For when the love of God is thus reveal'd,
And thy poor drooping spirit thereby seal'd,
And when thy heart, as dry ground, drinks this in
Unto the roots thereof, which nourish sin,
It smites them, as the worm did Jonah's gourd,
And makes them dwindle of their own accord,
And die away; instead of which there springs
Up life and love, and other holy things.
Besides, the Holy Spirit now is come,
And takes possession of thee as its home;
By which a war maintained always is
Against the old man and the deeds of his.

When God at first upon mount Sinai spake,
He made his very servant Moses quake;
But when he heard the law the second time,
His heart was comforted, his face did shine.
What was the reason of this difference,
Seeing no change was in the ordinance,
Although a change was in the manner, when
The second time he gave it unto men?
At first 'twas given in severity,

In thunder, blackness, darkness, tempest high,
In fiery flames it was delivered.

This struck both Moses and the host as dead;
But Moses, when he went into the mount
The second time, upon the same account
No fear, nor dread, nor shaking of his mind,
Do we in all the holy Scripture find;
But rather in his spirit he had rest,
And look'd upon himself as greatly blest.
He was put in the rock, he heard the name,
Which on the mount the Lord did thus proclaim :
The Lord, merciful, gracious, and more,
Long-suffering, and keeping up in store
Mercy for thousands, pardoning these things,
Iniquity, transgressions, and sins,
And holding guilty none but such as still
Refuse forgiveness, of rebellious will.

This proclamation better pleased him
Than all the thunder and the light'ning
Which shook the mount, this rid him of his fear,
This made him bend, make haste, and worship there.
Jehoshaphat, when he was sore opprest

By Amnon and by Moab, and the rest

Of them that sought his life, no rest he found,
Until a word of faith became a ground
To stay himself upon; O, then they fell,
His very song became their passing-bell.
Then holiness of heart a consequence
Of faith in Christ is, for it flows from thence;
The love of Christ in truth constraineth us,
Of love sincerely to make judgment thus:
He for us died that for ever we
Might die to sin, and Christ his servants be.
O! nothing's like to the remembrance
Of what it is to have deliverance

From death and hell, which is of due our right,
Nothing, I say, like this to work delight
In holy things; this like live honey ruus,
And needs no pressing out of honey-combs.

[LOVE INDUCING CHRISTIAN CONDUCT.]
Then understand my meaning by my words,
How sense of mercy unto faith affords
Both grace to sanctify, and holy make
That soul that of forgiveness doth partake.
Thus having briefly showed you what is
The way of life, of sanctity, of bliss,

I would not in conclusion have you think,
By what I say, that Christian men should drink
In these my words with lightness, or that they
Are now exempted from what every day
Their duty is. No, God doth still expect,
Yea, doth command, that they do not neglect
To pray, to read, to hear, and not dissent
From being sober, grave, and diligent
In watching, self-denial, and with fear
To serve him all the time thou livest here.
Indeed I have endeavoured to lay
Before your eyes the right and only way
Pardon to get, and also holiness,
Without which never think that God will bless
Thee with the kingdom he will give to those
That Christ embrace, and holy lives do choose
To live, while here all others go astray,
And shall in time to come be cast away.

FROM MOUNT EBAL.

THUS having heard from Gerizzim, I shall
Next come to Ebal, and you thither call,
Not there to curse you, but to let you hear
How God doth curse that soul that shall appear
An unbelieving man, a graceless wretch;
Because he doth continue in the breach
Of Moses' law, and also doth neglect
To close with Jesus; him will God reject
And cast behind him; for of right his due
Is that from whence all miscries ensue.
Cursed, saith he, are they that do transgress
The least of my commandments, more or less.
Nothing that written is must broken be,
But always must be kept unto by thee,
And must fulfilled be; for here no man
Can look God in the face, or ever stand
Before the judgment-seat; for if they bo
Convict, condemned too assuredly.

Now keep this law no mortal creature can,
For they already do, as guilty, stand
Before the God that gave it; so that they
Obnoxious to the curse lie every day,

Which also they must feel for certainty,
If unto Jesus Christ they do not fly.
Hence, then, as they for ever shall be blest,
That do by faith upon the promise rest,
So peace unto the wicked there is none;
"Tis wrath and death that they must feed upon.
That what I say may some impression make
On carnal hearts, that they in time may take
That course that best will prove when time is done,
These lines I add to what I have begun.

First, thou must know that God, as he is love
So he is justice, therefore cannot move,
Or in the least be brought to favour those
His holiness and justice doth oppose.

