Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

dertook, of his own authority, the discharge of that office, which he executed with the greatest tyranny.It is possible, therefore, that St. Paul, who had been only a few days in Jerusalem, might be ignorant that Ananias, who had been dispossessed of the High-Priesthood, had taken upon him a trust to which he was not entitled; he might therefore, very naturally exclaim, 'I wist not brethren that he was the High-Priest! Admitting him, on the other hand, to have been acquainted with the fact, the expression must be considered as an indirect reproof, and a tacit refusal to recognize usurped authority.A passage then, which has hitherto been involved in obscurity, is brought into the clearest light; and the whole history of St. Paul's imprisonment, and conspiracy of the fifty Jews with the consent of the Sanhedrim, their petition to Festus to send him from Cesarea, with an intent to murder him on the road, are facts which correspond with the character of the times, as described by Josephus, who mentions the principal persons recorded in the Acts, and paints their profligacy in colours, even stronger than those of St. Luke.

"Whoever reads the New Testament attentively, will continually find examples of this nature. And it is sufficient, in answer to the question, Is the New Testament ancient and genuine? to reply, Compare it with the history of the times, and you cannot doubt of its authenticity."

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD DISPLAYED.

EXTRACT FROM MR. HUNTER'S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON

ANATOMY.

(Concluded from page 61.)

"THE old materials which were become useless, and are swept off by the current of blood, must be separated and thrown out of the system. Therefore, glands, the organs of secretion, are given for straining whatever is redundant, vapid, or noxious, from the mass of blood; and when strained, they are thrown out by emunctories, called organs of excretion. But now, as the VOL. I.

13

machine must be constantly wearing, the reparation must be carrying on without intermission, and the strainers must always. be employed. Therefore, there is actually a perpetual circulation of the blood, and the secretions are always going on.

"Even all this provision, however, would not be sufficient; for that store of blood would soon be consumed, and the fabric would break down, if there were not a provision made for fresh supplies. These we observe, in fact, are profusely scattered round her in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and she is furnished with hands, the fittest instruments that could have been contrived for gathering them, and for preparing them in a variety of ways, for the mouth. But these supplies, which we call food, must be considerably changed; they must be converted into blood. Therefore she is provided with teeth for cutting and bruising the food, and with a stomach for melting it down: in short, with all the organs subservient to digestion.—The finer parts of the aliments only can be useful in the constitution; these must be taken up and conveyed into the blood, and the dregs must be thrown off. With this view the intestinal canal is actually given. It separates the nutritious part, which we call chyle, to be conveyed into the blood by the system of absorbent vessels; and the feces pass downwards, to be conducted out of the body.

"Now we have got our animal not only furnished with what is wanted for its immediate existence, but also with the power of protracting that existence to an indefinite length of time. But its duration, we may presume, must be necessarily limited; for as it is nourished, grows, and is raised up to its full strength and utmost perfection; so it must in time, in common with all material beings, begin to decay, and then hurry on to final ruin. Hence we see the necessity of a scheme for renovation. Accordingly wise Providence, to perpetuate, as well as preserve his work, besides giving a strong appetite for life and self-preservation, has made animals male and female, in order to secure the propagation of the species to the end of time.

"Thus we see, that by the very imperfect survey which human reason is able to take of this subject, the animal must necessarily be complex in his corporeal system and in its operations. He must have one great and general system, the vascular, branching through the whole for circulation; another, the nervous, with its appendages, the organs of sense, for every kind

of feeling; and a third, for the union and connexion of all these parts. Besides these primary and general systems, he requires others, which may be more local or confined: one for strength, support, and protection, the bony compages; another for the requisite motions of the parts themselves, as well as for moving from place to place, the muscular part of the body; another to prepare nourishment for the daily recruit of the body, the digestive organs."

"Of all the different systems in the human body, the use and necessity are not more apparent, than the wisdom and contrivance which have been exerted in putting them all into the most compact and convenient form; in disposing them so that they may mutually receive and give helps to one another; and that all, or many of the parts, shall not only answer their principal end or purpose, but operate successfully and usefully in a variety of secondary ways. If we consider the whole animal machine in this light, and compare it with any machine in which human art has exerted its utmost; we shall be convinced, beyond the possibility of doubt, that there are intelligence and power far surpassing what humanity can boast of.

