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 wel 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, ahnd 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 voiore
Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse [ 780 ]
To mee and to my would torment me
With cruel expectatio one doubt
Pursues me still, least all I ot die,
Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man
Which God inspird, ot together perish [ 785 ]
With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave,
Or in some other dismal place who knows
But I shall die a livih? 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 her.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since humane reao 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 he exercise
Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end?
he make deathless Death? that were to make
Strange tradi, which to God himself
Impossible is held, as Argument [ 800 ]
Of weakness, not of Power. Will he, draw out,
Fers sake, fio infinite
In punisht man, to satisfie his rigour
Satisfid hat were to extend
His Sentence beyond dust and Natures Law, [ 805 ]
By which all Causes else acc still
To the reception of thir matter act,
Not to th extent of thir own Spheare. But say
That Death be not oroak, 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
es thundring back with dreadful revolution
On my defensless head; both Death and I [ 815 ]
Am fouernal, 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 ]