Sermons and Other Practical Works

Nor any proper notions thereof reach,
Though sublimated to the highest stretch.
Masters of reason, plodding men of sense,
Who scorn to mortify their vain pretence,
In this mysterious deep might plod their fill;
It overtops the top of all their ikill. .
The more they vainly huff, and scorn to read,
The more it does their foolish wit exceed.

Those finners that are sanctify'd in part,
May read this Riddle truly in their heart.
Yea, weakest faints may feel its truest sense,
Both in their sad and sweet experience.
Do’nt overlook it with a rambling view,
And rash suppose it neither good nor true.
Let Heav'n's pure oracles the truth decide ;
Renounce it, if it can't thy test abide.
Noble Bereans soon the sense may hit,
Who found the divine depth of sacred writ;
Not by what airy carnal reason faith,
But by the golden line of heav'n-spun faith.

Let not the naughty phrafe make you disprove
The weighty matter which deserves your love.
The subject treated may be most profound,
Though words inay rattle with a rustic found.
High strains would spoil the Riddle's grand intent,
To teach the weakest, most illit'rate faint,
That Mahanaim is his proper name;
In whom two struggling hosts make bloody game.
That such may know, whose knowledge is but rude,
How good consists with ill, and ill with good.
That saints be neither at their worst nor best,
Too much exalted, or too much deprest.

This paradox is fitted to disclose
The skill of Zion's friends above her foes ;
To diff'rence, by light that heav'n transmits,
Some happy fools from miserable wits.
And thus, if bless’d, it may in some degree
Make fools their wit, and wits their folly see.
Slight not the Riddle then like jargon vile,
Because not garnish'd with a pompous stile.
Could th' author act the lofty poets part,
Who make their fonnets foar on wings of art,

He on his theme had blush'd to use his skill,
And either clipt his wings, or broke his quill.

Why, this enigma climbs such divine heights,
As scorn to be adorn’d with human flights.
These gaudy strains would lovely truth disgrace,
As purest paint deforms a comely face.
Heav'n's mysteries are 'bove art's ornament,
Immensely brighter than its brightest paint.
No tow'ring litrature could e'er outwit
The plainest diction fetch'd from sacred writ;
By which mere blazing rhet'ric is outdone,
As twinkling stars are by the radiant sun.
The foaring orators, who can with ease
Strain the quintessence of byperboles,
And clothe the barest theme with purest dress,
Might here expatiate much, yet say the less,
If wi’ th’ majestical simplicity
Of scripture-oratry they disagree.

These lines pretend not to affect the sky,
Content among inglorious shades to ly,
Provided sacred truth be fitly clad,
Or glorious shine ev’n through the dulky shade.
Mark then, though thou should miss the gilded strain,
If they a store of golden truth contain :
Nor under-rate a jewel rare and prime,
Though wrapt up in the rags of homely rhimne.

Though haughty Deists hardly stoop to say,
That nature's night has need of fcripture.day ;
Yet gospel-light alone will clearly shew
How ev'ry sentence here is just and true,
Expel the shades that may the mind involve,
And soon the seeming contradiction folve.
All fatal errors in the world proceed
From want of skill such mysteries to read.
Vain men the double branch of trade divide,
Hold by the one, and slight the other side.

Hence proud Arminians cannot reconcile
Freedom of grace with freedom of the will.
The blinded Papist won't discern nor tee,
How works are good, unless they jufify.
Thus Legalists distinguish not the odds
Between their home-bred righteousness and Gyd's.

Antinomists the saints perfection plead,
Nor duly fever 'tween them and their head.
Socinians won't these seeming odds agree,
How heav'ın is bought, and yet falvation free.
Bóld Arians hate to reconcile or scan,
How Christ is truly God, and truly man;
Holding the one part of Immanuel's name,
The other part outrageously blaspheme.
The found in faith no part of truth control;
Heretics own the half, but not the whole.

Keep then the sacred myft'ry ftill entire;
To both the sides of truth due favour bear,
Not quitting one to hold the other branch;
But paffing judgment on an equal bench.
The Riddle has two feet, and, were but cne
Cut off, truth, falling to the ground, were gone.
?Tis all a contradiction, yet all true;
And happy truth, if verify'd in you.
Go forward then to read the lines, but ftay,
To read the Riddle also by the way.
*********************************
The Ꭱ Ꭱ Ꭰ Ꭰ L E.

