Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPISTLE TO A GENTLEMAN OF THE TEMPLE, by JOHN BYROM


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EPISTLE TO A GENTLEMAN OF THE TEMPLE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sir, upon casting an attentive look
Last Line: The bishop, and us all! I am, sir,—yours.
Subject(s): Capital Punishment; Death; Gentlemen; Heaven; Life; Spiritual Life; Hanging; Executions; Death Penalty; Dead, The; Paradise


SIR, upon casting an attentive look
Over your friend, the learned Sherlock's, book,
One thing occurs about the FALL OF MAN,
That does not suit with the Mosaic plan;
Nor gives us fairly, in its full extent,
The scripture doctrine of that dire event.

When tempted Adam, yielding to deceit,
Presum'd of the forbidden tree to eat.
The Bishop tells us, That he did not die:
Pray will you ask him, Sir, the Reason why?

Why he would contradict the sacred text,
Where death to sin so surely is annex'd?
"The day thou eatest"—are the words, you know;
And yet, by his account, it was not so;
Death did not follow, tho' it surely would:
How will he make this hardy comment good?

Sentence, says he, was respited—But, pray,
Where does the Scripture such a saying say?
What word, that means to respite or revoke,
Appears in all that God or Moses spoke?

It will be said, perhaps, "now it appears
"That Adam liv'd above nine Hundred years
"After his fall"—True;—But what life was that?
The very death, Sir, which his fall begat.
The Life, which Adam was created in,
Was lost the day, the instant of his sin.
Just as the rebel angels, when they fell,
Were dead to Heav'n, altho' alive to Hell;
So Man, no longer breathing heav'nly breath,
Fell to this life, and died the Scripture Death.

While in the state of innocence he stood,
He was all living, beautiful, and good:
But when he fed on the forbidden fruit,
Whereof corruption was the latent Root,
He died to Paradise, and, by a birth
That should not have been rais'd, he liv'd to earth;
Fell into bestial flesh, and blood, and bones,
Amongst the thorns and briars, rocks and stones.
That which had cloth'd him, when a child of light,
With all its lustre, was extinguish'd quite;
Naked, asham'd, confounded, and amaz'd,
With other eyes, on other scenes he gaz'd.
All sensibility of heav'nly bliss
Departing from him—what a Death was this!

His soul, indeed, as an immortal fire,
Could never die, could never not desire:
But, Sir, he had, what glorious angels claim,
A heav'nly spirit, and a heav'nly frame;
Form'd in the likeness of the Sacred THREE,
He stood immortal, powerful, and free;
Image of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
The destin'd sire of a new heav'nly host;
Partner of their communicated breath,
A living soul, unsubjected to death.
Since, then, he fell from this sublime estate,
Could less than death have been his real fate?
No; as in life he chose not to abide,
It must be said, that Adam surely died.

Say, that "he died not, as it was foretold,
"But when nine Hundred years and thirty old;"
And then, if death be sentence for a fall,
How proves the Bishop that he died at all?
For if the death he talks of be this last,
How does that answer to the sentence pass'd?
Was his departure from this world the time
That our first father suffer'd for his crime?
One rather should believe, or hope at least,
That (so be it!) his sufferings then ceas'd;
And that the life, which had been lost at first,
Was then regain'd, and he no longer curst.

If on the Bishop's scutcheon, when he dies,
(Long be the time deferr'd!) the mourning eyes
Should read MORS VITAE JANUA, in paint,
What must they think him,—sinner, then, or saint?
Must not these words direct them to suppose
An end of all a Christian Bishop's woes;
Who like to Adam, father of mankind,
Had pass'd his time of penitence enjoin'd;
Who, like to CHRIST, the second Adam too,
Had always had redemption in his view;
Had taught himself and others to revive
From "dead in Adam" to "in Christ alive;"
Had been as true a shepherd to his flock,
As the poor hind that really wears a frock;
So trod this earthly passage, that, in sum,
Death was to him the gate of life become?

