K GOD's Dominion and Decrees. A POEM. By Dr.Watts. .I. EEP filence, all created things, 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 IV. Now wisdom with fuperior fway V. He fpake; the fun obedient stood, Old Fordan backward drives his flood, VI. Lord of the armies of the sky, VII. Chain'd to his throne a volume lies, VIII. His providence unfolds the book, IX. Here he exalts neglected worms X. Not Gabriel asks the reason why, XI. My God, I never long'd to fee XII. In thy fair book of life and grace 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 L 2 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, |