Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Order and Disorder. 1679.
Canto IV
Seeing his hate of sin, might thence confess
Which like rich ore concealed in the mine
If all were good, whence then arose the ill?
’Twas not in Gods, but in the creatures will,
Averting from that good, which is supream,
Turns to a noisome, dead, and poysonous Lake,
Infecting all who the foul waters take:
Or as a Branch cut from the living Tree,
Passes into contempt immediately,
And dies divided from its glorious stock;
So strength disjoyned from the living rock,
Turns to contemned imbecillity,
Devils.Some new-made Angels thus, not more sublime
In nature, than transcending in their crime,
Quitting th’ eternal fountain of their light,
Where they no more must see Gods glorious face
But in the fire of his fierce anger dwell,
Which though it burns, enlightens not their Hell.
But circumstances that we cannot know
Of their rebellion and their overthrow
We will not dare t’ invent, nor will we take
Guesses from the reports themselves did make
To their old Priests, to whom they did devise
To inspire some truths, wrapt up in many lies;
Such as their gross poetick fables are,
Saturn’s extrusion, the bold giants war,
Division of the universal realm,
To Gods that in high heaven steer the helm,
Others who all things in the Ocean guide,
And those who in th’ infernal Court preside,
Who there a vast and gloomy Empire sway,
Whom all the Furies and the Ghosts obey.
But not to name these foolish impious tales,
Which stifle truth in her pretended veils,
Let us in its own blazing conduct go,
And look no further than that light doth show;
Wherein we see the present powers of hell,
Before they under Gods displeasure fell,
Were once endued with grace and excellence,
Pure holy lights in the bright heaven were
Where, by the Apostasie of their own will,
Precipitating them into all ill,
Until the last and great assizes come,
That blessedness they never can enjoy.
But adds to’his sin, his torture, and disgrace.
Though they all Orders else disturb and hate.
Attending their black Prince, as his command,
To all imaginable evils prest,
That may promote their common interest.
Nor are they linked thus by faith and love,
But hate of God and goodness, which doth move
The same endeavours and desires in all,
An Empire which the Almighty doth permit,
Suffering their rage sometimes to take effect,
Befools their wisdome, crosses their designs,
Who did Gods softer sacred bonds despise,
More curs’d if they succeed, than if they fail,
Since every soul the Rebels gain from God,
Adds but another Scorpion to that rod,
To keep his Army still in discipline,
Suffers the embodying of some slighter foes,
Which he at his own pleasure can enclose,
And vanquish, that he justly may chastise
Their folly, and his own troops exercise,
Their vigilance, their faith and valour prove;
Endearing them thereby to his own love,
So the Almighty gives the Devils scope,
O’re whom they cannot reign, with them may fall.
And tho’ Gods watchful guards besiege them round
Yet make they daily sallies in their pride,
Being equally a crime and punishment.
Thus though sin in it self be ill, ’tis good
That sin should be, for thereby rectitude
Thorough oppos’d iniquity, as light
By shades, is more conspicuous and more bright.
The wonderful creation of mankind,
For lasting glory and rich grace design’d,
The blessed angels look’d on with delight,
But ’twas far otherwise with those that fell
Mans destin’d heaven, encreas’d their hell,
While they burnt with a proud malitious spite
For their high seats and empty thrones design’d;
Therefore both against God and man combin’d,
To hinder Gods decree from taking place,
And to devest man of his Makers grace;
They knew, not all their force nor cunning cou’d,
But if they could with any false pretence
Inveigle him to quit his innocence,
They hop’d death would prevent the dreaded womb
From whence their happier successors must come.
Wherefore th’ accursed Soveraign of hell
Thinking no other Devil could so well
Enough to engage his hateful majesty,
Himself exposes for the common cause,
And with his hellish kingdomes full applause,
Goes forth, putting himself into disguise,
And so within a bright scal’d serpect lies,
Folded about the fair forbidden tree,
Watching a wish’d for opportunitie,
Which Eve soon gave him, coming there alone
So to be first and easier overthrown;
On whose weak side, th’ assault had not been made
Had she not from her firm protection stray’d;
But so the Devil then, so leud men now
And to those flatt’ring whispers lend an ear
Which even impudence it self would fear
To utter in the presence of a friend,
Whose vertuous awe our frailty might defend.
Though unexperience might excuse Eves fault,
Yet those who now give way to an assault,
By suffring it alone, none can exempt
From the just blame that they their tempters tempt,
And by vain confidence themselves betray,
Fondly secure in a known desperate way.
As Eve stood near the tree, the subtile beast,
By Satan mov’d, his speech to her addrest
Hath God, said he, forbid that you should tast
These pleasant fruits, which in your eyes are plac’t,
Why are the tempting boughs expos’d, if you
May not delight your palates with your view?
God, said the woman, gives us libertie
To eat without restraint of every tree
Which in the garden grows, but only one;
Restrain’d by such a prohibition,
We dare not touch it, for when e’re we do
A certain death will our offence ensue.
Then did the wicked subtile beast replie,
Ah simple wretch, you shall not surely die,
God enviously to you this fruit denies,
He knows that eating it, will make you wise,
Of good and ill give you discerning sense,
And raise you to a god-like excellence.
Eve quickly caught in the soul hunters net,
Believ’d that death was only a vain threat,
Her unbelief quenching religious dread
Infectious counsel in her bosome bred,
Dissatisfaction with her present state
And fond ambition of a godlike height.