"Gate of what life?"—Undoubtedly the same
Which Adam fell from, when he first became
A creature of this world; when first he fell,—
Thanks to Divine Foregoodness!—not to hell,
But to this earth—this state of time and place,
Where, dead by Nature, man revives by Grace;
Where, tho' his outward system must decay,
His inward ripens to eternal day;
Puts off th' Old Adam, and puts on the New;
And having found the first sad sentence true,
Now finds the truth of what the second said,
"The woman's Seed shall bruise the serpent's head."

Again—to urge the instance that I gave,—
Attend we this good Bishop to his grave:
The priest comes forth to meet the sable hearse,
And then repeats the well-appointed verse;
Verse, one would think, that might decide the Strife:
I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE—

What life is that, which JESUS is and gives,
In and by which the true believer lives?
That of this world? Then were it must absurd
To a dead Bishop to apply the word.
'Tis that which human nature had before;
Which, being Christ's, Christ only can restore.
What meaning is there, touching the deceas'd,
Now from the burden of the flesh releas'd,
But that his soul is going to be clad
With heavenly flesh and blood, which Adam had,
Before he enter'd into that which Paul
"Body of death" might very justly call?
A flesh and blood, that, as he hints elsewhere,
Not born from Heav'n, can never enter there:
Mass of this world, whose kingdom Christ disclaim'd,
The life of whereof is but a life so nam'd;
A life of animal and insect breath,
Which, in a man, is rightly styl'd a death.

Thus, Sir, throughout the Burial Office run,
You'll find that it proceeds as it begun.
Read any office—Baptism, if you will—
From first to last, you'll find the reason still,
Why any, or why all of them are read;
Reason of all that's either sung or said,
Is by this one great solemn truth explain'd,
Of life in Adam lost, in CHRIST regain'd:
Lost at the fall—not at the end of years
That Adam labour'd in this vale of tears,
When death thro' Christ was happy, 'tis presum'd,
And vanquish'd that to which he first was doom'd.

Doom'd—not by any act of wrath in God;—
A point wherein the Bishop seems to nod.
No death of pure, of tainted life no pain,
Did His severe inflicting will ordain.
He is all glory, goodness, light, and love,
LIFE that from Him no creature can remove;
But from itself it may, as Adam did,
If it will choose what light and love forbid.
Truly forewarn'd of what would truly be,
His life was poison'd by the mortal tree:
He ate—he fell—he died—'tis all the same;
One loss of life under a triple name.

No test was made, by positive command,
Merely to try if he would fall or stand,
Like that—the serpentine Satanic snare—
Of which the man was bidden to beware.
"Eat not thereof, or thou wilt surely die,"
Was spoken to prevent, and not to try;
To guard the man against his subtle foe,
Who sought to teach him "what 'twas death to know."

Death to his pristine, spirit-life divine,
And separation from its sacred shrine;
The pure, unmix'd, incorruptible throne,
Wherein God's image first embodied shone.
Tho' form'd to rule the new created scene,
Built from the Chaos of a former reign;
To bring the wonders of this world to view,
And ancient glories to an orb renew;
He also had,—as being to command
See and be seen, in this new-formed land,
This intermediate temporary life,
Where, only, good and evil are at strife,—
Outward corporeal form, whereby he saw,
And heard, and spoke, and gave to all things law;
They none to him.—His far superior mind
Was, as he pleas'd, united or disjoin'd:
So far united, that all good was gain'd;
So far disjoin'd, that evil was restrain'd:
It could not reach him—for, before his fall,
Nothing could hurt this human lord of all;
No more than Satan or the serpent could,
If in his first creation he had stood.

Such was his blest estate—wherein is found
Of Adam's happy ignorance the ground.
His outward body and each outward thing,
From whence alone both good and ill could spring,
Could not affect, while he was free from sin,
The life of the celestial man within.
Glorious condition! Which, howe'er, imply'd
That man, at first plac'd in it, must be try'd:
Not from God's will or arbitrary voice;
His trial follow'd from his pow'r of choice:
God will'd him that, himself was to re-will,
And the Divine Intentions to fulfil;
To use his outward body as a means,
Whereby to raise in time and place the scenes
That should restore the once angelic orb,
And all its evil, introduc'd, absorb.

