Great Lord of life! from whom this humble frame Derives the pow'r to sing thy holy name, Forgive the lowly Muse, whose artless lay Has dar'd thy sacred attributes survey! Delighted oft through Nature's beauteous field Has she ador'd thy wisdom bright reveal'd ; Oft have her wishes aim'd the secret song, But awful rev'rence still withheld her tongue. Yet as thy bounty lent the reas'ning beam, As feels my conscious breast thy vital flame, So, bless'd Creator, let thy servant pay His mite of gratitude this feeble way; Thy goodness own, thy providence adore, And yield thee only-what was thine before.
ORDER AND SUBORDINATION THROUGH ALL THE WORKS OF GOD.
FAR as creation's ample range extends The scale of sensual, mental, powers ascends: Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race From the green myriads in the peopled grass : What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam! Of smell, the headlong lioness between And hound sagacious on the tainted green! Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood To that which warbles through the vernal wood! The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee what sense so subtly true, From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compar'd, half reasoning elephant, with thine! "Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier! For ever separate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide ! And middle natures how they long to join, Yet never pass th' insuperable line! Without this just gradation could they be Subjected these to those, or all to thee? The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one?
See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick and bursting into birth! Above, how high progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep, extend below! Vast chain of being! which from God began ; Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee; From thee to nothing-On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours; Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd, Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod, And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break-for whom! for thee? Vile worm!-O madness! pride! impiety! What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another in this general frame; Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and GOD the soul: That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the Earth as in th' ethereal frame, Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,. As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all! Cease then, nor order imperfection name; Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit-In this or any other sphere, Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear; Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r Or in the natal or the mortal hour..
All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance direction, which thou can'st not see; All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, whatever is is right.
THE PHILOSOPHY THAT STOPS AT SECONDARY CAUSES REPROVED.
HAPPY the man, who sees a God employed In all the good and ill that checker life! Resolving all events, with their effects And manifold results, into the will And arbitration wise of the Supreme. Did not his eye rule all things, and intend The least of our concerns (since from the least The greatest oft originate); could chance Find place in his dominion, or dispose One lawless particle to thwart his plan; Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen Contingence might alarm him, and disturb The smooth and equal course of his affairs. This truth Philosophy, though eagle ey'd In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks; And, having found his instrument, forgets, Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims His hot displeasure against foolish men, That live an atheist life: involves the Heav'ns In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds, And gives them all their fury; bids a plague Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the breath of blooming Health. He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips, And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines, And desolates a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells Of homogeneal and discordant springs And principles; of causes how they work By necessary laws their sure effects; Of action and reaction: he has found The source of the disease that nature feels, And bids the world take heart and banish fear. Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause Suspend the effect, or heal it? Has not God Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means, To drown it? What is his creation less Than a capacious reservoir of means Form'd for his use, and ready at his will? Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of him, Or ask of whomsoever he has taught,
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. Cowper.
THE PRESENT STATE OF MAN VINDICATED.
HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state : From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason would he skip and play 3
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