XXXI.

So shall you conquer Death and Hell and Sin,
And find, at last, what Christ in you hath been.
By sure Experience will be understood

How all hath happen'd to you for your Good.
Of all His Children this hath been the Way.;
And Christian Love here dictates what I say.

ON RESIGNATION.

A FRAGMENT.

[See Byrom's Shorthand Journal, May 14th, 1736: "I went to Dr. Hartley's after four, he was just going, and I stayed with his lady to drink coffee, we had a long lecture about shorthand, and I wrote out for her" [the lines which follow]. (Remains, ii. 40.)

According to a MS. note by "W. F." in a volume of Byrom's Poems in my possession, the ensuing Fragment was communicated to the writer of the note by John Baldwin, Esq., in whose possession was the original MS., never printed, of the poem.

I have inserted these lines in connexion of subject, instead of in sequence of date. It is to be regretted that only a fragment should have been preserved of what could hardly but have proved a most pleasing hymn.]

T

A DIALOGUE.

I.

AKE up the Cross which thou has got,

For Love of CHRIST, and bear it not
As Simon of Cyrene did,

Compell'd to do as he was bid!

II.

Pray, am not I, who cannot free
"Myself, compell'd as much as he?
"I cannot shun it, and of Course
"Must bear this heavy Cross by Force."

3. SIMON of CYRENE. See St. Mark, xv. 21.

A SOLILOQUY ON THE CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF A DOUBTING MIND.

[Although this "Soliloquy" is possibly a reproduction of some passage or passages in the writings of Law, or of Böhme, which I have not succeeded in discovering, the substance of its argument is more or less explicitly to be found in Law's Appeal to all that Doubt, &c. (Works, vol. vi.) The position from which the "Soliloquy" starts, is there (pp. 18

seqq.) stated in a passage beginning with the following sentences: "It is impossible that this World, in the State and Condition it is now in, should have been an immediate and Original Creation of God: This is as impossible, as that God should create Evil, either Natural or Moral ... All Storms and Tempests, every Fierceness of Heat, every Wrath of Cold, prove with the same Certainty that outward Nature is not a first Work of God, as the Selfishness, Envy, Pride, Wrath, and Malice of Devils or Man prove, that they are not in the first State of their Creation." The general view here taken of the Fall of Man is developed by Law in the treatise cited, in the Spirit of Prayer, and in other of his writings.

Byrom's verses are not among the most lucid of his adaptations (see e.g. stanza v.), and they conclude with a turn of phrase which, though systematically correct, must be described as undesigned bathos.]

I

I.

MUSE, I doubt, I reason, and debate;—

Therefore, I am not in that perfect State

In which, when its Creation first began,

God plac'd His Own Belovèd Image, Man;
From whose high Birth, at once design'd for all,
This ever-poring Reason proves a Fall.

II.

Whilst Adam stood in that immortal Life,
Wherein pure Truth excluded Doubt and Strife,
He knew, he saw, by a Diviner Light,

All that was good for Knowledge or for Sight.
But when the Serpent-Subtlety of Hell
Brought him to doubt, and reason,-then he fell.

III.

Fell, by declining from an upright Will,
And sunk into a State of Good and Ill.

The very State of such a World as this
Became a Death to his immortal Bliss,—
Bliss, which his Reason gave him not before
The Loss ensued, nor after could restore.

IV.

From him desending, all the human Race
Must needs partake the Nature of his Case;
Just as the Trunk, the Branches, or the Fruit,
Derive their Substance from the parent Root.
What Life or Death into the Father came,
The Sons, tho' guiltless, could but have the same.

V.

If I am one, if ever I must live

The blissful Life which God design'd to give,

As Reason dictates, or as some Degree

Of higher Light enables one to see,-
It cannot rise from being born on Earth
Without a second, new, and Heav'nly Birth.

VI.

The Gospel-Doctrine, which assures to Men
The joyful Truth of being "born again,"
Demands the free Consent of ev'ry Will
That seeks the Good, and to escape the Ill;
In all the sav'd right Reason must allow
Such Birth effected, tho' it knows not how.

VII.

Such was the Faith in Life's Redeeming Seed, Of poor fall'n Man the Comfort and the Creed; Such was the Hope before and since the Flood, In ev'ry Time and Place, of all the good;

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