Chapter 19 18
God made thee of choice his own, and of his own
To serve him, thy reward was of his grace,
Thy punishment then just is at his Will.
Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair,
That dust I am, and shall to dust return: [ 770 ]
O welcome hour whenever! why delays
His hand to execute what his Decree
Fixd on this day? why do I overlive,
Why am I mockt with death, and lengthnd out
To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet [ 775 ]
Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth
Insensible, how glad would lay me down
As in my Mothers lap! There I should rest
And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more
Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse [ 780 ]
To mee and to my ofspring would torment me
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, least all I cannot die,
Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man
Which God inspired, cannot together perish [ 785 ]
With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave,
Or in some other dismal place who knows
But I shall die a living Death? O thought
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath
Of Life that sinnd; what dies but what had life [ 790 ]
And sin? the Bodie properly hath neither.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since humane reach no further know.
For though the Lord of all be infinite,
Is his wrauth also? be it, man is not so, [ 795 ]
But mortal doomd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end?
Can he make deathless Death? that were to make
Strange contradiction, which to God himself
Impossible is held, as Argument [ 800 ]
Of weakness, not of Power. Will he, draw out,
For anger sake, finite to infinite
In punish man, to satisfy his rigour
Satisfied never; that were to extend
His Sentence beyond dust and Natures Law, [ 805 ]
By which all Causes else according still
To the reception of thir matter act,
Not to th extent of thir own Spheare. But say
That Death be not one stroak, as I supposd,
Bereaving sense, but endless miserie [ 810 ]
From this day onward, which I feel began
Both in me, and without me, and so last
To perpetuitie; Ay me, that fear
Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution
On my defenseless head; both Death and I [ 815 ]
Am found Eternal, and incorporate both,
Nor I on my part single, in mee all
Posteritie stands curst: Fair Patrimonie
That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able
To waste it all my self, and leave ye none! [ 820 ]