Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of earth and hell confederate take away: A liberty, which persecution, fraud,
Opression, prisons, have no power to bind ; Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 'Tis liberty of heart derived from heaven, Bought with HIS blood, who gave it to mankind, And sealed with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure By the unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp, that speaks them his, And are august; but this transcends them all. His other works, the visible display
Of all-creating energy and might,
Are grand no doubt, and worthy of the word That, finding an interminable space Unoccupied, has filled the void so well, And made so sparkling what was dark before. But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true, Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, Might well suppose the artificer divine Meant it eternal, had he not himself Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, And still designing a more glorious far, Doomed it as insufficient for his praise. These therefore are occasional, and pass
Formed for the confutation of the fool, Whose lying heart disputes against a God; That office served, they must be swept away. Not so the labours of his love: they shine In other heavens than these that we behold, And fade not. There is paradise that fears No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends Large prelibation oft to saints below. Of these the first in order, and the pledge And confident assurance of the rest, Is liberty. A flight into his arms Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way, A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, And full immunity from penal woe.
Chains are the portion of revolted man, Stripes and a dungeon; and his body serves The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul, Opprobrious residence he finds them all. Propense his heart to idols, he is held In silly dotage on created things, Careless of their Creator. And that low And sordid gravitation of his powers
To a vile clod so draws him, with such force Resistless from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward; his ambition is to sink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. But ere he gain the comfortless repose He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures— What does it not? from lusts opposed in vain, And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune and dignity; the loss of all,
That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,
Far worse than all the plagues, with which his sins Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless misery. Future death,
And death still future. Not an hasty stroke, Like that which sends him to the dusty grave; But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:
What none can prove a forgery may be true; What none but bad men wish exploded must. That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud, Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst Of laughter his compunctions are sincere ; And he abhors the jest by which he shines. Remorse begets reform. His master-lust Falls first before his resolute rebuke,
And seems dethroned and vanquished. Peace ensues,
But spurious and short-lived; the puny child Of self-congratulating pride, begot On fancied innocence. Again he falls, And fights again; but finds his best essay A presage ominous, portending still Its own dishonour by a worse relapse. Till nature, unvailing nature, foiled So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause Perversely, which of late she so condemned; With shallow shifts and old devices, worn And tattered in the service of debauch, Covering his shame from his offended sight.
"Hath God indeed given appetites to man, "And stored the earth so plenteously with means "To gratify the hunger of his wish;
"And doth he reprobate and will he damn "The use of his own bounty? making first "So frail a kind, and then enacting laws "So strict, that less than perfect must despair? "Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth
Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man. "Do they themselves, who undertake for hire "The teacher's office, and dispense at large "Their weekly dole of edifying strains, "Attend to their own music? have they faith
"In what with such solemnity of tone
"And gesture they propound to our belief? "Nay-conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice "Is but an instrument, on which the priest "May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, "The unequivocal authentic deed,
"We find sound argument, we read the heart.” Such reasonings (if that name must need belong To excuses in which reason has no part) Serve to compose a spirit well inclined
To live on terms. of amity with vice, And sin without disturbance. Often urged, (As often as libidinous discourse Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes Of theological and grave import)
They gain at last his unreserved assent; Till, hardened his heart's temper in the forge Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,
He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;
Vain tampering has but fostered his disease;
'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. Haste now, philosopher, and set him free.
Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth
How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps
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