is the fupremely happy mortal, who will declare, that he has completed his plan and attained his utmoft with? It is a natural fuppofition, upon taking a furvey of human nature, that fuch a being cannot exist; for no extent of human abilities has been able to difcover a path, which, in any line of life, leads unerringly to fuccefs; we may form our plans with the utmost fagacity, and with the most vigilant caution guard against dangers on every fide; we may flatter ourfelves with confident hopes of fuccefs from variety of concurring circumstances, and yet be deceived and fall fhort of that happiness we expected; for difappointment, diffatisfaction and mutability attend all human inventions and poffeffions; fome unforeseen accident frequently occurs, which baffles all our nice laid fchemes, and counteracts all our labours: The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the ftrong, nor riches to men of understanding.

They who have furveyed the various scenes of life, and have experienced every viciffitude of fortune, have found that true happiness is not the lot of man in this ftate of probation; even Solomon, who excelled in wifdom, and whose exalted fituation in life afforded him opportunity of gratifying every inclination, and obtaining every earthly enjoyment found no fatif faction adequate to his expectations; for the refult of his unparalleled experience is, that "all is vanity." Though fome enjoy a greater degree of happiness than others, yet all meet with many checks and difappointments. It is not confiftent with a state of probation that we fhould enjoy perfect happiness; that perfection is preferved for fuch, as approve themfelves worthy, in a future and better state; indeed, in this world, frequent intervals of reft and quiet are fcattered round every Дation, otherwife life would

be miserable to all intents and purpofes; but there is none that can with propriety be called happinefs. Every day haftens this world to its diffolution, when a new scene will be exhibited to our view; the whole mystery of nature, which is at prefent dark and intricate, will then be revealed; and the various difpenfations of Providence, which to our finite comprehenfions, feem partial, will be evidently juftified; when that awful change takes place, our prefent conduct will determine our future happiness or mifery, and the tranfactions of this uncertain world extend their influence to the next: "For we fhall all ftand before the judgment-feat of Chrift, and be rewarded according to our works whether they be good or bad." Therefore we should not center our hopes, or exert our utmoft abilities to obtain the fleeting, imperfect joys of this frail life; but at the fame time that we seek to enjoy the neceffaries of our earthly ftat, we fhould extend our views to thofe manfions of blifs, where our happiness will be equally pure, permanent, and unchangeable. this is the only fure way to render the imperfect enjoyments of life, in any wife tolerable, and likewife promote our trueft intereft. Piety, virtue and religion, are the only certain remedies, capable of extenuating, the pungent forrows of afflictions; for, how vain foever this life, confidered in itself, may be, yet the comforts and hopes of religion, not only afford confolation ander afflictions, difappointments, and misfortunes, but are alone fufficient to give folidity to the enjoyments of the righteous. It fhould therefore be our conftant endeavours to difcharge our feveral duties to God, our fellow-creatures and ourselves, in the best manner we are able; and ftrive to fecure, as much as finite nature is capable, that permanent happiness, which alone can adequately fatiate, the Z 2 defires

For

cefires of the foul. It should be our peculiar care to pass through life with innocence, return grateful thanks to Almighty God for the good things we enjoy, and with patient refignation endure the evil; we must not be unreasonable in our expectations of worldly felicity; for if we are, we fhall be fure to be difappointed; the happiness of life is not to be exalted above measure;' a comfortable ftate is all that we can propofe to ourselves; peace and contentment is the full portion of man. We must beware of external appearances, left emerging from the fhade of obfcurity, we fhould be dazzled with artificial fplendor, and confequently be rendered incapable of feeing things in their proper light; "The wifdom of the ferpent must be mixed with the innocence of the dove." For a narrow felfifh difpofition deftroys the noble principle of generofity; the purposes of fociety require a mutual intercourfe of good offices, we fhould cultivate, therefore, univerfal benevolence; yet we must be very cautious to whom we trust the fecrets of our hearts; for life is a mafquerade, where fictitious characers are too often affumed; and therefore we must not content our felves with a fuperficial furvey, but minutely explore the heart of any man, previous to our unbofoming our own; we muft affert our native liberty, and not be duped as flaves to any fect or party; our ideas of government must be confiftent with the rights of mankind; our principles of religion must be fuch as are not only worthy of God, but beneficial to man; we must revere the oracles of confcience, and fupport the dignity of our fouls; in fhort, we must be infpired with reJigion, guided by rational principles, and the dictates of confcience, and extend our views to that happy period when all the pleasures and pains, hopes, and fears, of this fublunary itate fhall be difperfed,

and eternal light be diffufed over all the works and ways of God. Thus, if we regulate our conduct by thefe directions, we fhall not only render our mortal state as happy as poffible, but alfo prepare ourfelves for the enjoyment of that perfect happiness, which will crown all the labours of the righteous in the world to come. A. G.

