ON THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SCRIPTURE
TERMS “LIFE” AND “DEATH,” WHEN
APPLIED TO MEN.
I
True
Life, according to the Scripture Plan,
Is God's Own Likeness in His Image, Man.
This was the Life that Adam ceas'd to live,
Or lost by Sin, and therefore could not give;
So that his Offspring, all the born on Earth,
Want a New Parent of this Heav'nly Birth.
II
This, Christ alone, God's Image Most Express,
The Second Adam, gives them to possess,—
Becoming Man, reversing human Fall,
And raising up the First, True Life in all;
Healing our Nature's deadly Wound within,
And quenching Wrath, or Death, or Hell, or Sin.
III
For all such Words describe one evil Thing,
Or Want of Good, that has one only Spring,—
The Love of God in Christ, which form'd at first
A blessèd Adam and redeem'd a curst
By his own Act; Good only was design'd
For Adam, and in him for all Mankind.
IV
He fell from Good, misusing his free Will,
Into this World, this Life of Good and Ill;
From whence the willing to be sav'd revive,
Thro' Faith and Penitence in Christ alive.
A second Death succeeds, if they refuse;
For choosing Creatures must have what they choose.
V
For bare Existence, when we go from hence,
Is Immortality in Scripture Sense;
For thus alike immortal are confest
The good, the bad,—the ruin'd and the blest;
Whose inbred Tempers hint the Reason why
They live for ever, or for ever die.
VI
God's Likeness, Light and Spirit in the Soul
Make, as at first, its blest, immortal Whole.
'Tis Death to want them. Vain is all Dispute;
The Gospel only reaches to the Root.
All the inspir'd have understood it thus:
“Immortal Life is that of Christ
in Us.”
