Informs, directs, encourages, forbids ?
Tell why on unknown evil grief attends;
Or joy on fecret good? Why conscience acts
With tenfold force, when fickness, age, or pain
Stands tottering on the precipice of death?
Or why fuch horror gnaws the guitly foul
Of dying finners; while the good man sleeps
Peaceful and calm, and with a smile expires?
SATISFACTION IS MADE TO HIS JUSTICE; WHICH THE SON OF GOD UNDERTAKES.
MAN difobeying,
Disloyal breaks his fealty, and fins
Against the high fupremacy of heaven.
Affecting Godhead, and fo lofing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to deftruction facred and devote.
He with his whole pofterity muft die,
Die he or Juftice muft; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid fatisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Pow'rs, where shall we find fuch love?
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man's mortal crime, the juft, th' unjust to fave? Dwells in all heaven charity so dear?
He afk'd, but all the heav'nly choir stood mute, And filence was in heav'n: on man's behalf Patron or interceffor none appear'd,
Much lefs that durft upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom fet.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg'd to death and hell
By doom fevere, had not the Son of GOD,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew'd.
Father, thy word is past, Man fhall find grace; And shall not Grace find means, that finds her way, The speedieft of thy winged meffengers,
To vifit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor'd, unfought.
Happy for man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in fins and loft;
Atonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring:
Behold me then; me for him, life for life
Account me man; I for his fake will leave
Thy bofom, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well-pleas'd; on me let Death wreak all his rage:
Under his gloomy power I fhall not long
Lie vanquish'd; thou haft giv'n me to poffefs
Life in myself for ever; by thee I live,
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due
All that of me can die; yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor fuffer my unfpotted foul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I fhall rife victorious, and fubdue
My vanquisher, fpoil'd of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop.
Inglorious, of his mortal fting difarm'd.
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead hell captive, maugre hell, and shew
The powers of darkness bound. Thou at the fight
Pleas'd, out of heaven shalt look down and smile;
While by thee rais'd, I ruin all my foes,
Death laft, and with his carcafe glut the grave;
Then with the multitude of my redeem'd ́
Shall enter heaven long abfent, and return,
Father, to fee thy face, wherein no cloud
Of
anger shall remain, but peace assur’d
And reconcilement; wrath fhall be no more
Thenceforth, but in thy prefence joy entire.
INCIDENTAL MISERIES ATTENDANT
the forrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door; Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,
O give relief, and heaven will bless your store.
These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak,
These hoary locks proclaim my length of years!
And many a furrow in this grief-worn cheek
Has been the channel of a stream of tears.
Yon house, erected on a rifing ground,
With tempting aspect drew me from my road,
For Plenty there a refidence has found,
And Grandeur a magnificent abode.
Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor,
Here craving for a morfel of their bread,
A pamper'd menial forc'd me from the door
To feek a fhelter in an humbler fhed.
O take me to your hofpitable dome,
Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold, Short is my paffage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor, and miferably old.
Should I reveal the fource of every grief,
If foft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, And tears of pity could not be represt.
Heav'n fends misfortunes, why should we repine ?
'Tis heav'n has brought me to the state you fee;
And your condition may be foon like mine,
The child of forrow and of misery.
A little farm was my paternal lot,
There, like the lark, I sprightly hail'd the morn, But ah! Oppreffion forc'd me from my cot, My cattle dy'd, and blighted was my corn.
My daughter, once the comfort of my age,
Lur'd by a villain from her native home,
Is caft abandon'd on the world's wide stage,
And doom'd in fcanty Poverty to roam.
My tender wife, fweet foother of my care,
Struck with fad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, ling'ring fell! a victim to Despair,
And left the world to wretchedness and me.
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