University of Virginia Library

CHRISTIANITY

Thus, “God forbid!” a rapt Apostle cries,
In aught we glory, but the Cross sublime;
Which, planted in this wilderness of worlds,
Hath bloom'd with second paradise to man.
And think, (unless the terror of that thought
Palsy thy mind, or stop the mental pulse
From beating,) think what Man and Earth had been,
If never from Emmanuel's veins had roll'd
The tide of Merit, our atonement drew!
What but a curse, a prison, and a pang
Had reason, life, and apprehension proved?
Amid the howlings of the Law unkept
Encompass'd ever, like incarnate hells
Men would have lived, have wept, blasphemed, and died!
Then, why not, Priests of sentiment and song,
Yourselves baptized, baptize your pages too?
Oh! let the Cross your admiration deck
With solemn beauty, when o'er nature's types,
Her hues and scenes, poetic fervours rise;
For, all creation is with Christ inspired.—
And ye, who through the world of mind delight
In thought to wander, lo! The Christ is there;
Reason is but a ray from Him derived,
That sparkles only with the light He makes.—
Monarchs who rule! remember, lawless will,
But for His pangs, would rank and order crush;
And ye, who legislate for church, or crown,
From the deep science of Salvation draw
Canons of truth, by creed almighty sign'd;
For there, both law and love together form
A perfect Archetype, in Whom they blend.
Or ye, who in domestic bower enjoy
Heaven's fairest miniature, a virtuous home,—
'Tis from the homeless Man of Grief ye draw
Your sweets of gladness, when the hearth-sides glow.
And Christian! what art thou, but Christ in man,
By creed and conduct, character and life
Envolved, and still envolving? Thou in Him,
And He in thee,—thy life but echoes His;
Thy foremost graces are refracted gleams
Directly from His perfect glory cast.
But, all thou art can faith alone depict:
Experience only is description here,
And that, internal:—since the life of truth
Is learn'd by feeling, and by love acquired:
Mere language only is a dead pretence,
Aping the life which love alone can reach,
Or e'er embody. But, if thus the life
Of faith imperfect, far beyond the soar
Of speech, to altitudes of secret awe
Itself exalteth, who, by climbing words
The Lord of Being in His life of faith
Presumes to follow? There all language ends,
As tenses in eternity are lost!
Be this enough for sinful man to know,
In Christ the sum and substance of all truths
Are met, and manifest; in Him, full-orb'd
Religion ev'ry saving virtue finds:
For, there alone the heart of God unveils
Its vast expression: in the Face Divine
Of Him, the arch-Elect, before all worlds
In secresy of Love divine embraced,
In Christ, the counterpart of Godhead, shines
That moral radiance which Himself repeats
By humanised reflection. There alone,
The fallen Spirit, with an eye unfilm'd
By grace, from sin and sensual darkness freed,
Pardon and peace in God for man can find.
All other media which inventive Pride
Presumes to fashion, are but barren dreams:
Man's deity is only dust refined,
Himself re-cast in some ethereal mould,
A finite into infinite enlarged,
And this dilation for a God mistook!
But Thou, Emmanuel! art the Way we come,
The Truth we know, the endless Life secured,
The all in all of God to us reveal'd,
And us to Him restored.—Creation's book
Lies blotted o'er with sin's perplexing stain,
And no erasure can Thy name detect,
In full divinity of sound and sense
Conspicuous, or complete. And, what can Law,
That dreadful paraphrase of Justice, speak
To lawless Guilt, but condemnation dire?
And, how can Reason in her light resolve
That problem, deep as God, and dark as guilt,
How sin is punish'd and the sinner spared,
When falls the sabre of celestial Wrath,
And in one flash both heaven and hell illumes?
Or say, can conscience, whose rebuking voice
In jealous echoes of the jealous God
Is ever sounding through the soul within,
Can this alarmist, to the shrinking gaze
Of guilt, the trembler, mercy's plan unfold?
Ah! no: in Christ alone we Godhead find;
In Christ alone His character evolves;
On Calv'ry's hill God's attributes were throned,
And reach'd a climax when their Lord expired.