Of these the first in order, and the pledge And confident affurance of the reft, Is Liberty. A flight into his arms Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way, A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, And full immunity from penal woe.
Chains are the portion of revolted man, Stripes and a dungeon; and his body ferves The triple purpose. In that fickly, foul, Opprobrious refidence, he finds them all. Propenfe his heart to idols, he is held In filly dotage on created things, Careless of their Creator. And that low And fordid gravitation of his pow'rs
To a vile clod, fo draws him, with fuch force Refftlefs from the center he should feek, That he at laft forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward, his ambition is to fink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in purfuit of death. But ere he gain the comfortless repose He feeks, and acquiefcence of his foul In heav'n-renouncing exile, he endures- What does he not? from lufts oppos'd in vain,
And felf-reproaching conscience. He forefees The fatal iffue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune and dignity; the lofs of all
That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, fupportable. Still worse,
Far worse than all the plagues with which his fins Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless mifery. Future death, And death still future. Not an hafty ftroke, Like that which fends him to the dufty grave, But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:
What none can prove a forg'ry, may What none but bad men wish exploded, must. That fcruple checks him. Riot is not loud Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst Of laughter his compunctions are fincere, And he abhors the jeft by which he shines. Remorse begets reform. His mafter-luft Falls first, before his refolute rebuke,
And seems dethron'd and vanquish'd. Peace enfues, But fpurious and fhort-liv'd, the puny child Of felf congratulating pride, begot On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, And fights again; but finds his best effay A prefage ominous, portending still
Its own dishonour by a worfe relapse. Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foil'd So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now Takes part with appetite,. and pleads the cause, Perversely, which of late the fo condemn'd; With fhallow fhifts and old devices, worn. And tatter'd in the fervice of debauch, Cov'ring his shame from his offended fight.
"Hath God indeed giv'n appetites to man,. "And stor'd the earth fo plenteously with means "To gratify the hunger of his with,
"And doth hereprobate and will he damn "The ufe of his own bounty? making first. "So frail a kind, and then enacting laws "So strict, that lefs than perfect must despair ? "Falsehood! which whofo but suspects of truth, "Dishonors God, and makes a slave of man. "Do they themselves, who undertake for hire "The teacher's office, and difpenfe at large "Their weekly dole of edifying strains, "Attend to their own mufic? have they faith "In what with fuch folemnity of tone "And gefture they propound to our belief?> "Nay-conduct hath the loudest tongue. The
"Is but an inftrument on which the priest
"May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, "The unequivocal authentic deed,
"We find found argument, we read the heart." Such reas'nings (if that name must needs belong 'I' excufes in which reason has no part) Serve to compose a spirit well inclin'd To live on terms of amity and vice, And fin without disturbance. Often urg'd (As often as libidinous difcourfe Exhaufted, he reforts to folemn themes Of theological and grave import)
They gain at laft his unreferv'd affent. Till harden'd his heart's temper in the forge Of luft, and on the anvil of defpair,
He flights the strokes of confcience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his conftancy in ill, Vain tamp'ring has but foster'd his disease, "Tis defp'rate, and he fleeps the fleep of death. Hafte now, philosopher, and set him free. Charm the deaf ferpent wifely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitnefs; moral truth
How lovely, and the moral-sense how fure, Confulted and obey'd, to guide his steps Directly, to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR.
Spare not in fuch a caufe. Spend all the pow'rs Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise : Be most fublimely good, verbosely grand, And with poetic trappings grace thy prose, Till it out-mantle all the pride of verse.- Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-founding brass, Smitten in vain! fuch mufic cannot charm Th' eclipfe that intercepts truth's heav'nly beam, And chills and darkens a wide-wand'ring foul. The still small voice is wanted. He must speak, Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect, Who calls for things that are not, and they come.
Grace makes the flave a freeman. 'Tis a change That turns to ridicule the turgid speech And stately tone of moralists, who boast, As if like him, of fabulous renown,
They had indeed ability to smooth
The fhag of favage nature, and were each An Orpheus, and omnipotent in fong. But transformation of apoftate man
From fool to wife, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And he by means in philosophic eyes
Trivial and worthy of difdain, atchieves The wonder; humanizing what is brute
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