These glowing stars fhall fade, this moon fhall fall,
This tranfitory fky fhall melt away;
Whilft thou triumphantly furviving all,
Shalt glad expatiate in eternal day.

Sickens the mind with longings vainly great,
To trace myfterious Wifdom's fecret ways;
While chained and bound in this ignoble state,
Humbly it breathes fincere, imperfe&t praife.

Or glows the beating heart with secret fires,
And longs to mingle in the worlds of love?
Or foolish trembler, feeds its fond defires

Of earthly good? or dreads life's ills to prove?

Back does it trace the flight of former years,

The friends lamented, and the pleasures paft?
Or winged with forecast, vain and impious fears,
Prefumptuous to the cloud-hid future hafte?

Hence, far be gone, ye fancy-folded pains!
Peace, trembling heart, be every figh supprest!
Wisdom fupreme, eternal goodness reigns;

Thus far is fure: to Heaven refign the reft.

Written on New-Year's Eve, while the bells were ringing out the Old Year.

GAIN the [moothly circling year,

Beneath fair fkies ferene and clear,
Completes his gentle round;

Sweet bells in tuneful founds exprefs,
Gay thanks for rural happiness;

And months with plenty crowned.

While yet remains the courteous gueft,
Oh! be my grateful thoughts exprest,
Unmixt with grief or fear;

Farewel ye Sealens! roll away,
I wish not to prolong your stay,
Though Age brings up the rear.

Chearful I truft for future good,
The hand which all the past bestowed,
Nor heed life's fhitting scene:

Farewel kind year, which still has bleft
My days with peace, my nights with rest,
And leavest my mind serene.

Not yet; but now impends the ftroke,
The far refounding midnight clock,
Has fummoned thee away;
Go, mingle with the countless past,
Till Time himself has lived his laft,
In foft oblivion stay.

But then with fmiling grace appear,
Thou blameless, grief-unfulliéd year,
Oh! fmile once more on me;
And witnefs that thy golden hours,
Have all been prized as fummer flowers,
By some industrious Bee.

T

EPIGRAM S.

IME that is past, thou never can't recal;

Of time to come, thou art not fure at all;
Time prefent only, is within thy power;
And therefore now improve the present hour.

AFER to reconcile a Foe, than make

SAFE

A conquest of him,, for the conqueft's fake;
This tames his power of doing prefent ill,
But that difarms him of the very will.

SHORT HY M N S.

JOB Xxxii. 8. The infpiration of the Almighty giveth man understanding.

TH
'HE world may boaft their knowledge vain;

But what can human learning do?

The Spirit, whom we from God obtain,
The way to God alone can fhew;
The Almighty's own immediate breath,
Wisdom and truth divine imparts;
Expels the wifdom from beneath,

And fills with heaven our peaceful hearts.

Come Jefus, come, my heart infpire;
Wisdom and power of God appear

Kindle the pure celestial fire,

Be thou my life eternal here:
The way, the truth, the life divine,
Each moment thee I long to prove;
Each moment to receive of thine,
Each moment feel that God is love.

JOB' XXXV. 10. God giveth fongs in the night.

THE

Arminian Magazine,

For APRIL 1780.

An EXPOSITION of the ninth Chapter of the Epiftle of
St. Paul to the ROMANS.

Extracted from JOHN GOODWIN.

[Continued from page 121.]

N the words following, Shall the thing formed fay to him

IN

that formed it, why haft thou made me thus, the Apostle exaggerates the indignity put upon God by him, that should rise up against him with any such demand? Meaning, that he who thus expoftulates with God, doth no otherwise, than if an earthen Pitcher fhould contend with him that formed it, and demand an account of him, why he made it in fuch a shape, and not rather in fome other. This comparison sets off the deportment of the objector towards God, with a kind of unnatural and prodigious deformity.

VOL. III.

Y

But

1

But there is nothing in the Apoftle's anfwer, which imports any unlawfulness, for men with reverence and fobriety, to fearch out the righteoufnefs and equity, the wifdom and goodnefs, as of the counfels, fo of the ways and difpenfations of God. Abraham difcourfed with God, propounding feveral queftions, and receiving anfwers from him, concerning his righteousness in the deftruction of Sodom. Job alfo reasoned many things with God, about his righteoufnefs and equity in afflicting him, as he did, and yet was blameless. All that the words import, is, that it is prefumption and impiety in men to arraign the counfels and ways of God, for any defect, whether in wisdom, or righteoufnefs, when they are plainly declared unto them, or when men cannot reasonably doubt whether they be his, or no.

In the latter part of his words, the Apoftle alludes to that paffage of the prophet Jeremiah, where being commanded by God to go down to a Potter's house, as he beheld one veffel marred in this Potter's hand, and another presently made of the fame matter by him, the Word of the Lord came to him in this tenor: O houfe of Ifrael, cannot I do with you as this Potter, faith the Lord? Behold, as the clay is in the Potter's hand, fo are ye in mine hand, O houfe of Ifrael, Jer. xviii. 6.

It is not fo eafy, as many conceive, to build fuch an application upon the Apoftle's fimilitude of a Potter and his clay, as will fuit the doctrines of abfolute Election and Reprobation. If we fuppofed the Holy Ghoft had made no application himself of the fimilitude we fpeak of, (the contrary whereunto we shall fhortly demonftrate,) yet may there fuch an application be made of the words (and with a particular of reference to the paffage, from whence the fimilitude is borrowed,) as hath no fympathy at all with Election and Reprobation from eternity. As for inftance; as the Potter hath power over the clay, of the fame lump to make one vessel unto honour, another unto difhonour: in like manner, yea, and

eye

much