Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Order and Disorder. 1679.
Meditations on the Creation,
As recorded in the First Chapter of Genesis.
M
To sing those mystick wonders it admires,
Contemplating the Rise of every thing
That, with Times birth, flow’d from th’ eternal spring:
And the no less stupendious Providence
By which discording Natures ever since
Have kept up universal Harmonie;
While in one joynt obedience all agree,
Performing that to which they were design’d
With ready inclination; But Mankind
Which tho’ opposing he must yet fulfill.
And so that wise Power, who each crooked stream
Most rightly guides, becomes the glorious theam
Of endless admiration, while we see,
Whatever mortals vain endeavours be,
But my weak sense with the too glorious rays
Is struck with such confusion, that I find
Only the worlds first Chaos in my mind,
Where Light and Beauty lie wrapt up in seed,
And cannot be from the dark prison freed,
Except that Power, by whom the world was made,
My soul in her imperfect strugglings aid,
Her rude conceptions into forms dispose,
And words impart, which may those forms disclose.
O thou eternal spring of glory, whence
From whose Love issues every good desire,
Quicken my dull earth with celestial fire,
And let the sacred theam that is my choice,
Give utterance and musick to my voice,
What dark Eternity hath kept conceal’d
From mortals apprehensions, what hath been
Before the race of Time did first begin,
Let not my thoughts beyond their bound aspire,
Time limits mortals, and Time had its birth,
God, the great Elohim, to say no more,
Whose sacred Name we rather must adore
Easier we may the winds in prison shut,
The whole vast Ocean in a nut-shell put,
And with a Bullrush plumm the deepest Sea,
Than stretch frail humane thought unto the height
Of the great God, Immense, and Infinite,
Being at once in all, contain’d in none.
Yet as a hidden spring appears in streams,
The Sun is seen in its reflected beams,
Whose high embodied Glory is too bright,
Too strong an object for weak mortal sight;
While we considering each created thing,
Are led up to an uncreated spring,
And by gradations of successive Time,
As we in tracks of second causes tread
Unto the first uncaused cause are led;
And know, while we perpetual motion see
There must a first self-moving Power be,
Of Being, Life, and Motion, GOD we call;
In whom all Wisdome, Goodness, Glory, Might,
Whatever can himself or us delight
Unite, centring in his Perfection,
Divided Soveraignty makes neither great,
Wanting what’s shar’d to make the summ compleat.
The Tri-And yet this soveraign sacred Unitie
nity.Is not alone, for in this one are three,
One uncompounded, pure Divinity,
Wherein subsist so, the Mysterious three,
That they in Power and Glory equal be;
The Father first, eternally begets,
These three, distinctly thus, in one Divine,
Pure, Perfect, Self-supplying Essence shine:
Exteriourly, yet so, as every one,
In a peculiar manner suited to
Joy’d to fulfill the counsels which he knew.
In such harmonious and wise order set,
As universal Beauty did compleat.
This most mysterious Triple Unitie,
In Essence One, and in subsistence Three,
Was that great Elohim, who first design’d,
Then made the Worlds, that Angels and Mankind
And had no need of any thing beside,
Nor any other cause that did him move
To make a World, but his extensive Love,
It self delighting to communicate;
Its Glory in the creatures to dilate,
While they are led by their own excellence
By all their glories and their joys to his,
To the full magazine of rich supplies,
Where Power, Love, Justice, and Mercy shine
In their still fixed heights, and ne’re decline.
No streams can shrink the self-supplying spring,
Begins again a new, yet the same course
It instituted in Times infant birth,
Time.Time though it all things into motion bring
With the existence of the rolling sphere,
Before which neither time nor motion were.
Time being a still continued number, made
By the vicissitude of Light and Shade,
By the Moons growth, and by her waxing old,
By the successive Reign of heat and cold,
Thus leading back all ages to the womb
Of vast Eternity from whence they come,
And bringing new successions forth, until
Heaven its last revolutions shall fulfil,
And all things unto their first state restore,
But with the visible Heavens shall expire
Shall not be toucht by the devouring flame.
