The Poems of John Byrom :: :: University of Virginia Library

Co-equal Trinity was always taught
By the Divines most fam'd for pious Thought.
The Men of Learning fill'd, indeed, the Page
With dissonant Disputes, from Age to Age;
But with themselves, so far as one can read,
About their Schemes are not at all agreed,
When they oppos'd, by Reason or by Wrath,
This grand Foundation of the Christian Faith.

II

For what more fundamental Point, or grand,
Than our ascending Saviour's own Command:
“Go and baptise all Nations in the Name”—
Of Whom, or What? (For thence the surest Aim
Of Christian Doctrine must appear the most)—
“The Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?”
Our Lord's Interpretation here we see,
Of, “Thou shalt have no other Gods but Me.”

III

For can the Phrase, so Highly Sacred, show
The Name of God to be omitted? No!
By its essential Trinity exprest,
It show'd what Faith Christ will'd to be profest.
One God the Jews had own'd, and one Supreme,
With others lower, was the Pagan Theme;
How One was true, and how Supreme profan'd,
Our Lord's baptismal Ordinance explain'd.

IV

The One Divinity of Father, Son,
And Spirit, teaches Christian Thought to shun
Both pagan and rabbinical Mistake,
And understood what holy Prophets spake
Or in the Ancient Writings or the New,
To which this Doctrine is the sacred Clue;
That so conducts us to the saving Plan
Of true Religion as no other can.

V

For, were the Son's Divinity denied,
The Father's must, of course, be set aside,
Or be a dark one.—How can It be Bright,
But by Its own Eternal, Inborn Light?
The Glory of the Father is the Son,
Of all His Powers begotten, or begun,
From all Eternity; take Son away,
And what the Father can delight in, say!

VI

The Love, Paternally Divine, implies
Its proper Object whence It must arise,
That is, the Son; and so the Filial, too,
Implies Paternal Origin in View;
And hence the third distinctly glorious Tie
Of Love, which Both are animated by.
All is one God, but He contains Divine,
Living Relations, evidently Trine.

VII

So far from hurting Unity, that hence
The Fulness rises of Its perfect Sense,
And ev'ry barren, spiritless Dispute
Against Its Truth is pluck'd up by the Root.
The Faith is solid to repose upon:
Father, Word, Spirit, Undivided One;
By Whom Mankind, of Threefold Life possest,
Can live and move and have its Being blest;—

VIII

Not by Three Gods,—or One supremely great
With two Inferiors,—or the wild Conceit
“God, Michael, Gabriel,”—or aught else, devis'd
For Christians in no Creature's Name baptis'd;

But of the whole inseparable Three
Whose Fertile Oneness causes all to be,
And makes an Heav'n thro' Nature's whole Abyss
By its Parental, Filial, Spirit Bliss.