Rome has been guilty of excess, 't is true,
And so have some of the reformers too;
If in their zeal against the Roman seat,
Plucking up tares they pluck'd up also wheat;
Must we to children, for what they have said,
Give this predestination stone for bread?

Sir, it is worse, is your predestination
Ten thousand times than transubstantiation:
Hard is the point, that papists have compil'd,
With sense and reason to be reconcil'd;
But yet it leaves to our conception, still,
Goodness in God, and holiness of will;
A just, impartial government of all;
A saving love; a correspondent call
To ev'ry man, and, in the fittest hour

For him to hear, all offer'd grace and pow'r;
Which he may want, and have, if he will crave
From him who willeth nothing but to save.

Whereas, this reprobation doctrine, here, Not only sense and reason would cashier, But take, by its pretext of sov'reign sway, All goodness from the Deity away;

Both Heav'n and Hell confounding with its cant,
Virtue and vice, the sinner and the saint;
Leaving (by irresistible decree,

And purpose absolute, what man shall be,)
Nothing, in sinners, to detest so much,
As God's contrivance how to make them such.
That ever Christians, blest with revelation,
Should think of his decreeing men's damnation;
The God of love! the fountain of all good!
"Who made," says Paul," all nations of one blood
To dwell on Earth; appointing time and place."
And for what end this pre-ordaining grace?
That they might seek, and feel after, and find
The life in God, which God for man design'd.

"We are his offspring"-for, in that decree,
The pagan poet and St. Paul agree:
"We are his offspring"-Now, sir, put the case
Of some great man, and his descending race;
Conceive this common parent of them all,
As willing some to stand, and some to fall:
Master, suppose, of all their future lot,
Decreeing some to happiness, some not;
In some to bring his kindness into view;
To show in others what his wrath can do;
To lead the chosen children by the hand,
And leave the rest to fall-who cannot stand.
I might proceed, but that the smallest sketch
Shows an absurd and arbitrary wretch,
Treating his offspring so, as to forbid
To think, that ever God Almighty did;
To think that creatures, who are said to be
His offspring, should be hurt by his decree;
Which had they always minded, good alone,
And not a spark of evil, had been known:
For his decree, appointment, order, will,
Predestinating goodness, pow'r and skill,
Is, of itself, the unbeginning good,
The pouring forth of an un-ending flood
Of everflowing bliss, which only rolls
To fill his vessels, his created souls.

Happy himself, the true divine desire,
The love that flames thro' that eternal fire,
Which generates in him th' eternal light,
Source of all blessing to created sight,
Longs with an holy earnestness to spread
The boundless glories of its fountain head;
To raise the possibilities of life,
Which rest, in him, into a joyful strife;

Into a feeling sense of him, from whom
The various gifts of various blessings come,
To bless is his immutable decree,
Such as could never have begun to be:
Decree (if you will use the word decreed)
Did from his love eternally proceed,
To manifest the hidden pow'rs, that reign
Through outward nature's universal scene;
To raise up creatures from its vast abyss,
Form'd to enjoy communicated bliss;
Form'd, in their several orders, to extend
Of God's great goodness wonders without end.
Who does not see that ill, of any kind,
Could never come from an all-perfect mind?
That its perception never could begin,
But from a creature's voluntary sin,
Made in its Maker's image, and imprest
With a free pow'r of being ever blest;
From ev'ry evil, in itself, so free,
That none could rise but by its own decree ?
By a volition, opposite to all

That God could will, did evil first befall,
And still befalls; for all the source of ill
Is opposition to his blessed will;
And union with it plainly understood
To be the source of every real good.

To certain truths, which you can scarce deny,
You bring St. Paul's expressions in reply;
Some few obscurer sayings prone to choose,
Where he was talking to the Roman Jews;
You never heed the num'rous texts, and plain,
That will not suit with your decreeing strain,
Confirming God's una ter'd will to bless,
In words as clear as language can express:
"Who willeth all men to be sav'd"-is one
Too plain for comment to be made upon:
So that, if some be not the same as all,
You must directly contradict St. Paul,
Whene'er you push to its dir et extreme,
Your wild, absurd predestination scheme.

