A HYMN.

Praise to God for Creation and Providence.

I SING th' Almighty power of God,
That made the mountains rise;
That spread the flowing seas abroad,
And built the lofty skies.

I sing the wisdom that ordain'd
The Sun to rule the day;

The Moon shines full at his command,
And all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord,
That fill'd the earth with food;

He form'd the creatures with his word,
And then pronounc'd them good.

Lord, how thy wonders are display'd,
Where'er I turn mine eye:

If I survey the ground I tread,
Or gaze upon the sky!

There's not a plant or flow'r below,

But makes thy glories known;
And clouds arise and tempests blow,
By order from thy throne.

Creatures as num'rous as they be,

Are subject to thy care;

There's not a place where we can flee,

But God is present there.

H

Watts.

LECTURE

LECTURE IV.

ADAM AND EVE.

GEN. 2. 2. And the Lord God formed Man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul.

MAN

was the last and most excellent of all the works of God. He is a little world of himself, consisting of body and soul. Heaven and earth are joined together in Man, he is related to both worlds. Man was to be a different creature from all the rest; therefore a council was held about his formation. "Let us make Man," and not merely make him, but let us make him "in our image, after our likeness, and let us make him Lord of all, and give him universal dominion over all the creatures. Let them be subject to his controul, serve him and obey all his commands."

The works which God had already made he pronounced good, but when God had created Man, male and female, and had given

them

them dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creepng thing that creepeth upon the earth; when he had blessed them, and said unto them," be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it;" when God had said, "behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed-to you it shall be for meat," then all was completed. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was VERY GOOD."

I. I shall speak of ADAM, "for ADAM was first formed, then ÉVE.”

MAN* consists of two parts, a true body and

*Man is thus described by some writers.-He is the head of the animal creation; a being who feels, reflects, thinks, contrives, acts, who has the power of changing his place upon earth at pleasure, who possesses the faculty of communicating his thoughts by means of speech, and who has domiņi, on over all the other creatures on the face of the earth. See Buck's Theol. Dict. 2 vol. page 65.

a reasonable soul. We are told that the Lord God formed Man of the dust of the ground. God made the world from nothing, and he made Man from that which is of less value than any thing else-dust, small dust, such as lie on the surface of the earth-dust moistened with that dew which watered the earth. Thus our bodies are often said to be made of clay, that is, earth mixed with water. Man was not made of gold dust, of pearls or dia monds pounded or made into dust. No, he was made of common dust-the dust of the ground. The earth is called our mother, because Adam was made of the dust of the earth. We live on those things that grow out of the earth, and therefore we are nourished and supported from the earth. We must die, and our bodies will turn to dust again. God hath said, " dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return again." The name of Adam means earthy.

1. Let us consider the BODY of MAN in its various parts.

The HEAD, which contains the brains, and is adorned with hollow hairs, which serve both

1

for defence and ornament. The head is the fountain of spirits and the seat of reason. The HEAD is the chief part of the body.

The EYES. These are the windows of the soul. How curious, how beautiful, how wonderful! You have heard of the seven wonders of the world, but there is no wonder to be compared with the eye of Man. It is the greatest curiosity in the world. The eyes are the beauty of the face; how ugly we should look without eyes. The eye lashes are formed for the defence of the eye, to shield them from injury, and to keep dust from falling therein. Our eyes often cause us to sin, they may well be full of tears; sin is the cause of all our sorrows.

The EARS. Through these organs we obtain knowledge; by hearing, we believe and obey. Faith is said to come by hear ing, and hearing by the word of God. By the ear we distinguish sounds. Some persons are born deaf and cannot hear; they often understand by watching the motion of the lips of those who speak to them.