ESSAY XI. 463 the body, their proper figure, situation and design. The mat- ter of a sermon is any theme in divinity, suppose it be the wor- ship of God, or love to man, the evil of sin, the redemption of Christ, or the glory of heaven ; the form of the sermon is that particular Manner, both in regard to sense, order and style in which the preacher treats of those subjects, whether it be in propositions, doctrines, reasons, inferences ; whether it be in a way of argument or harangue; whether in rude or polite lan- guage. From the various application of these terms, matter and form, proceeds that old and famous distinction of material and .formal, which is usefully applied to a thousand various subjects ; thus the river of Thames is formally the same as it was in our grandfathers' days, because it runs between the samebanks, but materially it is very different, for perhaps, there is not a drop of the same water. Thus Dryden's and Ogilby's Virgil are mate- rially the same, because they are English translations of the same Latin poet ; but considered formally, they are exceeding different, i. e. as to the elegance of the verse. SECT. III.-Of the different Senses of the Word Nature. HAVING spoken of the natureof particular beings which consists in a collection of those things which make it be what it is, it is proper also to observe, that the word nature sometimes is so limited, as to signify any one particular attribute or property of a being, as it is the nature of a dog to bark, and offire to burn. Sometimes it is so far enlarged, as to denote the whole world, or the universe of things ; as, when we speak of a Cen- taur or Griffin, and say there is no such thing in nature. Sometimes also the word nature is taken for the necessary and eternal order and connection of things in idea, and the un- changeable relations of them to each other. So the say, it is according to the nature of things, that " creatures are mutable, that three and three make six ; or that two mathematical circles can touch each other but in a point. We call also those laws, which God the Creator has estab- lished in the world for the management of the grand scheme of his providence, by the term of nature; and indeed many times we do not enough distinguish them from the abstracted reason of things, and their necessary and eternal relations. In this sense we say it is natural for a stone thrown up to fall back to- wards the earth again, for cork to float in water, and for gold to sink ; it is natural for the earth to be carried round the sun in 365 days, and for the sun to enliven the vegetable and animal world. We say also, it is natural for the soul of man to move his limbs by a volition, or to have a perception of white when be turns his eyes towards the snow. In all these things we
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