The soul's high price is the Creation's key,
Unlocks its mysteries, and naked lays
The genuine cause of every deed divine :
That is the chain of ages which maintains
Their obvious correspondents, and unites
Most distant periods in one bless'd design :
That is the mighty hinge on which have turn'd
All revolutions, whether we regard
The natural, civil, or religious world;
The former two, but servants to the third :
To that their duty done, they both expire,
Their mass new-cast, forgot their deeds renown'd,
And angels ask, 'Where once they shone so fair?'
To lift us from this abject, to sublime;
This flux, to permanent; this dark, to day;
This foul, to pure; this turbid, to serene;
This mean, to mighty!-for this glorious end
The' Almighty, rising, his long sabbath broke! 1030
The world was made, was ruin'd, was restored;
Laws from the skies were publish'd, were repeal'd;
On earth kings, kingdoms, rose; kings, kingdoms, fell;
Famed sages lighted up the Pagan world;
Prophets from Sion darted a keen glance
Through distant age; saints travel'd, martyrs bled;
By wonders sacred Nature stood control'd;
The living were translated; dead were raised;
Angels, and more than angels, came from Heaven;
And, oh! for this descended lower still:
Gilt was Hell's gloom; astonish'd at his guest,
For one short moment Lucifer adored.
Lorenzo and wilt thou do less?-For this
That hallow'd page, fools scoff at, was inspired,
Of all these truths, thrice-venerable code!
Deists! perform your quarantine; and then
Fall prostrate, ere you touch it, lest you die.
Nor less intensely bent infernal powers
To mar, than those of light, this end to gain.
O what a scene is here!-Lorenzo! wake!
Rise to the thought; exert, expand thy soul
To take the vast idea; it denies
All else the name of great. Two warring worlds,
Not Europe against Afric! warring worlds,
Of more than mortal, mounted on the wing!
On ardent wings of energy and zeal,
High hovering o'er this little brand of strife,
This sublunary ball.-But strife, for what?
In their own cause conflicting! no; in thine,
In man's. His single interest blows the flame; 1060
His the sole stake; his fate the trumpet sounds
Which kindles war immortal. How it burns!
Tumultuous swarms of deities in arms;
Force, force opposing, till the waves run high,
And tempest Nature's universal sphere.
Such opposites eternal, steadfast, stern,
Such foes implacable are good and ill;
Yet man, vain man, would mediate peace between them.
Think not this fiction: There was war in heaven.'
From heaven's high crystal mountain, where it hung,
The' Almighty's outstretch'd arm took down his bow,
And shot his indignation at the deep:
Rethunder'd Hell, and darted all her fires.—
And seems the stake of little moment still!
And slumbers man, who singly caused the storm? 1075
He sleeps. And art thou shock'd at mysteries?
The greatest, thou. How dreadful to reflect
What ardour, care, and counsel mortals cause
In breasts divine! how little in their own!
Where'er I turn, how new proofs pour upon me! How happily this wondrous view supports My former argument! how strongly strikes Immortal life's full demonstration here! Why this exertion? why this strange regard
From Heaven's Omnipotent indulged to man?- 1085 Because in man the glorious, dreadful power,
Extremely to be pain'd, or bless'd for ever.
Duration gives importance, swells the price.
An angel, if a creature of a day,
What would he be ? a trifle of no weight.
Or stand or fall, no matter which, he's gone.
Because immortal, therefore is indulged
This strange regard of deities to dust.
Hence Heaven looks down on earth with all her
Hence, the soul's mighty moment in her sight;
Hence, every soul has partisans above,
And every thought a critic in the skies:
Hence clay, vile clay! has angels for its guard,
And every guard a passion for his charge:
Hence, from all age, the cabinet divine
Has held high counsel o'er the fate of man.
