Thus heav'n-ward all things tend. For all were
Perfect, and all must be at length restor❜d. So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else In his dishonour'd works himself endure Difhonor, and be wrong'd without redress. Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world, Ye flow-revolving seasons! we would see, (A fight to which our eyes are strangers yet) A world that does not dread and hate his laws, And fuffer for its crime; would learn how fair The creature is that God pronounces good, How pleasant in itself what pleases him. Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a sting, Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs, And ev❜n the joy that haply fome poor heart Derives from heav'n, pure as the fountain is, Is fullied in the stream; taking a taint From touch of human lips, at best impure. Oh for a world in principle as chafte As this is grofs and selfish!, over which Custom and prejudice fhall bear no fway, That govern all things here, should'ring aside The meek and modest truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife In nooks obfcure, far from the ways of men: Where
Where violence fhall never lift the fword,. Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears: Where he that fills an office, shall efteem Th' occafion it presents of doing good More than the perquifite: Where law shall speak. Seldom, and never but as wifdom prompts And equity; not jealous more to guard A worthlefs form, than to decide aright: Where fashion shall not fanctify abuse, Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) With lean performance ape the work of love.
Come then, and, added to thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! it was thine By antient covenant, ere nature's birth, And thou haft made it thine by purchase fince, And overpaid its value with thy blood.
Thy faints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts
Thy title is engraven with a pen
Dipt in the fountain of eternal love.
Thy faints proclaim thee king; and thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they fee The dawn of thy last advent, long-defir'd, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And fly for fafety to the falling rocks.
The very spirit of the world is tir'd
Of its own taunting question, ask'd so long, "Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?" The infidel has fhot his bolts away,
'Till his exhausted quiver yielding none, He gleans the blunted fhafts that have recoil'd, And aims them at the shield of truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes, And all the mysteries to faith propos'd, Insulted and traduc'd, are cast afide
As ufelefs, to the moles and to the bats, They now are deem'd the faithful, and are prais'd, Who, constant only in rejecting thee,
Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, ti And quit their office for their error's fake.
Blind and in love with darkness! yet ev'n these Worthy, compar'd with fycophants, who knee Thy name, adoring, and then preach thee man. So fares thy church. But how thy church may fare- The world takes little thoughts who will may preach,
And what they will All paftors are alike To wand'ring fheep, refolv'd to follow none. Two gods divide them all, Pleafure and Gain: For these they live, they facrifice to thefe,
And in their service wage perpetual war
With confcience and with thee. Luft in their.
And mifchief in their hands, the roam the earth To prey upon each other; ftubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own difgrace. Thy prophets speak of fuch; and, noting down The features of the laft degen'rate times, Exhibit ev'ry lineament of these.
Come then, and added to thy many crowns Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, Due to thy last and most effectual work, Thy word fulfill'd, the conqueft of a world...
He is the happy man, whose life ev'n now Shows fomewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doom'd to an obfcure but tranquil ftate, Is pleas'd with it, and, were he free to chufe, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to fojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home.. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects more illuftrious in her view;
And, occupy'd as earnestly as fhe,
Though more fublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for fhe knows them not; He feeks not hers, for he has prov'd them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies, and fuch he deems Her honors, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in contemplation is his blifs,
Whose pow'r is fuch, that whom the lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heav'n unfeen, And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd. Not flothful he, though seeming unemploy'd, And cenfur'd oft as ufelefs. Stilleft ftreams Oft water faireft meadows, and the bird That Autters least, is longeft on the wing. Afk him, indeed, what trophies he has rais'd, Or what atchievements of immortal fame He purposes, and he fhall anfwer-none. His warfare is within. There unfatigu'd His fervent fpirit labours. There he fights, And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, And never with'ring wreaths, compar'd with which
The laurels that a Cæfar reaps are weeds. Perhaps the felf-approving haughty world, That as fhe sweeps him with her whistling filks
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