Regeneration is all in all,

Washing, or sprinkling, but the fign, The feal, and inftrument thereof; I call The one, as well as the other, mine, And my pofterity's, as federal.

If temporal estates may be convey'd,
By covenants on condition,

To men, and to their heirs; be not afraid,
My foul, to rest upon

The covenant of grace by mercy made.

Do but thy duty, and rely upon't,
Repentance, faith, obedience,

Whenever practised truly, will amount
To an authentic evidence,
Though the deed were antidated at the Font.

ERE

HE

XII. THE READING-PEW.

my new enter'd foul doth first break fast, Here feafoneth her infant tafte,

And at her mother-nurse, the Church's dugs
With labouring lips and tongue she tugs,
For that fincere milk, which alone doth feed
Babes new-born of immortal feed:

Who, that they may unto perfection grow,
Must be content to creep before they go.

They, that would reading out of Church exclude, Sure have a purpose to obtrude

Some dictates of their own, instead of God's

Revealed Will, his Word. 'Tis odds,

They do not mean to pay men current coin,
Who seek the standard to purloin,

And would reduce all trials to their own,
Both touch-ftones, balances, and weights, alone.

What reasonable man would not mifdoubt

Those Comments, that the text leave out?
And that their main intent is alteration,
Who dote fo much on variation,

That no fet Forms at all they can endure
To be prescribed, or put in ure?
Rejecting bounds and limits is the way,
If not all waste, yet common all to lay.

But why should he, that thinks himself well grown, Be difcontent that fuch a one,

As knows himself an infant yet, fhould be

Dandled upon his mother's knee,

And babe-like fed with milk, till he have got

More strength and stomach? Why should not Nurflings in Church, as well as weanlings, find Their food fit for them in their proper kind.

Let them that would build castles in the air,
Vault thither, without ftep or stair ;
Instead of feet to climb, take wings to fly,
And think their turrets top the sky.
But let me lay all my foundations deep,
And learn, before I run, to creep.

Who digs through Rocks to lay his ground-works low,
May in good time build high, and fure, though flow.

To take degrees, per faltum, though of quick
Dispatch, is but a truant's trick.

Let us learn first to know our letters well,

Then fyllables, then words to spell; Then to read plainly, ere we take the pen In hand to write to other men.

I doubt their preaching is not always true, Whose way to the Pulpit's not the reading Pew.

XIII. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.

HAT prayer by the book? and Common?

WHAT

The spirit of grace,

And fupplication,

Is not left free alone

For time and place;

But manner too. To read, or speak by rote,
Is all alike to him that prays

With's heart, that with his mouth he says.

They that in private by themselves alone
Do pray, may take

What liberty they please,

In choofing of the ways,
Wherein to make

Their foul's most intimate affections known
To him that fees in fecret, when

They are most conceal'd from other men.

But he, that unto others leads the way
In public prayer,

Should choose to do it so,

As all, that hear, may know
They need not fear

To tune their hearts unto his tongue, and fay
Amen; nor doubt they were betray'd
To blafpheme, when they should have pray'd.

Devotion will add life unto the letter.

And why fhould not

That, which authority
Prescribes, esteemed be
Advantage got?

If the Prayer be good, the commoner, the better.
Prayer in the Church's words, as well
As fenfe, of all prayers bears the bell.

TH

XIV. THE BIBLE.

`HE Bible? That's the Book. The Book indeed, The Book of Books;

On which who looks,

As he should do, aright, shall never need
Wish for a better light

To guide him in the night:

Or, when he hungry is, for better food

To feed upon,

Than this alone,

If he bring ftomach and digestion good:
And if he be amifs,

This the best phyfic is.

U

The true Panchrefton 'tis for every fore

And fickness, which

The poor, and rich

With equal ease may come by. Yea, 'tis more, An antidote, as well

As remedy 'gainst hell.

"Tis heaven in perspective, and the bliss

Of glory here,

If

any where,

By Saints on earth anticipated is,
Whilft faith to every word
A being doth afford.

It is the Looking-glass of fouls, wherein

All men may fee,

Whether they be

Still, as by nature they are, deform'd with fin; Or in a better case,

As new adorn'd with grace.

'Tis the great Magazine of spiritual arms,

Wherein doth lie
The artillery

Of heaven, ready charged against all harms,
That might come by the blows
Of our infernal foes.

God's Cabinet of reveal'd counfel 'tis :

Where weal and woe

Are ordered fo,

That every man may know which shall be his;

Unless his own mistake'

False application make.