Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH COLONIAL LITERATURE
CXLIII
God hath no joy to crush or ‘stroy,
and ruine wretched wights:
But to display the glorious ray
of Justice he delights.
To manifest he doth detest
and throughly hate all sin,
By plaguing it, as is most t,
this shall him glory win.
CXLIV
Then at the Bar arraigned are
an impudenter sort,
Who to evade the guilt that’s laid
upon them, thus retort;
How could we cease thus to transgress?
how could we Hell avoid,
Whom God’s Decree shut out from thee,
and sign’d to be destroy’d?
CXLV
Whom God ordains to endless pains
by Laws unalterable,
Repentance true, Obedience new,
to save such are unable:
Sorrow for sin no good can win
to such as are rejected;
Ne can they give, not yet believe
that never were elected.
CXLVI
Of man’s faln Race who can true Grace
or Holiness obtain?
Who can convert or change his heart,
if God with-hold the same?
Had we apply’d our selves, and tri’d
as much as who did most
Gods love to gain, our busie pain
and labour had been lost.
CXLVII
Christ readily makes this reply;
I damn you not because
You are rejected, or not elected;
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