He, or your vital beams abforbs,
Or pours fweet influence in your orbs:
While the wide heav'ns, whofe azure
vault

Extends beyond the length of thought,
Thro' all their circling worlds declare
How great his pow'r and glory are.

Aerial Seas, at God's command,
Your humid bofoms ye expand;
He braids your fleecy fkirts with gold,
Or wraps you up in fable fold;
Or, when the parching earth complains,
Diffolves you into genial rains,
The lufcious drops profufely thow'rs,
And quickens all her drooping pow'rs.

He spoke, and Non-existence heard
Jehovah's all-creating word;
Upfprung the the Univerfe fablime,
And gave his natal hour to Time.
Dependent, ftill the golden chain,
Jehovah's mighty hands fuftain;
Still caufes own, and own effects,
'Tis God who governs and directs.

PART II.

THOU Earth, refponding to the sky,
In re-percuffive founds reply:
Let Ocean from his caverns roar,
And clap his hands, and God adore:
The ocean's mighty vafe he fills,
With flowing rivers, tinkling rills,
And digs the grottoes of the deep,
Where Whales on coral couches fleep.
Him praife, whofe hand your fury binds,
Or pow'r impels, ye fires, ye winds,
Who bear thro' heav'n, at his command,
The fcourges of a guilty land:
Your vollies pour of rattling hail,
And give the thunder's dreadful peal,
And fling your arrowy fires afar,
Th' Almighty's magazine of war.

Ye Mountains, that fublimely rise,
Alliance claiming with the fkies,
Pre-eminent his honours own,
Who fills the high celestial throne;
Whilft little hills are scatter'd round,
With fylvan fplendours gaily crown'd,
Which own his hand by whom they are;
The cedar, and the fruit-tree fair.

Announce, ye beafts of favage brood,
That fcour the plain, that haunt the wood,

Announce the parent Pow'r on high,
"Who answers your instinctive cry;
While ye, by man inur'd to toil,
Domestic sharers of his fmile,

Revere the Sov'reign Lord of all,
Who ftores the mead, and fills the fall

Tho' meaner be your humble birth,
Reptiles, that lowly creep the earth,
His Parent-hand regards ye too,
Allots the teeming ground to you.
His praise, inhabitants of air,
In fweeteft fymphony declare;
He dips your plumes in orient dyes,
And all your daily wants fupplies.

PART III.

While thus, thro' Nature's ample round
The praises of Jehovah found,
"Diftinguish'd link in Being's chain,"
Shall man the votive hymn refrain?
Arife, ye Kings! awake the fong!
The vocal carol pour along;
And all the fubject People fing
Th' Almighty, univerfal King.

Ye Judges, God's vicegerents here,
The delegated rod who bear,
Let juftice your tribunals guard,
And give, like him, the due award:
And potent Princes, good as great,
Difplay his character complete,
Benignly change the tyrant's chains,
For heav'n-born Mercy's filken reins.
Let all mankind of ev'ry place,
Of ev'ry age, admire his grace;
Let Youth, with active pow'rs alert,
Shout to the Lord with all their heart;
And those matur'd by grace and age,
While paffing off the mortal ftage,
The theme with lifping Infants well;
His love in trembling accents tell.

O, be his hallow'd Name ador'd,
Creation's Fount! Creation's Lord!
To Him let pealing anthems rife,
To Him, the Great! the Good! the Wife!
Lo! the wide universe displays
His glory's ever-beaming rays,
Reflected from this Ball terrene,
And shining in th' ethereal scene!

But milder, from his Mercy's Throne,
Reflected by th' incarnate Son,
Defcend the beauteous beams of grace,
Effulgent, on his Ifrael's race:
He looks, mid circumvolving fpheres,
Complacent, on his ranfom'd Heirs;
More dear than all his works befide,
Bleft Souls for whom the SAVIOUR died

Printed at the Conference-Office, North-Green,
Worship-Street, London; G. Story, Agent.

T. R.

T

THE

METHODIST MAGAZINE,

FOR NOVEMBER, 1807.

