys; the more in his own mind and among other people, as occasion offers, he is able to give glory to the Infinite Auther. Senfible proofs are the surest foundations of our know-ledge; and, accordingly, the Supreme Being hath revealed himself to the world by facts. His works do manifest his existence and attributes to a confiderable degree; and on that account, the ftudy of nature, as one branch of our inftruction, fhould be regarded by all. "They are fought "out of all them that would have pleasure in God," and the more narrowly they are infpected, the more grand and noble they appear, and their art the more exquifite. They keep the fkilful in conftant rapture! At the fame time " every man may fee it," as Elihu in the book of Job xxxvi 25. well obferves, "Man may be"hold it afar off. There is no fpeech nor language," fays the devout Pfalmift, "where their voice is not heard." Pfal xix. 3, 4. "Their line is gone through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." An Atheift, or even one grossly ignorant, is an impious oppofer of all these bright evidences; a rebel against his reafon, as well as against his God Owing to this it muft be, that inani mate creatures are fo often called upon, in fcripture, to |