Light from above, from the fountain of light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;
But thefe are falfe, or little elfe but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wifest of them all profefs'd
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling fell, and smooth conceits;
A third fort doubted all things, though plain sense;
Others in virtue plac'd felicity,

But virtue join'd with riches and long life,
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease:
The Stoic last in philofophic pride

By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wife, perfect in himself, and all poffeffing
Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,
Which when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can;
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or fubtle shifts conviction to evade.

Alas, what can they teach, and not mif-lead;
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the foul they talk, but all awry,
And in themselves feek virtue, and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accufe him under ufual names,

Fortune and fate, as one regardless quite

Of mortal things. Who therefore feeks in thefe True wisdom, finds her not, or by delufion

Far worse, her false resemblance only meets
An empty cloud. However many books
Wife men have said are wearisom; who reads
Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not
A fpirit and judgment equal or fuperior,

(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere feek) Uncertain and unfettled ftill remains

Deep verst in books and shallow in himself,

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon -
As in our native language can I find

That folace? all our law and story strew'd

With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscrib’a, Our Hebrew fongs and harps in Babylon,

That pleas'd fo well our victors ear, declare

That rather Greece from us these arts deriv'd;

Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

The vices of their deities, and their own
In fable, hymn, or song, so personating

Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove the swelling epithets thick laid
As varnish on a harlot's cheek; the rest,
Thin fown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion's fongs, to all true tasts excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and god-like men
The holiest of holies, and his faints:

Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee:

Unless where moral virtue is exprefs'd
By light of nature not in all quite lost.
Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those
The top of eloquence, statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The folid rules of civil government,

In their majestick unaffected stile,

Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it fo
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;
These only with our law best form a king.

So fpake the Son of God; but Satan now
Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,
Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply'd.

Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms nor arts
Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught
By me propos'd in life contemplative,

Or active, tended on by glory, or fame,
What doft thou in this world? the wilderness
For thee is fittest place, I found thee there,
And thither will return thee, yet remember
What I foretel thee, foon thou fhalt have caufe
To wish thou never hadft rejected thus
Nicely or cautioufly my offer'd aid,

Which would have set thee in short time with ease
On David's throne, or throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy feafon
When prophecies of thee are best fulfill'd.

Now contrary, if I read aught in heav'n,

Or heav'n write aught of fate, by what the stars
Voluminous, or fingle characters,

In their conjunction met, give me to fpell,
Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate,
Attends thee fcorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death;

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,
Real or allegoric I difcern not,

Nor when, eternal fure, as without end,
Without beginning; for no date prefixt,
Directs me in the starry rubric set.

So faying he took (for still he knew his pow'r
Not yet expir'd) and to the wilderness

Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,
Feigning to difappear. Darkness now rose,
As day-light funk, and brought in lowring night
Her fhad'wy offspring, unsubstantial both,
Privation meer of light and absent day.

Our Saviour meek and with untroubled mind
After his airy jaunt, though hurry'd fore,
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under fome concourse of shades

Whose branching arms thick intertwin'd might shield
From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head,
But fhelter'd flept in vain, for at his head
The tempter watch'd, and foon with ugly dreams
Difturb'd his fleep, and either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n the clouds
From many a horrid rift abortive pour'd

Fierce rain with lightning mixt, water with fire

In ruin reconcil'd: nor flept the winds
Within their ftony caves, but rush'd abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vext wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks
Bow'd their stiff-necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer: ill waft thou shrouded then,
O patient Son of God, yet only stoodst
Unfhaken; nor yet staid the terror there,
Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round

Environ'd thee, fome howl'd, fome yell'd, fome fhriek'd,
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou
Sat'st unappal'd in calm and finless peace.

Thus pafs'd the night fo foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray;
Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar
Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds,
And grifly spectres which the fiend had rais'd
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the fun with more effectual beams
Had chear'd the face of earth, and dry'd the wet
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds,
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm so ruinous,

Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray
To gratulate the sweet return of morn:
Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn
Was abfent, after all his mischief done,
The prince of darkness, glad would also seem
Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came,
Yet with no new device, they all were spent,
F