On Exodus iii. 14. "I am that I am."

ANO D E.

WRITTEN 1688, AS AN EXERCISE AT ST. JOHN'S

COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

MAN! foolish man!

I.

Scarce know'st thou how thyfelf began;

Scarce haft thou thought enough to prove thou art;
Yet, fteel'd with study'd boldness, thou dar'st try
To fend thy doubting reafon's dazzled eye
Through the mysterious gulph of vast immensity.
Much thou canft there discern, much thence impart..
Vain wretch! fupprefs thy knowing pride;
Mortify thy learned luft.

Vain are thy thoughts, while thou thyself art duft.

II.

Let wit her fails, her oars let wisdom lend;
The helm let politic experience guide :

Yet ceafe to hope thy short-liv'd bark shall ride
Down fpreading fate's unnavigable tide.
What though ftill it farther tend,
Still 'tis farther from its end;

And, in the bofom of that boundless fea,
Still finds its error lengthen with its way.

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III. With

III.

With daring pride and infolent delight,
Your doubts refolv'd boast,
you

your

labours crown',

And, "EYPHKA! your God, forfooth, is found
Incomprehenfible and infinite.

But is he therefore found? vain fearcher! no:
Let your imperfect definition show

That nothing you, the weak definer, know.

IV.

Say, why fhould the collected main

Itfelf within itself contain?

Why to its caverns should it fometimes creep,
And with delighted filence fleep

On the lov'd bofom of its parent deep?
Why fhould its numerous waters ftay

In comely difcipline, and fair array,

Till winds and tides exert their high command!
Then, prompt and ready to obey,
Why do the rifing furges spread

Their opening ranks o'er earth's fubmiffive head,
Marching through different paths to different lands?

V.

Why does the constant fun

With meafur'd steps his radiant journies run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours

To leave earth's other part, and rise in ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and bless the night?

Why

Why does each animated star

Love the juft limits of its proper fphere?
Why does each confenting fign
With prudent harmony combine
In turns to move, and fubfequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

VI.

Man does with dangerous curiofity
Thefe unfathom'd wonders try :
With fancied rules and arbitrary laws

Matter and motion he restrains;

And studied lines and fictious circles draws:
Then with imagin'd fovereignty

Lord of his new hypothefis he reigns.

He reigns: how long? till fome ufurper rife;
And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wife,
Studies new lines, and other circles feigns.
From this laft toil again what knowledge flows?
Juft as much, perhaps, as shows
That all his predeceffor's rules

Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools ;
That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne;

And shows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his

own..

VII.

On earth, in air, amidst the feas and skies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rife ;
Whose towering ftrength will ne'er submit
To reafon's batteries, or the mines of wit

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:

Yet

Yet ftill inquiring, ftill mistaken man,

Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward prefs; And, levelling at God his wandering guess

(That feeble engine of his reafoning war, Which guides his doubts, and combats his defpair) Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give: Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will, Whose pregnant word did either ocean fill: Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they move and live.

Through either ocean, foolish man!

That pregnant word fent forth again,

Might to a world extend each atom there;

For every drop call forth a fea, a heaven for every

VIII.

Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide ;
And only lift thy ftaggering reafon up,

To trembling Calvary's aftonifh'd top;

ftar.

Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride,
Explaining how Perfection suffer'd pain,
Almighty languifh'd, and Eternal died:

How by her patient victor death was flain ;
And earth profan'd, yet blefs'd, with Deicide.
Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down;
Only referve the Sacred One:

Low, reverently low,

Make thy ftubborn knowledge bow; Weep out thy reafon's and thy body's eyes;

Deject thyfelf, that thou may'ft rife;

To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.

IX. Then

IX.

Then Faith, for Reason's glimmering light, fhall give

Her immortal perspective;

And Grace's prefence Nature's lofs retrieve :

Then thy enliven'd soul shall fee,

That all the volumes of Philofophy,

With all their comments, never could invent
So politic an inftrument,

To reach the heaven of heavens, the high abode,
Where Mofes places his myfterious God,

As was the ladder which old Jacob rear'd,
When light divine had human darkness clear’d;
And his enlarg'd ideas found the road,
Which Faith had dictated, and Angels trod.

CONSIDERATIONS ON PART OF THE 88th PSALM.

A COLLEGE EXERCISE, 1690.

I.

HEAVY, O Lord, on me thy judgments lie,

Accurft I am, while God rejects my cry. O'erwhelm'd in darkness and despair I groan; And every place is hell; for God is

gone. O! Lord, arife, and let thy beams control

Thofe horrid clouds, that press my frighted foul:
Save the poor wanderer from eternal night,
Thou that art the God of Light.

II.

Downward I hasten to my deftin'd place; There none obtain thy aid, or fing thy praife. L 3

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