And equity; not jealous more to guard

A worthless form, than to decide aright:
Where fashion fhall not fanctify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding (fupplemental grace)
With lean performance ape the work of love!

Come then, and added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! It was thine By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth; And thou haft made it thine by purchase fince, And overpaid its value with thy blood.

Thy faints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen

Dipt in the fountain of eternal love.

Thy faints proclaim thee king; and thy delay
Gives courage to their foes, who, could they fee
The dawn of thy laft advent, long-defired,
Would creep into the bowels of the hills,
And flee for fafety to the falling rocks.
The very spirit of the world is tired

Of its own taunting question, asked fo long,
"Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?"
The infidel has shot his bolts away,

Till his exhausted quiver yielding none,

He gleans the blunted fhafts, that have recoiled,

And aims them at the fhield of truth again.
The veil is rent, rent too by prieftly hands,
That hides divinity from mortal eyes;
And all the myfteries to faith proposed,
Infulted and traduced, are cast aside,

As ufelefs, to the moles and to the bats.
They now are deemed the faithful, and are praised,
Who conftant only in rejecting thee,

Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal,

And quit their office for their error's fake.

Blind, and in love with darkness! yet even these
Worthy, compared with fycophants, who knee
Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man!
So fares thy church. But how thy church may fare
The world takes little thought. Who will may preach,
And what they will. All paftors are alike
To wandering sheep, refolved to follow none.
Two gods divide them all-Pleasure and Gain:
For thefe they live, they facrifice to these,
And in their fervice wage perpetual war

With confcience and with thee. Luft in their hearts,
And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth

To prey upon each other: ftubborn, fierce,
High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace.
Thy prophets fpeak of fuch; and, noting down
The features of the laft degenerate times,

Exhibit every lineament of these.

Come then, and added to thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, as radiant as the reft,
Due to thy laft and most effectual work,
Thy word fulfilled, the conqueft of a world!

He is the happy man, whose life e'en now
Shows fomewhat of that happier life to come;
Who, doomed to an obfcure but tranquil state,
Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose,
Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; befpeak him one
Content indeed to fojourn while he muft
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search
Of objects, more illuftrious in her view;
And, occupied as earnestly as she,

Though more fublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He feeks not her's, for he has proved them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like fummer birds
Purfuing gilded flies; and fuch he deems

Her honours, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss

Whose power is fuch, that whom the lifts from earth

She makes familiar with a heaven unfeen,
And fhows him glories yet to be revealed.
Not flothful he, though feeming unemployed,
And cenfured oft as ufelefs. Stilleft ftreams
Oft water faireft meadows, and the bird,
That flutters leaft, is longeft on the wing.
Afk him, indeed, what trophies he has raised,
Or what achievements of immortal fame
He purposes, and he shall anfwer-None.
His warfare is within. There unfatigued
His fervent fpirit labours. There he fights,
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself,
And never withering wreaths, compared with which
The laurels that a Cæfar reaps are weeds.

Perhaps the felf-approving haughty world,

That as fhe fweeps h. n with her whistling filks
Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if the fee,
Deems him a cypher in the works of God,
Receives advantage from his noifelefs hours,
Of which the little dreams. Perhaps the owes
Her funfhine and her rain, her blooming spring
And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes,
When, Ifaac like, the folitary faint

Walks forth to meditate at even-tide,

And think on her, who thinks not for herself.
Forgive him then, thou bustler in concerns

Of little worth, an idler in the beft,

If, author of no mischief and some good,
He feek his proper happiness by means,
That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine.
Nor, though he tread the fecret path of life,
Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease,
Account him an incumbrance on the state,
Receiving benefits, and rendering none.

His fphere though humble, if that humble sphere
Shine with his fair example, and though small
His influence, if that influence all be spent
In foothing forrow and in quenching ftrife,
In aiding helpless indigence, in works,
From which at least a grateful few derive
Some tafte of comfort in a world of wo,
Then let the fupercilious great confefs
He ferves his country, recompenfes well
The ftate, beneath the shadow of whofe vine
He fits fecure, and in the fcale of life
Holds no ignoble, though a flighted, place.
The man, whofe virtues are more felt than seen,
Muft drop indeed the hope of public praise;
But he may boast what few that win it can,
That if his country ftand not by his skill',
At leaft his follies have not wrought her fall.
Polite refinement offers him in vain