University of Virginia Library

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468

ON THE UNION AND THREEFOLD DISTINCTION OF GOD, NATURE AND CREATURE.

PART FIRST.

I

All that comes under our Imagination
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.

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II

Nature without Him is th' abyssal Dark,
Void of the Light's beatifying Spark;
Th' Attraction of Desire, by Want repell'd,
Whence circling Rage proceeds, and Wrath unquell'd:
But by the Light's All-joyous Pow'r th' Abyss
Becomes the Groundwork of a Threefold Bliss.

III

Creation is the Gift of Light and Life
To Nature's Contrariety and Strife;
For without Nature, or desirous Want,
There would be nothing to receive the Grant;
Nor could a Creature or created Scene
Exist, did no such Medium intervene.

IV

Creature and God would be the same; the Thought
Which Books inform us that Spinoza taught,

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Would then be true, and we be forc'd to call
Things good or bad “the Parts of the great All.”
In whatsoever State itself may be,
Nature is His, but Nature is not He.

V

Like as the Dark behind the shining Glass
By hind'ring Rays that of themselves would pass
Affords that Glimpse of Objects to the View
Which the transparent Mirror could not do,—
So does the Life of Nature in its Place
Reflect the Glories of the Life of Grace.

VI

Of ev'ry Creature's Happiness the Growth
Depends upon the Union of them both,
And all that God proceeded to create
Came forth at first in this united State.
No evil Wrath or Darkness could begin
To show itself but by a Creature's Sin.

VII

And were not Nature separate, alone,
Such a dark Wrath, it could not have been shown;
Its hidden Properties are Ground as good
For Life's Support as Bones to Flesh and Blood;

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The false, unnatural, ungodly Will
That lays them open, is sole Cause of Ill.

VIII

When it is caus'd, renouncing, to be sure,
All such-like Wills contributes to the Cure;
That Nature's wrathful Forms may not appear,
Nor what is made subservient domineer;
But God's Good Will all evil ones subdue,
And bless all Nature, and all Creature too.

PART SECOND.

I

This Universal Blessing to inspire
Was God's Eternal Purpose or Desire,—
Desire, which never could be unfulfill'd;
Love put it forth, and Heav'n was what It will'd;
And the Desire had in Itself the Means
From Whence the Love could raise the Heav'nly Scenes.

II

Hence, an Eternal Nature, to proclaim
By outward, visible, majestic Frame
The Hidden Deity, the Pow'r Divine,
By Which th' innumerable Beauties shine,
That by Succession without End recall
A God of Love, a Present All in All.

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III

From Love, thus manifested in the Birth
Of Nature and the Pow'rs of Heav'n and Earth,
The various Births of Creatures at the Voice
Of God came forth to see and to rejoice;
To live within His Kingdom, and partake
Of ev'ry Bliss adapted to their Make.

IV

For as, before a Creature came to see,
No other Life but that of God could be,—
No other place but Heav'n, no other State:
So, when it pleas'd th' Almighty to create,
From Him must come the Creature's Life within;
Its outward State from Nature must begin.

V

Oh! What angelic Orders, what Divine
And Heav'nly Creatures, answer'd the Design
Of God's Communicative Goodness, shown
By giving Rise to Offsprings of His Own!
With God-like Spirits how was Nature fill'd
And beauteous Forms, as its Great Author will'd!

VI

Thus in its full Perfection then it stood,
Seeking, receiving, manifesting Good

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By Virtue of that Union which it had
With Him Who made no Creature to be bad,
But highly blest and with a potent Will
So to continue, and to know no Ill.

VII

Nature's united Properties had none.
Whence, then, the Change that it has undergone
But from the Creatures striving to aspire
Above the Light which their own dark Desire
Quench'd in themselves, and rais'd up all the Storms
Of Nature's wrathful, separated Forms?

VIII

So Lucifer and his proud Legions fell,
And turn'd their Heav'nly Mansion to an Hell,—
To that dark, formless Void wherein, the Light
Ent'ring again with Nature to unite,
The new Creation of the World began,
And God's Own Image Lord of it,—a Man.