Evil, that, prior to the fall of man,
From him, whose name in Heav'n is lost, began.
Moses has plainly hinted at the fiend,
Whose malice in a borrow'd shape was screen'd,
Who, under reason's plausible disguise,
Taught our first parents to be worldly wise:
Succeeding lights have risen up to shew
Of God and man, more openly, the foe.

He, once a thron'd Archangel, had the sway
Far as this orb of our created day;
Where then no sun was wanted to give light,
No moon to cheer yet undiscover'd night;
Immensely luminous his total sphere,
All glory, beauty, brightness, ev'ry where:
Ocean of bliss, a limpid chrystal sea,
Whose height and depth its angels might survey;
Call forth its wonders, and enjoy the trance
Of joys perpetual thro' its whole expanse:
Ravishing forms arising without end
Would, in obedience to their wills, ascend;
Change, and unfold fresh glories to their view,
And tune the Hallelujah song anew.

If, when we cast a thoughtful, thankful eye
Towards the beauties of an ev'ning sky,
Calm we admire, thro' the ethereal field,
The various scenes that even clouds can yield;
What vast delight must nature's fund afford,
Where all the rich realities are stor'd,
Which God produces from its vast abyss,
To His own glory and His creatures' bliss?

His glory, first, all nature must display,
Else how to bliss could creatures know the way?
Order, thro' all eternity, requires,
That to His will they subject their desires;
That, with all meekness, the created mind
Be to the Fountain of its life resign'd;
Think, speak, and act in all things for his sake;
This is the true perfection of its make.

Both men and Angels must have wills their own,
Or God and nature were to them unknown:
'Tis their capacity of life and joy,
Which none but they can ruin or destroy.
God, in himself, was, is and will be good,
And all around pour fort th' enriching flood.
From Him—tis nature's and religion's creed—
Nothing but Good can possibly proceed.
That creature only, whose recipient will
Shuts itself up within itself, is ill:
Good cannot dwell in such a harden'd clay,
But stagnates, and evaporates away.

Thus when the regent of th' angelic host,
That fell, began within himself to boast;
Began, endow'd with his Creator's pow'rs
That nothing could resist, to call them "Ours;"
To spread thro' his wide ranks the impious term,
And they their leader's doctrine to confirm;
Then self, then evil, then apostate war
Rag'd thro' their hierarchy wide and far;
Kindled to burn, what they esteem'd a rod,
The meekness and subjection to a God.
Resolv'd to pay no hymning homage more,
Nor, in an orbit of their own, adore;
All right of Heave'n's Eternal King abjur'd,
They thought one region to themselves secur'd;
One out of three, where Majesty Divine
Shone in its glorious Outbirth Unitrine;
Shone and will shine eternally, altho'
Angels or men the shining bliss forego.

Straight, with this proud imagination fir'd,
To self-dominion strongly they aspir'd;
Bent all their wills, irrevocably bent,
To bring about their devilish intent.
How ought we mortals to beware of pride,
That such great angels could so far misguide!
No sooner was this horrible attempt,
From all obedience to remain exempt,
Put forth to act, but instantly thereon
Heav'n, in the swiftness of a thought, was gone;
From love's beatifying pow'r estrang'd,
They found their life, their bliss, their glory chang'd.
That state, wherein they were resolv'd to dwell,
Sprung from their lusting, and became their Hell.

Thinking to rise above the God of All
The wretches fell, with an eternall fall,
In depths of slavery, without a shelf;—
There is no stop in self-tormenting self.
Just as a wheel, that's running down a hill
Which has no bottom, must keep running still,
So down their own proclivity to wrong,
Urg'd by impetuous pride, they whirl along;
Their own dark, fiery, working spirits tend
Farther from God, and farther to descend.

