which he endeavoured thus to difburthen with fad Complaint:

How miferable am I become, who was once fo happy! Is this the End of this new glorious World, and of me, fo lately the Glory of that Glory, who from being bleffed am now become accurfed? Hide me from the Face of GOD, whom to behold was once the Height of my Happiness! — Yet if the Mifery would end here, it were well, I deferved it, and would bear my own Defervings: But this will not ferve! all that I eat or drink, or fhall beget, is propapagating and prolonging the Curfe. O Voice heard once with fo much Delight, INCREASE AND MULTIPLY; now it is DEATH to hear it! for what can I increase and multiply, except it be Curfes on my own Head? Who will there be of all fucceeding Ages, but, feeling the Evil brought upon him by me, will curfe my Head? He will cry, may our impure Anceftor fare ill for this we may thank ADAM! but thefe his Thanks fhall be the Execration! So, befides my own Curse that abides upon me, all from me fhall rebound fiercely back on me, and tend to ine as their natural Center; there being light, as having reached that Center, and loft their Gravity, which in other Places they had! O fleeting Joys of PARADISE, dearly bought with lafting Milery! Did I request Thee, O Thou madest me, to make me a MAN, when I was nothing but Clay? Did I follicit Thee to take me forth out of Darkness? Or to place me here in this delicious Garden? As my Will did not concur to my Being, it were but right and just to reduce me to what I was before, that is to Duft; being defirous to refign, and give back again all I have received; feeing I have been unable to perform thy too hard Terms, by which I was to hold the Good that I had not fought. To the Lofs of that Good, (which is fufficient Penalty! why haft thou added the Senfe of endless

endless Woes? In this, thy Juftice does not seem to appear. Yet, to fay the Truth, I contest thus when it is too late; thefe Terms, whatever they might be, fhould then have been refufed, when they were propofed. I may be answered thus, thou didft accept them, wilt thou enjoy the Good, and then cavil at the Conditions? And, though GOD did make thee without thy Leave, what if thy Son prove difobedient, and being reproved, fhould answer and object to thee, wherefore didft thou beget me? I fought it not, nor defired it of thee! wouldest thou admit of that proud Excufe of his Contempt of thee? and yet it was not thy Election, but natural Neceffity that begot him. GOD made thee of Choice, his own, and of his own to serve him; thy Reward was of his Grace; then thy Punishment, for certain, is juftly at his Will. Then be it fo! for I fubmit; his Doom is righteous, that I am Duft and to Duft I fhall return again. O welcome Hour, come whenever it will! why does his Hand delay to execute, what his Decree fixed upon this Day? Why do I live over it? Why am I mocked with DEATH, and yet preferved and prolonged to deathlefs Pain? How gladly would I meet the Mortality that I was fentenced to, and become infenfible Earth! How gladly would I lay me down, as in my Mother's Lap! There I fhould reft, there I fhould fleep fecurely: His dreadful Voice would no more thunder in my Ears: I should not be tormented with Fears of worfe to me and my Offfpring, which now torment me with cruel Expectation! Yet there is one Doubt pursues me ftill, left I cannot wholly die; left that pure Breath of Life, the Spirit of MAN, which God breathed into him, cannot perish together with this corporal Clay: Then who knows but in the Grave, or fome other difmal Place, I fhall die a living Death? O horrid Thought if it be true! Yet why should it be fo? It was but Breath of Life that finned, and what dies but what

