University of Virginia Library

VI.

But how predestination can subsist,
Without abatement of the moral bond,
And sentence on the guilty be enforc'd,
Consistently with rectitude divine,
Requires no great exertion to conceive,
Still leaving man accountable and free.
But how strict justice can with punishment
Of sin dispense, and keep a level beam
The while, is more than thought can comprehend.
Nor can invention figure to itself
The bulk of merit, which should poise the scale.
It therefore seems impossible, that man
Should be restor'd; unless in Deity
Some undiscover'd attribute exist,
Henceforth to be disclos'd; as when, sublime
His justice was display'd in casting down,
Headlong, th' apostate host that sinn'd in heaven.
But what that attribute can be, it were
As difficult for reason to suggest,
As 'twere for one, not having ears, to hear;
Or, void of eyes, to picture to his ken,
The genial hue of nature. Question'd, he
Might speak of its similitude, and say,
'Tis like the soft smooth down, or like the smell
Of savoury odours. But the light divine
Must pour upon our darkling view its ray,
Before we can explain, or e'en conceive,
Of what that attribute consists; for though
Fancy, from known materials, may construct
New combinations, 'tis beyond her power
To figure to herself a thing distinct,
Of which no likeness nature has display'd.