'TWas spoke from Heaven, the Best of Men must Die,
No Pattent's seal'd for Immortality:
Not God's own Favourites can shun the Stroke;
Even God himself cannot the Law revoke;
He can't, unless he should at once repeal
The Eternal Laws of Nature: Change his Will;
Declare his Works imperfect, Life restore
To all that's Dead, and be a God no more.
The World, whose Nature is to fade and die,
Must
change, and take up Immortality;
And Time, which to Eternity rouls on,
Must change, and be Eternity begun.
All Things must ever live, or Man must die:
The Law's Supream, and Nature must obey.
How vain then, and
impertinent is Grief,
Which nor to Dead nor Living gives Relief!
Sighs for departed Friends are senseless things,
Which them no Help, nor us no Comfort brings.
Tears on the Graves, where Breathless Bodies lie,
Our Ignorance, or Atheism, imply;
Ashes and Sack-cloth, Cries and renting Cloaths,
Our Folly more than our Affection shows:
For Grief is nothing, properly, but Rage,
And God himself's the Object we engage.
Fain we would live without his Negative;
Which when we can't accomplish, then we grieve:
The Passion's foolish, as it is profane;
The Action, as 'tis fruitless, and in vain.
But wou'd
you like a Man, or Christian, grieve
When others die, be thankful you're alive;
Improve the Great Examples you look on,
And take their Deaths for VVarnings of your own:
For the best of Men cannot suspend their Fate;
The Good die early, and the Bad die late.
The Eternal Laws of Life are fix'd and fast,
And he who latest dies, yet dies at last.
Tho' early Vice does early Death presage,
Yet Piety can lengthen no Man's Age:
The Stroke's promiscuous, and there's no suspence
Beyond the stated Bounds of Providence;
For if
distinguish'd Piety could save,
We had seen
no Elegy, nor he no Grave.
Stay then, and spend a Thought upon his Herse,
Whose Name is more immortal than my Verse:
For tho' Death's Stroke, like an impetuous Flood,
Involves in common Fate the Just and Good,
And in one Grave there undistinguish'd lies
The Ashes of the Foolish and the VVise,
The Pious and Profane, the Mean, the Great,
And Grace it self can be no Bribe to Fate;
Yet Pious Works, like living Flowers, grow
To a kind of Immortality below;
And Characters of Worthies, like the Sun,
Reflect a Lustre, tho' themselves are gone:
Which do immortal Names to them create,
For us to Honour and to Imitate.
Then see what Characters to him belong;
The best that Pen e'er wrote, or Poet sung.
His Parents dedicated him, by Vow,
To serve the Church, and early taught him how.
As
Hannah, when she for her
Samuel pray'd,
The Welcome Loan with Thankfulness repay'd;
So they, foreseeing 'twou'd not be in vain,
Ask'd him of God, and vow'd him back again;
And he again as early did prepare
To list a willing Soldier in the Sacred War.
His Pious Course with Childhood he began,
And was his Maker's sooner than his own;
As if design'd by Instinct to be Great,
His Judgment seem'd to antidate his Wit;
His Soul out-grew the natural rate of Years,
And full-grown Wit at half-grown Youth appears;
Early the vigorous Combat he began,
And was an elder Christian than a Man.
The Sacred Study all his Thoughts confin'd;
A sign what secret Hand prepar'd his Mind:
The Heavenly Book he made his only School,
In Youth his Study, and in Age his Rule.
Thus he in blooming Years and Hopes began,
Happy, Belov'd, and Blest of God and Man;
Solid, yet Vigorous too, both Grave and Young,
A taking Aspect, and a charming Tongue,
With
David's Courage, and
Josiah's Youth,
All over Love, Sincerity, and Truth.
The flattering World attack'd him with her
Charms,
But he shook the gaudy Trifle from his Arms;
When Fraud affaulted him, or
Fame caress'd,
This he with Ease, and that with Scorn suppress'd:
Firm as the Rocks in rouling Seas abide,
When Flouds of Doubts and Dangers pass beside,
When
Griefs come threatning on, or
Comfort flows,
He was undepress'd by these, unrais'd by those;
And thus advancing with a just Applause,
He grew a Champion in his Master's Cause;
The
Sacred Bow he so Divinely drew,
That every shot both
hit and
overthrew;
His native Candor, and familiar Stile,
Which did so oft his Hearers Hours beguile,
Charm'd us with Godliness, and while he spake,
We lov'd the
Doctrine for the Teacher's sake.
While he inform'd us what his Doctrines meant,
By dint of Practice more than Argument,
Strange were the Charms of his Sincerity,
Which made his Actions and his Words agree
At such a constant and exact a rate,
As made a Harmony we wondred at.
Honour be had by Birth, and not by Chance,
And more by Merit than Inheritance;
But both together joyn'd, spell out his Name,
For Honesty and Honour are the same,
And show, when Merit's joyn'd with Quality,
The Gentleman and Christian may agree.
Honour by Vertue only is upheld,
And vain are all the Trophies Vice can build;
For tho' by wicked Acts Men gain Applause,
The Reputation's rotten, like the Cause:
Vain too's the single Honour of Descent,
Till Merit's added as a Supplement.
But when to Vertue Grace infus'd is given,
The Sacred Incense reaches up to Heaven;
No Force, or Fraud, can such a Fame remove,
It pleases Men below, and God above.
His
negative Vertues also have been try'd,
He had no Priest-craft in him, nor no Pride;
No Fraud nor Wheedling Arts to be esteem'd,
But just the very Person that he seem'd;
Nor was he touch'd or tainted with a Bribe,
That universal Blemish of the Tribe:
For if to Gifts he ever was enclin'd,
He laid none up, nor left us none behind.
