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Him visited both night and day,
As if an ancient friend or brother;
In black upon the earth I lay,

And wept as for my dying mother.”

The pathetic elegy, probably composed by David, when he fled beyond Jordan to the solitudes of Hermon, upon the rebellion of his son, we give entire.

PSALM XLII.

"Lord! as the hart embossed with heat

Brays after the cool rivulet,

So sighs my soul for thee.

My soul thirsts for the living God :

When shall I enter his abode,

And there his beauty see?

"Tears are my food both night and day;
While, Where's thy God? they daily say,
My soul in plaints I shed;

When I remember, how in throngs
We fill'd thy house with praise and songs;
How I their dances led.

"My soul, why art thou so deprest?
Why, O! thus troubled in my breast,
With grief so overthrown?

With constant hope on God await:
I yet his name shall celebrate,
For mercy timely shewn.

"My fainting heart within me pants:

My God, consider my complaints;

My songs shall praise thee still.
Even from the vale where Jordan flows;
Where Hermon his high forehead shows,
From Mitsar's humble hill.

"Deeps unto deeps enraged call,

When thy dark spouts of water fall,
And dreadful tempest raves:

For all thy floods upon me burst,

And billows after billows thrust
To swallow in their graves.

"But yet by day the Lord will charge

His ready mercy to enlarge

My soul, surpris'd with cares:

He gives my songs their argument;

God of my life, I will present

By night to thee my prayers.

"And say, My God, my Rock, O why
Am I forgot, and mourning die,

By foes reduc'd to dust?

Thy words like weapons pierce my bones;
While still they echo to my groans,

Where is the Lord thy trust?

"My soul, why art thou so deprest!
O why so troubled in my breast!
Sunk underneath thy load!

With constant hope on God await :
For I his name shall celebrate;
My Saviour and my God."

Phineas Fletcher, who lived at the same era with Sandys, has thus metaphrased the psalm.

"Look, as an hart with sweat and blood embrued,
Chas'd, and emboss'd, thirsts in the soil to be:

So my poor soul, with eager foes pursued,

Looks, longs, O Lord!-pines, pants, and faints for thee:
When, O my God! when shall I come in place,

To see thy light, and view thy glorious face?

"I dine and sup with sighs, with groans and tears,
While all my foes mine ears with taunting load-
Who now thy cries, who now thy prayer hears?
Where is,' say they, where is thy boasted God?'

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My matten heart, deep plung'd in sad despairs,
Runs forth to thee in streams of tears and prayers.

"With grief I think on those sweet now-past days,
When to thy house my troops with joy I led :
We sang, we danc'd, we chaunted sacred lays-
No men so haste to wine, no bride to bed.

Why droop'st, my soul? why faint'st thou in my breast?
Wait still with praise: his presence is thy rest.

"My famish'd soul, driven from thy sweetest word,
From Hermon's hill, and Jordan's swelling brook,
To thee laments, sighs deep to thee, O Lord!
To thee sends back her hungry, longing look:

Floods of thy wrath breed floods of grief and fears,
And floods of grief breed floods of plaints and tears.

"His early light with moon these clouds shall clear,
These dreary clouds, and storms of sad despairs,
Sure am I in the night his songs to hear,

Sweet songs of joy, as well as he my prayers:

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I'll say, My God, why slight'st thou my distress,
While all my foes my weary soul oppress.'

"My cruel foes both thou and me upbraid;
They cut my heart, they vaunt that bitter word

Where is thy trust? Where is thy hope?' they said,
Where is thy God? Where is thy boasted Lord?'

Why droop'st, my soul? Why faint'st thou in my breast?
Wait still with praise: his presence is thy rest."

But here we must close, for these poetical comparisons might be extended till they would fill a volume.

Northampton.

T. M.

THE REV. PHILIP HENRY'S OBJECTIONS TO THE CATHOLIC

FAITH.