He made no Hell to place his angels in;
They stirr'd the fire that burnt them, by their sin;
The bounds of nature and of order broke,
And all the wrath that follow'd them awoke.
Their own disorder'd raging was their pain;
Their own unbending harden'd strength their chain;
Renouncing God, with their eternal might,
They sunk their legions into endless night.

Meanwhile the glorious kingdom, where they dwelt,
Th' effect of their rebellious workings felt;
Its clear materiality, and pure,
Could not the force of raging fiends endure;
Its elements, all heav'nly in their kind
In one harmonious system when combin'd,
Were now disclos'd, divided, and opaque;
Their glassy sea became a stormy lake;
The height and depth of their angelic world
Was nought but ruins upon ruins hurl'd.
Chaos arose, and, with its gloomy sweep
Of dark'ning horrors, overspread the deep;
All was confusion, order all defac'd,
Tohu, and Bohu, the deformed waste.
Till the Almighty's gracious fiat came,
And stopp'd the spreading of the hellish flame;
Put to each fighting principle the bar,
And calm'd, by just degrees, th' intestine war.
Light, at His word, th' abating tempest cheer'd;
Earth, sea, and land, sun, moon, and stars appear'd;
Creatures of ev'ry kind, and food for each;
And various beauties clos'd the various breach:
Nature's six properties had each their day,
Lost Heav'n, as far as might be, to display;
And in the sev'nth, or body of them all,
To rest from—what they yet must prove—a fall.

For had not this disorder'd chaos been;
Had not these angels caus'd it by their sin;
Nor had compacted earth, nor rock, nor stone,
Nor gross materiality been known.
All that in fire or water, earth or air,
May now their noxious qualities declare,
As unknown in Heav'n as sin or crime,
And only last for purifying time:
Till the great end, for which we all came here,
Till God's restoring goodness shall appear.
Then, as the rebel creatures' false desire
Awak'd in nature the chaotic fire;
So when Redeeming Love has found a race
Of creatures worthy of the heav'nly place,
Then shall another fire enkindled rise,
And purge from ill these temporary skies;
Purge from the world its deadness and its dross,
And of lost Heav'n recover all the loss.

Why look we then with such a longing eye
On what this world can give us or deny;
Of man and angel laps'd the sad remains?
It has its pleasures—but it has its pains.
It has, (what speaks it, would we but attend,
Not our design'd felicity) an end.
Sons of eternity, tho' born on earth,
There is within us a celestial birth;
A life that waits the efforts of our mind,
To raise itself within this outward rind.
This husk of ours, this stately stalking clod,
Is not the body that we have from God;
Of good and evil 'tis the mortal crust,
Fruit of Adamical and Eval lust;
By which the man, when heav'nly life was ceas'd,
Became a helpless, naked, biped beast:
Forc'd, on a cursed earth, to sweat and toil,
To brutes a native, Him a foreign, soil;
And, after all his years employ'd to know
The satisfactions of a life so low,
Nine hundred, or nine hundred thousand, past,
Another death to come, and hell at last—
—But for that new mysterious birth of life;
That Promis'd Seed to Adam and his wife;
That quick'ning Spirit to a poor dead soul;
Not part of scripture doctrine, but the whole;
Which writers, figuring away, have left
A mere dead letter, of all sense bereft;
But for that only help of man forlorn,
The incarnation of the VIRGIN-BORN.

This Serpent—Bruiser, Son of God and man,
Who, from the first, His saving work began,
Revers'd, in full maturity of time,
In his own SACRED PERSON, Adam's crime;
Brought human nature from its deadly fall,
And made salvation possible for all.

