DISCOURSE IX.

PSALM i. VER. 3.

" HE SHALL BE LIKE A TREE PLANT"ED BY THE RIVERS OF WATER, << THAT BRINGETH FORTH HIS "FRUIT IN HIS SEASON: HIS LEAF 66 ALSO SHALL NOT WITHER, AND

WH

ATEVER feeming inequality there may be in the difpenfations of the Almighty, or however partial he may appear to the eye of human reason, in his distribution of spiritual or temporal bleffings among the fons of men; it will, nevertheless, be found, at the confummation of the great scheme of Providence,

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vidence, that he has done every thing "in number, weight, and measure;" and that every part and period of the Divine Administration hath been planned by unerring Wisdom, and conducted by univerfal and impartial Love.

Minute philofophers, and men who value themselves upon what they call a liberal and enlarged way of thinking, may imagine, that this is no more than a religious dream, and argue, from présent appearances, that "all things happen "alike unto all men, and that there is "but one event to the righteous and to "the wicked, to him that ferveth GoD, "and to him that ferveth him not." But the Heaven-taught philosopher, whofe inward eye is illuminated from above, can fee into the secret springs, by which the vaft machine is perpetually kept in motion, and by which all the infinite variety of workings in intelligent and inanimate nature, are rendered fub

fervient

.

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fervient to the Glory of GoD, and the final confummation of his eternal plan in the fupreme felicity of his creatures. By virtue of that heavenly euphrasy with which his visual ray is purged and cleansed, he sees, and is intimately convinced, that notwithstanding the frequent viciffitudes with which the life of a good man is fadly checquered, he is neverthelefs "like a tree planted by the rivers of "water, that bringeth forth his fruit in "his feafon; that his leaf also doth not "wither, and whatsoever he doth shall profper."

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There is a peculiar beauty and propriety in this fimilitude, and every part of it bears a wonderful analogy to that fpiritual life, into which fallen man hath been reinstated by the MEDIATION OF THE SON OF GOD.

Man, by turning his will from his Maker, loft that paradifiacal glory, in which

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which he was originally created; and found nothing left, in its ftead, but a wrathful spirit within, and a dark difordered world without. By this act of his own will, he transplanted his nature, if I may so speak, from the delightful garden of Eden, in which the ALMIGHTY had placed him, into the midst of a thorny barren defart. He deprived it of all that nourishment it received from those waters of life, which furrounded the blissful spot; and, in confequence, it must have been parched up and have withered away, had not DIVINE LOVE affectionately interpofed, and put him once more into a capacity of recovering his loft inheritance, and regaining the vital streams, by which alone his heavenly nature could be preferved and cherished.

It is true, man ftill continues in the defart of fallen nature: the first Adam is ftill condemned to till the ground from whence he was taken. But the second

Adam,