Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UNIVERSAL GOOD, THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE WILL; AND EVIL, by JOHN BYROM


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UNIVERSAL GOOD, THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE WILL; AND EVIL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The god of love, delighting to bestow
Last Line: May both be found self-evidently true.
Subject(s): Good; Gratitude; Love


THE God of love, delighting to bestow,
Sends down his blessing to the world below:
A grateful mind receives it, and above
Sends up thanksgiving to the God of love:
This happy intercourse could never fail,
Did not a false, perverted will prevail.

For love divine, a rightly understood,
Is an unalterable will to good:
Good is the object of His blessed will,
Who never can concur to real ill;
Much less decree, predestinate, ordain—
Words oft employ'd to take His name in vain.

"But he permits it to be done," say you—
Plain, then, I answer, that He does not do;
That, having will'd created angels free,
He still permits or wills them so to be;
Were His permission ask'd, before they did
An evil action, He would soon forbid.

Before the doing He forbids indeed,
But disobedient creatures take no heed:
If He, according to your present plea,
Withdraws his grace, and so they disobey,
The fault is laid on Him, not them at all;
For who can stand whom He shall thus let fall?

Our own neglect must be the previous cause,
When it is said the grace of God withdraws;
In the same sense, as when the brightest dawn,
If we will shut our windows, is withdrawn;
Not that the sun is ever the less bright,
But that our choice is not to see the light.

Free to receive the grace, or to reject,
Receives only can be God's elect;
Rejecters of it, reprobate alone,
Not by Divine Decree, but by their own:
His love to all, his willing none to sin,
Is a decree that never could begin.

It is the order, the eternal law,
The true free grace, that never can withdraw;
Observance of it will, of course, be blest,
And opposition to it self-distress'd;
To them, who love its gracious Author, all
Will work for good, according to St. Paul.

An easy key to each abstruser text,
That modern disputants have so perplex'd;
With arbitrary fancies on each side,
From God's pure love, or man's free-will denied;
Which, in the breast of saints, and sinners too,
May both be found self-evidently true.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net