(Concluded from page 694.)

Query 5. What arguments against purgatory, praying for the dead, and Pope's pardon?

These all agree in one, which is, that of purgatory; for if there be no purgatory, then praying for the dead is needless, idle, and vain; for it is for those only that are in purgatory that they pray. The Pope's pardons also are needless, idle, and vain, being dispensed for the ease and remission of purgatory-pains only.

By purgatory is meant a middle place or state of the dead, which is neither heaven nor hell; where souls departed do suffer great pains by fire, as great as those of hell itself; whereby they satisfy divine justice for their venial sins, and for the temporal punishments which they should have endured in their lifetime, but did not, for their sins mortal. And if they be helped by the prayers and alms of surviving friends, or if the Pope, who keeps the key of the church's treasury of merits, be pleased to grant an allowance out of it, in a pardon or indulgence, they are freed the sooner out of it, and pass immediately to heaven. This they teach concerning purgatory, beguiling unstable souls, who, for the love they bear to their deceased relations, care not what they give to purchase their ease, whereby the Pope's coffers are greatly enriched. For it is the purgatory fire that makes his pot to boil.

Against this we argue,

1. From those Scriptures that expressly speak of but two states of men after this life; into one of which, all men pass as soon as they die.

e. g. Matt. xxv. 33. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. These shall go away into everlasting punishment, the righteous into life eternal. John iii. 36; Rev. xxii. 14, 15; Luke xvi. 22, 23; Matt. iii. 11, 12.

2. From those scriptures that speak particularly of the immediate happiness of all that are true believers, John v. 26; Rev. xiv. 13: they rest from their labours, Isa. lvii. 2: they enter into peace, Phil. i. 23: they are with Christ, Luke xxiii. 43, in Paradise: and that as soon as their earthly house is dissolved, 2 Cor. v. 1.

3. From those scriptures which attribute the purging away of sin to the blood of Christ only; which is the true purgatory, cleansing from all sin, 1 John ii. 7, 9; Heb. i. 3, by himself he purged our sins: Isa. xliii. 25, I, even I, am he that blotteth out.

4. Because the treasury of merit is but a fancy; for if no man can merit heaven for himself, much less can he supererogate, to merit for others. Luke xvii. 10.

5. Because it makes against the comfort of the saints, who could not heartily love, and long for the appearance of Christ by death, if death be the door to let them into such pains; especially they who are poor and friendless.

6. By showing the original (1.) of praying for the dead, which arose from a mistake from the church's praising of the dead: especially martyrs, and blessing God for them. (2.) Of indulgences, which were anciently, no more but the abatement and release of church censures, imposed upon offenders for scandalous sins upon repentance.

7. From the weakness of those proofs which they allege.

(1.) e. g. Ps. lxvi. 12. We went through fire, and through water, plainly meant of trouble and affliction.

(2.) Zech. ix. 11. The pit wherein is no water, i. e. Babylon, literally a state of sin and damnation mystically. If there be water in purgatory, this scripture is against it; if not, the former.

(3.) Zech. xiii. 9. I will bring the third part through the fire, i. e. of affliction in Babylon.

(4.) Matt. xii. 32. Implying there is forgiveness in the world to come. Answer, i. e. the times of the Gospel. Compare Heb. ii. 5; vi. 5: or, of complete absolution in the general judgment; or, i.e. never. Compare Mark iii. 29.

(5.) 1 Pet. iii. 19. Spirits in prison. Answer, i. e. Sodomites, notoriously wicked; and such go not to purgatory, but to hell; or who are now in prison, under chains of darkness, but were then living when Noah preached.

(6.) 1 Cor. iii. 12, &c. Answer, not meant of purgatory, fire. (1.) Because try every man's work, and some never come thither. (2.) Not every man's person, but every man's work-fire, i. e. the word of God. Saved as by fire, i. e. with difficulty; saved, because holding the foundation; with difficulty, because build stubble.

