Like JACOB, fondest of the younger born!

Thou, who didst save him, snatch the smoking Brand
From out the Flames, and quench it in thy Blood!
How art thou pleas'd, by Bounty to distress!
To make us groan beneath our Gratitude,
Too big for Birth! to favour, and confound;
To challenge, and to distance, all Return!
Of lavish Love ftupendous Heights to foar,
And leave Praise panting in the distant Vale!
Thy Right too great defrauds Thee of Thy Due;
And facrilegious our fublimest Song,

But fince the naked Will obtains thy Smile,
Beneath this Monument of Praise unpaid,
And future Life fymphonious to my Strain,
(That nobleft Hymn to Heav'n!) for ever lie
Intomb'd my Fear of Death! and ev'ry Fear,
The Dread of ev'ry Evil, but Thy Frown,

Whom fee I yonder, fo demurely fmile?
Laughter a Labour, and might break their Reft.
Ye Quietists, in Homage to the Skies!
Serene! of foft Address! who mildly make
An unobtrufive Tender of your Hearts,
Abhorring Violence! who balt indeed;
But, for the Bleffing, ureftle not with Heav'n!
Think you my Song too turbulent? too warm?
Are Paffions, then, the Pagans of the Soul?
Reafon alone baptiz'd? alone ardain'd

To touch Things facred? Oh for Warmer still!.
Guilt chills my Zeal, and Age benumbs my Pow'rs;
Oh for an humbler Heart, and prouder Song!
THOU, my much-injur'd Theme! with that foft Eye,
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compaffion to the Coldness of my Breast;

And Pardon to the Winter in my Strain,

Oh

Oh ye cold-hearted, frozen, Formalifts!

On fuch a Theme, 'tis impious to be calm;
Paffion is Reason, Transport Temper, here.
Shall Heav'n, which gave us Ardor, and has fhewn
Her own for Man fo ftrongly, not disdain
What fmooth Emollients in Theology,
Recumbent Virtue's downy Doctors preach,
That Profe of Piety, a lukewarm Praise?
Rife Odours fweet from Incense uninflam'd?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its Heat is ftruck to Heav'n;
To human Hearts her golden Harps are ftrung;
High Heav'n's Orchestra chaunts Amen to Man.

Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant Strain,
Sweet to the Soul, and tasting strong of Heav'n,
Soft-wafted on celeftial Pity's Plume,

Thro' the vast Spaces of the Universe,

To chear me in this melancholy Gloom?

Oh when will Death (now ftingless), like a Friend,
Admit me of their Choir? Oh when will Death,
This mould'ring, old, Partition-Wall throw down?
Give Beings, one in Nature, one Abode ?
Oh Death Divine! that giv'ft us to the Skies!
Great Future! glorious Patron of the Paft,
And Prefent! when fhall I thy Shrine adore?
From Nature's Continent, immensely wide,
Immensely bleft, this little Ile of Life,

This dark, incarcerating Colony,

Divides us. Happy Day! that breaks our Chain :
That manumits; that calls from Exile home;
That leads to Nature's great Metropolis,
And re-admits us, thro' the guardian Hand
Of elder Brothers, to our Father's Throne;
Who hears our Advocate, and, thro' his Wounds
Beholding Man, allows that tender Name.

"Tis this makes Chrißian Triumph a Command:
"Tis this makes Joy a Duty to the Wise ?
'Tis impious, in a good Man, to be fad.

Seeft thou, LORENZO! where hangs all our Hope?
Touch'd by the Cross, we live ; or, more than die ;
That Touch which touch'd not Angels; more divine
Than that, which touch'd Confufion into Form,
And Darkness into Glory; partial Touch!
Ineffably pre-eminent Regard!

Sacred to Man, and Sov'reign thro' the whole
Long golden Chain of Miracles, which hangs
From Heav'n thro' all Duration, and supports
In one illuftrious, and amazing Plan,

Thy Welfare, Nature! and thy God's Renown;
That Touch, with Charm celeftial, heals the Soul
Difeas'd, drives Pain from Guilt, lights Life in Death,
Turns Earth to Heav'n, to heav'nly Thrones transforms
The ghaftly Ruins of the mould'ring Tomb.

