Page images
PDF
EPUB

purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pafs; in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the fame thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at a ftand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be fullblown, and incapable of farther enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvements and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of his Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodnefs, wifdom, and power, muft perish at her rft fetting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries MAN, confidered in his present ftate, feems only fent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor, and immediately quits his poft to make room for him..

He does not feem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down. to others. This is not furprifing to confider, in animals,. which are formed for our ufe, and can finifh their bufinefs in a fhort life. The filk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But in this life man can never take in his full measure of knowledge; nor has he time to fubdue his paffions, establish his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature before he is hurried off the ftage. Would' an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures for fo mean a purpofe? Can he delight in the production of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort-lived reafonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? Capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wifdom which fhines thro' all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nurfery for the

next, and believing that the feveral generations of rational creatures, which rife up and difappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity? THERE is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant confideration in religion, than this of the perpetual progress which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the foul as going on from ftrength to ftrength, to confider that he is to shine for ever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be ftill adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of refemblance.

METHINKS this fingle confideration, of the progress of a finite fpirit to perfection, will be fufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in fuperior. That cherubim, which now appears as a god to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul shall be as perfect as he himself now is: nay, when the fhall look down upon that degree of perfection, as much as the now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher Nature ftill advances, and by that means preferves his diftance and fuperiority in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high foever the station is of which he stands pofsessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the fame degree of glory.

[blocks in formation]

WITH what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our fouls, where there are fuch hidden ftores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhaufted fources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in referve for him. The foul, confidered in relation to its Creator, is like one of thofe mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity, without ä poffibility of touching it: and can there be a thought fo tranfporting, as to confider ourselves in thefe perpetual ap-. proaches to HIM, who is not only the ftandard of perfection, but of happiness? SPECTATOR..

CHAP. V.

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

RETIRE;

call home;

-The world fhut out;- -Thy thoughts

Imagination's airy wing reprefs;

Lock up thy fenfes ;-Let no paffion ftir;-
Wake all to Reafon ;-Let her reign alone :-
Then, in thy foul's deep filence, and the depth
Of nature's filence, midnight, thus inquire:

WHAT am I? and from whence I nothing knows, But that I am; and fince I am, conclude

Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been: Eternal there must be.-
But what eternal?-Why not human race?
And ADAM's ancestors without an end ?—
That's hard to be conceiv'd; fince ev'ry link

To

Of that long chain's fucceffion is fo frail;
Can every part.depend, and not the whole ?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rife ;
I'm ftill quite out at fea; nor fee the shore.
Whence earth, and thefe bright orbs ?-Eternal too!
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs
Would want fome other father-Much defign
Is feen in all their motions, all their makes:

Defign implies intelligence and art;
That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man can scarce comprehend, could man bestow?
And nothing greater, yet allow'd, than_man.-
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot thro' vaft maffes of enormous weight?
Who bid brute Matter's reftive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom,
Afferting its indifputable right

To dance, would form an univerfe of duft:

Mas matter none? Then whence these glorious forms,
And boundless flights, from fhapelefs, and repos'd?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd fuch laws,
Which, but to guefs, a NEWTON made immortal?-
If art, to form; and counfel, to conduct;

And that with greater far, than human skill,
Refides not in each block;-
;—a GODHEAD reigns !-
And, if a GOD there is, that GOD how great!

YOUNG..

BOOK

BOOK V.

ORATIONS AND HARANGUES.

CHAP. I..

JUNIUS BRUTUS OVER THE DEAD BODY OF LUCRETIA. ·

YES, noble lady! I fwear by this blood, which was once

fo pure, and which nothing but royal villainy could have. polluted, that I will purfue Lucius Tarquinius the proud, his wicked wife, and their children, with fire and sword: nor will I ever fuffer any of that family, or of any other whatsoever, to be king in Rome. Ye gods! I call you to` witness this my oath !-There, Romans, turn your eyes to. that fad fpectacle-the daughter of Lucretius, Collatinus's wife-fhe died by her own hand. See there a noble lady, whom the luft of a Tarquin reduced to the neceffity of being. her own executioner, to atteft her innocence. Hofpitably entertained by her as a kinsman of her husband's, Sextus, the perfidious gueft, became her brutal ravisher. The chafte, the generous Lucretia could not furvive the infult. Glorious woman!!

ེམ་པ་ ག

« PreviousContinue »