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But wherefore infamy ?-For want of faith,
Down the steep precipice of wrong he flides;
There's nothing to fupport him in the right.
Faith in the future wanting, is, at least
In embryo, ev'ry weaknefs, ev'ry guilt;
And trong temptation ripens into birth.
If this life's gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country fold, his father flain?
"Tis virtue to purfue our good fupreme;
And his fupreme, his only good, is here.
Ambition, av'rice, by the wife difdain'd,
Is perfect wifdom, while mankind are fools,
And think a turf, or tombstone, covers all :
Thefe find employment, and provide, for fenfe,
A richer pasture, and a larger range;

And fenfe, by right divine, afcends the throne,
When Virtue's prize and profpect are no more;
Virtue no more we think the will of Heav'n.
Would Heav'n quite beggar Virtue, If belov'd?
"Has Virtue charms?"I grant her heav'nly fair;
But if unportion'd, all will int'reft wed;

Tho' that our admiration, this our choice.

The virtues grow on immortality;

That root deftroy'd they wither and expire.
A Deity believ'd, will nought avail :
Rewards and punishments make GOD adør'd ;
And hopes and fears give Confcience all her pow'r.
As in the dying parent dies the child,
Virtue with immortality, expires.

Who tells me he denies his foul 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 fmiles.
Who thinks ere-long the man fhall wholly die,
Is dead already; nought but brute furvives.

And are there fuch ?—Such candidates there are
For more than death; for utter lofs of being;
Being, the bafis of the Deity!

Afk you the cause?-The cause they will not tell,;
Nor need they.-Oh the forceries of fenfe!
They work this transformation on the foul,
Difmount her like the ferpent at the fall,
Dismount her from her native wing, (which foar'd
Ere-while ethereal heights), and throw her down,
To lick the duft, and crawl in fuch a thought.
Is it in words to paint you? O ye fall'n!
Fall'n from the wings of reafon, and of hope!
Erect in ftature, prone in appetite!
Patrons of pleasure, pofting into pain!
Lovers of argument, averfe to fense !
Boafters of liberty, faft bound in chains!
Lords of the wide creation, and the shame!
More fenfelefs, than th' irrationals you fcorn!

More bafe, than those you rule! than those you pity,
Far more undone ! O ye moft infamous

Of beings, from fuperior dignity!

Deepest in woe, from means of boundless blife!

Ye curs'd by bleffings infinite! because
Moft highly favour'd, most profoundly loft!
Ye motly mafs of contradiction strong!
And are you, too, convinc'd your fouls, fly off
In exhalation foft, and die in air,

From the full flood of evidence against you ?
In the coarfe drudgeries, and finks of fenfe,
Your fouls have quite worn out the make of Heav'n,
By vice new-caft, and creatures of your own:
But tho' you can deform, you can't destroy;
To surfe, not uncreate, is all your pow'r.

LORENZO! this black brotherhood renounce;
Renounce St. Evremont*, and read St. Paul.
Ere rapt by miracle, by reafon wing'd,
His mounting mind made long abode in heav'a.
This is freethinking, unconfin'd to parts,
To fend the foul, on curious travel bent,
Thro' all the provinces of human thought

An Infidel. Writer.

To dart her flight thro' the whole sphere of man;
Of this vaft universe to make the tour;
In each recefs of Space, and time at home;
Familiar with their wonders; diving deep;
And like a prince of boundless int'relts there,
Still moft ambitious of the most remote:
To look on truth unbroken, and entire ;
Truth in the fyftem, the full orb where truths
By truths enlighten'd, and sustain’d, afford
An arch-like, strong foundation, to fupport
Th' incumbent weight of abfolute, complete
Conviction. Here, the more we prefs, we ftand
More firm; who most examine, molt believe. ·
Parts, like half fentences confound; the whole
Conveys the fenfe, and GOD is understood;
Who not in fragments writes to human race!
Read his whole volume, fceptic! then reply.

