over Principalities and Powers of Darkness a nobler
Entertainment for our tuneful Meditations than the removing of the Ark
up to the City of David, to the Hill of God, which is high as the Hill
of Bashan? Is not our Heart often warm'd with holy Delight in the
Contemplation of the Son of God our dear Redeemer whose Love was
stronger than Death? Are not our Souls possess'd with a Variety of
Divine Affections, when we behold him who is our chief Beloved hanging
on the cursed Tree, with the Load of all our Sins upon him, and giving
up his Soul to the Sword of Divine Justice in the stead of Rebels and
Enemies? And must these Affections be confin'd only to our own Bosoms,
or never break forth but in _Jewish_ Language, and Words which were not
made to express the {259} Devotion of the Gospel? The Heaven and the
Hell that we are acquainted with by the Discovery of God our Saviour,
give us amore distinct Knowledge of the future and eternal State, than
all the former Revelations of God to Men: Life and Immortality is
brought to light by the Gospel; we are taught to look far into the
invisible World, and take a Prospect of the last awful Scene of Things:
We see the Graves opening, and the Dead arising at the Voice of the
Archangel, and the Sounding of the Trump of God; We behold the judge on
his Tribunal, and we hear the dreadful and the delightful Sentences of
Decision that shall pass on all the Sons and Daughters of _Adam_; we
are assur'd, that the Saints shall _arise to meet the Lord in the Air,
and so shall we be for ever with the Lord_: The Apostle bids us,
_Exhort or comfort one another with these Words_, 1 Thess. 4. 17, 18.
Now when the same Apostle requires that the _Word of Christ must dwell
richly in us in all Wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in
Psalms and spiritual Songs_; can we think he restrains us only to the
Psalms of _David_, which speak very little of all these Glories or
Terrors, and that in very obscure Terms and dark Hints of Prophecy? Or
shall it be suppos'd, that we must admonish one another of the old
_Jewish_ Affairs and Ceremonies in Verse, and make Melody with those
_weak and beggarly Elements, and the Yoke of Bondage_, and yet never
dare to speak of the Wonders of new Discovery except in the plain and
simple Language of Prose?

{260} Perhaps 'twill be replied here, that there are some Scriptural
Hymns in the Book of _Revelations_ that describe the Affairs of the New
Testament, the Death and