And fure 'tis better, if Heaven would give confent,

To have no being; but they must remain,
For ever, and for ever be in pain.

O inexpreffible, stupendous punishment,
Which cannot be endur'd, yet must be underwent!

But now, the eastern skies expanding wide,
The glorious Judge omnipotent defcends,
And to the fublunary world his paffage bends;
Where, cloth'd with human nature, he did once
refide.

Round him the bright ethereal armies fly,
And loud triumphant hallelujahs fing,
With fongs of praife, and hymns of victory,
To their celeftial king;

All glory, power, dominion, majesty,
Now, and for everlasting ages, be

To the Effential One, and Co-cternal Three.
Perifh, that world, as 'tis decreed,
Which faw the God incarnate bleed!
Perish by thy almighty vengeance those
Who durft thy perfon, or thy laws expofe;
The curfed refuge of mankind, and hell's proud feed.
Now to the unbelieving nations fhew,
Thou art a God from all eternity;
Not titular, or but by office fo;
And let them the mysterious union fee
Of human nature with the Deity.

With mighty transports, yet with awful fears,
The good behold this glorious fight!
Their God in all his majefty appears,
Ineffable, amazing bright,

And feated on a throne of everlafting light.
Round the tribunal, next to the Moft High,
In facred difcipline and order, ftand

The peers and princes of the fay,
As they excel in glory or command.
Upon the right hand that illuftrious crowd,
In the white botom of a thining cloud,
Whofe fouls abhorring all ignoble crimes.
Did, with a steady courfe, purfue
His holy precepts in the worst of times,
Maugre what earth or hell, what man or devils
could do,

And now that God they did to death adore,
For whom fuch torments and fuch pains they

bore

Returns to place them on thofe thrones above, Where,undifturh'd, uncloy'd, they will poffels Divine, fubftantial happiness, Unbounded as his power, and lafting as his love.

Go, bring, the Judge impartial, frowning, cries, Thofe rebel fons, who did my laws defpife; Whom neither threats nor promifes could move, Not all my fufferings, nor all my love, To fave themselves from everlasting miferies. At this ten millions of archangels flew Swifter than lightning, or the fwifteft thought,

And less than in an inftant brought The wretched, curs'd, infernal crew; Who with diftorted aspects come, To hear their fad, intolerable doom.

Alas! they cry, one beam of mercy fhew,

Thou all-forgiving Deity!

To pardon crimes is natural to thee:
Cruth us to nothing, or fufpend our woe.
But if it cannot, cannot be,

And we must go into a gulf of fire,

(For who can with Omnipotence contend?) Grant, for thou art a God, it may at laft expire, And all our tortures have an end. Eternal burnings, O, we cannot bear! Though now our bodies too immortal are, Let them be pungent to the last degree: And let our pains innumerable be; But let them not extend to all eternity!

Lo, now there does no place remain
For penitence and tears, but all
Muft by their actions stand or fall:
To hope for pity, is in vain;

The dye is caft, and not to be recall'd again.
Two mighty books are by two angels brought:
In this, impartially recorded, ftands
The law of nature, and divine commands:
In that, each action, word, and thought,
Whate'er was faid in fecret, or in fecret wrought.
Then first the virtuous and the good,
Who all the fury of temptation stood,
And bravely pafs'd through ignominy, chains,
and blood.

Attended by their guardian angels come
To the tremendous bar of final doom.
In vain the grand accufer, railing, brings
A long indictment of enormous things,
Whole guilt wip'd off by penitential tears,
And their Redeemer's blood and agonics,
No more to their aftonishment appears,
But in the fecret womb of dark oblivion lies.

Come, now, my friends, he cries, ye fons of

grace,

Partakers once of all my wrongs and shame, Defpis'd and hated for my name; Come to your Saviour's and your God's embrace; Afcend, and thofe bright diadems poffefs. For you by my eternal Father made, Ere the foundation of the world was laid; And that furprising happiness, Immenfe as my own Godhead, and will ne'er be lefs.

For when I languishing in prifon lay, Naked, and ftarv'd almost for want of bread,

You did your kindly vilits pay, Both cloth d my body, and my hunger fed Weary'd with fickuefs, or oppreis'd with grief, Your hand was always ready to fupply: Whene'er I wanted, you were always by, To fhare my forrows, or to give relief. In all diftrefs, fo tender was her love, I could no anxious trouble bear; No black misfortune, or vexatious care, But you were fill impatient to remove, And mourn'd, your charitable hand fhould unfuccefsful prove:

All this you did, though not to me In perfon, yet to mine in mifery :

And fhall forever live In all the glories that a God can give, Or a created being's able to receive.