For though thou may'st imagine in thy heart
That God is this or that, yet if thou art
At all besides the truth of what he is,
And so dost build thy hope for life amiss,
Still he the same abideth, and will be
The same, the same for ever unto thee.

As God is true unto his promise, so
Unto his threat'ning he is faithful too.
Cease to be God he must, if he should break
One tittle that his blessed mouth did speak.

Now, then, none can be saved but the men
With whom the Godhead is contented when
It them beholds with the severest eye
Of justice, holiness, and yet can spy
No fault nor blemish in them; these be they
That must be saved, as the Scriptures say.

If this be true, as 'tis assuredly,
Woe be to them that wicked live and die;
Those that as far from holiness have been
All their life long as if no eye had seen
Their doings here, or as if God did not
At all regard, or in the least mind what,
Wherein, or how they did his law transgress,
Either by this or other wickedness;

But how deceived these poor creatures are,

They then shall know when they their burthen bear.

Alas, our God is a consuming fire;

So is his law, by which he doth require
That thou submit to him, and if thou be
Not in that justice found that can save thee
From all and every sentence which he spake
Upon mount Sinai, then as one that brake
It, thou the flames thereof shall quickly find
As scourges thee to lash, while sins do bind
Thee hand and foot, for ever to endure
The strokes of vengeance for thy life impure.
What I have said will yet evinced be,
And manifest abundantly to thee,
If what I have already spoken to

Be joined with these lines that do ensue.
Justice discovers its antipathy
Against profaneness and malignity.

Not only by the law it gave to men,

And threatenings thereunto annexed then.
But inasmuch as long before that day,
He did prepare for such as go astray,
That dreadful, that so much amazing place-
Hell, with its torments-for those men that grace
And holiness of life slight and disdain,
There to bemoan themselves with hellish pain.

This place, also, the pains so dismal be,
Both as to name and nature, that in me
It is not to express the damning wights,
The hellish torture, and the fearful plights
Thereof; for as intolerable they

Must needs be found, by those that disobey
The Lord, so can no word or thought express
Unto the full the height of that distress;
Such miserable caitiffs, that shall there
Rebukes of vengeance, for transgressions bear.
Indeed the holy Scriptures do make use
Of many metaphors, that do conduce
Much to the symbolizing of the place,
Unto our apprehension; but the case—
The sad, the woful case-of those that lie
As racked there in endless misery,
By all similitudes no mortals may
Set forth in its own nature; for I say
Similitudes are but a shade, and show
Of those or that they signify to you.
The fire that doth within thine oven burn,
The prison where poor people sit and mourn,
Chains, racks, and darkness, and such others, be
As painting on the wall, to let thee see
By word and figures the extremity
Of such as shall within these burnings lie.
But certainly, if wickedness and sin
Had only foolish toys and trifles been,
And if God had not greatly hated it,

Yea, could he any ways thereof admit,

And let it pass, he would not thus have done.

He doth not use to punish any one
With any place or punishment that is
Above or sharper than the sin of his
Hath merited, and justice seeth due;
Read sin, then, by the death that doth ensue.

Most men do judge of sin, not by the fruits
It bears and bringeth forth, but as it suits
Their carnal and deluded hearts, that be
With sensual pleasures eaten up; but he
That now so judgeth, shortly shall perceive
That God will judge thereof himself, and leave
Such men no longer to their carnal lusts,
To judge of wickedness, and of the just
And righteous punishment that doth of right
Belong thereto; and will, too, in despite
Of all their carnal reason, justify
Himself, in their eternal misery.

or,

'Manner and matter, too, are all his own.'1

But no book, under the title of Divine Emblems, is mentioned in any catalogue or advertisements of Bunyan's works, published during his life; nor in those more complete lists printed by his personal friends, immediately after his death. In all these lists, as well as in many advertisement, both before, and shortly after Mr. Bunyan's death, a little book for children is constantly introduced, which, judging from the title, must have been similar to, if not the same as, these Emblems; but the Editor has not been able to discover a copy of the first edition, although every inquiry has been made for it, both in the United Kingdom and America. It was advertised in 1688, as Country Rhymes for Children, upon seventy-four things." It is also advertised, in the same year, as A Book for Boys and Girls, or Country Rhymes for Children, price 6d. In 1692, it is included in Charles Doe's catalogue

1 Bunyan's poem in the Holy War.

2 On the leaf following the title to One Thing is Needful, &c., by John Bunyan, 1688. A rare little 32mo, published by the author, in possession of the Editor.

3 At the end of Grace Abounding, the sixth edition, and also in The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, by Bunyan, 1688.

