THE REPROBATE, OR GRACE FINALLY REJECTED.
And is there who the blessed cross wipes off,
As a foul blot, from his dishonoured brow?
If angels tremble, 'tis at such a sight:
The wretch they quit, desponding of their charge,
More struck with grief or wonder, who can tell ?....YOUNG.
THE blind apostate, lost to every good,
Makes light of sin, and mocks a Saviour's blood:
Pride join'd with hate, and hate with deadly sin,
Blast each fair bud, and form a hell within.
Terror and love in different forms are tried,
To curb his passion and abase his pride;
But love and ire are ineffectual here,
That cannot raise a blush, or this a fear:
Not the dire torments of hell's deep abyss;
Not the pure raptures of seraphic bliss;
Not the bright glories Paul in vision saw;
Nor vulture pangs that Dives's bosom gnaw;
Nor precious promise from the inspired line,
Nor malediction of the wrath divine;
Can melt a vile apostate Infidel,
Or make a Julian-hearted sinner feel.
Sooner an aged stubborn oak may bend,
And the firm flinty rock to pieces rend,
Sooner shall polished marble take the seal,
Or supple quills engrave elastic steel,
Than he relent; whose tongue with blasphemies,
And heart with rage, th' incarnate God denies.
Range the wide world, explore the ocean round,
Skim the blue sky, or pierce the solid ground;
Look every page of nature's volume thro',
All things examine, and all subjects view,
Then
The flaming forge o'ercomes well-temper'd steel,
And makes the iron bar quite pliable;
But his rebellious heart no power can bend,
No flames can soften, no concussions rend,
Whose day of grace and blest privations fled,
Whose soul is brutish, and whose eye is lead;
Whose neck a seal of reprobation binds,
Whose mind a penal vail judicial blinds.
If once the Spirit leave the breast, О then!
The holy place becomes a dragou's den:
Hence the fine springs, the pure essential joys,
That raise and wrap the righteous to the skies,
No more impression make, no more, alas !
Than oil on polish'd surfaces of brass.
Presumptuous, callous, yet without a fear,
Hell in the front, and vengeance in the rear,
He rolls in sin, till justice with a frown,
Draws the red sword, and cuts the rebel down.
THE CONTRAST, OR FINAL HOUR OF THE WICKED.
If death were nothing, and nought after death
If when men died at once they ceas'd to be,
Returning to the barren womb of nothing,
Whence first they sprung, then might the debauchee Untrembling mouth the heavens: then might the drunkard
Reel over his full bowl, and when 'tis drain'd,
Fill up another to the brim, and laugh
At the poor bugbear death; but if there's an hereafter,
And that there is, conscience uninfluenced speaks,
Then must it be an awful thing to die....BLAIR.
HE goes at last, (the final hour is come,)
To hear his sentence and receive his doom.
Ah, how unlike the lowly Christian's death,
Does he in joyful hope resign his breath?
Does he in that tremendous hour of need
A blood-writ title to salvation read?
Alas for him, he's neither part nor lot
In what the saints receive, and Saviour bought!
* See Page 39.
For dismal doubts the final hour assail,
And viper fears o'er all his hopes prevail:
Keen tort'ring pangs his guilty spirit tear,
And hell's own miniature, abhor'd despair:
He reads in wrath divine his future state,
Like him of Babylon, and knows 'tis fate.
In quest of hope, if he on life look back,
Each
page
is blotted with a crime more black
Than deepest shade, of Erebus or night,
Nor will a single section bear the light:
That shows the gall and venom of his breast,
This paints in black his bitter biting jest
At holy things, his supercilious sneer,
When scoffing scriptures from his scorner's chair;
And ev'ry proud ungodly thought and word
Against the saints is kept upon record;
Those whining fanatics he could not bear,
With all their cant, hypocrisy and prayer;
Who oft with gall upon his tongue he curst,
For those most holy he believed the worst :
Poor man, how gladly now he'd change his state,
With those he bitterly abus'd so late;
For death and conscience stare him in the face,
And fain he'd die at rest in any case;
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