At this the architects divine on high Innumerable thrones of glory raise, On which they, in appointed order, place, The human coheirs of eternity,

And with united hymns the God incarnate praife: O holy, holy, holy Lord,

Eternal God, Almighty One,

Be Thou for ever, and be Thou alone,
By all thy creatures, conftantly adored!
Ineffable, co-equal Three,

Who from non-entity gave birth

To angels and to men, to heaven and to earth, Yet always waft Thyfelf, and wilt for ever be. But for thy mercy, we had ne'er poffeft These thrones, and this immense felicity; Could ne'er have been fo infinitely bleft! Therefore, all Glory, Power, Dominion, Majefty,

To Thee, O Lamb of God, to Thee,
For ever longer, than for ever, be!

Then the incarnate Godhead turns his face
To those upon the left, and cries,
(Almighty vengeance flashing in his eyes)
Ye impious, unbelieving race,
To thofe eternal torments go,
Prepar'd for thofe rebellious fons of light,
In burning darkness and in flaming night,
Which fhall no limit or ceffation know,
But always are extreme, and always will be fo.
The final fentence paft, a dreadful cloud
Inclofing all the miferable crowd,
A mighty hurricane of thunder rofe,
And hurl'd them all into a lake of fire,
Which never, never, never can expire;
The vaft abyss of endless woes:

Whilft with their God the righteous mount on high,

In glorious triumph paffing through the sky, The joys immense, and everlasting ecstasy,

REASON: A POEM.

Written in the year 1700.

UNHAPPY man! who, through fucceffive years,
From early youth to life's last childhood errs:
No fooner born but proves a foe to truth;
For infant reafon is o'erpower'd in youth.
The cheats of fenfe will half our learning fhare;
And preconceptions all our knowledge are.
Reason, 'tis true, should over sense preside:
Correct our notions, and our judgments guide;
But falfe opinions, rooted in the mind,
Hoodwink the foul, and keep our reafon blind,
Reafon's a taper, which but faintly burns;
A languid flame, that glows, and dies by turns:
We fee't a little while, and but a little way;
We travel by its light, as men by day:

But quickly dying, it forfakes us foon,
Like morning ftars, that never stay till noon.
The foul can fcarce above the body rife;
And all we fee is with corporeal eyes.
Life now does fcarce one glimpse of light dif-
play;

We mourn in darkness, and despair of day:
That natural night, once drefs'd in orient beams,
Is now diminish'd, and a twilight feems;
A mifcellaneous compofition, made

Of night and day, of funfhine and of fhade.
Through an uncertain medium now we look,
And find that falsehood, which for truth we took:
So rays projected from the caftern skies,
Shew the falfe day before the fun can rise.

That little knowledge now which man obtains,
From outward objects, and from fense he gains:
He, like a wretched flave, must plod and sweat ;
By day must toil, by night that toil repeat ;
And yet, at laft, what little fruit he gains!
A beggar's harvest, glean'd with mighty pains!
The paffions, ftill predominant, will rule
Ungovern'd, rude, not bred in Reafon's school;
Our understanding they with darkness fill,
Caufe ftrong corruptions, and pervert the will.
On thefe the foul, as on fome flowing tide,
Muft fit, and on the raging billows ride,
Hurried away; for how can be withstood
Th' impetuous torrent of the boiling blood?
Be gone, falfe hopes; for all our learning's vain;
Can we be free where these the rule maintain?
Thefe are the tools of knowledge which we ufe;
The fpirits heated, will ftrange things produce.
Tell me, whoe'er the paffions could controul,
Or from the body difengage the foul:
Till this is done, our best pursuits are vain,
To conquer truth, and unmix'd knowledge gain:
Through all the bulky volumes of the dead.
And through those books that modern times have
bred,

With pain we travel, as through moorish ground,
Where fcarce one useful plant is ever found;
O'er-run with errors, which fo thick appear,
Our fearch proves vain, no fpark of truth is there.
What's all the noify jargon of the schools,
But idle nonfenfe of laborious fools,
Who fetter reafon with perplexing rules?
What in Aquina's bulky works are found,
Does not enlighten Reason, but confound,
Who travels Scotus' fwelling tomes shall find
A cloud of darknefs rifing on the mind;
In controverted points can Reason sway,
When paflion, or conceit, ftill hurries us away!
Thus his new notions Sherlock would instil,
And clear the greatest myfteries at will;
But, by unlucky wit, perplex'd them more,
And made them darker than they were before.
South foon oppos'd him, out of Chriftian zeal ;
Shewing how well he could difpute and rail.
How fhall we e'er discover which is right,
When both fo cagerly maintain the fight?
Each does the other's arguments deride;
Each has the church and feripture on his fide.
The fharp, ill-natur'd combat's but a jest;
Both may be wrong; one, perhaps, errs the least.

