More senseless than the' irrationals you scorn! More base than those you rule! than those you pity Far more undone! O ye most infamous

Of beings, from superior dignity!

1205

Deepest in woe, from means of boundless bliss!

Ye cursed by blessings infinite! because

Most highly favour'd, most profoundly lost!
Ye motley mass of contradiction strong

And are you, too, convinced your souls fly off
In exhalation soft, and die in air,

1210

From the full flood of evidence against you?
In the coarse drudgeries and sinks of sense,

Your souls have quite worn out the make of Heaven, By vice new cast, and creatures of your own;

1215

But though you can deform, you can't destroy:
To curse, not uncreate, is all your power.
Lorenzo! this black brotherhood renounce ;
Renounce St. Evremond, and read St. Paul,
Ere rapp'd by miracle, by reason wing'd,

1220

His mounting mind made long abode in Heaven.
This is freethinking, unconfined to parts,

To send the soul, on curious travel bent,

Through all the provinces of human thought;

To dart her flight through the whole sphere of man ; Of this vast universe to make the tour;

1226

In each recess of space and time at home,

Familiar with their wonders; diving deep;

And, like, a prince of boundless interests there,

Still most ambitious of the most remote ;

1230

To look on truth unbroken and entire ;

Truth in the system, the full orb; where truths
By truths enlighten'd and sustain'd, afford
An archlike strong foundation, to support
The' incumbent weight of absolute complete
Conviction: here, the more we press, we stand
More firm who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half-sentences, confound; the whole
Conveys the sense, and God is understood,

1235

Who not in fragments writes to human race :
Read his whole volume, sceptic! then reply.

1240

This, this is thinking free, a thought that grasps Beyond a grain, and looks beyond an hour. Turn up thine eye, survey this midnight scene; What are earth's kingdoms to yon boundless orbs, 1245 Of human souls, one day, the destined range? And what yon boundless orbs to godlike man? Those numerous worlds that throng the firmament, And ask more space in Heaven, can roll at large In man's capacious thought, and still leave room 1250 For ampler orbs, for new creations there. Can such a soul contract itself, to gripe A point of no dimension, of no weight?

It can; it does: the world is such a point;

And of that point how small a part enslaves!

1255

How small a part-of nothing, shall I say? Why not?-Friends, our chief treasure, how they drop! Lucia, Narcissa fair, Philander, gone!

The grave, like fabled Cerberus, has oped

A triple mouth, and in an awful voice
Loud calls my soul, and utters all I sing.
How the world falls to pieces round about us,
And leaves us in a ruin of our joy!

What says this transportation of my friends?

1260

It bids me love the place where now they dwell, 1265
And scorn this wretched spot they leave so poor.
Eternity's vast ocean lies before thee;

There, there, Lorenzo! thy Clarissa sails.
Give thy mind sea-room; keep it wide of earth,
That rock of souls immortal, cut thy cord;
Weigh anchor; spread thy sails; call every wind
Eye thy great Pole-star; make the land of Life'
Two kinds of life has double-natured man,
And two of death; the last far more severe.
Life animal is nurtured by the Sun,

1270

1275

Thrives on his bounties, triumphs in his beams :
Life rational subsists on higher food,

Triumphant in His beams who made the day:
When we leave that Sun, and are left by this
(The fate of all who die in stubborn guilt,)
'Tis utter darkness; strictly double death.
We sink by no judicial stroke of Heaven,

But nature's course; as sure as plummets fall.
Since God or man must alter ere they meet,

1280

(Since light and darkness blend not in our sphere) 1285 'Tis manifest, Lorenzo, who must change.

If, then, that double death should prove thy lot, Blame not the bowels of the Deity;

Man shall be bless'd, as far as man permits
Not man alone, all rationals Heaven arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous power,
To counteract its own most gracious ends,
And this of strict necessity, not choice;

1290

That power denied, men, angels, were no more
But passive engines, void of praise or blame.
A nature rational implies the power

1295

Of being bless'd or wretched, as we please;
Else idle Reason would have nought to do,
And he that would be barr'd capacity

Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss.

1300

Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom
Invites us ardently, but not compels ;

Heaven but persuades, almighty man decrees.
Man is the maker of immortal fates.
Man falls by man, if finally he falls;

1305

And fall he must, who learns from death alone

The dreadful secret,-that he lives for ever.

Why this to thee?-thee yet, perhaps, in doubt
Of second life? but wherefore doubtful still?
Eternal life is Nature's ardent wish;
What ardently we wish we soon believe.
Thy tardy faith declares that wish destroy'd:
What has destroy'd it ?--shall I tell thee what?
When fear'd the future, 'tis no longer wish'd;
And when unwish'd, we strive to disbelieve.

1810

1315

Thus Infidelity our guilt betrays.'

Nor that the sole detection! Blush, Lorenzo !

Blush for hypocrisy, if not for guilt.

The future fear'd?-An infidel, and fear?

Fear what? a dream? a fable?-How thy dread, 132
Unwilling evidence, and therefore strong,
Affords my cause an undesign'd support!
How Disbelief affirms what it denies!
'It, unawares, asserts immortal life.'—
Surprising! Infidelity turns out

A creed and a confession of our sins:
Apostates, thus, are orthodox divines.

1325

Lorenzo with Lorenzo clash no more, Nor longer a transparent vizor wear. Think'st thou Religion only has her mask? Our infidels are Satan's hypocrites,

1330

Pretend the worst, and, at the bottom, fail.

When visited by thought (thought will intrude,)

Like him they serve, they tremble and believe.

Is there hypocrisy so foul as this?

1335

So fatal to the welfare of the world?

What detestation, what contempt, their due!

And, if unpaid, be thank'd for their escape,

That Christian candour they strive hard to scorn.

If not for that asylum, they might find

1340

A hell on earth, nor scape a worse below

With insolence and impotence of thought,

Instead of racking fancy to refute,

Reform thy manners, and the truth enjoy.~~
But shall I dare confess the dire result?

1345

Can thy proud reason brook so black a brand'

A Christian dwells, like Uriel,* in the Sun ;
Meridian evidence puts doubt to flight,

1355

And ardent hope anticipates the skies,

Of that bright Sun, Lorenzo! scale the sphere :

"Tis easy; it invites thee; it descends

From Heaven, to woo and waft thee whence it came.

Read and revere the sacred page, a page

1360

Where triumphs immortality; a page

Which not the whole Creation could produce:

Which not the Conflagration shall destroy :

Tis printed in the mind of gods for ever,

1365

In Nature's ruins not one letter lost.

In proud disdain of what e'en gods adore, Dost smile?-Poor wretch! thy guardian angel weeps. Angels and men assent to what I sing; Wits smile, and thank me for my midnight dream. How vicious hearts fume frenzy to the brain! Parts push us on to pride, and pride to shame : Pert Infidelity is Wit's cockade,

1370

To grace the brazen brow that braves the skies,
By loss of being dreadfully secure.
Lorenzo! if thy doctrine wins the day,

1375

And drives my dreams, defeated, from the field;
If this is all, if earth a final scene,

Take heed stand fast; be sure to be a knave;
A knave in grain! ne'er deviate to the right.
Shouldst thou be good-how infinite thy loss!
Guilt only makes annihilation gain.

1380

Bless'd scheme' which life deprives of comfort, death

Of hope, and which vice only recommends.

If so, where, Infidels! your bate thrown out

To catch weak converts? where your lofty boast 1385 Of zeal for virtue, and of love to man?

Annihilation! I confess in these.

What can reclaim you? dare I hope profound Philosophers the converts of a song?

*Milton's Paradise Lost