Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe With His Vision of the Angelick World

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

The dangers of the dreadful voyage t’ explore, Enters the very place, and when ‘tis there, Sends back expresses to support us here, Negotiates peace, gains the great pledge of love,

And gets it ratified above.

With awful confidence at Heaven’s high throne, It rather humbly claims than merely prays. Pleads, promises, and calls them all its own,

And trusts to have, even then, when Heaven denies.

On earth what wonders has it wrought! Rather what wonders has it not?

It has parted rivers, dried up seas, Made hills of those, and walls of these.

And if to this great mountain it should say, “Move off, O hill, and roll to yonder sea, The sea and mountain, too, must both obey. If towards heaven it looks, ‘tis ne’er in vain,

From thence ‘t has brought down fire, ‘t has brought down rain,

And thither it ascends in flame again.

Its influence is so vigorous and intense,

It pierces all the negatives of sense. Things quite invisible to sight it sees, Things difficult performs with ease: Things imperceptible to us it knows, Things utterly impossible it does: Things unintelligible it understands,

Things high (superior to itself) commands, Things in themselves unnatural reconciles, Weakness to strength, and to its

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sorrows smiles, Hopes against hope, and in despair ‘s resigned, And spite of storms without, it calms the mind.

Say, unborn lamp, what feeds thy flame, In all varieties the same?

What wonder-working hand thy power supplies? Nature and reason’s just surprise.

Nature and reason join thee hand in hand, And to thy just dominion stoop the mind:

But neither can thy workings understand,

And in thy swifter pace thou leav’st them both behind.

’T was from thy motion fortified by thee, Peter asked leave to walk upon the sea,

When his great Lord said, “Come,” and Faith said, “Go,” What heart could fear?

What coward tongue say, no? Boldly he stept upon the flowing wave, )

And might have marched through fire or through the grave,

While He stood by who had the power to save. ) But soon as Peter lost his hold of thee,

He sunk like lead into the sea.

All thy magnetic power disperst and gone,

The heavenly charm was broke, and Peter quite undone;

And had not help been just at hand, Peter had gone the nearest way to land.

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SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

Made up of wonders, and on wonders fixed, Of contradicting qualities thou ‘rt mixed. Small as a grain, yet as a mountain great,

A child in growth, yet as a giant strong; A beggar, yet above a king in state:

Of birth but short, yet in duration long. How shall we reconcile thee to our sense?

Here thou would’st pass for mere impertinence. Thy teasing nature would thy end defeat,

So humble, and yet so importunate.

See the great test of faith, the greatest sure, That Heaven e’er put a mortal to endure.

She cried, she begged, nay, she believed and prayed, Yet long neglected, and as long denied;

At last, as if commanded to despair,

She ‘s almost told it was not in His power, That she was out of His commission placed,

Shut out by Heaven, by race accurst.

Woman! I am not sent to thee! Woman! thou hast no share in Me!

Was ever creature born, but this, could hear Such words proclaimed from Heaven and not despair?

But still she prays, adheres, petitions, cries, And on the Hand that thrusts her back relies: Till moved, as ‘t were, with her impertinence, He calls her dog, and challenges her sense, To tell her whether such as she are fed,

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With food appropriate, or the household bread.

But all was one; her faith so often tried, Too strong to fail, too firm to be denied:

She follows still, allows her outcast state, The more thrust off, the more importunate: Every repulse she meets, revives her prayer.

And she builds hope because she ‘s bid despair; He call her dog, she calls herself so too,

But pleads as such the fragments that are due.

The case so doubtful, the repulse so long, Her sex so weak, and yet her faith so strong,

Heaven yields! The victory of faith ‘s obtained, And all she asked, and all she sought for, gained.

Mysterious flame! tell us from whence Thou draw’st that cleaving confidence,

That strange, that irresistible desire.

That with such magic force sets all the soul on fire; By which thou can’st to Heaven itself apply,

In terms which Heaven itself cannot deny.

A power so great, an influence so sure,

Not Heaven itself the wrestlings can endure. See how the struggling angel yields the day, When Jacob’s faith bids Jacob pray.

Let me alone, the heavenly vision cries.

No, no, says conquering faith, never without my prize. Heaven yields! Victorious faith prevailed, And all the bless-

ings asked for he entailed.

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SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

Blest humble confidence, that finds the way To know we shall be heard before we pray; Heav’n’s high insurance-office, where we give The premium faith, and then the grant receive.

Stupendous gift! from what strange spring below, Can such a supernatural product flow?

From Heaven, and Heaven alone it must derive; For Heaven alone can keep its flame alive.

No spring below can send out such a stream, No fire below emit so bright a flame,

Of nature and original divine,

It does all other gifts of Heaven outshine.

Thou art the touchstone of all other grace, No counterfeits can keep thy pace.

The weighty standard of our best desires,

The true sublime, which every breast inspires, By thee we rise to such a height of flame,

As neither thought can reach nor language name, Such as St Paul himself could hardly know, Whether he really was alive or no:

When clothed in raptures lifted up by thee, He saw by faith, what none without it see.

