SG2

A DISCOURSE

book xv. take to detect the thousandth part, or point, of so exile a grain, as thatinsensible rudiment, or rather halituous spirit, which brings forth the loftyFir-tree, and the spreading Oak ? That trees of so enormous an heightand magnitude, as we find some Elms, Planes, and Cyprefses; thatothers hard as iron, and solid as marble, (for such the Indies furnish)should be swaddled and involved within so small a dimension, (if a pointmay be said to have any) and in so weak and feeble a substance, withoutthe least luxation, confusion, or disorder of parts! That when they areburied in the moist womb of the earth, which, so easily difsolves andx corrupts substances so much harder, yet this, which is at first but a kindof tender mucilage, or rather rottennefs, should be able in time to dis-place and rend asunder whole rocks of stone, and sometimes to cleavethem beyond the force of iron wedges, so as even to remove mountains!That our tree, like man, (whose inverted symbol he is) being sown incorruption, rises in glory, and by little and little ascending into an harderect stem of comely dimensions, becometh a solid tower, as it were !And that this, which but lately a single ant would easily have borne to

his little cavern, should now become capable of resisting the fury, andbraving the rage of the most impetuous storms, magni mehercule artificisest, clansifse totum in lam exiguo (to use Seneca’s exprefsion) et horror est

tEpist, ss. consideranti.

For, is it not plainly astonishing, how these minute atoms, rather thanvisible eggs, should contain the foetus exquisitely formed, (even while yetwrapped in their secundines, like infants in the animal womb) till grow-ing too big for their dark confinements, they break forth, and after

in silent reverence : But the man who views him through the medium of his Iefser works,ifotms to himself a closer, and more pleasing connection :

--The men

Whom nature’s works can charm, with God himself

Hold converse- akenside.

A mind brought to such a state of harmony, has only to embrace revelation with zealand fervency, in order to render the Christian character complete. Some there afe wholook upon this-conjunction as unnecefsary. My answer to them shall be in the words•of Seneca;

Quocunque te flexeris, ibi Deum videbis occurrentem tibi.