all;
The bleeding cross has sworn eternal grace;
Who gave his life, what grace shall he deny?
O ye who, from this Rock of Ages, leap,
Apostates, plunging headlong in the deep!
What cordial joy, what consolation strong,
Whatever winds arise, or billows roll, 480
Our interest in the Master of the storm!
Cling there, and in wreck'd nature's ruins smile;
While vile apostates tremble in a calm.
Man! know thyself. All wisdom centres there;
To none man seems ignoble, but to man;
Angels that grandeur, men o'erlook, admire:
How long shall human nature be their book,
Degenerate mortal! and unread by thee?
The beam dim reason sheds shows wonders there;
What high contents! illustrious faculties! 490
But the grand comment, which displays at full
Our human height, scarce sever'd from divine,
By heaven composed, was publish'd on the Cross.
Who looks on that, and sees not in himself
An awful stranger, a terrestrial god? 495
A glorious partner with the Deity
In that high attribute, immortal life?
If a god bleeds, he bleeds not for a worm:
I gaze, and, as I gaze, my mounting soul
Catches strange fire, eternity! at thee;
And drops the world--or rather, more enjoys:
How changed the face of nature! how improved! 502
What seem'd a chaos, shines a glorious world,
Or, what a world, an Eden; heighten'd all!
It is another scene! another self!
And still another, as time rolls along;
And that a self far more illustrious still.
Beyond long ages, yet roll'd up in shades
Unpierced by bold conjecture's keenest ray,
What evolutions of surprising fate! 510
How nature opens, and receives my soul
In boundless walks of raptured thought! where gods
Encounter and embrace me! What new births
Of strange adventure, foreign to the sun,
Where what now charms, perhaps, whate'er exists,
Old time, and fair creation, are forgot!
Is this extravagant? Of man we form
Extravagant conception, to be just:
Conception unconfined wants wings to reach him:
Beyond its reach, the Godhead only, more. 520
He, the great Father! kindled at one flame
The world of rationals; one spirit pour'd
From spirit's awful fountain; pour'd himself
Through all their souls; but not in equal stream,
Profuse, or frugal, of