presume, because they have the same divine author with the rest. Every Creature of God is good in its proper capacity; but if we mistake its capacity, we shall abuse it. Poisonous herbs, from their great power, may do service internally, in very small quantities; but we should rather suppose, from what we have heard and seen, that they were intended chiefly for external application; in which they can perform wonders; and medicine might perhaps be improved, if more experiments were made in this way. But, it is not my province to enlarge here, and I have nothing but a good meaning to plead for proceeding thus far.

It is now to be observed, lastly, that the same wisdom, which ordained the vegetable creation for the natural use of feeding and healing the body, hath applied it also to a moral or intellectual use, for the enlarging of our ideas, and the enlightening of our understandings. It joins its voice in the universal chorus of all created things, and to the ear of reason celebrates the wisdom of the Almighty Creator. As the heavens, from day unto day, and from night unto night, declare the glory of God, so do the productions of the earth, all trees and herbs, in their places and seasons speak the same language; from the climates of the north to the torrid regions of the south, and from the winter to the spring and the harvest.

The Holy Scripture hath many wise, and some beautiful allusions to the vegetable creation, for moral and religious instruction. The most ancient piece of this sort is the parable of Jotham in the book of Judges; where the dispositions and humours of men, and their effects in society, are illustrated by the different natures of trees. On occasion of Abimelech's treachery, Jotham tells the people,* under the form of a fable, that the trees went forth to anoint them a king and when all the good and honourable, as the olive, the fig-tree, and the vine, declined the trouble of ruling in society, the bramble offered his services, and in

See Judges ix. 8, &c.

vited them to trust in his shadow. Thus it happened in the case of Abimelech and doth not experience shew us at this day, that the moral is still good? that the worst, and most worthless, are always the most forward to thrust themselves into power, and promise great things; how safe and happy we should be under their shadow! As if brambles, of a nature to tear the skin, and draw blood from every part of the body, and fit for nothing but to be burned out of the way, could form an agreeable shade for the people to sit under. The good and the virtuous, who are fruitful and happy in themselves, would be deprived of their internal comforts by the hurry and danger which attend the possession of power; but bad men who have no source of content and enjoyment within themselves, are always so forward to seek it without themselves, and would turn the world upside down, or tear its inhabitants to pieces, to satisfy their own ambition. When circumstances conspire to bring those into action who are most worthy of power, then people sit under the vine, and under the fig-tree, in the enjoyment of peace and plenty.

Our blessed Saviour, with a like allusion, hath referred us to the natural state and condition of plants and flowers; thence to learn the unprofitableness of that anxiety and distrust, with which we seek after the things of this world. "Consider the lilies, how they grow-If God so clothe the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe you?"* As if he had said: "You admire the beautiful clothing of a flower; and indeed it is worthy of all admiration; the God on whom you depend is the author of its wonderful contexture; whence you ought to learn, that if he hath bestowed this rich attire upon the inferior part of the creation, the grass of the field, so fading and transient, he will never leave you unprovided who are made for eternity."

The accidents to which plants are exposed in their growth, afford matter for the beautiful and instructive pa

Matt. vi. 28. 30.

rable of the sower, which conveys as much in a few plain words, as a volume could do in any other form.* The seed of God's word, when it is sown by a preacher, may fall into an honest and good heart, as the seed of the sower into a happy, fruitful soil; or it may light among the thorns of worldly cares, and the rank weeds of worldly pleasures, which, springing up with it, will choke it, and render it unfruitful; or it may fall into a hasty, impatient mind, like seed upon a shallow, rocky soil, where it hath no depth of earth, and so cannot endure when the heat of the sun dries it. Other minds are open to the ways of the world in public or fashionable life, and unguarded against the dangers of sin; so are exposed to the depredations of evil spirits, which rob them of what they had heard; as birds of the air pick up without fear or molestation, the seeds which are scattered by the side of a public road.

The transient nature of plants and flowers has given occasion to many striking representations of the brevity and vanity of this mortal life. "As the leaves wither and fall away from the trees, and others succeed, so," saith an ancient poet, "are the generations of men. men."†

How sublime and affecting is that reflection in the book of Job-"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery; he cometh up like a flower, and is cut down:" in the same figurative language doth the Psalmist speak of the flourishing state of man in youth, and his decay in the time of age; "In the morning they are like the grass which groweth up, in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down. and withered." To cure us of our confidence in the wealth

Matt. xiii. 3, &c.

† Οιη περ φύλλων γενεη, τοίηδε και ανδρων.

Φύλλα τα μεν τ' ανεμος χαμάδις χεει. - Hom. Il. ζ. 146.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now with'ring on the ground.

# Job xiv. 2.

Pope's Homer, b. vi. l. 181.

and prosperity of this world, and make way for the serious temper of the Gospel, nothing can be more expressive and rhetorical than that sentence of St. James: "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted; but the rich in that he is made low; because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away; for the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth; so shall the rich man fade away in his ways:" that is, he shall decay in his prosperity, as the flower fades the sooner for the enjoyment of the sun-shine.

The reviving of seeds and roots buried in the earth, though so common a fact, is yet so wonderful, that it is more than a figure, it is a pledge and assurance that the dead shall rise again. In every spring nature presents us with a general resurrection in the vegetable world, after a temporary death and burial in the winter. The root that lies dormant under the ground is a prisoner of hope, and waits for the return of the vernal sun. If it could speak, it might repeat (and to the ear of faith it does repeat) those words of the Apostle:-O grave, where is thy victory? So plainly doth vegetable nature preach this doctrine of the resurrection, that the man is supposed to be senseless, who does not make this use of it-"Thou fool, it is not quickened, except it die."

I would now only observe, after what hath been said, that a right use of our present subject in all its parts must contribute to the dignity, and to the happiness of man. How innocently, and how pleasantly is he entertained, who in cultivating the various productions of the earth, hath the elements working with him, and assisting him to perfect his flowers and fruits, and raise a Paradise around him! What a rational and noble employment it is, to trace the effects of divine wisdom in a survey of the vegetable kingdom; in the beautiful forms of plants, their endless variety, the configuration of their organs, the distinction of

their characters; the places of their inhabitation, by land, by sea, in rivers and in lakes, on rocks and mountains, in the fields, the pastures, and the woods; with their successions from the spring to the summer, from the summer to the autumn: their appearances by day and by night!

How proper is it to use them for health and for temperance, as the wise have done, and as the Creator, ever mindful of the sum of our happiness, hath appointed! What a respectable benefactor is he to mankind, who discovers their virtues in medicine, and applies them to the relief of the miserable; an office ever grateful to a benevolent mind!

But happiest of all is he, who having cultivated herbs and trees, and studied their virtues, and applied them for his own, and for the common benefit, rises from thence to a contemplation of the great Parent of good, whom he sees and adores in these his glorious works. The world cannot shew us a more exalted character than that of a truly religious philosopher, who delights to turn all things to the glory of God: who from the objects of his sight derives improvement to his mind, and in the glass of things temporal sees the image of things eternal. Let a man have all the world can give him; he is still miserable, if he has a grovelling, unlettered, indevout mind: let him have his gardens, his fields, his woods, and his lawns, for grandeur, ornament, plenty, and gratification; while at the same time God is not in all his thoughts. And let another have neither field nor garden; let him only look at nature with an enlightened mind; a mind which can see and adore the Creator in his works; can consider them as demonstrations of his power, his wisdom, his goodness, his truth; this man is greater, as well as happier, in his poverty, than the other in his riches. The one is but little higher than a beast, the other but little lower than an angel.

We ought therefore to praise those who in their life-time made this use of the natural world, and gratefully to re