Paul's open, generous, enlighten'd soul,
Preach'd to mankind, a Saviour of the whole,
Not part of human race; the blinded Jew
Might boast himself in this conceited view;
Boast of his father Abraham, and veut
The carnal claims of family descent:
But the whole family of Heav'n and Earth,
Paul knew, if blest, must have another birth;
That Jew and Gentile was in ev'ry place,
Alike the object of a saving grace:
Paul never tied salvation to a sect;

All who love God, with him, are God's elect.
This plain, good maxim he himself premis'd
To those fam'd chapters, which were so disguis'd
By studied comments of a later day;

When words were prest to serve a partial fray;
And scripture turn'd into a magazine
Of arms, for sober, or for frantic spleen.

All who love God-how certain is the key!
Whate'er disputed passages convey;
In Paul's epistles if some things are read,
"Hard to be understood," as Peter said,
Must this be urg'd to prove in mens condition
Their pre-election, and their preterition,
Or predamnation? for that monstrous word,
Of all absurd decree the most absurd,
Is into formal definition wrought

By your divines-unstartl'd at the thought
Of sovereign pow'r decreeing to become
The author of salvation but to some;

To some, resembling others, they admit,
Who are rejected-why?" He so thought fit:
Hath not the potter pow'r to make his clay
Just what he pleases?"-well, and tell me pray,
What kind of potter must we think a man,
Who does not make the best of it he can?
Who, making some fine vessels of his clay,
To show his pow'r, throws all the rest away,
Which, in itself, was equally as fine?
What an idea this of pow'r divine!
Happy for us, if under God's commands
We were as clay is in the potter's hands;
Pliant, and yielding readily to take

The proper form, which he is pleas'd to make!
Happy for that he has pow'r! because
An equal goodness executes its laws;
Rejecting none, but such as will behave
So, as that no omnipotence can save.

Who can conceive the infinitely Good
To show less kindness than he really cou'd?
To pre-concert damnation, and confine,
Himself, his own beneficence divine?
An impotency this, in evil hour,
Ascrib'd to God's beatifying pow'r,

By bitter logic, and the sour mistake,
Which overweening zeal is apt to make;
Describing sov'reignty as incomplete,
That does not show itself less good than great:
Tho' true in earthly monarchs it may be,
That majesty and love can scarce agree,
In his almighty will, who rules above,
The pow'r is grace, the majesty is love:
What best describes the giver of all bliss,
Glorious in all his attributes, is this;
The sov'reign Lord all creatures bow before,
But they, who love him most, the most adore.
From this one worship if a creature's heart,
Fixt on aught else, determines to depart,
There needs no pre-determining the case;
Idolatry ensues, and fall from grace;
Without, and contrary to God's intent,
Its own self-ruin is the sure event:

The love forsaken, which alone could bless,
It needs must feel wrath, anger, and distress;
The sensibilities that must arise,

If nature wants what sacred love supplies. (Cætera desunt.)

AN ARGUMENT,

FOR DAVID'S BELIEF OF A FUTURE STATE, INFER-
RED FROM BATHISHEBA'S LAST WORDS TO HIM,
UPON HIS DEATH-BED.

IF David knew not of a future life,
How understood he Bathsheba his wife?
Who, when he lay upon his death-bed, came
To plead for Solomon's succeeding claim;
And, having prosper'd in her own endeavour,
Said" Let my lord, king David, live for ever."

What real wish was Bathsheba's intent,
If life hereafter was not what she meant?
Say that" for ever"-to a king in health,
Meant a long life, prosperity, and wealth;
To one, that lay a dying, you must own,
'Twould be a mere burlesque upon his throne.

If she had pray'd for David's mild release, Or" Let my lord, the king, depart in peace"— (Tho', even then, t'were difficult to stint

Her utmost thought to so minute a hint) [tence, The short-liv'd comment might have some preBut-"live for ever"-has no sort of sense,

Unless we grant her meaning to extend To future life, that never has an end: Piety will, and reason must, confess, That her intention could be nothing less: [king" "King live for ever"-and-" God save the Old, or new phrase, salvation is the thing.

