CLXI.

“But Nature’s light shin’d not so bright   to teach us the right way: We might have lov’d it and well improv’d it,   and yet have gone astray.“ The Judge most High makes this Reply:   “You ignorance pretend. Dimness of sight, and want of light,   your course Heav’nward to bend.

CLXII. [135]

“How came your mind to be so blind?   I once you knowledge gave. Clearness of sight and judgment light:   who did the same deprave? If to your cost you have it lost,   and quite defac’d the same, Your own desert hath caus’d the smart;   you ought not me to blame.

CLXIII. [136]

“Yourselves into a pit of woe,   your own transgression led; If I to none my Grace had shown   who had been injured? If to a few, and not to you,   I shew’d a way of life, My Grace so free, you clearly see,   gives you no ground of strife.

CLXIV. [137]

“’Tis vain to tell, you wot fall well,   if you in time liad known Your misery and remedy,   your actions had it shown: You, sinful Crew, have not been true   unto the Light of Nature, Nor done the good you understood,   nor owned your Creator.

CLXV. [138]

“He that the Light, because ’tis slight,   hath uséd to despise, Would not the Light shining more bright,   be likely for a prize. If you had lov’d, and well improv’d   your knowledge and dim sight, Herein your pain ’had not been vain,   your plagues had been more light.“

_Reprobate Infants plead for themselves._

CLXVI. [139]

Then to the Bar all they drew near   Who died in infancy, And never had or good or bad   effected pers’nally: But from the womb unto the tomb   were straightway carried, (Or at the least ere they transgress’d)   who thus began to plead: