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our view not merely by the things of this earth but by the entire movements and order of the universal kingdom-our own bodies and minds, and all the events that, by their successive occurrence, make up our individual or domestic or social experience of life, are all included in the same law-and when we stretch our view over the immensity of things, we perceive, that the ceaseless movements that have thus opened themselves to our experience as inhabitants of this world, have corresponding alterations in the grand order of things-though no doubt conformably with the infinite diversity which pervades all the works of the Divine mind;-that other systems of being are characterized by changes suited to their peculiarity of constitution-but still, that progress and change and successive evolution are so essentially incorporated with our characteristic modes of conception--and so confirmed by what we observe of the entire order of the universe, that it is impossible for us--without landing ourselves in vague and unsatisfactory conclusions--to conceive any portion of the infinite works of God as exempt from the same universal condition.

We of course speak on all such topics according to our peculiar powers of comprehension—but if there be illusion and danger of error in assimilat

ing things heavenly too much to things earthly, there is at least as great a deviation from propriety in supposing such a chasm in the entire frame of the Divine dominions as would give this world no resemblance whatever to any of the higher specimens of the Divine workmanship, among which, however, it obviously so far holds its place as to be one important, though it may be, subordinate member of the one infinite scheme;-and while, therefore, we admit that the evolution of events which may be going on throughout the infinite extent of space, is in all departments of the universe conducted conformably to the infinite diversity of forms and laws which seem to characterize the entire works of God--we yet reject the conclusion that our lowly department of the universe has nothing in common with the whole —or is rather to be viewed only as a contrast to all the higher-more extensive---and more gloriously furnished provinces of the entire kingdom of God.

Taking then the views which have now been offered as the ground-work of our conclusions, the following very pleasing and useful results seem to be included in them.

In the first place, that our meditations on the changes in life and in nature gain immeasurably

in distinctness and value, by being limited not to the consideration of an abstraction-such as we have seen our common notion of time-with its flight its rapidity-its uncertainty-and its irrevocable nature, to be, but to the actual and observable events which we perceive to be going on in the world, and from the observation of which our only idea of time is derived. It is, in short, not general disquisitions respecting time and its movements--but the actual laws of those changes that are going on around us, that we have henceforth to do with--and our meditations on these will gain vastly in interest, as well as in the definiteness of their form, by being separated from any intermixture with such an abstraction as we have seen the common idea of time essentially to be.

In the second place, and as involved in the same conclusions—we gain a very simple and satisfactory correction of one of the most prevalent errors that seems to infest the understandings and imaginations of men-while thinking of their station amidst the vast works of God. The error to which I allude is that which represents this earth as not only having nothing in common with the higher forms of existence that prevail throughout the universe-but as only to be conceived in the way of contrast with them. Thus, having defined time as

that which is transitory and progressive-we conceive eternity to be that which is fixed and unchangeable ;-earth, over which the stream of time is constantly flowing, is regarded as only the reverse of heaven, which has its place amidst the unalterable realities of eternity-things conditional are, in the same manner, contrasted with things unconditional-things corruptible with things incorruptible-things finite with things infinite—and so on throughout the whole series of appearances which the forms of this earth present-it being in every instance understood, not that the appearances of the Divine dominions, as exhibited in the small specimen of them which we behold in our earthly abode, are given to us as a sample, suited to our peculiar nature, of the higher forms under which the same great scheme is exhibited in other, and it may be, nobler departments of the entire plan-but as contrasts in every respect the reverse of the things that are heavenly and divine. Now this erroneous mode of thought, results entirely from our habitual use of time as simply an abstract conception-and from our corresponding use of other terms, applicable to the same subject, in their abstract application;--for abstractions involve contrasts, and necessarily lead to the conception of them-insomuch, that time—and things finite

corruptible—and mutable-can only be compared with things eternal-infinite-incorruptible-and unchangeable—and we hence adopt the delusive habit of thought, that all things on earth are the reverse of those that are above us, or that there is no continuity of plan uniting this portion of the vast empire of God with all the rest of its countless forms of existence. But in this habitual mode of conception, there is evidently not only folly, but a limitation of view, which hides from us the true grandeur and the boundless extent of the plan with which we are connected by our place in life. For as soon as we have ceased to use abstractions, and to think of the actual changes that are going on in life, we feel that contrast is not necessary to our idea of the relation in which the different departments of the universe stand to each other;-on the contrary, that what we see around us, is but a specimen of the entire scheme by which the infinite departments of the Divine dominions are pervaded-that all things flow into each other, as well things earthly into things heavenly, as the events themselves that have their peculiar place amidst the changes of this world-and that, as indeed all true science seems daily more and more to convince us, the laws of the Divine government, throughout all

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