BOOK OF PSALMS.

PARAPHRASE AND EXPOSITION ON PSALM XI.

A

FTER Saul had promoted

David, and given him his daughter in marriage, and began to grow jealous of him, fuppofing that he aspired to the throne; and for that reafon, as was evident to every one, was determined to ruin him; David's friends advised him to confult his own fecurity, and to retire towards the mountainous parts of Judæa, where he might lie concealed and upon this occafion he is thought to have compofed this pfalm.

Ver. 1. In the Lord put I my truft: how fay ye then to my foul that she should flee, as a bird untq the hill, for a place of greater fecurity?

2. For you, who are my friends, tell me, Lo! the ungodly, viz. Saul, and mine other enemies, his creatures, bend their bow, and make ready their arrows within the quiver, that they may privily fhoot at them which are true of heart.

3. For, fay you, the foundations upon which I depend, the promises which I have had," and the public decrees which have been made in my favour, will be caft down, will not be kept,and what hath the righteous done? Or rather what can the righteous do? What fecurity can I have in that cafe?

4. But my answer to this is, that, confcious of my own innocence, I refer my caufe to God, and depend upon

him

bim for his protection; for the Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's feat is in heaven.

5. From thence his eyes confider the poor; and his eye-lids try the children of men.

6. And the confequence of this trial is, that the Lord alloweth and approveth the actions of the righteous: but the ungodly and him that delighteth in wickedness doth his foul abhor.

7. For, upon the ungodly, he hall, at last, I am perfuaded, rain fnares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempeft, as he did upon Sodom: and this fhall be their portion to drink.

8. For the righteous Lord loveth righteoufnefs and his countenance will behold the thing that is juft, and approve it.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE

NEW CHRISTIAN'S MAGAZINE. Gentlemen,

In an advertisement to your rea

ders, you faid you would admit of extracts on religious fubjects': I have fent you the following from a favourite author, which the Rev. Mr. Hervey fo much recommends; it is taken from Young on Pleafure, twelfth edition, page 53.

I am, Gentlemen, Your conftant reader and well wisher, J. DAVISON.

Mafbro, Sept. 1783.

T

HE one thing neceffary for hap

pinefs is in common to both worlds, this, and the next; in vain we-feek a different receipt for it; one in time, another in eternity. Virtue wanting, every thing elfe becomes neceffary to happiness and ineffectual. To what amounts then the boast of their numberlefs felicities? It brings, in proof of their happiness, a demonitration of their misery. "A good

man fhall be fatisfied from himfelf alone." A bad man fhall be diffatisfed,with all the world at his devotion. An indulgent Providence has abun

dantly provided us with irreprovable pleasures; why are thefe fwept away with an ungrateful hand, to make room for poifons of our own deadly compofition, to be placed in their ftead? Epicurus was in love with his gardens but that is an amour too innocent for them. A garden has ever had the praife and affection of the wife and happy man. What is requifite to make a wife and happy man, but reflection and peace; and both are the natural growth of a garden; nor is a garden only the promoter of a good man's happiness, but a picture of it; and, in fome fort, fhews him to himself. Its culture, order, fruitfulness, and feclufion from the world, compared to the weed, wildness, and expofure of a common field, is no bad emblem of a good man, compared to the multitude. A garden weeds the mind; it weeds it of worldly thoughts, and fows.celeftial feed in their ftead. For what fee we there, but what awakens in us gratitude to Heaven? A garden to the virtuous, is a paradife ftill extant, a paradife unloft. What a rich present from Heaven, of fweet incenfe to man, was wafted in that breeze! Here are no objects that fire the paffions; none that do not inftruct the understanding, and better the heart, while they delight fenfe, but not the fenfe of the men of pleafure. Their palate for pleasure is fo deadened and burnt out, by the violent ftroke of higher taftes, as leaves no fenfibility for the fofter impreflions of thefe; much lefs for the relifh of thofe philofophic or moral fentiments, which the verdant walk, clear ftreams embowering fhade, pendent fruit, or rifing flower, thofe fpeechlefs, not powerlefs orators, ever praifing their great author, infpire. Religion is the natural growth of the works of God; and infidelity of the inventions of men -fpiritually blind, deaf and ftupid, they fee not the great Omnipresent walking in the garden; they hear not his call; they know not that they are naked; they hide not among the

trees;

