jarring attributes;
And, with one excellence, another wound;
Maim Heaven's perfection, break its equal beams,
Bid mercy triumph over--God himself, 231
Undeified by their opprobrious praise:
A God all mercy, is a God unjust.
Ye brainless wits! ye baptized infidels!
Ye worse for mending! wash'd to fouler stains!
The ransom was paid down; the fund of heaven,
Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,
Amazing, and amazed, pour'd forth the price,
All price beyond: though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum: 240
Its value vast, ungrasp'd by minds create,
For ever hides, and glows, in the Supreme.
And was the ransom paid? It was: and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more?) for you.
The sun beheld it--No! the shocking scene,
Drove back his chariot: midnight veil'd his face;
Not such as this; not such as nature makes;
A midnight nature shudder'd to behold;
A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown! 250
Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain? or start
At that enormous load of human guilt,
Which bow'd His blessed head; o'erwhelm'd His cross;
Made groan the centre; burst earth's marble womb,
With pangs, strange pangs! deliver'd of her dead?
Hell howl'd; and heaven that hour let fall a tear;
Heaven wept, that men might smile! Heaven bled, that man
Might never die!----
And is devotion virtue? 'Tis compell'd. 259
What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these?
Such contemplations mount us; and should mount
The mind still higher; nor ever glance on man,
Unraptured, uninflamed.--Where roll my thoughts
To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise;
And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught:
Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross,
Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round,
The prisoner of amaze!--In his bless'd life,
I see the path, and, in his death, the price,
And in his great ascent, the proof supreme 270
Of immortality.--And did he rise?[14]
Hear, O ye nations! hear it, O ye dead!
He rose! he rose! he burst the bars of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates!
And give the King of glory to come in.
Who is the King of glory? He who left
His throne of glory, for the pang of death:
Lift up your heads,