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12 He breaketh the contrivances of the fubtle, And their hands perform not an enterprize. 13 The skilful he catcheth in their fubtlety,

And he precipitates the counsel of the crafty. 14 Darkness they fhall meet in the day,

And in noon-day they fhall grope like the night. 15 But he will fave the fubmiffive from the fword, From their mouth, and from the mighty hand.

16 And hope fhall be to the exhausted,

And the mouth of oppreffion be fhut.

17 Lo! profperous is the man whom the Almighty hath corrected,

Therefore, the difcipline of the All-bountiful thou fhouldest not defpife:

18 Because he will make fore, and he will bind up,

He will wound, and his hand will make whole.

19 In fix diftreffes he will caufe thee deliverance,

And in feven the mischief shall not reach unto thee--

20 In

12 But vaft difturbance on the plots he flings
Of fhrewd ambition, and to nothing brings

13 Its deep laid policy: he oft has caught
The wily in the wiles themselves have wrought;
And winding craft, entangled unaware,

Is driv'n to ftark confufion and defpair:
14 They ftumble in high noon, and feel their way
Through perplex'd darknefs, in the blaze of day.
15 Thus innocence he faves from murd'rous wrong,

The weak thus rescues from the fierce and ftrong: 16 Thus hope to forrow comes; and, dumb with shame, Impiety no more blafphemes his name.

17

From Heav'n's rebuke what heav'nly bleffings flow! Happy who fcorn not the reforming blow!

18 Oh, fcorn not thou: the fame kind wounding hand Its balm infufes, and applies its band.

19 Then ills on ills about thy path may fwell

In vain; his arm will ev'ry ill,repel.

20 In

17-26 Lo! profperous is, &c.] "wx in the plural, the fame as Pfalm. I. Bleed is the man, denoting a continued fucceffion of facceffes. As a farther motive to repentance, he reprefents afflictions as divine remedies, and d'fplays the bleffings they procure to thofe who are reformed. But, the defcription is too high for the ufual courfe of things. The fingular care of Providence over the Abrahamic family feems to have been the original from which this beautiful picture of felicity was copied. Р

VOL. III.

20 In famine he fevereth thee from death,

And in battle from the edge of the fword;

21 In the fcourging of the tongue thou fhalt be concealed, And thou shalt not fear devastation when it cometh ;

22 At devastation and famine thou fhalt laugh,

And thou shalt not fear the living creatures of the earth; 23 For he will make a covenant for thee with the ftones of the field,

And the living creatures of the field shall be at peace with thee.

24 And thou fhalt know the peace of thy tent,

And vifit thy dwelling and not fin.

20 In famine fulness fhall thy table chear,

And War, wide wafting, harmless shake his fpear. 21 Rages the tongue of Slander? Undifmay'd, Walk thou in covert of Almighty fhade.

22 When beasts of mifchief prowl, with fmiles behold Thy cluft'ring vineyard and thy crouded fold.

23 Thy foot fhall be in cov'nant with the stone, And furious dragons thy dominion own.

25 And

24 Know further, peace thine household reign fhall bless, And all thy councils crown thee with fuccefs.

25 Know

21 In the Scourging of the tongue, &c.] Ruin, by calumny, or falfe accu fation.

22 At devastation, &c.] By the incurfions of lawless men and wild beasts. Lev. xxvi. 22. Jer. v. 6. Ezek. xiv. 15. Pfalm lxxx. 13.

Famine] Extreme poverty-the effect of the incurfions and depredations before mentioned.

23 He will make a covenant, &c.] This fublime figure of speech may im-. port protection in travelling. The fandals which they wore were a very flight guard to the feet, in the rough and ftony ways of their mountains. Comp. Pfalm xci. 11, 12.

And the living creatures of the field, &c.] In the foregoing verfe he affures fecurity to his vineyards, &c. from the depredations of noxious animals; here he engages for the fecurity of his perfon, particularly from the various kinds of ferpents which infefted the deferts of Arabia, and rendered travelling very dangerous. Deut. viii. 15. Pfalm xci. 13. Gen. iii. 1.

24 And not fin.] The original word is a metaphor from fkilful flingers, who never miss the mark--Judges, xx. 16. There were feven hundred chosen men, left-handed; every one could fling stones at an hair breadth, and not mifs. QueryDoes not Eliphaz mean to convey an idea of the greatness of the good man's profperity, in that, notwithstanding the tracklefs deferts which in general furrounded the Arabian habitations, his fhould, through the popu loufhefs of his family, have the paths around his dwelling fo ftrongly marked, that he should, in his return from the defert, never miss his habitation?

25 And thou shalt know that thy feed is multiplied,

And thine offspring is like the herb of the field. 26 In extreme old age thou fhalt come into the fepulchre, Like the afcending ear of corn in its feafon. 27 Behold this! inveftigate it! furely fo it is! Hearken, and thou shalt know it for thyself.

25 Know alfo, that thy long extended race Shall multiply as grafs before thy face;

26 And thou, all hoary, to the grave be borne, As to its heap the mellow'd ear of corn.

27

Thus fpeaks our searching thought, inftruction fure;
Apply, embrace it, and its good fecure.