A
Moses for Humility and Zeal,
For Innocence a true
Nathaniel;
Faithful as
Abraham, or the Truer Spies;
No Man more Honest, and but few so Wise:
Exemplar Vertue shone through every Part;
For Grace had full possession of his Heart:
Humility was his dear and darling Grace,
And Honesty sate Regent in his Face;
Meekness of Soul did in his Aspect shine,
But in the Truth, resolv'd and
masculine;
A
Pleasing Smile sate ever on his Brow,
A sign that chearful Peace was lodg'd below.
If e'er his Duty forc'd him to contend,
Calmness was all his Temper, Peace his End;
And if just Censure follow'd the Debate,
His Pity wou'd his Zeal anticipate.
A Heavenly Patience did his Mind possess,
Chearful in Pain, and Thankful in Distress;
Mighty in Works of Sacred Charity,
Which none knew better how to guide than he;
Bounty, and generous Thoughts, took up his Mind
Extensive, like his Maker's, to Mankind,
With such a Soul, that (had he Mines in store)
He wou'd ne'er be Rich while any Man was Poor:
A Heart so Great, that, had he had a Purse,
Twou'd have supply'd the Poor o'th' Universe.
Now he's above the Praises of my Pen,
The Best of Ministers, and Best of Men!
Then speak not of him with a
mournful Voice;
For why shou'd we Repine, and he Rejoyce?
His Harvest has been full, his Season long,
And long he charm'd us with his Heavenly Song,
The same, the very same, which
flaming Love,
Fir'd with Coelestial Raptures, sings above;
Touch'd with a
Sacred Influence that's given
From that Eternal Harmony in Heaven;
The
Chorus and the
Consort ever last,
A full Reward for all his Troubles past.
For if there be a God, and future State,
A Heaven, a Hell, a Good and Evil Fate;
A Great
first Cause, Immortal and Immense,
That does Rewards and Punishments dispense;
Then Pious Men, when they revolve to Dust,
Do those Rewards partake, if Heaven be Just:
For Death's a
passive Notion; and the whole
Is but a Transmutation of the Soul
From an embodied Life, to a sublime,
Prescrib'd no more to
Circumstance and Time;
For if no difference of States there be,
How then do
Vice and
Vertue disagree?
For here the Disadvantage plainly lies
For Knaves and Fools, against the Just and Wise:
By partial Fame the
prosperous Fool's caress'd,
The Bad exalted, and the Good suppress'd.
The Good Man's Expectation then
must be
From Happiness with
Immortality:
Something which to sublimer Vertue's due,
Something substantial and eternal too,
That can for all his Suffering satisfie,
His Hopes support, and all his Wants supply:
For if to future State we have no regard,
How then can Vertue be its own Reward?
Could but my happy Pen describe the Sense
That seiz'd his joyful Soul at parting hence;
Such Contemplations would transform my Mind;
For
Thoughts reach Heaven, when Bodies stay behind:
And he that thinks at so Divine a rate,
May future Happiness anticipate.
When his Heart leap'd at the good News of Death,
And Sacred Extasies employ'd his Breath,
The bless'd Rewards did to his
Faith appear,
The Passage easie, and the Prospect near;
And firm Assurance, with a lofty Gale,
Wing'd with Divinest Comfort, fill'd his Sail:
He had the gladsome Regions in his view,
His Hopes were
constant, and his Comforts
true:
No wonder Balaam
wish'd to die so too.
And now
Seraphick Joys furround his Soul,
Which feel no diminution or controul:
But what they are, or how far they extend,
No Pen
can write, or Thought
can comprehend,
But he who at that happy Place arrives;
For Heaven is only knownby Negatives.
How much Coelestial Vision comprehends;
Whether to
Humane Actions it extends,
Whether he's now inform'd of Things below,
Is needless as Impossible to know:
For sight of Spirits is unprescrib'd by space.
What see they not, who see the Eternal Face?
The bright transforming Rays of
Heavenly Light,
Immense, Immortal, Pure, and Infinite,
Do's
Likeness with its Light communicate,
The Spirit exalt, and all its Frame dilate;
Infusing with the bright Similitude
An inexpressible Beatitude!
And could he now, in his exalted State,
His Thoughts by Sympathy communicate,
Or some superior way
For Spirits converse
Without the helps of Voice:
Could he rehearse
To our Conception, what is Heaven above,
'Twou'd be concisely thus,
All Heaven is Love:
Love Infinite, Magnificent, and True,
Divine in Magnitude, and Object too:
Love, Joy, and Glory, constitute the Place;
The Exalted Triumphs of
Victorious Grace!
No Sorrow can be there, because no Sin;
For all is
Peace without, and
Pure within.
There all are Gods, and yet they all adore
The One Supream
first Cause of Soveraign Power;
And all
that Adoration's mix'd with Love,
The
great Essential of the Joys above:
That Heaven-born Passion, which with purest Flame
Burns only there: For here 'tis but a Name,
An empty Name, by Int'rest limited,
A Slave to Scandal, and by Fancy led.
Friendship,
unmix'd with Sexes, reigns above
The true Extream of high superior Love;
Emblem of Heaven, which it resembles so,
It almost seems to make
a Heaven below:
For Love in Heaven,
is God communicate;
In Souls, Collateral; both supreamly Great:
The Enjoyment's as reciprocal as high;
For Love's no Passion,
but a Quality:
Thro' it the Almighty Glory darts his Beams,
Known only by unutterable Names;
With Light and Splendor
unapproach'd enthron'd,
Millions of fiery Spirits attending round,
Who all, like Star
[...], have Brightness from
his Rays,
And they reflect it back again in Praise.
Where e'er this
bless'd Society shall dwell,
That Place is Heaven, and every where else is Hell.