THE

HEE, Father, first they sung Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,

Fountain of light, thyself invisible

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt'st
Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.
Thee next they sang, of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,

In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impress'd the effulgence of his glory abides;
Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.

He Heaven of Heavens, and all the powers therein,
By thee created; and by thee threw down
The aspiring Dominations.

O unexampled love!

Love nowhere to be found less than divine!

Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men !

PARADISE LOST, BOOK III.

HESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair: thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these Heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye Sons of Light,
Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing, ye in Heaven;
On Earth join, all ye creatures, to extol

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.

PARADISE LOST, Book V.

L

ET us be convinced that those have acquired the truest apprehension of the nature of God, who submit their understandings to his word; considering that he has accommodated his word to their understandings, and has shewn what he wishes their notion of the Deity should be.

In a word, God either is, or is not, such as he represents himself to be. . . For such knowledge of the Deity as was necessary for the salvation of man, he has himself of his goodness been pleased to reveal abundantly. Deut. xxix. 29, "The secret things belong unto Jehovah, but those things which are revealed belong unto us . . . that we may do them ".

In arguing thus, we do not only say that God is in fashion like unto man in all his parts and members, but that as far as we are concerned to know, he is of that form which he attributes to himself in the sacred writings. If therefore we persist in entertaining a different conception of the Deity than that which it is to be presumed he desires should be cherished, inasmuch as he has himself disclosed it to us, we frustrate the purposes of God instead of rendering him submissive obedience. As if, forsooth, we wished to show that it was not we who had thought too meanly of God, but God who had thought too meanly of

us.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, BOOK I., CHAP. II.

CER

ERTAIN it is, that he who hath obtained in more than the scantiest measure to know anything distinctly of God, and of his true worship, and what is infallibly good and happy in the state of man's life, what in itself evil and miserable, though vulgarly not so esteemed; he that hath obtained to know this, the only high valuable wisdom indeed, remembering also that God, even to a strictness, requires the improvement of these his entrusted gifts, cannot but sustain a sorer burden of mind, and more pressing, than any supportable toil or weight which the body can labour under, how and in what manner he shall dispose and employ those sums of knowledge and illumination, which God hath sent him into this world to trade with.

THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT URGED
AGAINST PRELATY

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,

Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and
Verse,

Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow,
And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly :

That we on Earth, with undiscording voice,

May rightly answer that melodious noise;

As once we did, till disproportion'd sin

Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din

Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O, may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long

To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!