Hence! reas'ning sceptic, harsh and cold, Nature in secret works her plan, As if the weakness of the water could True Wisdom loves the word "obey," Safe in His arms, thou mother mild, A work regen'rate in that infant soul,— Henceforward, as a Priest and King Mother to whom such charge is given, Scripture unveils before thee; So discipline the dawning mind and will, "Our father!" now thy babe may cry, By bleeding merit to atone For all the guilt sad earth must own, 1 "Doubt ye not therefore, but earnestly believe, that he will likewise FAVOURABLY RECEIVE THIS PRESENT INFANT," &c.Baptismal Service. And give the child a name New as the sacramental birth, which then Blest privilege! both deep and pure, Our robe baptismal, keep it white, Of all who, grafted into Christ by grace, Oh! that on man's expressive brow Matured life may see; How should we bless that rite of heaven By merey, full as free; And find God's Spirit ne'er that man forsook, Who keeps in age, the yow his childhood took! But, soil'd and stain'd by sin and crime, And thus our hearts o'erlay That seed of heaven, the Spirit granted Yet, not for this, let souls profanely try Rather, repent we! till the soul Shall yield to that sublime control Which heals the broken-hearted, Who in atoning blood begin To bathe the soul, and wash their sin, Mourning they e'er departed From that blest Lord, whose intercessions plead, THE RELIGION OF ROME,1 BY JEREMY TAYLOR. AND NOW we shall plainly represent to our charges, how this whole matter stands. The case is this; the religion of a Christian consists in faith and hope, repentance and charity, Divine worship, and celebration of the Sacraments of God. Now in all these, both in doctrines and practices, the Church of Rome does dangerously err, and teaches men so to do. THEY DO injury to faith, by creating new articles, and enjoining them as of necessity to salvation. They spoil their hope by placing it upon creations and devices of their own. They greatly sin against charity by damning all that are not of their opinion in things false or uncertain, right or wrong. They break in pieces the salutary doctrine of repentance, making it to be consistent with a wicked life, and little or no amendment. They worship they know not what, and pray to them that hear them not, and trust on that which helps them not. And as for the commandments, they leave one of them out of their catechisms and manuals; and whilst they contend earnestly against some opponents for the possibility of keeping them all, they do not insist upon the necessity of keeping any in the course of their lives, till the danger or article of their death. And, concerning the sacraments, they have egregiously prevaricated in two points, for not to mention their reckoning of seven sacraments, which we only reckon to be an unnecessary and unscholastical error, they take the one half of the principal away from the laity; 1 Dissuasive from Popery. and they institute little sacraments of their own; they invent rites and annex spiritual graces to them, what they please themselves and of their own head, without a divine warrant or institution; and at last persuade their people to that which can never be excused, at least, from material idolatry. IF THESE things can consist with the duty of Christians, not only to eat what they worship, but to adore those things with Divine worship which are not God; to reconcile a wicked life with certain hopes and expectations of heaven at last, and to place these hopes upon other things than God, and to damn all the world that are not Christians at this rate: then we have lost the true measure of Christianity; and the doctrine and discipline of Christ is not a natural and rational religion: not a religion that makes men holy, but a confederacy under the conduct of a sect, and it must rest in forms and ceremonies, and devices of man's invention. And although we do not doubt that the goodness of God does so prevail over all the follies and malice of mankind that there are in the Roman Communion many very good Christians; yet they are not such as they are Papists; but by something that is higher and before that something that is of an abstract or more sublime consideration. And although the good people among them are what they are by the grace and goodness of God, yet by all or any of these opinions they are not so: but the very best suffer diminution and alloy by those things, and very many more, are wholly subverted and destroyed. OUR LITURGY contains the whole religion of the Church of England. This the popes and bishops of Rome themselves offered to confirm and establish.-Bishop Bull. THE OTHER apostles are the same that St. Peter was, endowed with an equal fellowship of honour and power; and they are all shepherds, and the flock is one.- -Cyprian. EARTHQUAKE AT LIMA, 1746. PERU HAS been long remarkable for earthquakes, but no part of that country has suffered more than Lima. The last, being one of the most dreadful earthquakes recorded in history, happened on the 28th of October, 1746, at half an hour after ten at night. The shock lasted fifteen minutes; and in less than four minutes, during which the greatest violence of the earthquake lasted, scarce twenty houses were left standing in the city of Lima; besides those in the borough of St. Lazarus, said to contain sixty thousand inhabitants. The fine Cathedral Church was utterly demolished, besides seventyfour churches, a vast number of public chapels, fourteen monasteries, and as many hospitals; the palace of the viceroy, the courts of justice, the Royal University, Mint, Treasury, with all their most valuable furniture and effects, were instantly lost and confounded together in mountains of ruins: yet in this dreadful scene of desolation and horror, it does not appear, from the list taken of the dead, that above eleven hundred and forty persons perished, great part of which were monks and nuns, owing to the height of the monasteries, and their being built of more solid materials than the other houses; for their houses in Peru are in general only one story high, and covered with mats and such light materials. BUT DIREFUL as the ruins of Lima may appear, those of the Port of Callao, about two leagues distant, are still more 50; the place having quite vanished out of sight, and now become a large strand, without the least sign of its former figure or appearance; vast heaps of gravel and sand having now covered the place where that town stood. Part of its ralls, and some few towers, for a time, endured the force of the earthquake, and stood firm, notwithstanding the violence of its shocks; but scarce had the wretched inhabitants recovered from the horror of their first fright, when suddenly the sea began to swell, and rising like mountains, rushed |