Just Heaven, that in thy violence delights, And easily distinguishes thy flights

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From the thin outside warmth of hypocrites, Approves, accepts, rewards, and feeds thy flame, And gives this glorious witness to thy fame, That all our gifts are hallowed by thy name.

By thee our souls on wings of joy ascend,

Climb the third heaven, an entrance there demand* As sure those gates to thee shall open wide,

As without thee we ‘re sure to be denied.

No bars, no bolts, no flaming swords appear, To shock thy confidence, or move thy fear.

To thee the patent passage always

Peter himself received the keys from thee;

Or, which we may conceive with much more ease, Thou art thyself the gate, thyself the keys.

Thine was the fiery chariot, thine the steeds, That fetched Elijah from old Jordan’s plains; Such a long journey such a voiture needs, And thou the steady coachman held the reins.

Thine was the wondrous mantle he threw down, By which successive miracles were wrought; For ‘twas the prophet’s faith, and not his gown, Elisha so importunately sought.

Bright pole-star of the soul, for ever fixed,

The mind’s sure guide, when anxious and perplexed; When wandering in the abyss of thoughts and cares, Where no way out and no way in appears;

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SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

When doubt and horror, the extremes of fear, Surround the soul, and prompt her to despair.

Thou shin’st aloft, open’st a gleam of light, And show’st all heaven to our sight;

Thou gild’st the soul with sudden smiles, and joy, And peace, that hell itself can ne’er destroy.

If all this be to be said, and all indeed but a poetical trifle upon this exalted subject, what is become of our negative Christian in all this? There is not a word of negative religion in all the description of faith, any more than there is of faith in all our negative religion.

Now let us follow this poor negative wretch to his deathbed; and there having very little other notion of religion — for ‘tis the fate of those that trust to their negatives to have little else in their thoughts — if a good man come to talk with him, if he talks out of that way he puts him all into confusion; for if he cannot swim upon the bladders of his negatives he drowns immediately, or he buoys himself up above your reproofs, and goes on as before. He is a little like the Polish Captain Uratz, who was executed for the murder of Mr. Thynne, who, when they talked to him of repentance and of Jesus Christ, said he was of such and such a family, and he hoped God would have some respect to him as a gentleman.

But what must a poor minister do who, being filled with better principles, prays for this vainglorious man? Must he say,

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“ Lord, accept this good man, for he has been no drunkard, no swearer, no debauched person; he has been a just, a charitable man, has done a great deal of good among his neighbours, and never wilfully wronged any man; he has not been so wicked as it is the custom of the times to be, nor has he shown bad examples to others; Lord, be merciful to this excellent good man “?

No, no, the poor sincere minister knows better things; and if he prays with him, he turns him quite inside out, represents him as a poor mistaken creature, who now sees that he is nothing, and has nothing in himself, but casts himself entirely, as a miserable lost sinner, into the arms of a most merciful Saviour, praying to be accepted on the merits of Jesus Christ, and no other; so that there is all his negative bottom unravelled at once; and if this is not his case it must be worse.

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CHAPTER FIVE

OF LISTENING TO THE VOICE

OF PROVIDENCE

WE are naturally backward to inform ourselves of our duty to our Maker and to ourselves; it is a study we engage in with great reluctance, and it is but too agreeable to us, when we meet with any difficulty which we think gives us a just occasion to throw off any farther inquiries of that kind.

Hence I observe the wisest of men often run into mistakes about the things which, speaking of religion, we call duty, taking up slight notions of them, and believing they understand enough of them, by which they rob themselves of the advantages as well as comfort of a farther search; or, on the other hand, taking up with the general knowledge of religious principles, and the common duties of a Christian life, are satisfied with knowing what they say is sufficient to carry them to heaven, without inquiring into those things which are helpful and assistant to make that strait path easy and pleasant to themselves, and to make them useful to others by the way.

Solomon was quite of another opinion, when he bid us cry after knowledge, and lift up our voice for understanding dig for

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her as for silver, and search for her as for hid treasure. It is certain here that he meant religious knowledge, and it is explained in the very next words, with an encouraging promise to those that shall enter upon the search, viz., Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

I am of opinion that it is our unquestioned duty to inquire after everything in our journey to the eternal habitation which God has permitted us to know, and thus to raise difficulties in the way of our just search into Divine discoveries, is to act like Solomon’s sluggard, who saith, “ There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets” (Prov. xxii. 13). That is, he sits down in his ignorance, repulsed with imaginary difficulties, without making one step in the search after the knowledge which he ought to dig for as for hid treasure.

Let us, then, be encouraged to our duty; let us boldly inquire after everything that God has permitted us to know. I grant that secret things belong to God, and I shall labour to keep my due distance; but I firmly believe that there are no secret things belonging to God, and which as such we are forbidden to inquire into, but what also are so preserved in secrecy that by all our inquiries we cannot arrive at the knowledge of them; and it is a most merciful, as well as wise dispensation, that we are only forbid inquiring after those things which we cannot know, and that all those things are effectually locked up from our knowledge which we are forbidden to inquire into. The case is better with us than it was with Adam. We have not the tree of knowledge first planted in our view, as it were

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