No poor salvation to be quickly past,
And with a deadly exit at the last;

To which, when David was so near, what share
Could he enjoy of live for ever's pray'r?
Had he not known what Bathsheba design'd,
A life to come, of everlasting kind.

Tho' num'rous proofs might, readily, be brought
That this was always holy David's thought;
Yet since by learned, and long-winded ways,
Men seek to break the force of ancient phrase,
I single out this plain familiar one-
Now give as plain an answer thereupon.

A strange account; that neither does nor can,
Make any part of true religion's plan;
But must expose it to the ridicule

Of scoffers, judging by this crooked rule:
Its friends, defending truth, as they suppose,
Lay themselves open to acuter foes.

To say that action, neither good nor bad,
From which no harm in nature could be had,
Was chang'd, by positive, commanding will,
Or threat forbidding, to a deadly ill,
Charges, by consequence the most direct,
On God himself that ill, and its effect.

Language had surely come to a poor pass,
Before an author, of distinguish'd class
For shining talents, could endure to make,
In such a matter, such a gross mistake;
Could thus derive death's origin, and root,
From Adam's eating of an harmless fruit.

"From Adam's eating?- Did not God forbid The taste of it to Adam?"-Yes, he did"And was it harmless, must we understand, To disobey God's positive command?-" No, by no means; but then the harm, we see, Came not from God's command, but from the tree.

If he command, the action must be good;
If he forbid, some ill is understood:
The tree, the fruit, had dreadful ills conceal'd,
Not made by his forbidding, but reveal'd;
That our first parents, by a true belief,
Might know enough to shun the fatal grief.

The dire experience of a world of woe,
Forbidding mercy will'd them not to know;
Told them what ill was in the false desire,
Which their free wills were tempted to admire;
That, of such fruit, the eating was-to die-
Its harmless nature was the tempter's lie.

To urge it now and to impute the harm
Of death, and evil, to the kind alarm
Of God's command, so justly understood
To will his creatures nothing else but good,
Is, for a Babel fiction, to resign

Right reason, scripture, and the love divine.

ON THE FALL OF MAN: OCCASIONED BY THE FOLLOWING REPRESENTATION OF THAT EVENT.

A LETTER TO A FRIEND,

UPON THE MEANING OF ST. PAUL'S EXPRES-
SION OF SPEAKING WITH TONGUES." 1 co-
RINTH. 14.

If you remember, rev'rend sir, the talk
That past betwixt us in the garden walk,

Of man's obedience, while in Eden blest,
What a mere trifle is here made the test!
An outward action, in itself, defin'd
To be of perfectly indiff rent kind;

Which, but for God's forbidding threat severe,
It had been superstition to forbear.

And that this gift was not at all concern'd
That notion wrong, which learned men had taught,
With that of speaking languages unlearn'd.

St. Paul, I said, in his Corinthian charge,
Had treated on the subject more at large;
From whose account one plainly might deduce
The genuine gift, its nature, and its use;
And make appear, from passages enoo,
The vulgar notion not to be the true:
But that to speak in tongues, or speak in tongue,
Was meant of hymns which the Corinthians sung:
This is the gift which the apostle paints,
And lays its practice under due restraints.

And show of gift, which commentators vent,
Giving a meaning that could scarce be mcant?
While zeal for hymns, a natural effect
In novices, though wanting to be check'd,
Accounts for checking, for allowing phrase,
For ev'ry motive that St. Paul displays;
His placid reas'ning and his mild rebuke;
For which no insolence of gift could look :
No insolence, I say, of such a kind
As commentators, rashly, have assign'd
To the first Christians; which the latter now,
Suppose it offer'd, never would allow.

66

"For if I pray in tongue," St. Paul pursues,
"My spirit prayeth; but no fruit accrues
To them, who do not understand my pray'rs-"
And what the remedy which he prepares?
Why, it is this" I will so" (sing or)
pray,
That all may understand what I shall say:"
Plain the two phrases in the verse proclaim,
That praying here, and singing is the same;
That some Corinthians so display'd their art,
That none but they themselves could bear a part:
Hence to interpret bymns his words ordain,
Or else to sing intelligibly plain;

Praying, or praising-for, says he again,
"How shall unlearned persons say amen
To thy thanksgiving, if, when thou shalt bless,
They understand not what thy words express?
Thou verily hast given thanks, and well;
But this, unedified, they cannot tell;"
The common benefit is still his aim,
True, real glory of the Christian name.