Nor have the clouds those gracious counsels hid
Angels undrew the curtain of the throne,
And Providence came forth to meet mankind:
In various modes of emphasis and awe
He spoke his will, and trembling Nature heard
He spoke it loud, in thunder, and in storm:
Witness thou, Sinai! whose cloud-cover'd height,
And shaken basis, own'd the present God:
Witness, ye billows! whose returning tide,
Breaking the chain that fasten'd it in air,
Swept Egypt and her menaces to hell.
Witness, ye flames! the' Assyrian tyrant blew
To sevenfold rage, as impotent as strong:
And thou, Earth! witness, whose expanding jaws 1115 Closed o'er Presumption's sacrilegious sons :*
Has not each element, in turn, subscribed
The soul's high price, and sworn it to the wise?
Has not flame, ocean, ether, earthquake, strove
To strike this truth through adamantine man? 1120 If not all adamant, Lorenzo! hear;
All is delusior.; Nature is wrapp'd up
In tenfold night, from Reason's keenest eye:
There's no consistence, meaning, plan or end.
In all beneath the sun, in all above,
(As far as man can penetrate) or heaven Is an immense, inestimable prize;
Or all is nothing, or that prize is all.—
And shall each toy be still a match for heaven,
And full equivalent for groans below?
Who would not give a trifle to prevent
What he would give a thousand worlds to cure?
Lorenzo! thou hast seen (if thine to see)
All Nature, and her God, (by Nature's course,
And Nature's course control'd) declare for me.
The skies above proclaim'immortal man!'
And 'man immortal!' all below resounds.
The world's a system of theology,
Read by the greatest strangers to the schools;
If honest, learn'd; and sages o'er a plough.
Is not, Lorenzo! then, imposed on thee
This hard alternative, or to rerounce
Thy reason and thy sense, or to believe?
What then is unbelief? 'tis an exploit,
A strenuous enterprise; to gain it, man
Must burst through every bar of common sense,
Of common shame, magnanimously wrong;
And what rewards the sturdy combatant?—
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.
But wherefore infamy !—for want of faith
Down the steep precipice of wrong he slides;
There's nothing to support him in the right.
Faith in the future wanting is, at least
In embryo, every weakness, every guilt,
And strong temptation ripens it to birth.
If this life's gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country sold, his father slain?
'Tis virtue to pursue our good supreme,
And his supreme, his only good, is here!
Ambition, avarice, by the wise disdain'd,
Is perfect wisdom while mankina are fools,
And think a turf or tombstone covers all:
These find employment, and provide for sense
A richer pasture, and a larger range;
And sense, by right divine, ascends the throne. 1:65
When Virtue's prize and prospect are no more,
Virtue no more we think the will of Heaven.
Would Heaven quite beggar Virtue, if beloved?
'Has Virtue charms?'--I grant her heavenly fair; But if unportion'd, all will Interest wed,
Though that our admiration, this our choice.
The virtues grow on Immortality;
That root destroy'd they wither and expire.
A Deity believed will nought avail;
Rewards and punishments make God adored,
And hopes and fears give Conscience all her power. As in the dying parent dies the child.
Virtue with Immortality expires.
Who tells me he denies his soul immortal,
Whate'er his boast, has told me he's a knave.
His duty 'tis to love himself alone,
Nor care though mankind perish if he smiles.
Who thinks ere long the man shall wholly die
Is dead already; nought but brute survives.
And are there such Such candidates there are
For more than death; for utter loss of being;
Being, the basis of the Deity!
Ask you the cause ?-the cause they will not tell;
Nor need they. Oh, the sorceries of sense!
They work this transformation on the soul,
Dismount her like the serpent at the fall,
Dismount her from her native wing (which soar'd
Erewhile ethereal heights,) and throw her down
To lick the dust, and crawl in such a thought.
Is it in words to paint you? O ye Faller.! Fallen from the wings of reason and of hope!
Erect in stature, prone in appetite!
Patrons of pleasure, posting into pain!
Lovers of argument, averse to sense!
Boasters of liberty! fast bound in chains!
Lords of the wide creation, and the shame!
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