BIOGRAPHY.

An Extract from the Life of the Rev. RICHARD BAXTER, chiefly relating to his Experience and Ministerial Labours.

Y Father's name was Richard Baxter. His eftate was pleafantly fituated at a village called Eaton-Conftantine, about five miles from Shrewsbury. I was born on the 12th of November 1615. The schoolmasters of my youth were ignorant men, of scandalous lives, yet when I was very young, my father's ferious difcourfes poffeffed me with a fear of finning. When I was about fifteen, a poor day-labourer lent my father an old torn book, called Bunny's Refolution, in reading which, it pleased God to awaken my foul and fhew me the inexpreffible weight of eternal things. Yet whether fincere converfion began now, or before, or after, I was never able to determine; for before this I had fome love to the things and people of God; and at this time I had little lively fenfe of the love of God in Chrift.

About that time it pleafed God that a poor pedlar came to the door, who had fome ballads, and good books; and my father bought of him Dr. Sibb's Bruifed Reed, which opened more the love of God to me, and gave me a livelier apprehenfion of the mystery of redemption. After this we had a fervant that had a little piece of Mr. Perkin's Works (of Repentance, and The Right Art of Living and Dying Well, and of The Government of the Tongue.) The reading of which did farther confirm me: and thus (without any means but Books) was God pleafed to bring me to refolve to be his.

Not long after this, I was afflicted with a violent cough and fpitting of blood, &c. of two years continuance, fuppofed to be a deep confumption. I was now more awakened to be serious ;yet I came fo fhort of that seriousness, which a matter of such infinite weight required, that I was many years in doubts conVOL. XXX. Nov. 1807. cerning

S P

cerning my fincerity, and thought I had no fpiritual life at all. I wondered at the hardness of my heart, that I could think and talk of fin and hell, of Chrift and grace, of God and heaven, with no more feeling. I cried, from day to day, to God for grace against this fenfelefs deadnefs; I called myself the most hard-hearted finner that could feel nothing of all I knew and talked of. I was not then fenfible of the incomparable excellency of holy love and delight in God, nor much employed in thankf giving and praife. But all my groans were for more contrition and a broken heart, and I prayed moft for tears and tender nefs. And thus I complained for many years to God and man, and between the expectations of death and the doubts of my own fincerity, I was kept in more care of my falvation than my nature was easily brought to. Since then I have found this method of God was very wife, and I derived thefe benefits from it.

1. It made me vile and loathfome to myfelf. 2. It restrained the levity and vanity of youth. 3. It made the doctrine of redemption more favory to me. 4. It made the world feem as a carcafs that had neither life nor loveliness in it to me. 5. It fet me upon that method of my ftudies, which fince then I have found the benefit of. It caufed me to study practical divinity first, in the most practical books in a practical order, doing all purpofely for the informing and reforming of my own foul. By which means, my affection was carried on with my judgment. Yet one lofs I had by this method, which proved irreparable. I miffed that part of learning which flood at the greatest distance from my ultimate end, and I never fince could find time to get it.

I had no great skill in Languages. As for the Mathematicks, I was an utter ftranger to them. But Logic and Metaphyfics were my labour and delight. I never thought I understood any thing till I could anatomize it, and fee the parts diftinctly, and the conjunction of the parts as they make up the whole. Distinction and Method feemed to me of that neceflity, that without them I could not be faid to know; and the difputations which forfook and abufed them, feemed but as incoherent dreams.

As for thofe doubts of my own falvation, which exercised me many years, the chief caufes of them were these. 1. Becaufe I could not diftinctly trace the workings of the Spirit upon my heart in the method which Meffrs. Bolton, Hooker, Rogers, and other Divines defcribe. 2. Because of the hardness of my heart and my want of fuch a lively apprehenfion of things fpiritual, as I had about things material. 3. Becaufe I had, after my change, committed fome known fins.

The means by which God was pleafed to give me fome peace and c mfort were, 1. Reading confolatory books. 2. Obferving other men's condition. 3. God's calling me, by his Providence,

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