perfections of it; which is the true dignity of man, and the utmost excellence of human souls. Neither will I again smite any more every living creature as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Thus did God enter into a covenant with Noah, and his sons, and their seed; and as the late amazing occurrences must incline the spectators of the flood to piety and goodness; and the fathers of the postdiluvian world were careful to instruct their children in the several parts of the stupendous fact, and from the whole inculcate the Being and Perfections of God, his universal dominion and actual providence and government over all things, his love of virtue and goodness and infinite detestation of all sin; to which we may add, that the imitation of God is not a new principle introduced into religion by revelation, but has its foundation in the reason and nature of things;—we may from hence conclude, that the rising generation were persons of conspicuous devotion, and followed

after the moral virtues, the holiness, justice and mercy which the light of nature discovers. They were, I believe, most excellent mortals for some time. They obeyed to be sure every dictate of reason, and adored and praised the invisible Deity; the Supreme immutable mind.
But this beautiful scene had an end, and man once more forgot his Maker and himself. He prostituted the honor of both, by robbing God of the obedience due to him, and by submitting himself a slave to the elements of the world. When he looked up to the heavens, and saw the glory of the sun and stars, instead of praising the Lord of all, he foolishly said, These are thy Gods, O Man! A universal apostacy from the primitive religion prevailed. They began with the heavenly bodies, or sydereal Gods, and proceeded to heroes, brutes, and images, till the world was overflowed with an inundation of idolatry, and superstition; even such superstition, as nourished under the notion of Religion, and pleasing the Gods, the most bestial impurities, the most inhuman and unnatural cruelties, and the most unmanly and contemptible follies. Moral virtue and goodness were totally extinguished. When men had lost the sense of the supreme Being, the Creator, Governor, and Judge of the world, they not only ceased to be righteous and holy, but became

necessarily vitious and corrupt in practice; for iniquity flows from corrupt religion, as the waters from the spring. The principles and ceremonies of the established