第19章 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 ]