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GOD's Dominion and Decrees.

A POEM. By Dr.Watts.

.I.

EEP filence, all created things,
And wait your Maker's nod:

The mufe ftands trembling while fhe fings The honours of her God.

II.

Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown Hang on his firm decree:

He fits on no precarious throne,

Nor borrows leave to Be.

III.

Th'Almighty Voice bid ancient night
Her endless realms refign.
And lo! ten thousand globes of light
In fields of azure shine.

IV.

Now wisdom with fuperior fway
Guides the vast moving frame,
Whilft all the ranks of Being pay
Deep rev'rence to his name.

V.

He fpake; the fun obedient stood,
And held the falling day.

Old Fordan backward drives his flood,
And disappoints the sea.

VI.

Lord of the armies of the sky,
He marshals all the stars;
Red comets lift their banners high,
And wide proclaim his wars.

VII.

Chain'd to his throne a volume lies,
With all the fates of men,
With every angel's form and fize
Drawn by th' Eternal Pen.

VIII.

His providence unfolds the book,
And makes his counsel fhine:
Each op'ning leaf, and every ftroke,
Fulfils fome deep defign.

IX.

Here he exalts neglected worms
To fcepters and a crown;
Anon the following page he turns,
And treads the monarch down,

X.

Not Gabriel asks the reason why,
Nor God the reafon gives;
Nor dares the favourite-angel pry
• Between the folded leaves.

XI.

My God, I never long'd to fee
My fate with curious eyes,
What gloomy lines are writ for me,
Or what bright scenes fhall rife.

XII.

In thy fair book of life and grace
May I but find my name,
Recorded in fome humble place
Beneath my Lord the Lamb.

SPECTATOR, N° III.

The Immortality of the Soul, proved from its own Nature.

I Was yesterday (fays the Spectator) walking alone in one of my friend's woods, & loft myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over in my mind the feveral arguments that establish this great point (viz.The foul's immor

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immortality) which is the basis of morality, and the fource of all the pleafing hopes and fecret joys that can arife in the heart of a reasonable creature. I confidered those feveral proofs drawn,

First, From the nature of the foul itself, and particularly its immateriality; which tho' not abfolutely neceffary to the eternity of its duration, has, I think, been evinced to almoft a demonftration.

Secondly, From its paffions and fentiments, as particularly from its love of existence, its horrour of annihilation, and its hopes of immortality, with that fecret fatisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneafiness which follows in it upon the commiffion of vice.

Thirdly, From the nature of the Supreme Being, whofe juftice, goodness, wisdom and veracity are all concerned in this great point.

But among these and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the foul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progrefs of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have feen opened and improved by others who have written on this fubject, tho' it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can

it enter into the thoughts of man, that the foul, which is capable of fuch immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, fhall fall away into nothing almoft as foon as it is created? Are fuch abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pafs: In a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the fame thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further inlargments, I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking Being that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to per fection, after having juft looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wifdom and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her en quiries?

A man, confidered in his prefent ftate, feems only fent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor, and immediately quits his poft to make room for him,