The manifoldness of God's works.
What profusion, what variety, there is in God's works! How inexhaustible must be the Divine ideas! "When trees blossom, there is not a single breast pin, but a whole bosom full of gems. The leaves have so many suits, that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has he reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music! and in the heavens above how do stars seem to have flown out of his hands faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!" (Beecher). "Mineral, vegetable, animal—what a range of works is suggested by these three names! No two, even of the same class, are exactly alike, and the classes are more numerous than science can number. Works in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth; works which abide the ages; works which come to perfection and pass away in a year; works which, with all their beauty, do not outlive a day; works within works, and works within these; who can number one of a thousand?"
I. MANIFOLD IMPLIES VARIETY. Here distinguish between the sameness of those creative and providential laws which regulate everything, and those multitudinous and ever-varied forms and shapes in which those ever-working laws can present things. God makes all things on principle, but no two things are precisely alike. The leaves of a tree and the faces of a flock are infinitely varied. What an impression we should have of God if a procession could pass before us of specimens only of every kind of insect form, or bird form, or beast form! What a mind to conceive these million shapes!
II. MANIFOLDNESS IMPLIES DESIGN. Once get the die stamped, and you make as many coins as you please to a pattern. But if every coin is different, there must have been a precise design in the making of each. Each coin would embody a thought. It must be true of the varying creatures of God. He must have planned each.
III. MANIFOLDNESS IMPLIES ADAPTATION. Everything has its place and relation. For nicety of fitting it is precisely shaped. God does not make mere things, but things to go into positions; and every variety of form and of force is the product of considerations and calculations of the Divine mind.—R.T.