SECT. I.
The Mystery of the Saints Pedigree, and especially

of ibeir Relation to Christ's wonderful Perfon. MY

Y life's a maze of seeming traps, I

A scene of mercies and mishaps; 2
A heap of jarring to-and-froes, 3
A field of joys, a flood of woes. 4

I Joll. xxiii. 13. And Joshua said, Know for a certainty, that the Lord your Gol will no more drive out any of these nations from before you ; but they fall be inares and traps into you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, &c. Psalm cxxiv. 7. Our foul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the saare is broken, and we are escaped.

2 Or MISERIES, Lam. ill. 19. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Ver. 22. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed; becauls his compassions fail not. Pralin ci, i. I will ling of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I fing,

3 Plalın cii. 10. Thou hast litied me up, and cait me down. Psalm cix. 23. I am tossed up and down as the locuit.

4 Hab. iii. 17, 18. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olives thall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock thail be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the falls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

I'm in my own, and others eyes, A labyrinth of mysteries, I I'm something that from nothing came; 2 Yet sure it is I nothing am. 3 Once I was dead, and blind, and lame, 4 Yea, I continue still the same ; 5. Yet what I was, I am no more, 6 Nor ever shall be as before. 7 My Father lives 8, my father's gone, 9 My vital head both lost and won. 10 My parents cruel are, and kind, 11 Of one, and of a diff'rent mind. 12

集

1 Ira. viii. 18. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel; from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. Zech. iii. 8. Hear now, O Joshna the high-priest, thou and thy fellows that fit before thee : for they are men wondered at, &c. Psalm Ixxi. 7. I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong tower.

2 Gen. i.'1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Heb. xii. 3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear.

3 lfa. xl. 17. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. Dan. iv. 33. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.

4. Eph. ii. 1. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and fins. Rev. ii. 17. Because thou sayst, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and mi. serable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Ifa. xxxv. 6. Then thall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb fing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the defart.

5 Rom. vii. 14. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, fold under lin. Ver. 24. O wretched man that I am! who fhall deliver me from the body of this death ?

6 Rom. vii. 17. Now then, it is no more I thn do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Ver. 20. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but lin that dwelleth in me. Johd' ix. 25. He (viz. the blind man) answered and said, Whether he be a finner or no, I know not : one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I fee.

7 Rom. xi. 29. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Jer. xxxii. 40. And I will make an everlalting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them goed; but I will puc my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

8 Isa. ix. 6. His name shall be called, The everlasting Father. Rev. i. 18. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen.

9 Holea xiv. 3. In thee the fathreslels finder mercy. Zech. i. 5. Your fathers, where are they? And the propheti, do they live for ever?

10 1 Cor. xv. 45. It is written, The firit Adam was made a living foul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

11 Psalm ciii. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Isa. xliii. 27. Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me.

12 Job xxiii. 13. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and wbat bis soul desireth, even that he doch. Rom. viü. 5. For they that are after

My father poison'd me to death, I
My mother's hand will stop my breath; 2
Her womb, that once my substance gave,
Will very quickly be my grave. 3
My sisters all my flesh will eat, 4
My brethren tread me under feet; 5
My nearest friends are most unkind, 6
My greatest foe's my greatest friend. 7
He could from feud to friendship pass,
Yet never change from what he was. 8
He is my Father, he alone,
Who is my Father's only Son. 9

the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Ver. 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

1 Rom. v. 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by fin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have finned.

2 Gen. iii. 16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy forrow, and thy conception : in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, &c.

3 Psalm cxlvi. 4. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth: in that very day his thoughts perish. Eccl. iii. 20. All go into one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to the dust again.

4 Job xvii. 14. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my lifter. Chap. xix. 26. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

5 Even in a moral sense, Jer. xii. 10. Many pastors have destroyed my vine. yard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Ezek. xxxiv. 18. Secmeth it a small thing unto you, to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feed the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the refidue with your feet.

6 Psalm lv. 12, 13. For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify him. self against me, then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man, mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. Micah vii. 5, 6. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide : keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughier riieth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her motherin-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

7 Psalm vii. 11. God is angry with the wicked every day. 2 Cor. V. 19. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.

8 Mal. iii. 6. For I am the Lord, I change not : therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Hosea xiv. 4. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him.

9 John xx. 17. Jesus saith unto her (viz. Mary), Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. Ila. ix. 6. Unto us a Son is given—; and his name shall be called, The ever. lasting Father. John i. 14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Faiker, full of grace and truth.

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