26 Churchill feems to have had this verfe before him---
Whether he's ravish'd in life's early morn,
Or in old age drops like an ear of corn,
Full ripe he falls, on nature's noblest plan,
Who lives to reason, and who dies a man.

MR. EDITOR,

A

JONATHAN THE JEW.

S the present multiplicity of fects and parties have not a little tended to cloud and perplex the fimple account of ancient Chriftianity, as given by the evangelifts, fo whatever mode of inftruction is introduced which may beft be calculated to diffipate that darkness, we may reft fatisfied no lover of the truth can or will object. Without making any further apology, give me leave to prefent you with the life of Jonathan the Jew (written by a late very celebrated author) fupposed to have lived at the time when the controverfy was entered into and carried on by the pharifees against our Lord himself as well as his doctrine.--

"This controversy, we know, iffued in the death of Jesus. And if I might be allowed to adopt the vulgar use of the word victim on this occafion, I would say he fell a victim to the refentment of every human excellency. For what is it that man glories in, that did not find itself piqued and affronted by the doctrine, joined with the extraordinary circumftances of the life of Jefus? As matters betwixt Jefus and the world, in all the various shapes they affume, ftand always much on the fame footing, what should hinder us to forget for a little the distance of time

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and place to bring home the interesting scene, and hear Jonathan declaring what impreffion the recent circumstances made upon his mind.--

"Had Jefus, when buried, like other mortals, remained in the grave, I had ftedfaftly adhered to the pharifees, and gloried in being one of them, as being convinced, that the grand controverfy about righteousness, which was carried on with great zeal on both fides, was now fairly decided in their favour, and that they had gained an additional honour by the oppofition.

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"I received a liberal and virtuous education among the Sadducees, who admit no sense of our facred writings but what they think agreeable to found philofophy. But happening, about the time that Jefus made his appearance, to fall acquainted with fome amiable men of eminent piety among the pharifees, I began to conceive a liking to their party. I obferved that they maintained a more strict temperance, and, in general, a greater purity of life; and that they had more exalted fentiments about the power and character of God than the other party. I made it my business now to attend their lectures, and study their tenets, in hopes of being found worthy to rank with them. Mean time, the uncommon oppofition fhewn to them by Jefus drew no small share of my attention, and terved, on the whole, rather to increase than diminish my attachment to them. I confidered their fentiments as a great improvement of my former way of thinking, and highly conducive to my advancement in virtue as well as piety. I readily judged, then, that the oppofition which was chiefly pointed against what came nearest to perfection, must have proceeded from the worft of caufes. I had a very low opinion of Jefus, as well as of the company he kept, on many accounts, which I shall not now take time to relate: in the general, I thought him a stran ger to every great and noble sentiment, which charms and ele vates the mind of man. What difaffected me most to him was, I thought him uncharitable to the laft degree. I could not reconcile, with any degree of charity or piety, the fevere cen→ fures he paffed upon men of the best established characters. It gave me great difguft to hear him addreffing the men whom I myself thought worthy of the highest eftcem for every thing great and good, in fuch uncouth language as this--- How can ye efcape the damnation of hell! I thought it intolerable to hear him, at the fame time declare, with fingular affurance, that he was the only peculiar favourite of heaven; that every character of man but his own was cenfurable by the divine law, and confequently the object of the divine difpleasure; yea,

without

without ftopping here, with the greatest familiarity calling God his Father, in a fenfe peculiar to himself; and without leaving us at any lofs to gather his meaning, affirming, The Father and I are one, even while he shewed rather more zeal than any of us against the leaft appearance of afcribing any divine attribute or name to any but the one God, or even to himself in any other view. To hear him, in the very house facred to the honour of the one God, against the profaning of which he himself had fhewn the greatest zeal, not only receiving divine praise from his attendants, but receiving it in the very words of the facred hymns, which we used to fing in our moft folemn affemblies to the praise of the Moft High; yea, vindicating this praife as his due, by quoting those very hymns in fupport of it, and rebuking my zealous friends, who complained of this as an abufe.

"Let any one put himself in our place, and try how he could have borne all this, joined with many other provoking circumftances of the like nature, or if any thing elfe could have fatisfied him, than to have feen matters brought to the extremities to which all parties among us at laft agreed to pufh them. I muft own, indeed, that there was a peculiar energy in the rebukes of Jefus, which made it very difficult for one to refift the force of them. But what alarmed me most was, his performing many works that could not be done by human power; yea, fuch power appeared in them, that I could not help fufpecting, upon accafions, that the finger of God was there, notwithstanding all the pains that were taken to account for them otherwife. However, as his conduct, on the whole, seemed to me to be fo very oppofite to the univerfally received principles of reafon and religion, I made the best fhift I could. to efface any impreffions made on my heart from that quarter; concluding, that as the character of God himself must be measured by thofe principles, it would be abfurd to suppose that any revelation coming from him could ever ferve to undermine them. By the fame principles I fortified myself against the prediction delivered by Jefus concerning his rifing again from the dead; to which event he had openly appealed for proof of his doctrine, or, which is the fame thing, the excellence of his person and character: and what ferved to give me the greater affurance was, I found my favourite party was very forward to refer the decifion of the whole controverfy to that event, as being very confident that it would never happen. When once Jefus was dead and buried, I thought the difpute as good as ended. But how great was my aftonishment when,

not

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