They might for virtue strive; but I maintain, Our strife for virtue would be proud and vain. When Samson carried Gaza's gates so far, Lack'd he a helping hand to bear the bar? Thus the most virtuous must in bondage groan: 300 Samson is grace, and carries all alone[48]. "Hear you not priests their feeble spirits spend In bidding sinners turn to God, and mend; To check their passions, and to walk aright; To run the race, and fight the glorious fight? Nay more--to pray, to study, to improve, To grow in goodness, to advance in love? "Oh! babes and sucklings, dull of heart and slow, Can grace be gradual? Can conversion grow? The work is done by instantaneous call; 310 Converts at once are made, or not at all; Nothing is left to grow, reform, amend; The first emotion is the movement's end: If once forgiven, debt can be no more; If once adopted, will the heir be poor? The man who gains the twenty-thousand prize, Does he by little and by little rise? There can no fortune for the soul be made By peddling cares and savings in her trade. "Why are our sins forgiven?--Priests reply, 320 --'Because by faith on mercy we rely; Because, believing, we repent and pray,'-- Is this their doctrine?--then, they go astray: We're pardon'd neither for belief nor deed, For faith nor practice, principle nor creed; Nor for our sorrow for our former sin, Nor for our fears when better thoughts begin; Nor prayers nor penance in the cause avail; All strong remorse, all soft contrition fail:-- It is the _call!_ till that proclaims us free, 330 In darkness, doubt, and bondage we must be; Till that _assures_ us, we've in vain endured, And all is over when we're once assured. "This is conversion:--First, there comes a cry Which utters, 'Sinner, thou'rt condemned to die;' Then the struck soul to every aid repairs, To church and altar, ministers and prayers; In vain she strives--involved, ingulf'd in sin, She looks for hell, and seems already in: When in this travail, the new birth comes on, 340 And in an instant every pang is gone; The mighty work is done without our pains-- Claim but a part, and not a part remains. "All this experience tells the soul, and yet } These moral men their pence and farthings set } Against the terrors of the countless debt. } But such compounders, when they come to jail, Will find that virtues never serve as bail. "So much to duties; now to learning look, And see their priesthood piling book on book; 350 Yea, books of infidels, we're told, and plays, Put out by heathens in the wink'd-on days; The very letters are of crooked kind, And show the strange perverseness of their mind. Have I this learning? When the Lord would speak,