a golden colour, called the Pious Mother! which straitly embraces it, and keeps it from quashing; round which is another more loose, but tougher and stronger: next is the skull, which is hard as a bone, and of remarkable tenacity, covered with skin and hair; thus defended, it cannot easily be injured. And as for the heart, the principal of all animal life and action, called, by fome, the Sun of the little world, being that where the vital flame is constantly kept up; how carefully is it depofited in the centre of the trunk of the body! transversely in the cavity of the breast, inclosed in its own membrane, called Pericardium, which contains a transparent liquor that facilitates its motion and prevents friction. This was doubtless that blood and water, contained about the heart, which followed the spear of that vile miscreant who pierced our Saviour's sacred fide. Amazing love! that he should permit even this to be done after he was dead! that the world might be affured of the truth of his death. Oh the greatness of the wrath of almighty God, and the heinous nature of our fins, that nothing less than the last drop of the heart's blood of our Lord could quench it, and wash them away. In the heart is that crimson fountain which fustains the whole human system; but how from the ventricles it is forced into the arteries, and thence diffused into numberless streams through the body, and returned again by the veins through the auricles to the heart, anatomy not being our fubject, I shall not determine; but further notice, how the heart is guarded by ribs, flesh, muscles, and skin, near which are likewife placed the arms for its protection. By all which we fee the wisdom and goodness of our Creator, in placing those principals of existence, namely, the brain and heart, with fuch security in the body. Should I fpeak of the members, we should find them no less wonderfully contrived and fituated to answer the conveniences of life. But curiously and wonderfully as the body is framed, the foul is still more so, being an immaterial, thinking substance, pofsessed of powers immediately derived from God; one of which is that of the understanding, by which we difcern and have a knowledge of things, their situations, qualifications and qualities, and form our judgements of them accordingly. Next, the will, that power by which we chufe or refuse that which the understanding points out to be good, or hurtful for us. Likewife that of the confcience, by which we are approved, when we have chofen, loved, or done that which our understanding pointed out to be right for us, and reproved when we have acted the contrary. Next, the memory, that by which we retain those things in our minds which we have understood or learned. And the imagination, which ferves as a handmaid to the understanding, and all the other faculties, by fupplying them with ideas; and is to the foul as the breath to the body, the fetter of all the other powers on motion; not to speak of the passions, which, for noble purposes, the Most High hath endued us with, but which, alas! are too often used to his dishonour. The brutal creation, indeed, enjoy those powers in some measure after their kind; to instance only that of the dog for all. Does he not understand that which is good or hurtful for him? for, place him upon the edge of a high precipice, where, on the one fide, he can come from it with safety, will he not difcern his danger in leaping, and shew his will in choofing to come down the other way? And if he has often done a wrong, and been frequently beaten for it, will he not thereby become sensible that that is difpleasing to his owner? And if he fee or hear his master coming the time he is doing that particular fault, as, for instance, lying in a bed or fo, will he not shew his confciousness of it, and his fear of punishment, by his immediately leaping out, or giving over what he was doing? And does it not shew his memory, when he has lost his master, in running to the different houses or places which he used to frequent, feeking him? and his thought, or confideration, at the meeting of two ways, when running before, stopping at an uncertainty, till fuch time as he fees which road his owner will take? And that he is poffeffed with paffions, is evident from his affection for his master, fear, anger, and resentment of injuries. Now, fince brutes are thus endowed, this question will naturally occur, What pre-eminence hath a man above a beast? I answer, A very great deal. The spirit, or brutal foul, is from the earth, and answereth to man and the things of this life; and that in a very limited capacity: whereas the foul of man is from God, and answereth to God; and the things not only of this life, but also of that which is eternal in a very extensive degree: being highly diftinguished by the faculty of rationality or reason, whereby it can difcriminate and clearly diftinguish betwixt moral good and evil, truth and falfehood; affemble ideas, comparing one with another through means of intermediate ones; reflect and deduce causes from effects, and effects from causes, and fo find out truth from error, right from wrong, a future state from a present, and delight in the contemplation of infinity itself. What a noble creature then is the foul of man! True, indeed, it, by the fall of Adam, (as Mephibofheth falling out of his nurse's |