Who now applies herself to its pursuit,
With longing eyes looks on the lovely fruit,
First nicely plucks, then eats with full delight,
And gratifies her murderous appetite;
Poyson’d with the sweet relish of her sin,
Before her inward torturing pangs begin,
The pleasure to her husband she commends,
And he by her persuasion too offends,
As by the serpents she before had done.
Within the snake the crafty tempter smil’d
To see mankind so easily beguil’d,
But laugh not Satan, God shall thee deride,
The Son of God and Man shall scourge thy pride,
Now wrought the poyson on the guilty pair,
Who with confusion on each other stare,
While death possession takes, and enters in
Sound health and joy before th’ intruder fled,
Sickness and sorrow coming in their stead.
Their late sweet calm did now for ever cease,
Dread, guilt, remorse in the benighted soul,
Like raging billows on each other rowl;
Deaths harbingers waste in each province make,
While thundring terrours mans whole Island shake.
Within, without, disorder’d in the storm,
The colour fades, and tremblings change the form,
Heat melts their substance, cold their joynts benumbs,
Dull languishment their vigour overcomes.
Grief conquer’d beauty lays down all her arms,
Shame doth their looks deject, no chearful grace,
No pleasant smiles, appear in their sad face,
They see themselves fool’d, cheated, and betray’d,
And naked in the view of heaven made;
No glory compasses the drooping head,
The sight of their own ugliness they dread,
And curtains of broad thin Fig-leaves devise
To hide themselves from their own weeping eyes;
But, Ah, these coverings were too slight and thin
To ward their shame oft, or to keep out sin,
Or the keen airs quick piercing shafts, which through
Both leaves and pores into the bowels flew.
While they remain’d in their pure innocence
It was their robe of glory and defence:
But when sin tore that mantle off, they found
Their members were all naked, all uncrown’d;
Their purity in every place defil’d,
Their vest of righteousness all torn and spoyl’d.
Wherefore, through guilt, the late lov’d light they shun,
And into the obscurest shadow run;
Carrying within them a disturbed mind,
Which doth their cureless folly represent,
And makes them curse their late experiment;
Wishing they had been pure and ignorant still,
Nor coveted the knowledge of their ill.
Ah thus it is that yet we learn our good,
Till it be lost, but seldome understood,
Rich blessings, while we have them, little prize
Until their want their value magnifies,
And equally doth our remorse encrease
For having cast away such happiness.
O wretched man! who at so dear a rate
Purchas’d the knowledge of his own frail state,
Which only their affliction multiplies,
While they in painful study vex their brain,
Pursuing what they never can attain;
And what would not avail them if acquir’d,
Till at the length with fruitless labour tir’d,
All that the learned and the wise can find
Is but a vain disturbance of the mind,
A sense of mans inevitable woes,
Which he but little feels, who little knows;
Or hath a blot of good impressions made,
Or good, victorious as the morning light,
Triumph over the vanquisht opposite
For both at once abide not in one place,
Good knowledge flies from them who ill embrace.
So were our parents fill’d with guilt and fear,
When in the groves they Gods approaches hear,
And from the terrour of his presence fled;
Whether their own convictions caus’d their dread,
For inward guilt of conscience might suffice
To chace vile sinners from his purer eyes;
Or nature felt an angry Gods descent,
Which shook the earth, and tore the firmament,
We are not told, nor will too far enquire.
Lightnings and tempests might speak forth his ire.
For at the day of universal doom
The great Judge shall in flaming vengeance come;
And funeral blazes every Turret crown.
Loud fragors shall firm rocks in sunder rend,
Vomiting cinders, sulphur, pitch, and flame,
Which shall consume the worlds unjoynted frame,
And turn the Paradises we admire
But God then, in his rich grace, did delay
These dismal terrors, till the last great day.
Yet even his first approach created dread,
And the poor mortals from his anger fled;
Until a calmer voice their sense did greet.
The sense of Love brings home the fugitives.
Thence into hate, till black hell close up all.
That milder voyce, first doth their mad flight stay,
Then love that was forsaking them before
Returns with a more flaming strong desire
Of those sweet joys from which it did retire,
And all those plagues that can a poor soul wound.
While thus this love with holy ardour burns,
And prostrate at his throne of grace doth lie,
And in its kind embraces keep alive
A gentler fire, than what it lately felt
Under the sense of wrath. The soul doth melt,
Like precious Ore, which when men would refine
Doth in its liquefaction brightly shine;
In cleansing penitential meltings so
Foul sinners once again illustrious grow,
Now though Gods wrath bring not the sinner home,
Yet is it necessary that the sense
That we may it with fuller joy embrace;
Which when it brings a frighted wretch from hell
As he more clearly Gods sweet mercy sees,
And God at first reveals not all his grace,
That men more ardently may seek his face,
Averted by their folly and their pride,
Which makes them their confounded faces hide.
As still the Sun’s the same behind the clouds,
Which doth not all at once it self reveal,
But first in the thick shadows that conceal
Its glory, doth attenuation cause;
Then the black, dismal curtain softly draws,
A truce with misery, rather than release.
Thus had not God come in, mankind had died
Without repair, yet came he first to chide,
To urge their sin, with its sad consequence,
And make them feel the weight of their offence.
To’ examine and arraign them at his bar,
And shew them what vile criminals they were:
But ah! our utterance here is choak’d with woe,
With tardy steps from Paradise we go.
Then let us pause on our lost joys a while
Before we enter on our sad exile.