SPIRITUAL BIRTH.

A

DIVINE POEM.

How keen are the pains of a Spiritual Birth,
When its dreadful attendants invade

The soul is a stranger to music and mirth,
A companion for none but the dead.

But spiritual travail is life in disguise,
Though with imminent dangers beset;

The voice of the prophets calls flames from the skies;
Yea, and Moses pursues us for debt.

All crimes from the cradle come fresh to the mind,

Transgression's presented to view;

While Satan accuses for every crime,

Yea, and conscience repeats-it is true.

Jehovah erects his tribunal within,

And the criminal trembles with guilt; The billows of wrath stir the motions of sin, And the arrows of vengeance are felt.

His feigned profession is totally marr'd,
Both torments and terrors invade;

The door of kind Mercy seems bolted and barr'd,
And the gate of Destruction's display'd,

All friends stand aloof, and acquaintances hide,
And the soul is refus'd to be known;

Our intimates curse us, and scorners deride,
Yea, and fathers and mothers disown.

I envied the brutes which dissolve with the day, And reflected with wrath on the womb;

The pains of the damn'd rack'd my mind with dismay, And I wish'd I could end in a tomb,

I cavill'd with Mercy, and trembled at Fate,
While distraction was raging within;

And envied the angels their innocent state,
For I knew they were strangers to sin,

This fearing, and doubting, and hoping between, Lo the tempter, who never gives out,

His dreadful blasphemies hurl'd, cutting and keen, While my life hung impending in doubt!

My follies were link'd like a chain to my soul,
And as bound for the realms of the dead.
I look'd for a friend, or for some to condole,
friends and companions were fled;

But

my

On my wearisome bed I courted the day,
And at morning I woo'd for the night;
I mourned to think in what darkness I lay,
And yet trembled as much at the light.

If I made my confession in private alone,
Then the worst of temptations began ;
And, tho' I petition'd with many a groan,
Yet I fain would have fled from his hand.

The horrors of justice, and terrors of death,
And mad desperation within;

How dreadful to travel this perilous path,

With a conscience polluted with sin!

This sorrowful travail, what will it avail,
While my heart's too contracted to yield?
Despair and distraction must, doubtless, prevail:
My wound is too deep to be heal'd.

My cruel companions, they daily deride,
And I'm chaf'd with the plague of my heart;
My prayers to heaven have passage denied,
And this wounds more than dagger or dart.

Can such a conception be found in the dead?
And, if quicken'd, why under the curse?
Hope springing within me, must prove that I'm wed!
And, if barren, then why am I thus ?

But, tho' of all strength I am wholly bereav'd,
And deliverance hid from my view;

Yet, still in child-bearing the spouse must be sav'd;
Old Adam must yield to the New.

My Saviour perceiv'd me when sunk in distress,
And his love could no longer refrain:

He yielded to prayer, and granted redress;
And my mountains were sunk to a plain.

He deliver'd my spirit by knowledge profound,
And rescu'd my mind from her smart:
The balm of his rays stopt the rage of my wound,
And dissolved the stone of my heart.

The Saviour perceiv'd me to melt in the flame,
Then he scatter'd his odours abroad:

He perfumed my soul, and revived my frame;
And I call'd him my Lord and my God.

Now, Moses, from bondage my soul is enlarg'd,
My Redeemer has cancell'd my debt;
My fatal arrears are now wholly discharg'd,
And kind Heaven has sent the receipt.

I thought you my friend: and you knew I was poor,
And you gave me long credit, 'tis true;
But, had I suspected your rigour before,
I had ne'er struck a balance with you.

To deceive and to strip me is but to defraud,
Though it does not become me to rail;
Yet I must relate to my neighbours abroad
The deception that lies in your veil.