 | Divine Fancies |  |
89. On the Sinners Refuge.
He that shall shed, with a presumptuous hand,The blood of Man; must, by thy iust command
Be put to death: The Murtherer must dye;
Thy Law denyes him refuge where to flye:
Great God our hands have slain a Man; nay further,
They have committed a presumptuous murther,
Vpon a guiltles Man; Nay, what is worse,
They have betraid our Brother to the Curse
Of a reproachfull death; Nay, what exceeds,
It is our Lord, our dying Saviour bleeds:
Nay more; It is thy Son; thy only Son;
All this have we, all this our hands have done:
On what deare Obiects shall we turne our eye?
Looke to the Law? O, by the Law, we dye:
Is there no Refuge, Lord? No place that shall
Secure our Soules from Death? Ah, none at all:
What shall poore Mortals do? Thy Lawes are just,
And most irrevocable: Shall we trust
Or flye to our owne Merits, and be freed
By our good Workes? I; there were helpe indeed!
Is there no City for a Soule to flye,
And save it selfe? Must we resolve to dye?
O Infinite! O (not to be exprest?)
Nay, not to be conceived by the brest
Of Men or Angels! O transcendent Love!
Incomprehensible! as farre above
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The sacred Benefit of so blest a Wonder!
That very Blood our sinfull hands have shed,
Cryes loud for Mercy, and those Wounds do plead
For those that made them: he that pleads, forgives;
And is both God and Man; both dead, and lives:
He, whom we murther'd, is become our Guarden;
Hee's Man, to suffer; and hee's God to pardon:
Here's our Protection; Here, our Refuge City,
Whose living springs run Piety and Pitty:
Goe then, my Soule, and passe the common Bounds
Of Passion: Goe, and kneele before his Wounds;
Go touch them with thy lips: thou needst not feare;
They will not bleed afresh, though Thou be there:
But if they doe, that very Blood, thou spilt,
Beleev't, will plead thy Pardon, not thy Guilt.
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