THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 161 



and yet yield us food as devoid of saltness as any other 

 animal production ! Wisely, however, have these things 

 been arranged, though we can understand but little of 

 the marvellous process necessary to produce the result. 

 Thus much we know, that without these qualities the 

 ocean, instead of being a source of almost every bless- 

 ing, would speedily putrify and become one wide reser- 

 voir of pestilence and death to all the globe. And in 

 spiritual thin|:js is there not a similar analogy sub- 

 sisting ? For what would be the moral world without 

 the salt of Christianity (Matt. xv. 13) ; without the 

 motions of the blessed Spirit of all grace continually 

 quickening, refreshing, stirring, agitating the whole 

 naturally corrupt mass ? But for these things, all its 

 other advantages would have been in vain. It is the 

 Gospel which alone supplies those mysterious but salu- 

 tary principles, by which the great process of spiritual 

 renovation is continually going on; and '* a world that 

 lieth in wickedness" is yet preserved till that day when, 

 having answered all the divine purposes concerning it, 

 ** there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and 

 there shall be no more sea." (Rev. xxi. 1.)* 



* Whether this remarkable property in the new earth, that 

 the re shall be no more sea, shall, be eflfected by the means 



p 5 