In languages unknown, was pray'r and praise Perform'd by Christians, in th' apostles days? Was that a time, or was the church a place, For gifted ostentation to disgrace?

A STRANGE discourse, in all impartial views,
This that you lent me, doctor, to peruse:
Had you not ask'd-a subject of this sort
Might, of itself, a few remarks extort,
To show how much a very learned man
Has been mistaken in his preaching plan.
Preaching (a talent of the gospel kind,
By-preaching peace thro' Jesus Christ-defin'd
Should, one would think, in order to increase
The gospel good, confine itself to peace;
Exert it's milder influence, and draw
The list'ning crowds to love's uniting law:
For should the greatest orator extend
The pow'rs of sound to any other end;
Regard to healing sentiments postpone,
And battle all that differ from his own;
Tho' he could boast of conquest, yet how far
From peace, through Jesus, through himself is war!
How widely wanders, from the true design
Of preaching Christ, the bellicose divine!

If amongst them, who all profess belief
In the same gospel, such a warlike chief

Should, in the pulpit, labour to erect
His glaring trophies, over ev'ry sect
That does not just fall in with his conceit,
And raise new flourish upon each defeat;
As if, by dint of his ha:anguing strain,
So many foes had happily been s'ain;
Tho' it were sure that what he said was right,
Is he more likely, think you, to invite,
To win th' erroneous over to his mind,
By eloquence of such an hostile kind,
Or to disgrace, by arts so strongly weak,
The very truths that he may chance to speak?

Like thoughts to these would, naturally, rise
Out of your own occasional surprise,
When, purchasing the book, you dipt into't,
And saw the preacher's manner of dispute;
How man by man, and sect by sect display'd,
He pass'd along from preaching to parade;
Confuting all that came within his way,
Tho' too far off to hear what he should say:
Reason, methinks, why candour would not choose,
Where no defence could follow, to accuse;
Where gen'rous triumph no attacks can yield
To the unquestion'd master of the field:
Where names, tho' injur'd without reason why,
Absent, or present, can make no reply
To the most false, or disingenuous hint,
Till time, perchance, produces it in print:
When, we may take for granted, it is clad
In its best fashion, tho' it be but bad.

This one discourse is printed, we are told,
The main of sev'ral sermons to unfold:
For one grand subject all of them were meant-
The Holy Spirit, whom the Father sent;

Th' indwelling Comforter, th' instructing Guide;
Who was, Christ said, for ever to abide
With, and in his disciples here below,
And teach them all that they should want to know.
A glorious theme! a comfortable one!
For preachers to exert themselves upon;
First taught themselves, and fitted to impart
God's truth and comfort to an honest heart:
Some such, at least, imagine to have been
Amongst the flock that came to Lincoln's Inn;
With a sincere desire to hear, and learn
That, which became a Christian's chief concern:
Pleas'd with the preacher's text, with hopes that
Might prove an instrument, in some degree, [he
Of their perception of an holy aid,

Fruit of that promise which the Saviour made;
Might help them, more and more, to understand
How near true help and comfort is at hand;
How soon the Spi it moves upon the mind,
When it is rightly numbled and resign'd:
With what a love to ev'ry fellow-soul
One member of the church regards the whole;
Looks upon all mankind as friends, or shares
To heartiest enemies his heartier pray'rs.

I might go on; but you, I know, will grant,
Such is the temper that we really want:
And such. if preachers ever preach indeed,
If pastors of a flock will really feed,
They will endeavour solely to excite,
And move divided Christians to unite;
If not in outward forms, that but supply
A loftier Babel without inward tye,
Yet in a common friendliness of will,
That wishes well to ev'y creature still;
That makes the centre of religion's plan
A god-like love embracing ev'ry man.