This, this is thinking free! a thought that grafps Beyond a grain, and looks beyond an hour. Turn up thine eye; furvey this midnight scene: What are earth's kingdoms to yon boundlefs orbs, Of human fouls, one day, the destin❜d range? And what yon boundless orbs, to godlike man? Those num❜rous worlds that throng the firmament, And ask more space in heav'n, can roll at large In man's capacious thought, and still leave room For ampler orbs: for new creations, there, Can fuch a foul contract itself, to gripe A point of no dimention, of no weight? It can; it does: The world is fuch a point : And, of that point, how small a part enflaves: How finall a part of nothing, fhall I fay! Why not?-Friends our chief treasure how they Lucia, Narciffa fair, Philander, gone! The grave, like fabled Cerberus, has op'd A triple mouth; and, in an awful voice, Loud calls my foul, and utters all I fing. How the world falls to pieces round about us! And leaves us in a ruin of our joy!

P

[dropt!

poor.

What fays this tranfportation of my friends?
It bids me love the place where now they dwell,
And scorn this wretched fpot, they leave fo
Eternity's vaft ocean lies before thee;
There, there, LORENZO! thy CLARISSA fails.
Give thy mind fea-room; keep it wide of earth
That rock of fouls immortal; cut thy cord :
Weigh anchor; fpread thy fails; call ev'ry wind;
Eye thy Great Pole-flar; make the land of life.
Two kinds of life has double-natur'd man,
And two of death; the laft far more fevere.
Like animal is nurtur'd by the fun,

Thrives on his bounties, triumphs in his beams.
Life rational fubfifts on higher food,
Triumphant in His beams, who made the day.
When we leave that fun, and are left by this,
(The fate of all who die in ftubborn guilt),
'Tis utter darknefs; ftrictly double death.
We fink by no judicial ftroke of Heav'n,
But nature's course; as fure as plummets fall.
Since God, or man, muft alter, ere they meet,
(Since light and darkness blend not in one fphere),
Tis manifeft, LORENZO! who must change.
If then, that double death should prove thy lot,
Blame not the bowels of the DEITY:
Man fhall be bleft, as far as man permits,
Not man alone, all rationals, Heav'n arms
With an illuftrious, but tremendous pow'r,
To counteract its own most gracious ends :
And this of strict neceffity, not choice:
That pow'r deny'd, men, angels, were no more,
But paffive engines, void of praife, or blame.
'A nature rational implies the pow'r
Of being bleft, or wretched, as we please ;
Elfe Idle Reafon would have nought to do;
And he that would be barr'd capacity -
Of pain, courts incapacity of blifs.

Heav'n wills our happinefs, allows our doom:
Lapites us ardently, but not compels.

Heav'n but perfuades, almighty man decrees.

Man is the maker of immortal fates.
Man falls by man, if finally he falls;

And fall he must, who learns from death alone
The dreadful fecret- -That he lives for ever.
Why this to thee? thee yet, perhaps, in doubt
Of fecond life! But wherefore doubtful ftill!
Eternal life is Nature's ardent wish!

What ardently we wish, we foon 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 wifh'd;
And, when unwifh'd, we ftrive to disbelieve.
"Thus infidelity, our guilt betrays."
Nor that the fole detection! Bluth, LORENZO !
Blush for hypocrify, if not for guilt.

The future fear'd! an Infidel, and fear!
Fear what! a dream? a fable?-How thy dread,
Unwilling evidence, and therefore strong,
Affords my caufe an undefign'd fupport!
How difbelief affirms what it denies !
"It, unawares, afferts immortal life."
Surprising Infidelity turns out

A creed, and a confeffion of our fins.
Apoftates thus, are orthodox divines.

LORENZO! with LORENZO clash no more;
No longer a transparent vizor wear.
Think't thou, RELIGION only has her mask?
Our infidels are Satan's hypocrites ;

Pretend the worst, and, at the bottom, fail.
When vifited by thought (thought will intrude)
Like him they ferve, they trembl, and believe.
Is there hypocrify fo foul as this

So fatal to the welfare of the world?

What deteftation, what contempt, their due!
And if unpaid, bé thank'd for their efcape
That Chriftian candour they strive hard to fcorn.
If not for that asylum, they might find
A hell on earth; nor 'fcape a worse below.

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