There go, affay, and at thy fole command,
Turn rocks to oceans, and the feas to fand.
Bid the keen lightning scath the ætherial plain,
Let thunder whifper, and the comet rain:

Bid SINAI's mafs from off its base remove;
Bid angels envy, and bid demons love:
Awake the tempeft, or compose the wind:
Make turtles favage, or the favage kind.
Speak meteors cool, or frozen arctics warm;
Divert the whirlwind, or direct the storm.
Calm the loud din of wrath's infernal rage;
Make wisdom folly, or its scorners sage.
Let death be life, their life the dead retrieve;
Make darkness fhine, and infidels believe.
Again ftand forth, invert creation's powers;
Make time eternal, and then count its hours.
Let worlds unborn atteft thy fovereign word;
And know thee MAKER, as they call thee LORD.
To fum the whole, and confummate the plan;
Go try the reins, and fearch the heart of man.
Deprav'd its bent, corrupted every thought,
Is nought it should, and all that it should not.
Go watch its movements, and its mazy wile,
Its artful meannefs, and its selfish guile.
Its fordid avarice, or ambitious flame,
The guft of flattery and the luft of fame.
Its love of all that ftains the human breast,
Sinks man to brute, and makes his name a jest.
Its hate, revenge, concupifcence, or spleen,
The zeft of pride and quinteffence of fin.

Fountain of death! whence iffues all in ore,
That foils a dunghill, or torments a throne.
The penal woe of want's bewilder'd care,
The tyrant's horror, or the traytor's fear.
The lafh of confcience, and the trembling dread,
Who crush the living, or defraud the dead.
Deprive the orphan, or despise the poor,

And thrust the stranger from the pathless door.
Who dance, carouse---debauch'd their vernal prime,
The waste of mercy, and the waste of time.
Lay up in ftore, againft its period come,
The dreadful harveft of a death-bed doom!
There---go---begin---its complex windings trace,
Restrain its fury, and its pride abafe.

Deep in the duft before thee let it lie,

Hang on thy hand, and watch the speaking eye.
Next, purge its drofs from lucre's filth refin'd,
Transform its paffions, and its ardor bind.
Command its motions, and fubdue its will,
Arreft the stars, and bid the fun stand still.
Till then be mute; nor rafh presume to arraign
Unerring wisdom, or its acts restrain.

As tho' thy fkill could mark where she had stray'd,
Should ftand corrected, or be disobey'd.

As error's forin had duped her vagrant eye,
Impos'd its own, and made her stamp a lye.

This right; this wrong; now fhake the reptile rod;
While worms, abandon'd, criminate their GOD.
Judge him unwife, unrighteous, or unjust,
Tho' winds his chariots, and the stars as duft:

His paths mysterious, and his face unfeen,
E'en angels ideots, and the heavens unclean!

Turn then thine eyes on wisdom's fairer plan,
To frailty fuited, and defign'd for man.
To teach him wisdom, and in that to know
His fall how deep, his wretchedness how low!
To fave from ruin, as she makes him wife,
And hide destruction from the stranger's eyes.
REDEMPTION's fcheme; myfterious, yet benign;
Where equal grace and equal glory shine.
Where all is mild, compaffionate, and free,
Its burthen, light; its bondage, LIBERTY.
Where mercy's bowels with compaffion roll,
And more than move with pity to the soul.
For this her patience, and her meek delay,
Her firm refolve; her aim to turn away
The impending fword from off the victim's head,
Mark'd by its point, and counted as for dead.
For this in heaven ten thousand ardors rife,
Form here our hope, and there its paradife.
Point to the CROSS from whence falvation flows;
A GOD incarnate, and in HIM repofe!

Hail, GOLGOTH', hail! and hail, thou CALVARY! All hail the CROSS, and hail its mystery! Hail HIM who fuffer'd, and by suffering freed A convict world, whom juftice doom'd to bleed! Evictive faith! the fum of things unseen,

GOD's high attest and evidence to men;

Medium of fight that chears the fullen breast,

Turns doubt to vifion and defpair to reft.

Conveys remiffion, and its feal confirms,
While grateful love the confcious bofom warms.
Compaffion's hand dries up the falling tear,
Forbids confufion, and precludes his fear.
With trembling joy the convert hides his face,
And gives the glory where he found the grace.
Demonftrate this (where-e'er it deigns to fall)
"That man is nothing, and that THOU art ALL!"
Thus from THYSELF, and from thy will proceeds
Whate'er protects us, or whatever feeds:
From thee, the fountain, all our bleffings come,
The martyr's laurel, or th' apoftate's doom.
All things that life, all things that death infpire;
The firft averfion, and the laft defire,

"O let me die,

the fon of Peor faid, (And as he spake he bow'd his hoary head) "O let me die, the righteous death, divine;

My hope with ISRAEL, and his end be mine!" Yet once again---from THY all fovereign boon, E'en they yet live, whofe lives affront thy throne. Who fpurn thy being, or its power defy, Shock their own fenfe, and give that fenfe the lye. Bafe to difpute, what reafon might impart, Truth to the head, and terror to the heart. Whofe impious breafts, ingrate, disdain to know, From whence their beings, or their bleffings flow: Tho' from thy hand, alike on all bestow'd The partial evil, or the impartial good. No difference here; alike on each; on all Thy funs arife, thy fhowers prolific fall.

COM

COMPLAINT! be mute---the future must decide
Great wisdom's plan, and each his fate divide.
Difference immenfe! immenfe their different lot,
Who ferv'd their GOD, from theirs who ferv'd him not!
In that last day, when juftice ends the ftrife,
Marks these for ruin, and feals those to life!
Mean time, as weigh'd in heaven's eternal scales,
Now vengeance triumphs, and now love prevails.
Each poising each preserves the balance still,
Shews the defign, and executes her will.
The threat'ning bolt, that glowing in her hand
(Redden'd with wrath) appalls a guilty land.
The heart-felt panic that pervades the whole
(Electric stroke that shocks the double pole)
War's baleful thunders, bellowing their alarms,
The clang of clarions, and the clash of arms.
Plague, earthquake, famine, pestilence, and pain,
That speak his justice, and his laws maintain.
Engines of wrath, and magazines of ire,
A fecond deluge, or Gomorrah's fire;
(Fierce as it burns, and fiercer ftill to feel)
From Ætna's fummit to the lowest hell,
Are but the fhades of her vindictive doom,
Prophetic preludes of yet worse to come!

But heaven relents; repeals her own decree,
And nature shouts her rescued destiny.

Who fmote her fons, now bids their terrors cease; And with a world's, reftores Britannia's peace. Whose hope reviv'd for future bleffings fues,

And every morn her

every

fuit renews.

P 4

Hail,