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of rubbish. cr "I would fain know," says the sultan, "what those two owls are saying to one another: listen to their discourse, and give me an account of it." The vizier approached the tree, pretending to be very attentive to the two owls. Upon his return to the sultan, "Sir," says he, "I have heard part of their conversation, but dare not tell you what it is." The sultan would not be satisfied with such an answer, but forced him to repeat, word for word, every thing the owls had said. "You must know, then," said the vizier, “that one of these owls has a son, and the other a daughter, between whom they are now upon a treaty of marriage. The father of the son said to the father of the daughter, in my hearing, 'Brother, I consent to this marriage, provided you will settle upon your daughter fifty ruined villages for her portion.' To which the father of the daughter replied, 'Instead of fifty, I will give her five hundred, if you please. God grant a long life to sultan Mahmoud! Whilst he reigns over us, we shall never want ruined villages.'

The story says, the sultan was so touched with the fable, that he rebuilt the towns and villages which had been destroyed, and from that time forward consulted the good of his people.

SUPREME, HE SINGLY FILLS THE THRONE.

This

SIMONIDES being asked by Dionysius the Tyrant, what God was, desired a day's time to consider of it before he made his reply. When the day had expired, he desired two days; and afterwards, instead of returning his answer, demanded still double the time to consider of it. great poet and philosopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth; and that he lost himself in the thought, instead of finding an end of it.

If we consider the idea which wise men, by the light of reason, have framed of the Divine Being, it amounts to this: That He has in Him all the perfection of a spiritual nature; and since we have no notion of any kind of spiritual perfection but what we discover in our own souls, we join infinitude to each kind of these perfections; and what is a faculty in a human soul, becomes an attribute in God. We exist in place and time; the Divine Being fills the immensity of space with His presence, and inha

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bits eternity. We are possessed of a little power and a little knowledge; the Divine Being is almighty and omniscient. In short, by adding infinity to any kind of perfection we enjoy, and by joining all these different kinds of perfections in one Being, we form our idea of the great Sovereign of nature.

Though every one who thinks must have made this observation, I shall produce Mr. Locke's authority to the same purpose, out of his "Essay on Human Understanding:""If we cxamine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find that we come by it the same way; and that the complex ideas we have oth of God and separate spirits are made up of the simple ideas we receive from reflection: having, from what we experiment in ourselves, got the ideas of existence and duration, of knowledge and power, of pleasure and happiness, and of several other qualities and powers, which it is better to have than to be without; when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our idea of infinity; and so, putting them together, make our complex idea of God."

It is not impossible that there may be many kinds of spiritual perfection besides those which are lodged in a human soul; but it is impossible that we should have ideas of any kinds of perfection, except those of which we have some small rays and short imperfect strokes in ourselves. It would be, therefore, a very high presumption to determine whether the Supreme Being has not many more attributes than those which enter into our conceptions of Him. This is certain, that if there be any kind of spiritual perfection which is not marked out in a human soul, it belongs in its fulness to the Divine Nature.

Several eminent philosophers have imagined that the soul, in her separate state, may have new faculties springing up in her, which she is not capable of exerting during her present union with the body; and whether these faculties may not correspond with other attributes in the Divine Nature, and open to us hereafter new matter of wonder and adoration, we are altogether ignorant. This, as I have said before, we ought to acquiesce in, that the Sovereign Being, the great Author of nature, has in Him all possible perfection, as well in kind as in degree; to speak according to our methods of conceiving. I shall

only add, under this head, that when we have raised our notion of this Infinite Being as high as it is possible for the mind of man to go, it will fall infinitely short of what He really is. There is no end of His greatness; the most exalted creature He has made, is only capable of adoring it: none but Himself can comprehend it.

The advice of the son of Sirach is very just and sublime in this light: "By His Word all things consist. We may speak much, and yet come short; wherefore in sum, He is all. How shall we be able to magnify Him? for He is great above all His works. The Lord is terrible and very great, and marvellous is His power. When you glorify the Lord, exalt Him as much as you can: for even yet will He far exceed. And when you exalt Him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary: for you can never go far enough. Who hath seen Him, that he might tell us? And who can magnify Him as He is? There are yet hid greater things than these be; for we have seen but a few of His works."

I have here only considered the Supreme Being by the light of reason and philosophy. If we would see Him in all the wonders of His mercy, we must have recourse to revelation, which represents Him to us, not only as infinitely great and glorious, but as infinitely good and just in His dispensations towards man. But as this is a theory which falls under every one's consideration, though, indeed, it can never be sufficiently considered, I shall here only take notice of that habitual worship and veneration which we ought to pay to this Almighty Being. We should often refresh our minds with the thought of Him, and annihilate ourselves before Him, in the contemplation of our own worthlessness, and of His transcendent excellency and perfection. This would imprint in our minds such a constant and uninterrupted awe and veneration as that which I am here recommending, and which is in reality a kind of incessant prayer and reasonable humiliation of the soul before Him who made it.

This would effectually kill in us all the little seeds of pride, vanity, and self-conceit, which are apt to shoot up in the minds of such whose thoughts turn more on those comparative advantages which they enjoy over some of their fellow-creatures, than on that infinite distance which is placed between them and the Supreme Model of all perfection. It would likewise quicken our desires

and endeavours of uniting ourselves to Him by all the acts religion and virtue.

Such an habitual homage to the Supreme Being would, n a particular manner, banish from among us that prevailing impiety of using His name on the most trivial

occasions.

I find the following passage in an excellent sermon, preached at the funeral of a gentleman who was an honour to his country, and a more diligent as well as successful inquirer into the works of nature, than any other our nation has ever produced: "He had the profoundest veneration for the great God of heaven and earth that I have ever observed in any person. The very name of God was never mentioned by him without a pause and a visible stop in his discourse; in which, one that knew him most particularly above twenty years, has told me, that he was so exact, that he does not remember to have observed him once to fail in it."

Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we, then, think of those who make use of so tremendous a name in the ordinary expressions of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions? of those who admit it into the most familiar questions and assertions, ludicrous phrases and works of humour? not to mention those who violate it by solemn perjuries? It would be an affront to reason, to endeavour to set forth the horror and profaneness of such a practice. The very mention of it exposes it sufficiently to those in whom the light of nature, not to say religion, is not utterly extinguished.

ON GOOD-NATURE.

MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity; and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of afflictions is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing, therefore, which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which, in our language, goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word " goodbreeding." For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call such, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good-nature; or, in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art.

These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature; but without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety.

Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from the world are great cherishers of it where they find it; but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution, which education may improve, but not produce.

Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he describes as a pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him; and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his deathbed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to Him who made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means

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