How fhall we know which articles are true,
The old ones of the church, or Burnet's new?
In paths uncertain and unsafe he treads,
Who blindly follows other fertile heads :
What fure, what certain mark have we to know,
The right or wrong, 'twixt Burgess, Wake, and
Howe?

Should unturn'd nature crave the medic art,
What health can that contentious tribe impart ?
Every phyfician writes a different bill,
And gives no other reafon but his will.
No longer boaft your art, you impious race;
1.et wars 'twixt Alcalies and Acids ceafe;
And proud G-11 with Colbatch be at peace.
Gibbons and Radcliffe do but rarely guefs;
To-day they've good, to-morrow no fuccefs.
Ev'n Garth and Maurus fometimes fhall pre-
vail,

When Gibfon, learned Hannes, and Tyfon, fail.
And, more than once, we've seen, that blundering
Sloane,

Miffing the gout, by chance has hit the ftone;
The patient does the lucky error find;
A cure he works, though not the cure defign'd.
Cuftom, the world's great idol, we adore;
And knowing this, we feek to know no more.
What education did at first receive,
Our ripen'd age confirms us to believe.
The careful nurse, and pricft, are all we need,
To learn opinions, and our country's creed:
The parent's precepts early are inftill'd,
And spoil'd the man, while they inftruct the child.
To what hard fate is human kind betray'd,
When thus implicit faith, a virtue made;
When education more than truth prevails,
And nought is current but what cuftom feals?
Thus, from the time we firft began to know,
We live and learn, but not the wifer grow.

We feldom use our liberty aright.
Nor judge of things by univerfal light :
Our prepoffeffions and affections bind

The foul in chains, and lord it o'er the mind;
And if felf-intereft be but in the cafe,
Our unexamin'd principles may país!

Good Heavens! that man should thus himfelf

Does not that foolish deference we pay To men that liv'd long fince, our paffage ftay? What odd, prepofterous paths at first we tread, And learn to walk by ftumbling on the dead! First we a blessing from the grave implore, Worfhip old urns, and monuments adore! The reverend fage, with vaft eficem, we prize: He liv'd long fince, and must be wondrous wife! Thus are we debtors to the famous dead, For all thofe errors which their fancies bred: Errors indeed for real knowledge stay'd With those first times, not farther was convey'd: While light opinions are much lower brought, For on the waves of ignorance they float: But folid truth fcarce ever gains the shore, So foon it finks, and ne'er emerges more.

Suppofe thofe many dreadful dangers paft, Will knowledge dawn, and blefs the mind at

laft?

Ah! no, 'tis now environ'd from our eyes,
Hides all its charms, and undifcover'd lies!
Truth, like a fingle point, efcapes the fight,
And claims attention to perceive it right!
But what refembles truth is foon defcry'd,
Spreads like a furface, and expanded wide!
The first man rarely, very rarely finds
The tedious fearch of long inquiring minds:
But yet what's worse, we know not what we err;
What mark does truth, what bright distinction
bear?

How do we know that what we know is true?
How fhall we falfehood fly, and truth pursue?
Let none then here his certain knowledge boast;
'Tis all but probability at most:

This is the eafy purchase of the mind,
The vulgar's treafure, which we foon may find!
But truth lies hid, and ere we can explore
The glittering gem, our fleeting life is o'er.

Some nobler bard, O facred Power, inspire,
Or foul more large, th' elapfes to receive;
And brighter yet, to catch the fire,
And each gay following charm from death to fave!
-In vain the fuit-the God inflames my breaft;
I rave, with ecstasies oppreft:

I rife, the mountains leffen and retire;
And now I mix, unfing'd, with elemental fire!
The leading Deity I have in view;

Nor mortal knows, as yet, what wonders will enfue

We pafs'd through regions of unfullied light;
I gaz'd, and ficken'd at the blifsful fight;
A fhuddering paleness feiz'd my look:

At last the peft flew off, and thus I fpoke: "Say, Sacred Guide, fhall this bright clime "Survive the fatal test of time,

"Or perish, with our mortal globe below, "When yon fun no longer fhines?" Straight I finifh'd- -veiling low; The vifionary Power rejoins: ""Tis not for you to afk, nor mine to fay, "The niceties of that tremendous day. "Know, when o'er-jaded Time his round has

« run,

"And finish'd are the radiant journeys of the fun, "The great decifive morn fhall rife, "And Heaven's bright Judge appear in opening "fkies!

