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more conftant than the dove. May the Mufes fing and the Graces dance, not only on their wedding-day, but throughout their lives. May the links of their affection fo knit their hearts with the unflipping knot of love, that no uneafinefs or anger may ever befal them; and every rifing fun hail the happy pair in the language of Theocritus:

Good morrow, master Bridegroom, mistress Bride;
Many fair lovely bearns to you betide:

Let VENUS your fond mutual love insure,
And SATURN give you riches to endure:
Long may you sleep in one another's arms,
Inspiring sweet desire, and free from harms.

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OF RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY.

THE beauty, fplendor, and divine majef

of THE ALMIGHTY, are fo infinite great and confpicuous, fhine with fuch admin ble but unspeakable luftre throughout his work and fill the finite mind of man with fuch awf reverence of his goodness and his power, that a rational beings, whofe minds are untainted, a whose hearts are pure, croud around his thro with pious gratitude and humble adoration. Th ardent love of God, which is the unavoidab refult of reason and reflection, is the origin RELIGION; and when properly exercised, wit fincerity of devotion, and in holiness of lif leads its votaries, amidft all the cares and vexa tions of a fascinating world, through the path of VIRTUE, to the highest bowers of terreftria blifs.

But MAN, proud man,

Dress'd in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,

inftead of following the dictates of found and unpolluted reafon, miftaking his true road to happiness, and suffering himself, like the centaur

of Plato, to be hurried away headlong by a torrent of wild defires and corrupt affections,

Like an angry ape,

Plays such phantastic tricks before high heav'n
As make the angels weep:

until, falling into the vices of ATHEISM, or the errors of IDOLATRY and SUPERSTITION, and their attendant mischiefs, he finks, by degrees, under the increasing weight of a perturbed mind, and guilty conscience, into all the horrors of melancholy and despair.

Perpetual anguish fills his impious breast,
Not stopp'd by business, nor compos'd by rest:
No music cheers him, and no feasts can please
He sits like discontented DAMOCLES,

When by the sportive tyrant wisely shown
The dangerous pleasures of a flatter'd throne.
Sleep quits his eyes: or, when with cares oppress'd,
His wearied mind sinks tir'd into rest,

Dire dreams invade: his injur'd GoD appears,
Arm'd with fork'd thunder, and awakes those fears
Which thake his soul, and as they boldly press,
Bring out his crimes, and force him to confess
The worm of conscience frets his recreant blood:

In every fit he feels the hand of God

And heav'n-born flame; but drown'd in deep despair,

He dares not offer one repenting prayer,

Nor vow one victim to preserve his breath;

For

378

OF RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY,

For how can HOPE with desperate guilt agree,
Or PEACE reside with dark impiety?

An ATHEIST, indeed, muft ultimately feel the keenest miferies; for while, like the reprobate Barnadine, he "apprehends death no more "dreadfully than as a drunken fleep; equally "careless, reckless, and fearless, of what is "past, prefent, and to come; infenfible of mor"tality, yet despairingly mortal;" he squares his life to the narrow limits of his mind, and exhibits in his conduct a correfponding course of felfish profligacy and daring vice; and vice and profligacy are always miferable. There are, indeed, those who openly deny the existence of their Creator, and profefs a high fenfe of virtue, a veneration for focial duty, and a disapprobation of the selfish paffions, while they proclaim, in the refinement of falfe PHILOSOPHY, that the order of the universe is owing to NATURE and CHANCE but as Minutius and Seneca well obferve, these curious reafoners do not understand the import of their own expreffions; for as nature is nothing more than the ordinary means by which the ALMIGHTY difplays his power, and chance the mere effect of his unrevealed will, they admit, by attributing his works to these fources, the very existence of that power which they affect fo anxiously to deny. There may

be

be fome eloquence, but there is certainly no TRUTH in the writings of fuch men, who, blinded by their love of learning, and their fondnefs for new opinions, exhibit, like Bellerophon, their own condemnation, while they vainly imagine they are conveying intelligence and new light to mankind.

They think that CHANCE rules all, that NATURE

steers

The moving seasons, and turns round the years: They run from shrine to shrine, and boldly swear, But keep no faith, because they know no fear.

Others doubtingly profess religion; and because a vaft variety of strange and fantastic doctrines have prevailed in the world, they infer that every religion is equally falfe; but this is reafoning from the abuse of a thing against the use of it. Others cavil against the Scripture itself, because they cannot reconcile to their contracted notions, the ordinary dispensations of PROVIDENCE in the diftribution of good and evil: while others maintain that God is alligatus caufis fecundis, fo tied to fecond causes, to that inexorable NECESSITY, that he can alter nothing he has once decreed. But thefe fceptics, while they affect only to doubt, in fact, deny the exiftence of GOD.

So,

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