and wants, so by cultivation to reduce it to a subserviency to him, so to receive its proceeds and convert them to his use, that he did in truth exercise a very extensive and important dominion. Doubtless, this dominion, in the beginning, and before the fall, was far more perfect than it is now; the application, or exercise, or assertion of it, did not demand the labour, did not necessitate the pains, did not raise the anxieties, and was not attended with the uncertainties, or followed by the disappointments, which have since lowered its worth, and deteriorated from its gratifications; notwithstanding, who does not see, with even all these disadvantages and contractions, how effectually man governs the earth, under the supreme control and directing providence of God? how, when he cultivates it, it brings forth, not any mere natural produce of its own, but the produce of the principle or seed which he sows? how he adapts it to himself; how he causes it to obey, as it were, his command; how he compels it to serve to his desire and to what might sometimes be called almost to his caprice? Who does not see, how, digging into its bowels, he forces out its hidden treasures to his wish; that there is no part of it which he does not turn in some way to his service; that he gains from it metals, gold, and silver, and iron, and brass; that the very stones of it furnish him with the material of his dwelling, and other essential objects, or what he deems to be essential; and, where these fail, that he converts itself into stone, making it to supply its own deficiency? All this

large and wondrous capacity of application to man's service was derived from the command and endowment contained in the original blessing; in consequence of that the earth has become man's own, and he exercises it at his pleasure.

"Have dominion over the fish of the sea." What vast power did the Creator manifest in putting this portion of the works of creation under the dominion of a being, whose habitation, as has been already observed, was of another and an opposite element, and whose nature seemed to unfit him for the exercise of it! But, no difficulties or apparent contrarieties can stand in the way of the divine intention; and that is easy to the Creator, which, to the conception of the creature, may be altogether impracticable. He has only to command, or to will, and that is done which He commands or wills; His will is omnipotent; it is sufficient to all things. As it was of and through it that all things were created, so was it of the office of it, to dispose, to endow, to assign. This would appear to be an impracticable appointment; yet, has it been so? Have the words of the blessing been uttered in vain? They have been verified in their most enlarged meaning, and the appointment of them is abundantly realized. Man does exercise a true and effectual dominion over the fish of the sea; he does subdue them; he does put "the fear" of him upon them; and it is by means of the superior intellect of which he was at his creation made possessed. They cannot escape him; the waters, their dwelling, are no ultimate hindrance to his will, when

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his desire is fixed on them. God would give him no fruitless gift, no barren endowment; and, when He pronounced that he should have a dominion over the fish of the sea, He intended, as He thereafter brought to pass, to grant him the powers of mind that should be requisite for the due exercise of it; and, therefore, he has them. There is none, vast, and bulky, and strong as it may be, which he cannot master, if he so determine; swiftness of motion even, the faculty of lightly skimming the surface, of riding on the wave, or plunging into the depth, does not prevent him; by understanding" he conquers in the points in which they are more powerful than himself. But, can he also ascend into the air, in his power? Can he maintain an authority in it, and bring its occupants within the reach of his hands? Can he mount thither, as he can go down into the deep, and seize them in his sovereignty, that make the clouds their refuge, and fly on the wind? Over these, too, can he triumph? Assuredly, he can; he does; for, of them, said the omnipotent Creator to him, Have dominion over the fowl of the air." He cannot tempt their element, traversing it as he traverses the seas; it gives him not a pathway, as do the waters; but, nevertheless, the fowl that rise into it, flying out of his sight, do not so avoid his grasp. Here again, we say, God gave them to him; and God's gift will ever carry with it justification of its reality. Simple as from use and habit may seem to us the ways by which we enforce our right of dominion over these creatures, so admirable were they in their first contrivance or

No in

holding

discovery, as to evince that it was from a divinely gifted mind the faculty of it was drawn. What but it could satisfy us that they were ours, and would obey us? What but it, that no subtilty of theirs would avail in lasting resistance against us? ferior conviction, truly; and the fact of our of this power, shews it to have been of God. It may not immediately appear so wonderful that " every living thing that moveth upon the earth" should have been placed under the dominion of man, as that the fish and the fowl should have been put in subjection to . him. His dominion here does not seem, I say, to be so much out of natural order: the objects of it inhabit the same element with himself; they cannot go where he is unable personally to follow them: when, however, we come to consider the superior bodily strength of many of them over the utmost bodily strength of mankind, their overwhelming force, and fearful appearance, their greater numbers, and the consummate craft by which some of them are distinguished, it will be seen to be no less so. Do we not restrain the fiercest? Do we not curb the most violent? Do we not hold the strongest under our command? Do we not entrap the most suspicious and crafty? our service, that we mould them to our will, and make them feel that their dependence is upon us? Can they rise in concerted or fore-thought opposition? If in this latter point they had a capacity, they would speedily cause our destruction; and it is by His arrangement in the denial to them of it, that the

Do we not so draw them to

Almighty has confirmed our dominion. They are helpless against us, because it is only an individual and unjudging quality which they have, whether it be of strength, or of swiftness, or whatever else. There is with them no combined action, while, by his excellent intelligence, all man's species do act in accordant movement against the irrational creation. Marvellous and gracious in these things are the wisdom and goodness of God. When he gave man a dominion in his world, He determined that nothing should thwart or stay it; and where in any point the consistency of His own general design made it necessary that an inferior creature should be possessed of a more external force, He neglected not to supply him with some counterbalancing superiority, by which he might conquer it, and so both protect himself, and subdue that of which he had been constituted the master. Thus did God make man "to have dominion over the works of His hands; thus did he put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea;" as in his creation he purposed him to have " dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth;" and as at the subsiding of the waters of the flood, he said to Noah and to his sons, " And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that