Treating of which, let’s wave Platonick dreams
Of Worlds made in Idea, fitter theams
For Poets fancies, than the reverent view
Of Contemplation, fixt on what is true
And only certain, kept upon record
In the Creators own revealed word,
Which when it taught us how our world was made,
Wrapt up th’ invisible in mystique shade.
Heaven.Yet through those clouds we see, God did create
A place his presence doth irradiate.
Illustrated with Lights unclouded beams,
Here Majesty and Grace together meet;
The Grace is glorious, and the Glory sweet.
To which the suppliant world addresses bring.
Here next him doth his Son in triumph fit,
Here their rich recompence and safe rest lies,
Yet not for this alone, though this excel,
But for that Diety who here doth dwell;
Did not their God afford his presence there;
But now, as he inhabits it, it is
No sable night the constant glory shrowds;
Nor needs there night, when no dull lassitude
Doth into the unwearied soul intrude;
New vigour flowing in with that dear joy
Whose contemplation doth their lives employ.
The first, if from the outside we begin,
Is incorruptible, and still the same,
No time its strong foundations can decay,
Its renew’d glory fadeth not away.
But this shall still unchangeable remain,
While all the rolling Spheres which it contains
Shall be again into their Chaos whirl’d
At the last dissolution of the world.
For God, who made this blessed place to be
The habitation of his Sanctitie,
Nothing that can corrupt, or can defile,
Never withdraws his gracious presence thence
Nor are his Gates ere shut by night or day,
His only dread keeps all foes far away.
He not for need, but for Majestick state,
Angels.Innumerable hosts of Angels did create
To be his outguards, in respect of whom
As in themselves, although in part we know,
Some scantlings by appearances below,
And sacred Writ, wherein we find there be
And chearful, swift obedience they fulfil;
Whether he them to save poor men employ,
Such condescension in Heavens Courtiers see,
That they who sit on heavenly thrones above,
Scorn not to serve poor worms with fervent Love?
And joyful praises to th’ Almighty sing,
How gracious is the Lord of all, that He
Should thus consider poor mortalitie,
Such powers for us, into those powers diffuse,
Such glorious servants, in our service, use?
Who whether they, with Light, or Heaven, had
Creation, were within the six days made.
But leave we looking through the vail, nor pry
Too long on things wrapt up in mystery,
When we shall up to their high mountain climb.
Besides th’ Empyrean heaven we are told
Of divers other heavens which we behold
Only by Reasons eye, yet were not they
If made at least distinguisht the first day.
Then from the height we cannot comprehend,
Let us to our inferiour world descend.
Earth’sThe Earth at first was a vast empty place,
Chaos.A rude congestion without form or grace,
Darkness the deep, the Deep the solid hid:
Where things did in unperfect Causes sleep,
Until Gods Spirit mov’d the quiet deep,
Brooding the creatures under wings of Love,
As tender birds hatcht by a Turtle Dove.
Light first of all its radiant wings display’d,
Whether it were the natures more divine,
Or the bright mansion where just souls must shine,
Or the first matter of those Tapers which
The since-made firmament do still enrich,
It is not yet agreed among the wise:
But thus the day did out of Chaos rise,
And casts its bright beams on the floating world,
O’re which soon envious night her black mists hurl’d,
Damping the new-born splendour for a space,
Till the next morning did her shadows chace:
With restor’d beauty and triumphant force,
Returning to begin another course,
An emblem of that everlasting feud
The wasting lights of mortal men begin;
Must all to sorrows, changes, death resign;
Even their wisdomes and their vertues light
Are hid by envies interposing night.
But though these splendors all in graves are thrown,
The Powers of Darkness may contend in vain,
It shall a conquerour rise and ever reign.
For when God the victorious morning view’d,
Approving his own work he said ’twas good:
And of inanimate creatures sure the best,
As that which shews and beautifies the rest,
Those melancholy thoughts which night creates
And seeds in mortal bosomes, dissipates:
In its own nature subtile, swift and pure,
Which no polluted mirrour can endure.
By it th’ Almighty Maker doth dispence
To earthy creatures, heavenly influence;
By it with angels swiftness are our eyes,
Exalted to the glory of the skies,
In whose bright character the light divine,
Which flesh cannot behold, doth dimly shine.
Thus was the first Day made; God so call’d Light,
Sever’d from Darkness, Darkness was the Night.