HYMN XXXVI.

On the Nativity of our Bleffed Saviour. By Mr.Pierfon. To the French 100PJ.Tune.

H

Ark, hark, what news the angels bring, Glad tidings of a new-born King, Who is the Saviour of mankind, In whom we may falvation find. This is the day, this bleffed morn, The Saviour of mankind was born; Born of a maid, a virgin pure, Born without fin, from guilt fecure. Hail, bleffed virgin full of grace, Bleffed above all human race; Whose blessed womb brought forth in one, A God, a Saviour, and a Son.

A perfect God, and perfect man, A mystery which no man can Attain to, tho' he's ne'er fo wife, Till he afcends above the skies.

Arife my foul, and thou my voice,
In hymns of praife, early rejoice:
Stupendous Babe, my God and King,
Thy praises I will ever fing.

In joyful accents raise your voice,
And in the praife of God rejoice;
His name extol and magnify,
Upon whofe errand Angels fly.

My

My foul thy best affections raise, To fing thy dear Redeemer's praise, Send Hallelujahs to his hill,

;

And for his love be thankful ftill.
My foul, contemplate, and admire,
And join with the celeftial choir
Extend your voice above the sky,
All glory be to God on high;
Good will and peace, to men below,
Doth from this new-born Jefus flow:
Mercy and peace, he hath in ftore,
Then, O my foul, this Babe adore!
If Angels fung at Chrift his birth,
Sure we have greater cause for mirth;
For why? it was for our fake,
Chrift did our human nature take.

Sweet Chrift, thou didst thyself debase,
Thus to defcend to human race,
And leave thy Father's throne above;
Lord, what could move thee to this love?
Man that was formed out of duft,

He found a paradife at firft;

But fee the God of heav'n and earth
Laid in a manger at his birth.

Behold him in a manger laid;
What could no other fhift be made?
Or was it fo at firft decreed,

He fhould be laid where cattle feed?
Surely the manger where he lies,
Doth figure out his facrifice;

And

And by his birth, all men may fee,
A pattern of humility.

My foul, learn by thy Saviour's birth,
For to debafe thy felf on earth,
That thou may't be exalted high,
To live with him eternally.

I do refolve, whilft here I live,
As I'm in duty bound, to give
All glory to the Deity,

One God alone, in Perfons Three.

榮

SPECTATOR, No 201.

The Benefit of Early Piety.

"Train up a child in the way he fhould go: "and when he is old he will not depart "from it, Prov. xxii. 6.

IT

T is of the laft importance to season the paffions of a child with devotion, which feldom dies in a mind that has received an early tincture of it. Though it may seem extinguished for a while by the cares of the world, the heats of youth, or the allurements of vice, it generally breaks out and discovers it felf again as foon as difcretion, confideration, age, or misfortunes have brought the man to himself. The fire may Z 2

be

be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched and fmothered.

A ftate of temperance, fobriety, and justice, without devotion, is a cold, lifelefs, infipid condition of virtue, and is rather to be ftyled philofophy than religion. Devotion opens the mind to great conceptions, and fills it with more fublime ideas than any that are to be met with in the moft exalted science; and at the fame time warms and agitates the foul more than fenfual Pleasure.

It has been obferved by fome writers, that man is more diftinguished from the animal World by devotion than by reason, as feveral brute creatures difcover in their actions fomething like a faint glimmering of reafon, though they betray in no fingle circumftance of their behaviour any thing that bears the leaft affinity to devotion. It is certain, the propenfity of the mind to religious worship, the natural tendency of the foul to fly to fome fuperior Being for fuccour in dangers and diftreffes, the gratitude to an invifible Superintendent, which arifes in us upon receiving any extraor dinary and unexpected good fortune, the acts of love and admiration with which the thoughts of men are fo wonderfully transported in meditating upon the divine

pers

perfections, and the univerfal concurrence of all the nations under heaven in the great article of adoration, plainly fhew that devotion or religious worship must be the effect of a tradition from fome first founder of mankind, or that it is conformable to the natural light of reafon, or that it proceeds from an instinct implanted in the foul itself. For my part, I look upon all these to be the concurrent caufes, but which ever of them fhall be affigned as the principle of divine worship, it manifeftly points to a Supreme Being as the firft author of it.

I may take fome other opportunity of confidering thofe particular forms and methods of devotion which are taught us by chriftianity; but fhall here obferve into what errors even this divine principle may fometimes lead us, when it is not moderated by that right reafon which was given us as the guide of all our actions.

The two great errors into which a miftaken devotion may betray us, are enthufiafm and fuperftition.

There is not a more melancholly object, than a man who has his head turned with religious enthufiafm. A perfon that is crazed, tho" with pride and malice, is a fight very mortifying to humane nature; but when the diftemper arifes from any indifcreet fer

vours