had Life and Sin? The Body, properly speaking, had neither. Then all of me fhall die: Let this quiet the Doubt, fince human Understanding knows no further. For though the LORD of all be indeed infinite, is his Wrath fo too? Suppofe it! MAN is not fo, but declared and doomed mortal. Then how can he exercife Wrath without End upon MAN, whom DEATH muft end? Can he make deathlefs DEATH? That were to make a strange Contradiction, which is held impoffible to GoD himfelf; as it would be an Argument of Weaknefs, not of Power. Will he, for Anger's Sake, draw out finite to infinite in punifhed MAN, to fatisfy his Anger, which never will be fatisfied? That were to extend his Sentence beyond Duft, and the Law of Nature; by which all Caufes elfe act, according to the Matter they have to work upon, and not to the Extent of their own Power. But say that DEATH be not, as I fuppofed, one Stroke, bereaving the Senfes, but endless Mifery from this Day forward; which I feel begun both within me and without me, and fo it is to laft perpetually. -----Ah me! that Fear comes thundering back dreadfully on my defencelets Head: DEATH, as well as I, is found eternal, and both incorporated. Nor I fingle on my Part, in me all Pofterity ftands curfed! Ah my Sons! this is a fair Patrimony that I must leave you! O! that I were able to wafte it all myself, and leave you none! Being fo difinherited, how would you then blefs me, who am now your Curfe! Ah! why fhould all MANKIND be thus, without Guilt, condemned for one MAN's Fault? MANKIND! and guiltless, can that be? For what can proceed from me but what is all corrupt, depraved both Mind and Will; not to do only, but to will the fame as me? How then can they ftand acquitted in the Sight of GOD? After all Difputes, I am forced to abfolve him : All my vain Reasonings and Evasions, though through many Mazes, lead ftill but to my own Conviction:

Firit and laft all the Blame juftly lights on me, and me only, as the Source and Spring of all Corruption: All the Blame! fo might the Wrath fall on me! Fond Wish! Couldeft thou fupport that Burthen, heavier to bear than the Earth; much heavier than all the World, though divided with that bad WOMAN? Thus what thou defireft and what thou feareft, equally destroys all Hope of Refuge, and concludes, thee miferable, beyond all paft and future Example; and like to nothing but SATAN, both in Crime and Doom. O CONSCIENCE! into what Abyss of Fears and Horrors haft thou driven me? Out of which I can find no Way, but go plunging deeper and deeper!

THUS ADAM made loud Lamentation in the Stillness of the Night; which was not wholefome, cool, and mild, as it was before MAN fell; but accompanied with black Air, with dreadful Gloom and Dampnefs; which reprefented every Thing to his evil Confcience with double Terror. He lay out-ftretched upon the cold Ground! and often curfed his Creation : DEATH he accused as often, tardy of Execution, fince it was threatened to be on the Day that he offended. Why (faid he) does not DEATH Come, with one three-welcomed Stroke to end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her Word? Why does not divine Juftice haften to be juft? But DEATH does not come at all, divine Juftice not the quicker for Prayers or Cries! O Woods! O Fountains, Hills, Valleys, and Bowers!When fad Eve, defolate where fhe fat, beheld ADAM thus afflicted; approaching near, fhe tried with foft Words to allay the Fiercenefs of his Paffion: But ADAM, with an angry Look, thus checked and repelled her:

GET

GET out of my Sight, thou Serpent !-----That Name is fitteft for thee, who art leagued with him; thyfelf as falfe as he, and as hateful! there is nothing wanting, but that thy Shape and ferpentine Colour, like his may fhow thy inward Fraud; to warn all Creatures henceforth to avoid thee, left that too heavenly Form, held to Sight to hide hellish Falfhood, enfnare them! ----Had it not been for thee, I had perfifted happy; had not thy Pride and wandering Vanity, when it was leaft fafe, rejected my Forewarning, and difdained to be thought not fit to be trufted alone longing to be feen, though it were by the Devil himfelf; vainly thinking to over-reach him: But meeting with the Serpent, art fooled and beguiled; thou by him, and I by thee, to truft thee from my Side; imagining thee to be wife, conftant, confiderate, and Proof again't all Affaults; and did not understand that all was but a Show, rather than folid Virtue; all nothing but a Rib, crooked by Nature, beft thrown out, as found fupernumerary to my just Number ! ----O why did GOD, the wife CREATOR! that peopled the highest Heaven with mafculine Spirits, at laft create this Novelty upon Earth, this fair Defect of Nature? And not fill the World at once with MEN, as Heaven with Angels, without any Female? Or find out fome other Way to generate MANKIND? Then this Mischief had not happened, and more that fhall happen; numberlefs Difturbances upon Earth, through the Snares of Women, and a ftrait Conjunction with this Sex! for either a MAN. fhall never find out a fit Mate, but fuch as fome Miftake or Misfortune brings him; or her, he wishes for moft, and loves beft, through her Perverfenefs fhall feldom gain, but fhall fee her gained by a far worse than himself; or if fhe love him, with-held by Parents; or fhall meet her, who would be his happiest Choice, already bound in Wedlock to another, perhaps his Enemy,

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