Our thoughts are lost in reverend awe :

We love and we adore;

The first archangel never saw

So much of God before.

Here the whole Deity is known,

Nor dares a creature guess Which of the glories brightest shone, The justice or the grace.

When sinners broke the Father's laws,

The dying Son atones;

Oh, the dear mysteries of his cross!
The triumph of his groans!

Now the full glories of the Lamb

Adorn the heavenly plains;

Sweet cherubs learn Immanuel's name, And try their choicest strains.

may I bear some humble part

In that immortal song!

Wonder and joy shall tune my heart
And love command my tongue.

2

THE HUMBLE ENQUIRY.

A FRENCH SONNET IMITATED. 1695.

"Grand Dieu, tes Jugemens," &c.

GRACE rules below, and sits enthron'd above, How few the sparks of wrath! how slow they move, And drop and die in boundless seas of love!

But me, vile wretch! should pitying love embrace
Deep in its ocean, hell itself would blaze,
And flash and burn me thro' the boundless seas.

Yea, Lord, my guilt to such a vastness grown
Seems to confine thy choice to wrath alone,
And calls thy power to vindicate thy throne.

Thine honour bids, "Avenge thy injur'd name,"
Thy slighted loves a dreadful glory claim,
While my moist tears might but incense thy flame.

Should heaven grow black, almighty thunder roar, And vengeance blast me, I could plead no more, But own thy justice, dying, and adore.

Yet can those bolts of death that cleave the flood To reach a rebel, pierce this sacred shroud, Tinged in the vital stream of my Redeemer's blood?

THE PENITENT PARDONED.

HENCE from my soul, my sins, depart,
Your fatal friendship now I see;

Long have

you dwelt too near my heart, Hence, to eternal distance flee.

Ye gave my dying Lord his wound,
Yet I caressed your viperous brood,
And in my heart-strings lapped you round,
You, the vile murderers of my God.

Black heavy thoughts, like mountains, roll O'er my poor breast, with boding fears, And crushing hard my tortured soul, Wring through my eyes the briny tears.

Forgive my treasons, Prince of grace!
The bloody Jews were traitors too,
Yet thou hast pray'd for that curs'd race,
Father, they know not what they do."

66

Great Advocate, look down and see
A wretch, whose smarting sorrows bleed;
O plead the same excuse for me!
For, Lord, I knew not what I did.

Peace, my complaints; let every groan
Be still, and silence wait his love;
Compassions dwell amidst his throne,
And through his inmost bowels move.

Lo, from the everlasting skies,
Gently, as morning-dews distil,
The dove immortal downward flies,
With peaceful olive in his bill.

How sweet the voice of pardon sounds!
Sweet the relief to deep distress!
I feel the balm that heals my wounds,
And all my powers adore the grace.

A HYMN OF PRAISE FOR THREE GREAT

SALVATIONS.

VIZ.

1. From the Spanish Invasion, 1588.

2. From the Gunpowder Plot, Nov. 5, 1605.

3. From Popery and Slavery, by King William, of glorious memory, who landed Nov. 5, 1688.

INFINITE God, thy counsels stand
Like mountains of eternal brass,
Pillars to prop our sinking land,
Or guardian rocks to break the seas.

From pole to pole thy name is known,
Thee a whole heaven of angels praise;

Our labouring tongues would reach thy throne
With the loud triumphs of thy grace.

Part of thy church, by thy command,
Stands rais'd upon the British isles;
"There," said the Lord, "to ages stand,
"Firm as the everlasting hills."

In vain the Spanish ocean roared;
Its billows swelled against our shore,
Its billows sunk beneath thy word,
With all the floating war they bore.

"Come, said the sons of bloody Rome,
Let us provide new arms from hell:"
And down they digg'd thro' earth's dark womb,
And ransack'd all the burning cell.

Old Satan lent them fiery stores,
Infernal coal, and sulphurous flame,
And all that burns, and all that roars,
Outrageous fires of dreadful name.

Beneath the Senate and the throne,
Engines of hellish thunder lay;

There the dark seeds of fire were sown,

To spring a bright but dismal day.