trees; but ftand in open defiance of his laws. Religion is far from them. The man of pleasure! Of what nature, fpecies, or rank in the creation conceives he himself to be? Does this yet unconftrued, undecyphered creature, confider himself as an immortal being, or only as a rational, or as a mere animal? If as an immortal, let him regard things eternal: if as a rational, let reafon reign: if as a mere animal, let him indulge appetite, but not go beyond it; when appetite is fatisfied an animal's meal is over if as a compofition of all three, let it not be a confufion of them; let it be a compofition; and order alone can preserve that name.No, he is for none of these. He is an immortal, without a sense of im

mortality. He is a rational dethroning reason; and an animal tranfgreffing appetite; an unhappy combination, a wretched chaos of all, without the benefit of either; nay, a fufferer from each becaufe an abufer of all. They are not, as Heaven defigned them, three parties in alliance for his happiness; but three confpirators of his own making, against his peace. -I fhall conclude by giving you Mr. Young's three laft maxims to this difcourfe; firft, he that will not fear, fhall feel the wrath of Heaven; fecond, he that lives in the kingdom of fenfe, fhall die in the kingdom of forrow; thirdly, he fhall never truly enjoy his prefent hour, who never thinks on his laft.

B

made

UT we find no argument a ftronger impreffion on the minds of eminent Pagan converts, for ftrengthening their faith in the history of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in thofe old prophetic writings which were depofited among the hands of the greatest enemies to Chriflianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearance. The learned Heathen converts were aftonished to fee the whole hiftory of their Saviour's life publifhed before he was born, and to find the evangelists and prophets, in their accounts of the Meffiah differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other defcribing thofe very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Sa

viour himself was pleased to make ufe of as the ftrongest argument of his being the promised Meftah, and without it would hardly have reconciled his difciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable paffage which mentions his converfation with the two difciples, on the day of his refurrection, St. Luke xxiv. 13. to the end. Befides, the heathen converts, after having travelled through all human learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and fciences, were particularly qualified to examine these prophecies with great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepoffeffion, fo as to establish in their minds the firm belief of the truth and excellency of the Chrif tian religion, beyond the leaft degree of a doubt concerning it. If the Jews on the one fide put an unnatural interpretation on thefe prophecies, to evade the force of them their controverfies with the Chriftians; or if the Chriftians on

in

the other fide over-ftrained feveral paffages in their applications of them, as it often happens among men of the beft understanding, when their minds are heated with any confideration that bears a more than ordinary weight with it: the learned heathens may be looked upon as neuters in the matter, when all these prophecies were new to them, and their education had left the interpretation of them free and indifferent. Befides, thefe learned men among the primitive Chriftians, knew how the Jews, who had preceded our Saviour, interpreted thefe predictions, and the feveral marks by which they acknowledged the Meffiah would be discovered, and how thofe of the Jewish doctors who fucceeded him, had deviated from the interpretations and doctrines of their forefathers, on purpose to ftifle their own conviction. This fet of arguments had therefore an invincible force with thofe Pagan philofophers who became Chriftians, as we find in most of their writings. They could not difbelieve our Saviour's history, which fo exactly agreed with every thing that had been written of him many ages before his birth, nor doubt of thofe circumstances being fulfilled in him, which could not be true of any person that lived in the world befides himself.

her hand a grateful recompence, as "her ways are ways of pleasantnefs, and all her paths are peace."

It may indeed fometimes happen, that either through the malicioufnefs of men, or the combination of ill-accidents, that virtue may in fome degree be oppreffed; but that difadvantage is at the prefent abfolutely made amends for from the confcioufnefs of well-doing; and how great is it counter-ballanced by that more perfect peace of mind, which will attend her at the last, and of which the cannot be deprived. Nothing is propofed to us as a duty, either by nature, or fcripture, but what is agreeable and improving to the rational foul in man, according to which, virtue, as being the moft obligatory duty, does promote peace and happinefs. Virtue is fo ftrictly enjoined us, because it perfects and adorns the human nature, and therefore may be supposed to bring with it a reward of prefent peace and fatisfaction; St. Paul tells us, that tribulation and anguifh fhall be upon every foul of man that doeth evil, fo to him that doeth good fhall be glory, honour, and peace;" "Peace that paffeth all underftanding; joy that is unspeakable, and full of glory." Peace, then, we find to be the natural confequence of virtue; a reward that is to be given by God; and this is a reward which nothing can deprive them of, unless before their death, they fall from a state of holiness and virtue, into that of wickednefs and vice; for then their latter end will be worfe than their beginning; fince their righteoufnefs will be no more remembered; whereas, on the contrary, if men would fuffer themselves to be governed by reafon, and the precepts of the gofpel; if they would never be faint with well doing, but patiently continue and perfevere in their uprightness; if they would endure to the end and be faithful unto death,