[Prologue]

MUTUAL Forgiveness of each vice,

Such are the Gates of Paradise,

Against the Accuser’s chief desire,

Who walk’d among the stones of fire.

Jehovah’s Finger wrote the Law;

Then wept; then rose in zeal and awe,

And the dead corpse, from Sinai’s heat,

Buried beneath His Mercy-seat.

O Christians! Christians! tell me why

You rear it on your altars high?