In His Religion,-of "Lo Here! Lo There!"
When to all Hearts He is Himself so near,
With Pow'r to save us from the Cause of Ill,
A worldly, selfish, unbelieving Will;
To bless whatever tends to make the Mind
Meek, loving, humble, patient, and resign'd?

VIII.

The Mind to Christ so far as God shall draw
By Nature, Scripture, Reason, Learning, Law,
Or aught beside,-so far their Use is right,
Proclaiming Him, and not themselves the Light.
From first to last His Gospel is the same;
And of all Worship that deserves a Name,
The Word of Life by Faith to apprehend
That was in the Beginning,-is the End.

51. "Lo here! Lo there!" See note to On Church Communion, Part vii. 1. 33, ante, p. 460.

60

62 seqq. Of all Worship, &c. The desired antithesis in 1. 64 is made possible by a most characteristic inversion.

A MEMORIAL ABSTRACT OF A SERMON
PREACHED BY THE REV. MR. H—

ON PROVERBS, Ch. XX. v. 27.

[It is impossible to say who preached the sermon to which these lines refer. Probably, it was taken down in shorthand by Byrom, according to his frequent custom. There is no reason for supposing that the preacher was either of the Messrs. H- — to whom our author offered so much excellent advice on the art of preaching (cf. ante, vol. i. pp. 85-9, 101-5). It may have been Mr. Hoole, the rector of St. Ann's, whose name fits the metrical gap in 1. 6.

The text of the sermon runs as follows: "The spirit of man is the

candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the body." The preacher appears to have wound up with a reference to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the power of which is illustrated by its treatment in an interesting example of the early liturgical mysterydrama.]

I.

HE human Spirit, when it burns and shines,

THE

"Lamp of Jehovah" Solomon defines.

Now, as a Vessel, to contain the Whole,

This "Lamp" denotes the Body, Oil the Soul
(As Hobserves) which, tho' itself be dark,
Is capable of Life's enkindling Spark;

But, as consider'd in its own dark Root,

Still wants the Unction and the Light's Recruit.

II.

Brighter than all that now is look'd upon,
This "Lamp of God" at its Creation shone;
The Body, purer than the finest Gold,
Had no Defect in its material Mould;
The Soul's enkindled Oil was heav'nly bright,
Till evil Mixture darken'd its good Light,
And hid the supernatural Supply

That fed the Glorious Lamp of the Most High.

III.

That fatal Poison quench'd in human Frame
The Spirit flowing from the vital Flame.
Adam's free Will consenting to such Food,
Death in its natural Effect ensued:

8. The Light's Recruit. A supply of the light. Cf. Pope's Essay on Criticism, 11. 205-6:

"Whatever nature has in worth denied,

ΙΟ

20

She gives in large recruits of needful pride."

10. The "Lamp of God." The human spirit in its celestial body.

True Life departing left him naked, blind
And spiritless in Body, Soul, and Mind.
Dead to his paradisic Life, a Birth

From Sin began his mortal Life on Earth.

IV.

His Faith, his spiritual Discernment gone,
He fell into a poring, reas'ning one;

Into a State of Ignorance he fell,

Which brutal Instincts very oft excel.

What his Self-seeking Will would know was known,—
The Light on this terrestrial Orb alone,

Dark in Comparison, when this was done,

As Moon or Star-light to meridian Sun.

V.

What Help, when lesser Light should vanish too,

And Death discover a still darker View,

Had not the CHRIST of God, Sole Help for Sin,
Rais'd up Salvation as a Seed within,

That, sprouting forth by Penitence and Faith,

Could pierce thro' Death and dissipate its Wrath;
Till God's true Image should again revive,
And rise, thro' Him, to its first Life alive?

VI.

This Parent Saviour, God's Anointed Son,
Begets the Life that Adam should have done;

23. Dead. He being dead.

28. Which brutal Instincts very oft excel. Than which mere animal instinct is often more keen.

29. What his SELF-SEEKING Will WOULD know WAS known. A profound

30

40

thought, derived from Law. Adam's desire for a knowledge of his lower nature was gratified by the unveiling of a purely subjective mystery, already perfectly clear to an Insight beyond his.

31. When this was done. After his fall.

Reforms the Lamp, renews the holy Fire,

And sends to Heav'n its flaming Love-Desire.
'Tis He, "the Life that was the Light of Men,"—
Who fits them to be Lamps of God again;
Restores the Vessel, Oil, and Light, and all
The Spirit-Life that vanish'd at the Fall.

VII.

Reason has Nothing to proceed upon,
Without an Unction from this Holy One;
Without a Spirit, to dispel the Damp

Of Nature's Darkness, and light up the Lamp:
Nothing whatever but the Touch Divine,
Can make its highest Faculties to shine,-
All just as helpless in their selfish Use
As Lamps their own enkindling to produce.

VIII.

All true Religion teaches them to trim

The Lamp, that must receive its Light from Him;
From Him, the Quick'ning Spirit, to obtain

The Life that must for ever Blest remain.

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60

The Life of Christ arising in the Soul,
This, this alone makes human Nature whole;
Makes ev'ry Gift of Grace to reunite,
And shine for ever in JEHOVAH'S Sight.

45. "The Life that was the Light of Men." "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." (St. John, i. 4.) 57,58. All true Religion teaches them to trim The Lamp, &c.

"And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps." (St. Matthew, xxv. 6–7.)

ON THE UNION AND THREEFOLD DISTINCTION OF GOD, NATURE AND

CREATURE.

[The following is an exposition of Law's cosmogonic theory, as it is developed by him at length in the two Parts of his Spirit of Love, in the Way to Divive Knowledge, where he makes special reference to Jacob Böhme, and elsewhere. He was specially sensitive to the charge of "Spinozism," or (to put it more plainly) Pantheism, brought against him by Warburton (see Overton, William Law, pp. 428-9); and in these stanzas Byrom is at special pains to insist upon what Law himself calls "the essential, eternal and absolute distinction between God and nature."

This distinction constitutes one of the fundamental principles of the teaching of Jacob Böhme. In the explanation of technical terms peculiar to Böhme, furnished in an appendix to Hamberger's treatise, Die Lehre des deutschen Philosophen Jakob Böhme (Munich, 1844), the following is the commentary on the term "Nature": "This term is applied by Böhme not to the method, quality or form of life, but to its matrix, or power of giving birth. Thus eternal nature is the material source of essential wisdom, and likewise of creation itself. In so far, then, Nature is the equivalent of chaos, or of the Mysterium magnum."]

PART FIRST.

I.

LL that comes under our Imagination

A1

Is either God, or Nature, or Creation.
God is the Free Eternal Light, or Love,
Before, beyond all Nature, and above;
The One Unchangeable, Unceasing Will
To ev'ry Good, and to no Sort of Ill.

3 seqq. God is the Free Eternal Light, &c. "God, as consider'd in himself, in his holy Beginning before anything is

brought forth by him is only an eternal Will to all Goodness," (The Spirit of Love, Part I. p. 5, in Law's Works, vol. viii.)