His parentage 'tis hard to trace;
His ancient rife few underftand:
He never had a senior race:

He's neither angel, brute, nor man.

A body void of flesh and blood;
Of joint or member, as we call ;
And yet, fo anxious after food,

He preys on friends, yea foes and all.

He wears the robe, the crown, and ring;
He fways the fceptre, fills the throne:
For him they mourn, of him they fing;
He makes their mirth, and makes their

By thousands curs'd to endless wo,

While thousands love to hear his fame;
Yet he's compriz'd in number Two;
Yea couch'd beneath a fingle name.

The pleafing tidings he hath told

groan.

Hath fill'd my mind with heavenly glee:
I've wish'd his curfe a thousand fold,
Yet he's a faithful friend to me.

Both friends and foes he puts to shame,
Yet knows no fear, nor yet difmay :

When heav'n and earth fhall fhake their frame

He'll dauntlefs ftand the dreadful day.

'Tis

'Tis near to me he loves to dwell,
And likes to hear of heav'nly love.
Tho' only fuch are doom'd to hell,
We hope to fee him crown'd above.

By whom defcended, or from whence,
Is what no mortal can disclose;
A creature, too, in every sense;

But who his first creation knows?

Now, if my reader longs to know,

And have his mind reliev'd from doubt;
Then let him with my heifer plow,
And he may find my Riddle out.

A KEY TO THE RIDDLE.

Incrow Nftre Etyo uma Yhav Eavi ewo,
Fh-imtow, homi No wre, ferhen;

Owre Side satnu mbert, wo,an,

D-byth, Ebro Adwaywes, Tmin, ster.

Goddi Dno tma keac Arna Lma Nwi,
The Arn Alme Nth, Ewor Ldifp Av'd 'ti:
Ssu Chast, hef Ethel Or dwil Ldamnye;
Tmre Arna Lma ybes av'd.

If still my reader cries 'Tis hard,'
Yet longs to bring the truth to light;
The key will furely fit the ward,

If he can place the letters right.

THE

SECOND RIDDLE.

Son of man, put forth a riddle; and speak a parable unto the house of Ifrael; and fay, Thus faith the Lord God; A great eagle with great wings, longringed, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar. Ezek. xvii. 2, 3.

AND these ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they fhall not be eaten ; they are an abomination: The eagle, the offifrage, and the ofpray, and the vulture, and the kite after his kind; every raven after his kind; and the owl, and the night-bawk, and the cuckow, and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the .great owl, and the fwan, and the pelican, and the giereagle, and the ftork, the beron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. Levit. xi. 13-19.

Are fowls, which are the work of God's hands, on abomination? So it feems; and therefore must not be eaten, being set aside as unclean. Then how comes it to pass that, when the fheet was let down from heaven to Peter, knit at the four corners, containing beafts of the earth, wild beasts, creeping

things,

things, and fowls of the air, he should be commanded to arise, kill, and eat? Acts x. 11-13. Peter knowing fuch were unclean by the law, fays, Not Jo, Lord: for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. But what God hath cleanfed must not be called common; and what he hath not cleansed is still common and unclean. If fo, the n Mofes's fhoal of unclean fowls are now to be found in a certain cage called a great city. The fpiritual whore of Babylon keeps them as carnal whores keep lapdogs and parrots. This comment is published by an angel from heaven: And after these things I Jaw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily, with a strong voice, Jaying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul Spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Rev. xviii. 1, 2. Thus Mofes's collected aviary and the angel's cage are now found together. A fword upon the inhabitants of Babylon; the owls fball dwell there. Jer, 1. 35. It shall be an habitation for dragons, and a court for owls: the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl and the raven fball dwell in it; the wild beasts of the defart shall meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the fatyr fhall cry to his fellow; the fcreech-owl also shall rest there: there fhall the vultures alfo be gathered, every one with her mate. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: not one of thefe fhall fail, none shall

want her mate; for my mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them. Ifa. xxxiv. 1016. Surely this cage is Job's congregation of defolate hypocrites (xv. 34), of whom he fays that in heart they heap up wrath. xxxvi. 13. Then no Peter will ever be commanded to kill and eat thefe, whatever his pretended Succeffor may do.

The Offifrage and Ofpray are all eagles, which fhall not be eaten, fays Mofes. Why? because he is the king of birds, and yet a bird of prey. An unmerciful warrior, with fuperabounding ftrength, is terrible: He is a reprefentation of those hypocrites who are faid to eat up the Lord's people as they eat bread; but the flock of Christ are not to bite and devour one another.

Not a Vulture, because he is too voracious, too greedy he will eat any thing, and minds nothing but eating. We read of fome whofe god is their belly. But the real Christian must be choice in his food, and eat to the fatisfying of his foul when he is hungry.

The Kite shall not be eaten: no, for he has robbed many a poor farmer's dame of her young poultry. And there are a fort of hypocrites who make it their business to seduce the feeble and unstable ones, whom Chrift gathers together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.

Nor the Raven, because he is not black and comely, but all black; not as the tents of Kedar and curtains of Solomon, but as the tents of Kedar alto