Working through love, upon their hearts shall write,

To guide them in all truth; and also arm

With spiritual armour, able to resist

Satan’s assaults, and quench his fiery darts;

What man can do against them, not afraid,

Though to the death; against such cruelties

With inward consolations recompensed,

And oft supported so as shall amaze

Their proudest persecutors: For the Spirit,

Poured first on his Apostles, whom he sends

To evangelize the nations, then on all

Baptized, shall them with wonderous gifts endue

To speak all tongues, and do all miracles,

As did their Lord before them. Thus they win

Great numbers of each nation to receive

With joy the tidings brought from Heaven: At length

Their ministry performed, and race well run,

Their doctrine and their story written left,

They die; but in their room, as they forewarn,

Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,

Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven

To their own vile advantages shall turn

Of lucre and ambition; and the truth

With superstitions and traditions taint,

Left only in those written records pure,

Though not but by the Spirit understood.

Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,

Places, and titles, and with these to join

Secular power; though feigning still to act

By spiritual, to themselves appropriating

The Spirit of God, promised alike and given

To all believers; and, from that pretence,

Spiritual laws by carnal power shall force

On every conscience; laws which none shall find

Left them inrolled, or what the Spirit within

Shall on the heart engrave. What will they then

But force the Spirit of Grace itself, and bind

His consort Liberty? what, but unbuild

His living temples, built by faith to stand,

Their own faith, not another’s? for, on earth,

Who against faith and conscience can be heard

Infallible? yet many will presume:

Whence heavy persecution shall arise

On all, who in the worship persevere

Of spirit and truth; the rest, far greater part,

Will deem in outward rites and specious forms

Religion satisfied; Truth shall retire

Bestuck with slanderous darts, and works of faith

Rarely be found: So shall the world go on,

To good malignant, to bad men benign;

Under her own weight groaning; till the day

Appear of respiration to the just,

And vengeance to the wicked, at return

Of him so lately promised to thy aid,

The Woman’s Seed; obscurely then foretold,

Now ampler known thy Saviour and thy Lord;

Last, in the clouds, from Heaven to be revealed

In glory of the Father, to dissolve

Satan with his perverted world; then raise

From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined,

New Heavens, new Earth, ages of endless date,

Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love;

To bring forth fruits, joy and eternal bliss.”

He ended; and thus Adam last replied.

“How soon hath thy prediction, Seer blest,

Measured this transient world, the race of time,

Till time stand fixed! Beyond is all abyss,