Query 6. How may it be proved that the mass is no propitiatory sacrifice, and against transubstantiation?

The mass is a sacred action, wherein a proper priest or sacrificer, arrayed with various consecrated attirements, standing at the altar, taketh bread and wine, about which he uses great varieties of postures and gestures, inclinations, bowings, kneelings, stretching out and gathering in his arms, with a multitude of crossings, at the end, and in the midst of pronunciation of certain words of scripture, turns them into the real natural body and blood of Christ, the Son of God; worshipping them, so converted, with religious adoration; showing them to the people for the same purpose, and then offering that body and blood unto God; praying for his acceptance of them so offered; and that it may be available for the living and for the dead; for the pardoning of their sins and for the saving of their souls; after which he takes that body of Christ so made, worshipped, and offered, and eats and devours it; by all which Christ is truly and properly sacrificed. Thus Dr. Owen defines it in the vindication of his animadversions upon fiat lux, p. 461.

And if this be the mass, there is good reason why we should reject it with detestation and abhorrency, as the most absurd, ridiculous imposture that was ever brought into the christian church. For, besides the circumstances of attire, crossings, postures, and gestures

in this sacred action, no way suiting with the spiritual worship of the New Testament, and, therefore, not acceptable to that God, who is a Spirit, and will be served and worshipped in spirit and in truth. We except against three things in the very substance of it. 1. We deny that the bread and wine are transubstantiated, or turned, by consecration, into the real natural body of Christ, the Son of God, so that it ceases to be any longer bread and wine, which is transubstantiation; or, however, so as yet, notwithstanding, still to remain bread and wine, and the very body and blood of Christ too, which is consubstantiation, which is the doctrine of the Lutherans, who mend the matter but little; we hold the elements are changed, not in their nature, but in their use, sacramentally signifying the body and blood of Christ, and sealing and applying the benefits of the covenant of grace to the worthy receiver.

To assert a real change in their nature is—

1. Against sense; for that which we see, and handle, and taste, is bread, or wine, and nothing else; not the accidents of bread only, which cannot subsist without a subject.

2. Against reason; for if it be Christ's body, then a body may be present at the same time in a thousand different places; whereas, Matt. xxviii. 6; Acts iii. 21.

3. Against the nature of the sacrament; for if the sign, which is bread, be made the thing signified, which is the body of Christ, where then is the sign? If no sign, no sacrament.

4. Against the honour of Christ, giving the priest a power, first to make his Maker, and then to eat him; and so to cast him forth into the draught; nay, even mice may eat the Son of God; whereas his true body was to see no corruption.

5. Against all antiquity, till within little more than 500 years; and the Greek Church, which is no small part of the Church of Christ, have always, and do still, protest against it.

6. Against the blood and sufferings of our forefathers in the very last age, who chose to die rather than they would yield, or subscribe, to such a position.

7. Against the Scripture, (1.) 1 Cor. x. 3, 4, their meat and drink, and ours were the same: but theirs was not carnal, but spiritual: so is ours. (2.) 1 Cor. x. 16. Where that which we break is called bread, and not the body, but the communion of the body of Christ. (3.) 1 Cor. xi. 26, 27. Where it is, also, twice called

bread.

Objection, John vi. Christ, again and again, speaks of eating his flesh, and drinking his blood. Answer. (1.) This was spoken a whole year afore the sacrament was instituted. (2.) See ver. 54. Whereas many saved, who never eat at the sacrament. (3.) See ver. 54. Whereas many damned, who have eaten. (4.) If he meant in the sacrament, it would rather prove that his flesh is turned into bread, than bread into his flesh. (5.) He saith himself, ver. 60, 63. he is to be understood spiritually.

Objection. They object chiefly to the words of the institution, Matt. xxvi. 26, this is my body, not this signifies: whereas compare the phrase of the Old Testament sacraments: Circumcision, Gen.

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