Doft ask me when? when HE who dy'd returns ?
Returns, how chang'd! Where then the Man of Woe?
In Glory's Terrors all the Godhead burns;
And all his Courts, exhausted by the Tide
Of Deities triumphant in his Train,
Leave a ftupendous Solitude in Heaven
Replenisht foon, replenisht with Increase
Of Pomp, and Multitude; a radiant Band
Of Angels new; of Angels from the Tomb.

Is this by Fancy thrown remote ? and rise
Dark Doubts between the Promise, and Event?
I fend thee not to Volumes for thy Cure;
Read Nature; Nature is a Friend to Truth;
Nature is Chriftian; preaches to Mankind;
And bids dead Matter aid us in our Creed.
Haft thou ne'er feen the Comet's flaming Flight?
Th' illuftrious Stranger paßing, Terror sheds

On

On gazing Nations, from his fiery Train
Of Length enormous, takes his ample Round
Thro' Depths of Ether; coafts unnumber'd Worlds,
Of more than folar Glory; doubles wide
Heav'n's mighty Cape; and then revifits Earth,
From the long Travel of a thousand Years.
Thus, at the deftin'd Period, fhall return

HE, once on Earth, who bids the Comet blaze:
And, with Him, all our Triumph o'er the Tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important Point;
Or Hope precarious in low Whisper breathes;
Faith speaks aloud, diftinct; ev'n Adders hear,
But turn, and dart into the Dark again.

Faith builds a Bridge across the Gulph of Death,
To break the Shock blind Nature cannot fhun,
And lands Thought fmoothly on the farther Shore.
Death's Terror is the Mountain Faith removes ;
That Mountain Barrier between Man and Peace.
'Tis Faith difarms Destruction; and abfolves
From ev'ry clam'rous Charge, the guiltless Tomb.
Why difbelieve? LORENZO!" Reafon bids,
"All-facred Reafon."-Hold her facred ftill;
Nor fhalt thou want a Rival in thy Flame :
All-facred Reafon! Source, and Soul, of all
Demanding Praife, on Earth, or Earth above!
My Heart is thine: Deep in its inmost Folds,
Live thou with Life; live dearer of the Two.
Wear I the bleffed Crofs, by Fortune ftampt
On paffive Nature, before Thought was born?
My Birth's blind Bigot! fir'd with local Zeal!
No; Reason rebaptiz'd me when adult;
Weigh'd True, and Falfe, in her impartial Scale;
My Heart became the Convert of my Head;

And made that Choice, which once was but my Fate. "On Argument alone my Faith is built:" E

Reason

Reafon purfu'd is Faith; and, unpurfu'd

Where Proof invites, 'tis Reason, then, no more: And fuch our Proof, That, or our Faith is right, Or Reafon lyes, and Heav'n defign'd it wrong: Abfolve we This? What, then, is Blafphemy?

yours;

Fond as we are, and juftly fond of Faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first Regard;
The Mother honour'd, as the Daughter dear.
Reafon the Root; fair Faith is but the Flower :
The fading Flow'r fhall die; but Reafon lives
Immortal, as her Father in the Skies.
When Faith is Virtue, Reafon makes it fo.
Wrong not the Chriftian; think not Reason
"Tis Reafon our great Mafter holds fo dear;
'Tis Reafon's injur'd Rights His Wrath refents;
'Tis Reafon's Voice obey'd, His Glories crown;
To give loft Reafon Life, He pour'd his own;
Believe, and fhew the Reafon of a Man;
Believe, and taste the Pleasure of a God;
Believe, and look with Triumph on the Tomb:
Thro' Reafon's Wounds alone thy Faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold Terror gives to Death,
And dips in Venom his twice-mortal Sting.

Learn hence what Honours, what loud Paans, due To thofe, who pufh our Antidote afide;

Thofe boafted Friends to Reafon, and to Man,
Whofe fatal Love ftabs ev'ry Joy, and leaves

Death's Terror heighten'd gnawing on his Heart.
These pompous Sons of Reafon idoliz'd,
And vilify'd at once; of Reafon dead,
Then deify'd, as Monarchs were of old;
What Conduct plants proud Laurels on their Brow?
While Love of Truth thro' all their Camp refounds,
They draw Pride's Curtain o'er the Noon-tide Ray,
Spike up their Inch of Reafon, on the Point