The Storm. An Essay.

Terror appear'd in every Face,
Even Vile Blackbourn felt some shocks of Grace;
Began to feel the Hated Truth appear,
Began to fear,180
After he had Burlesqu'd a God so long,
He should at last be in the wrong.
Some Power he plainly saw,
(And seeing, felt a strange unusual Awe;)
Some secret Hand he plainly found,
Was bringing some strange thing to pass,
And he that neither God nor Devil own'd,
Must needs be at a loss to guess.
Fain he would not ha' guest the worst,
But Guilt will always be with Terror Curst.190

Hell shook, for Devils Dread Almighty Power,
At every Shock they fear'd the Fatal Hour,
The Adamantine Pillars mov'd,
And Satan's Pandemonium trembl'd too;
The tottering Seraphs wildly rov'd,
Doubtful what the Almighty meant to do;
For in the darkest of the black Abode,
There's not a Devil but believes a God.
Old Lucifer has sometimes try'd
To have himself be Deify'd;200
But Devils nor Men the Being of God deny'd,
Till Men of late found out New Ways to sin,
And turn'd the Devil out to let the Atheist in.
But when the mighty Element began,
And Storms the weighty Truth explain,
Almighty Power upon the Whirlwind Rode,
And every Blast proclaim'd aloud
There is, there is, there is, a God.

Plague, Famine, Pestilence, and War,
Are in their Causes seen,210
The true Originals appear
Before the Effects begin:
But Storms and Tempests are above our Rules,
Here our Philosophers are Fools.
The Stagyrite himself could never show,
From whence, nor how they blow.
Tis all Sublime, 'tis all a Mystery,
They see no Manner how, nor Reason why;
All Sovereign Being is the amazing Theme,
'Tis all resolv'd to Power Supreme;220
From this First Cause our Tempest came,
And let the Atheists spight of Sense Blaspheme,
They can no room for Banter find,
Till they produce another Father for the Wind.

Satyr, thy Sense of Sovereign Being Declare,
He made the Mighty Prince o'th' Air,
And Devils recognize him by their Fear.

Ancient as Time, and Elder than the Light,
Ere the First Day, or Antecedent Night,
Ere Matter into settl'd Form became,230
And long before Existence had a Name;
Before th' Expance of indigested Space,
While the vast No-where fill'd the Room of Place.
Liv'd the First Cause The First Great Where and Why,
Existing to and from Eternity,
Of His Great Self, and of Necessity.

This I call God, that One great Word of Fear,
At whose great sound,
When from his Mighty Breath 'tis eccho'd round,
Nature pays Homage with a trembling bow,240
And Conscious Men would faintly disallow;

The Secret Trepidation racks the Soul,
And while he says, no God, replies, thou Fool.
But call it what we will,
First Being it had, does Space and Substance fill.
Eternal Self-existing Power enjoy'd,
And whatsoe'er is so, That same is God.

If then it should fall out, as who can tell,
But that there is a Heaven and Hell,
Mankind had best consider well for fear250
'T should be too late when their Mistakes appear;
Such may in vain Reform,
Unless they do't before another Storm.

They tell us Scotland scap'd the Blast;
No Nation else have been without a Taste:
All Europe sure have felt the Mighty Shock,
'T has been a Universal Stroke.
But Heaven has other Ways to plague the Scots,
As Poverty and Plots.
Her Majesty Confirms it, what She said,260
I plainly heard it, tho' I'm dead.

The dangerous Sound has rais'd me from my Sleep,
I can no longer Silence keep,
Here Satyr's thy Deliverance,
A Plot in Scotland, Hatch'd in France,
And Liberty the Old Pretence.
Prelatick Power with Popish join,