18

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own

To serve him, thy reward was of his grace,

Thy punishment then justly is at his Will.

Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair,

That dust I am, and shall to dust returne: [ 770 ]

O welcom hour whenever! why delayes

His hand to execute what his Decree

Fixd on this day? why do I overlive,

Why am I mockt with death, and lengthnd out

To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet [ 775 ]

Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth

Insensible, how glad would lay me down

As in my Mothers lap! There I should rest

And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more

Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse [ 780 ]

To mee and to my ofspring would torment me

With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt

Pursues me still, least all I cannot die,

Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man

Which God inspird, cannot together perish [ 785 ]

With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave,

Or in some other dismal place who knows

But I shall die a living Death? O thought

Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath

Of Life that sinnd; what dies but what had life [ 790 ]

And sin? the Bodie properly hath neither.

All of me then shall die: let this appease

The doubt, since humane reach no further knows.

For though the Lord of all be infinite,

Is his wrauth also? be it, man is not so, [ 795 ]

But mortal doomd. How can he exercise

Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end?

Can he make deathless Death? that were to make

Strange contradiction, which to God himself

Impossible is held, as Argument [ 800 ]

Of weakness, not of Power. Will he, draw out,

For angers sake, finite to infinite

In punisht man, to satisfie his rigour

Satisfid never; that were to extend

His Sentence beyond dust and Natures Law, [ 805 ]

By which all Causes else according still

To the reception of thir matter act,

Not to th extent of thir own Spheare. But say

That Death be not one stroak, as I supposd,

Bereaving sense, but endless miserie [ 810 ]

From this day onward, which I feel begun

Both in me, and without me, and so last

To perpetuitie; Ay me, that fear

Comes thundring back with dreadful revolution

On my defensless head; both Death and I [ 815 ]

Am found Eternal, and incorporate both,

Nor I on my part single, in mee all

Posteritie stands curst: Fair Patrimonie

That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able

To waste it all my self, and leave ye none! [ 820 ]