Struggler for their preservation, No. 36; Meditations on seventy-four things, published in 1685, and not reprinted during the author's life. In Charles Doe's second catalogue of all Mr. Bunyan's books, appended to the first edition of the Heavenly Footman, March 1698, it is No. 37. A Book for Boys and Girls, or Country Rhymes for Children, in verse, on seventy-four things. This catalogue describes every work, word for word, as it is in the several title pages. In 1707 it had reached a third edi tion, and was ornamented with cuts; and the title is altered to A Book for Boys and Girls, or Temporal Things Spiritualized, with cuts. In 1720, it was advertised, 'price, bound, 6d.'5 In Keach's Glorious Lover, it is advertised by Marshall, in 12mo. price 1s. In 1724, it assumed its present title, and from that time was repeatedly adver tised as Divine Emblems, or Temporal Things Spiritualized, fitted for the use of boys and girls, adorned with cuts.

By indefatigable exertions, my excellent friend and brother collector of old English bibles, James Dix, Esq., Bristol, has just discovered and presented to me the second edition of this very rare little volume, in fine preservation, from which it appears, that in 1701, the title page was altered from Country Rhymes and Meditations, to A Book for 4 Advertised in the eighth edition of Solomon's Temple Spiritualized.

In Youth Directed and Instructed-a curious little book for children.

The only difficulty that remains is to discover seventy-four meditations in the forty-nine Emblems. This may be readily done, if the subjects of meditation are drawn out. Thus, the first emblem contains meditations on two things, the Barren Fig Tree, and God's Vineyard. So the second has a meditation on the Lark and the Fowler, and another on the comparison between the Fowler and Satan. Upon this plan, the volume contains exactly seventy-four meditations.

Under the title of Divine Emblems, it has passed through a multitude of editions, and many thousand copies have been circulated. It was patronized in those early efforts of the Religious Tract Society, which have been so abundantly blessed in introducing wholesome food to the young, instead of the absurd romances which formerly poisoned the infant and youthful mind.

Among these numerous editions, two deserve special notice. The first of these was published in 1757, on a curious paper, and good letter, with new cuts.' It has a singular preface, signed J. D., addressed to the great Boys, in folio, and the little ones in coats.' The first eight pages are occupied with a dissertation on the origin of language, perhaps arising from a line in the dialogue between a sinner and spider, My name entailed is to my creation.' In this preface, he learnedly attempts to prove that language was the gift of God by re

The number of editions which have been printed of these little engaging poems, is a proof of the high estimation in which they have been held for nearly one hundred and seventy years; and the great rarity of the early copies shows the eager interest with which they have been read by children until utterly destroyed.

The cuts were at first exceedingly coarse and rude, but were much improved in the more modern copies. Those to Mason's edition are handsome. The engraver has dressed all his actors in the costume of the time of George the Third; the women with hooped petticoats and high head dresses; clergymen with five or six tier wigs; men with cocked hats and queues; and female servants with mob caps. That to Emblem Fifteen, upon the sacraments, is peculiarly droll; the artist, forgetting that the author was a Baptist, represents a baby brought to the font to be christened! and two persons kneeling before the body of our Lord! GEO. OFFOR.

1 Square 24mo, by Bennet, Gurney, and others, without date. French artists elegantly etched two of their devotional books; 2 Sturt engraved the Book of Common Prayer; some and Pyne engraved the texts of Horace and Virgil with beautiful vignettes.

COURTEOUS READER,

THE title page will show, if there thou look,
Who are the proper subjects of this book.
They're boys and girls of all sorts and degrees,
From those of age to children on the knees.
Thus comprehensive am I in my notions,
They tempt me to it by their childish motions.
We now have boys with beards, and girls that be
Big as old women, wanting gravity.

Then do not blame me, 'cause I thus describe them.
Flatter I may not, lest thereby I bribe them
To have a better judgment of themselves,.
Than wise men have of babies on their shelves.*

Altered to 'huge' in the Emblems, 1724.

A familiar phrase, denoting persons who have been always frivolous and childish, or those who have passed into second

Their antic tricks, fantastic modes, and way,
Show they, like very boys and girls, do play
With all the frantic fopperies of this age,
And that in open view, as on a stage;
Our bearded men do act like beardless boys;
Our women please themselves with childish toys.

Our ministers, long time, by word and pen,
Dealt with them, counting them not boys, but men.
Thunderbolts they shot at them and their toys,
But hit them not, 'cause they were girls and boys.
The better charg'd, the wider still they shot,
Or else so high, these dwarfs they touched not.
Instead of men, they found them girls and boys,
Addict to nothing as to childish toys.

childhood. 'On the shelf' is a common saying of ladies when they are too old to get married.—-(ED.)