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LECT. finite value to those that poffefs them. The apoftles of Jefus Chrift were poor in appearance, but could boaft of being able to make many rich in faith and knowledge. The gifts of God to the mind are reprefented in one of the parables as fo many talents of money, entrusted to men by the Lord of all things, with which they are to traffick in this ftate of probation, and improve them to the beft of their power. He who makes no improvement will lofe what he has got, and then he is poor indeed.

In the prophecy of Daniel, the four monarchies of the world were fignified by the chief metals which are taken from the earth, all united in that vifionary image which appeared to Nebuchadnezzar. The bead of gold meant the Affyrian monarchy; the breaft of filver was the Perfian; the brazen part was the Grecian; and the legs and feet of iron and clay were the Roman. The last was inferior to all the reft in quality, but exceeded them in ftrength, as iron breaks all other things in

pieces.

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pieces. The kingdom of Chrift, arifing LECT. in the time of the fourth monarchy, is meant by the fone cut out of the mountain, (that is, out of the church) without hands, to finite this mighty image of worldly power upon the feet, and overthrow it. Accordingly, as christianity grew stronger, the Roman empire declined, and was foon reduced nearly to the ftate in which we now fee it*.

We have taken a review of the natural creation, fo far as the compafs of these Lectures will permit, and have seen how the scripture has applied the several parts

of it for the increase of our faith and the improvement of our understandings. Thus we are taught how to make the best and the wifest use to which this world can be applied. The Creator `himself hath made this use of it, in revealing his will by it, and referring man to it for instruction

* The reader may fee the three kingdoms of plants, animals, and minerals, confidered more at large in Three Dif courfes preached at Fairchild's Lecture, by the author of this work. Printed for Meffrs. Robinson, Pater-nofter-row. from

G 2

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LECT. from the beginning. For this ufe he intended it when it was made; and without fuch an intention, there never could have been fuch an univerfal agreement between nature and revelation.

In this use of the world men differ from brutes, who can fee it only with the eyes of the body, and can apply it to nothing but the gratification of the appetites. The ambitious and the covetous are wafting their time to gain as much as they can of it, without knowing what it is; as children covet new books for the pictures and the gilding, without having sense to improve by what is within them. To those who confider only how the creation can furnish matter to their lufts and pasfions, it is no better than a vain fhadow: but to those who take it rightly, it is a shadow of heavenly things; a school in which God is a teacher; and all the objects of fenfe in heaven and earth, and under the earth, are as the letters of an univerfal language, in which all nations have a common interest.

There

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There was an opinion, (I should rather LECT. call it a tradition) amongst fome heathen philofophers, that the world is a parable, the literal or bodily part of which is manifeft to all men, while the inward meaning is hidden, as the foul in the body, the moral in the fable, or the interpretation in the parable. They had heard there was

* Εξεσι γαρ και τον Κόσμον ΜΥΘΟΝ ειπειν σωμαίων μεν και χρημαίων εν αυτω φαινομένων, ψυχων δε και νοων κρυπτομενων. Salluft. Περι θεων. cap. 3.

Κοσμον δε ανθις τον μεν νοήλον οι δεν η βαρβαρος φιλοσοφία, τον δε αισθήλον• Τον μεν αρχείυπον, τον δε εικόνα 78 καλέμενο παραδειγμα 7ος. Και τον μεν αναιθησι Μοναδι, ως αν νοητον τον δε αισθήλον Eşadı. Clem. Alex. Strom. Lib. 5. p. 412.

"We may call the world a fable, or parable; in which "there is an outward appearance of vifible things, with an "inward sense which is hidden as the foul under the body.

"There is a barbarous philofophy, (i. e. a foreign philo"fophy) which hath a knowledge of the fenfible and the "intellectual worlds; the one being the archetype or ori"ginal, the other an image or copy of it. It compares the "intellectual to unity, and the fenfible to the number fix."

This barbarous philofophy, fo called by Plato, whose doctrine is here repeated by Clemens Alexandrinus, was no where to be found but in the bible; which in its week of days, has a fingle day, the fabbath, answering to the divine

LECT. fuch a thing; but to us the whole fecret

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is opened, by the scripture accommodating all nature to things fpiritual and intellectual; and whoever fees this plan with an unprejudiced mind, will not only be in a way to understand the bible, but he will want no other evidence of the Chriftian doctrines.

reft of the invifible world, and fix days allotted to the works of this prefent world. Nothing but the Mofaic cofmogony, which defcribes the creation of the natural world in fix days, and makes one heavenly day of the fabbath, could be the original of this philofophy mentioned by Plato.

That certain characteristics of divine truth are legible in the works and ways of nature, is no new doctrine. It hath been fuppofed by fome, and lightly touched upon by others; but never pursued (as I have found) to any good effect. The two preceding Lectures give fome little profpect of it as it stands in fcattered paffages of the scripture. But I am fo much affected to the plan, that I have drawn out two Lectures upon it, under the title of the Natural Evidences of the Chriftian Religion, not yet published.

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