Who hears our advocate, and, through his wounds, Beholding man, allows that tender name 'Tis this makes Chriftian Triumph a command; 'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wife: 'Tis impious, in a good man, to be fad.
Seeft thou LORENZO! where hangs all our hope?
Touch'd by thecrofs, we live or more than die :
That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine
Than that which touch'd confufion into form,
And darkness into glory; partial touch!
Ineffably pre-eminent regard!
Sacred to man, and fov'reign through the whole
Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs
From heav'n through all duration, and fupports,
In one illuftrious and amazing plan,
Thy welfare, Nature! and thy god's renown.
That touch with charm celeftial, heals the foul
Difeas'd, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death;
Turns earth to heav'n ; to heav'nly thrones transforms
The ghaftly ruins of the moulding tomb.
Doft afk me when?-When He who dy'd returns?
Returns, how chang'd! Where then the man of wo?
In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns:
And all his courts, exhausted by the tide
Of deities triumphant in his train.
Leave a ftupendous folitude in heav'n;
Replenish'd foon, replenish'd with increase
Of pomp, and multitude; a radient band
Of angels new; of angels from the tomb.
Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rife
Dark doubts between the promife, and event?
I fend thee not to volumes for thy cure:
Read Nature! Nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Chriftian; preaches to mankind;
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
Haft thou ne'er feen the comets flaming flight?
Th'illuftrious ftranger paffing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train
Of length enormous; takes his ample round
Through depths of æther; coafts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than folar glory; doubles wide
Heav'ns mighty cape: and then revifits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Thus, at the deftin'd period, fhall return
HE, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze;
And, with him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low, whisper breathes.
Faith fpeaks aloud, diftinct; ev'n adders hear,
But turn, and dart into the dar kagain.
Faith builds a bridge acrofs the gulf of death,
To break the fhock blind Nature cannot fhun,
And lands thought fmoothly on the farther shore.
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes ;
That mountain-barrier between man and peace.
'Tis Faith difarms deftruction; and abfolves
From ev'ry clam'rous charge the guiltless tomb.
Why difbelieve, LORENZO? Reafon bids,
"All-facred Reafon.- Hold her facred still;
Nor fhalt thou want a rival in thy flame.
All-facred Reafon ! fource, and foul, of all
Demanding praife, on earth, or earth above!
My heart is thine: Deep in its inmost folds,
Live thou with life; live dearer of the two.
Wear I the bleffed cross, by fortune stamp'd
On paffive Nature, before thought was born?
My birth's blind bigot! fir'd with local zeal !
No; Reafon rebaptiz'd me when adult ;
Weigh'd true and false in her impartial scale ;
My heart became the convert of my head;
And made that choice, which once was but
"On argument alone my faith is built :"
Reafon purfu'd is faith; and, unpurfu'd
Where proof invites, 'tis reafon then no more:
And fuch our proof, that, or our faith is right;
Or Reafon lies, and Heav'n defign'd it wrong;
Abfolve we this? what, then, is blafphemy?
Fond as we are, and juftly fond of faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard ;
The mother honour'd as the daughter dear.
Reafon the root, fair Faith is but the flow'r.
The fading flow'r fhall die; but Reafon lives
Immortal, as her father in the fkies.
When Faith is virtue Reafon makes it so.
Wrong not the christian; think not Reafon your's
'Tis Reafon our great Mafter holds fo dear;
'Tis Reafon's injur'd rights his wrath refents;
'Tis Reafon's voice obey'd, His glorious crown:
To give loft Reafon life, He pour'd his own.
Believe, and fhow the reafon of a man ;
Believe and taste the pleasure of a God;
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb;
Thro' Reafon's wounds alone, thy Faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold terror gives to Death,
And dips in venom his twice-mortal fting.
Learn hence what honours, what loud peans due
To thofe, who push our antidote afide;
Those boasted friends to Reason, and to man,
Whose fatal love ftaba ev'ry joy, and leaves
Death's terror heightened, gnawing on his heart.
Thefe pompous fons of Reafon idoliz'd,
And vilify'd at once; of Reafon dead,
Then deify'd, as monarchs were of old;
What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow?
While love of truth through all their camp refounds,
They draw Pride's curtain o'er the noon-tide ray ;
Spike up their inch of reafon on the point
Or philofophic wit, call'd Argument:
And then, exulting in their taper, cry,
"Behold the fun!" and Indian-like, adore.
Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love!
Thou maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love of Thee.
As wife as Socrates, if fuch they were,
(Nor will they bate of that fublime renown),
As wife as Socrates, might juftly stand
The definition of a modern fool.
A CHRISTIAN is the highest style of man. And is there, who the blessed cross wipes off, As a foul blot, from his difhonour'd brow? If angels tremble, 'tis at fuch a fight:
The wretch they quit, defponding of their charge;
More ftruck with grief or wonder, who can tell?
Ye fold to fenfe! ye citizens of earth!
(For fuch alone the Chriftian banner fly)
Know you how wife your choice, how great your
Behold the picture of earth's happiest man : [gain?
"He calls his with, it comes; he fends it back,
"And fays he call'd another; that arrives,
"Meets the fame welcome; yet he still calls on;
"Till one calls him, who varies not his call,
"But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound,
"Till nature dies, and judgment fets him free;
"A freedom, far lefs welcome than his chain."
But grant man happy; grant him happy long;
Add to life's highest prize, her latest hour;
That hour fo late, is nimble in approach,
That, like a poft, comes on in full career :
How fwift the fhuttle flies that weaves thy fhroud!
Where is the fable of thy former years
s?
Thrown down the gulf of time; as far from thee
As they ne'er had been thine. The day in hand,
Like a bird ftruggling to get loofe, is going;
Scarce now poffefs'd fo fuddenly 'tis gone;
And each swift moment fled, is death advanc'd
By ftrides as fwift. Eternity is all !
And whofe eternity? who triumphs there?
Bathing for ever in the font of blifa;
For ever basking in the Deity!
LORENZO! who?Thy confcience fhall reply.
O give it leave to fpeak; 'twill speak ere long,
Thy leave unafk'd. LORENZO! hear it now,
While useful its advice, its accent mild.
By the great edict, the Divine decree,
Truth is depofited with man's last hour;
An honeft hour, and faithful to her truft.
Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity;.
Truth, of his council when he made the worlds:
Nor lefs when he fhall judge the worlds he made;
Tho, filent long, and fleeping ne'er so found,
Smother'd with errors, and opprefs'd with toys;
That heav'n commiffion'd hour no fooner calls,
But from her cavern in the foul's abyss,
Like him they fable under Ætna whelm'd,
The goddess bursts in thunder and in flame;
Loudly convinces, and feverely pains.
Dark demons I difcharge, and hydra-ftings;
The keen vibration of bright Truth-is hell
Juft definition; though by fchools untaught.
Ye deaf to truth! perufe this parfon'd page,
And trust for once a prophet and a priest;
"Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.",
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