Without acknowledging that Adam died,
Scripture throughout is, in effect, denied;
All the whole process of Redeeming love,
Of life, of light, and Spirit from above,
Loses, by learning's piteous pretence
Of Modes and Metaphors, its real sense;
All the glad tidings, in the gospel found,
Are sunk in empty and unmeaning sound.
If, by the first man's sin, we understand
Only some breach of absolute command
Half-punish'd, half-remitted, by a grace
Like that which takes in human acts a place;
The more we write, the more we still expose
The christian doctrine to its reas'ning foes.
But, once convinc'd that Adam, by his crime,
Fell from eternal life to that of time;
Stood on the brink of death eternal too,
Unless created unto life anew,
Then ev'ry reason teaches us to see
How all the truths of sacred writ agree;
How life restor'd arises from the grave;
How man could perish, and how CHRIST could save.

Man perish'd by the deadly food he took,
And needs must lose the life that he forsook,
Not unadvis'd.—The moment he inclin'd
To this inferior life his nobler mind,
God kindly warn'd him to continue fed
With food of Paradise, with angels' bread;
To shun the tree, the knowledge, whose sad leav'n
Would quench in him the light and life of Heav'n;
Strip him of that angelical array,
Which thro' his outward body spread the day;
Kept it from ev'ry curse of sin and shame,
From all those evils that had yet no name;
That prov'd, alas! when he would not refrain,
The loss of Adam's proper life too plain.
Who can suppose that God would e'er forbid
To eat what would not hurt him if he did;
Fright his lov'd creature by a false alarm;
Or make what, in itself, was harmless harm?

O how much better he from whom I draw,—
Tho' deep, yet clear his system,—Master LAW!
"Master" I call him; not that I incline
To pin my faith on any one divine;
But, man or woman, whosoe'er it be,
That speaks true doctrine, is a Pope to me.
Where truth alone is interest and aim,
Who would regard a person or a name?
Or, in the search of it impartial, scoff
Or scorn the meanest instrument thereof?

Pardon me, Sir, for having dar'd to dwell
Upon a truth already told so well;
Since diff'rent ways of telling may excite,
In diff'rent minds, attention to what's right;
And men—I measure by myself—sometimes,
Averse to reas'ning, may be taught by rhimes;
If where one fails, they will not take offence
Nor quarrel with the words, but seek the sense.

Life, death, and such-like words, in scripture found,
Have certainly a higher, deeper ground,
Than that of this poor perishable ball,
Whereon men doat, as if it were their all;
As if they were like Warburtonian Jews,
Or, Christians nam'd, had still no higher views;
As if their years had never taught them sense
Beyond—"It is all one a hundred hence."

'Twas of such worldlings that our Saviour said
To one of his disciples, Let the dead
Bury their dead: But do thou follow me.
He makes no more distinction, Sir, you see,
But that, with ref'rence to a life so brute,
The speaking carcases interr'd the mute.

Life, to conclude, was lost in Adam's fall,
Which CHRIST, our Resurrection, will recall:
And, as death came into the world by sin,
Where one began, the other must begin.
Why will the learned sages use their art,
From scripture truth, so widely, to depart?
But, above all, a Bishop, grave and wise,—
Why will he shut, against plain text, his eyes;
Not see that Heav'n's prediction never lied;
That Adam fell by eating, sinn'd, and died
A real death, as much as loss of sight
Is death to ev'ry circumstance of light?
Tho' a blind man may feel his way and grope,
Or for recover'd eyes be made to hope;
We might as well set glasses on his nose,
And sight, from common helps of sight, suppose,
As say, when Adam's heav'nly life was kill'd,
That sentence was not instantly fulfill'd.

Persuade your mitred friend, then, if you can,
To re-consider, Sir, the fall of man;
To see and own the depth of it; because,
'Till that is done, we may as well pick straws,
As talk of what, and who the serpent was
That brought the fall, not understood, to pass.

One thing he was, Sir,—be what else he will—
A critic, that employ'd his fatal skill
To cavil upon words, and take away
The sense of that which was as plain as day.
And thus the world, at present, by his wiles,
Tho' not in outward shape, he still beguiles;
Seeking to turn, by comments low and lax,
The word of God into a nose of wax;
To take away the marrow and the pith.
Of all that Scripture can present us with.
May Heav'n deliver, from his winding tours,
The Bishop, and us all! I am, Sir,—Yours.





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