"Eternal grace and justice he'll bestow

"On all the trembling world below."

He faid. I mus'd, and thus return'd: "What enfigns, courteous ftranger, tell, "Shall the brooding day reveal?" He answer'd mild

"Already, ftupid with their crimes, "Blind mortals proftrate to their idols lie: "Such were the boding times,

"Ere ruin blafted from the fluicy fky; "Diffolv'd they lay in fulfome case,

"And revel'd in luxuriant peace; "In bacchanals they did their hours confume, "And bacchanals led on their fwift advancing "doom."

Adulterate Chrifts already rife,

And dare t' affuage the angry fkies; Erratic throngs their Saviour's blood deny, And from the Crofs, alas! he does neglected figh;

[head, The Anti-Chriftian Power has rais'd his Hydra And ruin, only less than Jesus' health, does spread. So long the gore through poifon'd veins has flow'd,

That fcarcely ranker is a Fury's blood; Yet fpecious artifice, and fair disguise, The monster's fhape, and curft defign, belies: A fiend's black venom, in an angel's mien, He quaffs, and fcatters the contagious fpleen Straight, when he finishes his lawless reign, Nature fhall paint the fhining fcene, Quick as the lightning which infpires the train.

Reverse all Nature's web fhall run,

And fpotlefs mifrule all around, Order, its flying foe, confound;

Whilft backward all the threads fhall hafte to be unfpun.

Triumphant Chaos, with his oblique wand, (The wand with which, ere time begun,

His wandering flaves he did command, And made them fcamper right, and in rude ranges run)

The hoftile harmony fhall chace;

And as the nymph refigns her place,

And panting to the neighbouring refuge flies, The formless ruffian flaughters with his eyes, And following ftorms the pearching dame's retreat,

Adding the terror of his threat;

The globe fhall faintly tremble round,
And backward jolt, diftorted with the wound.

And plung'd into the opening gulf of night;

A fabre of immortal flame I bore,

And, with this arm, his flourishing plume I

tore,

And straight the fiend retreated from the fight.

Mean time the lambient prodigies on high
Take gamefome measures in the sky;
Joy'd with his future feast, the thunder roars
In chorus to th' enormous harmony, [stores;
And holloos to his offspring from fulphureous
Applauding how they tilt, and how they fly,

And their each nimble turn, and radiant embally.

The moon turns paler at the fight,

And all the blazing orbs deny their light;
The lightning with its livid tail
A train of glittering terrors draws behind,

Which o'er the trembling world prevail;
Wing'd and blown on by forms of wind,
They fhew the hideous leaps on cither hand,

Of Night, that fpreads her ebon curtains round. And there erects her royal ftand, [bound In feven-fold winding jet her confcious temples

The stars, next farting from their spheres,
In giddy revolutions leap and bound;
Whilft this with doubtful fury glares,

And meditate new wars,
And wheels in sportive gyres around,
Its neighbour fhail advance to fight;
And while each offers to enlarge its right,
The general ruin fhall increafe,
And banish all the votaries of peace.
No more the ftars, with paler beams,
Shall tremble o'er the midnight streams,
But travel downward to behold

What mimics them fo twinkling there;
And, like Narciffus, as they gain more near,
For the lov'd image ftraight expire,

And agonize in warm defire,

Or flake their luft, as in the stream they roll.

The Mighty Judge rides in tempeftuous state, Whilft mighty guards his orders wait :

His waving veftments shine

Bright as the fun, which lately did its beam refign, And burnish'd wreaths of light shall make his form divine. {play,

Strong beams of majesty around his temples And the tranfcendent gaiety of his face allay : His Father's reverend characters he'll wear, And both o'erwhelm with light, and over-awe with fear.

Myriads of angels fhall be there,

And I, perhaps, close the tremendous rear; Angels, the first and fairest fons of day, [gay. Clad with eternal youth, and as their veftiments

Louder he'll blow, and it shall speak more thrill, Than when, from Sinai's hill,

In thunder through the horrid reddening (moke, Th' Almighty fpoke,

We'll fhout around with martial joy, And thrice the vaulted fkies fhall rend, and thrice our fhouts reply.

Then first th' Archangels voice, aloud,
Shall cheerfully falute the day and throng.
And Hallelujah fill the crowd;

And I, perhaps, shall close the song.

From its long fleep all human race fhall rife, And fee the morn and Judge advancing in the

fkies: