Enlarge and fortify the dread redoubt,
Deeply refolv'd to fhut a Saviour out;
Call legions up from hell to back the deed,
And curft with conqueft, finally fucceed:
But fouls that carry on a bleft exchange,
Of joys they meet with in their heav'nly range,
And with a fearlefs confidence make known,
The forrows fympathy esteems its own,
Daily derive encreafing light and force,
From fuch communion in their pleasant course;
Feel lefs the journey's roughness and its length,
Meet their oppofers with united strength,
And one in heart, in int'rest and design,
each other to the race divine.
But Converfation, chufe what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after fummer fhow'rs,
Not as if rais'd by mere mechanic pow'rs.
The Christian in whose soul, though now distress'd,
Lives the dear thought of joys he once poffefs'd,
When all his glowing language iffued forth
With God's deep ftamp upon its current worth,
Will speak without disguise, and must impart,
Sad as it is, his undiffembling heart;
Abhors constraint, and dares not feign a zeal,
Or feem to boast a fire he does not feel.
The fong of Sion is a tasteless thing,
Unless, when rifing on a joyful wing,
The foul can mix with the celeftial bands,
And give the strain the compass it demands.
Strange tidings these, to tell a world who treat
All but their own experience as deceit !
Will they believe, though credulous enough
To swallow much upon much weaker proof,
That there are bleft inhabitants of earth,
Partakers of a new æthereal birth,
Their hopes, defires, and purposes eftrang'd
From things terrestrial, and divinely chang'd,
Their
very language of a kind that fpeaks
The foul's fure int'reft in the good she seeks,
Who deal with fcripture, its importance felt,
As Tully with philofophy once dealt,
And in the filent watches of the night,
And through the scenes of toil-renewing light,
The focial walk, or folitary ride,
Keep ftill the dear companion at their fide?
No-shame upon a felf-difgracing age,
God's work may ferve an ape upon a stage,
With fuch a jelt as fill'd with hellish glee
Certain invifibles as fhrewd as he,
But veneration or refpect finds none,
Save from the fubjects of that work alone.
The world grown old, her deep difcernment shows,
Claps fpectacles on her fagacious nofe,
Perufes closely the true Chriftian's face,
And finds it a mere mask of fly grimace,
Ufurps God's office, lays his bofom bare,
And finds hypocrify close-lurking there,
And ferving God herself, through mere constraint,
Concludes his unfeign'd love of him, a feint.
And yet God knows, look human nature through,
(And in due time the world fhall know it too)
That fince the flow'rs of Eden felt the blast,
That after man's defection laid all waste,
Sincerity towards th' heart-searching God,
Has made the new-born creature her abode,
Nor fhall be found in unregen'rate fouls,
Till the last fire burn all between the poles.
Sincerity! Why 'tis his only pride,
Weak and imperfect in all
He knows that God demands his heart entire,
And gives him all his juft demands require.
Without it, his pretenfions were as vain,
As having it, he deems the world's difdain
That great defect would coft him not alone
Man's favourable judgment, but his own,
His birthright fhaken and no longer clear,
Than while his conduct proves his heart fincere:
Retort the charge, and let the world be told
She boafts a confidence she does not hold,
That conscious of her crimes, fhe feels instead,
A cold mifgiving, and a killing dread,
That while in health, the ground of her fupport
Is madly to forget that life is fhort;
That fick, fhe trembles, knowing she must die,
Her hope prefumption, and her faith a lie.
That while fhe doats and dreams that the believes,
She mocks her Maker, and herself deceives,
Her utmost reach, hiftorical affent,
The doctrines warpt to what they never meant.
That truth itself is in her head as dull,
And useless, as a candle in a fcull,
And all her love of God a groundless claim,
A trick upon the canvafs, painted flame.
Tell her again the fneer upon her face,
And all her cenfures of the work of grace,
Are infincere, meant only to conceal
A dread she would not, yet is forc'd to feel,
That in her heart the Christian she reveres,
And while fhe feems to fcorn him, only fears.
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