"One superiority in the natural machine is peculiarly striking. In machines of human contrivance or art, there is no internal power, no principle in the machine itself, by which it can alter and accommodate itself to an injury which it may suffer, or make up any injury which admits of repair. But in the natural machine, the animal body, this is most wonderfully provided for, by internal powers in the machine itself; many of which are not more certain and obvious in their effects, than they are above all human comprehension as to the manner and means of their operation. Thus, a wound heals up of itself; a broken bone is made firm again by a callus; a dead part is separated. and thrown off; noxious juices are driven out by some of the emunctories; a redundancy is removed by some spontaneous bleeding; a bleeding naturally stops of itself; and a great loss of blood from any cause, is, in some measure, compensated by a contracting power in the vascular system, which accommodates the capacity of the vessels to the quantity contained. The stomach gives information when the supplies have been expended; represents with great exactness, the quantity and quality of what is wanted in the present state of the machine; and in proportion as she meets with neglect, rises in her demand, urges her

petition in a louder tone, and with more forcible arguments. For its protection, an animal body resists heat and cold in a very wonderful manner, and preserves an equal temperature in a burning and in a freezing atmosphere."

THE MAGNIFICENCE, BEAUTY, AND HARMONY OF THE WORKS OF GOD.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

THE universe may be considered, with great propriety, as a splendid palace where the Deity resides; and the earth, as one of its spacious apartments. In the great outlines of nature, to which art cannot reach, and where the utmost efforts of man must have been ineffectual, God himself has finished every thing with amazing magnificence, grandeur and beauty. Where is harmony so complete, symetry so exact, and sublimity so apparent, as in the works of the Almighty? Our benificent Father has considered these parts of nature as peculiarly his own; as parts which no creature could have strength or skill to amend : he has, therefore, made them incapable of alteration, or of more perfect regularity. The heavens and the firmament, with alb their grand and complicated appendages, exhibit in the most striking manner, the transcendant wisdom, goodness, power, and glory of the great Architect. Yes:

"The spacious earth and spreading flood
Proclaim the wise and powerful God!
And his rich glories from afar,

Sparkle in every rolling star."

WATTS.

Astronomers, who are best skilled in the symetry of systems, can find nothing there that they can alter for the better. In this great theatre of Jehovah's glory, a thousand suns, like our own, animate their respective systems, appearing, and vanishing at Divine command. We behold our own bright luminary fixed,

in the centre of its system, wheeling its planets in times proportioned to their distances, and at once dispensing light, heat, and action. The earth also is seen with its two-fold motion, producing by the one, the change of seasons; and by the other, the grateful vicissitudes of day and night. With what silent magnificence is all this performed! With what seeming case! The works of art are performed by interrupted force; and their noisy progress discovers the obstructions they receive; but the earth, with a silent, steady rotation, successively, presents every part of its bosom to the sun, at once imbibing nourishment and light from that parent of vegetation and fertility. Is there not something which whispers within, that to this Creator reverence and homage are due, by all the rational beings composing the vast population of his wide extended empire. Every object, whether immense or minute, should serve as a monitor to man. The star and the insect, the fiery meteor and the flower of spring, the verdant field and the lofty mountain, the purling rivulet and the wide stupendous ocean, all exhibit a supreme power, before which the race of mortals should worship and adore. The royal Poet, not only expressed himself in loftiness of language, but also with propriety of sentiment, when he said, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work," and should not every rational and intelligent creature, join in that majestic hymn, in celebrating the praises of the founder of worlds?

The scenes of nature contribute powerfully to inspire that serenity which heightens their beauties, and is necessary to our full enjoyment of them. By a secret sympathy, the soul catches the harmony which she contemplates; and the frame within assimilates itself to that without. In this state of sweet composure, we become susceptible of virtuous impressions from almost every surrounding object. The patient ox is viewed with generous complacency; the guileless sheep with pity; and the playful lamb, with emotions of tenderness and love. We rejoice with the horse in his liberty and exemption from toil, while he ranges at large through enamelled pastures. We are charmed with the song of birds, soothed with the buz of insects, and pleased with the sportive motions of fishes. But a taste for natural beauty is subservient to higher purposes; the cultivation of it not only refines and humanizes, but dignifies and exalts the affections. It elevates them to the admiration and love of that Being, who is

« AnteriorContinua »