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In HIM the wondrous union view,
Atonement and example too!

His death sole means lost man to save;
His life our lives a pattern gave.
Explore the mystery as we can,
The perfect God was perfect man:
As man he felt affliction's rod,
As man he suffer'd, rose as God.
This union all his actions prove,
As God, as man, he show'd his love;
As man to man in every state
Something he left to imitate.

Divine Philanthropist! to Thee
We lift the heart and bow the knee,
As man, man's sympathies he felt;
In tears of tenderness could melt;
Weep, o'er the fated city's doom;
Weep, Lazarus, o'er thy honour'd tomb!
The hidden heart of man he knew;
Felt for his wants and weakness too.
The bruised reed he never broke,
His burden easy, light his yoke;
From heaven to earth his mercies reach,
Alike to save us, or to teach.

When call'd on error to reprove,
Reproof was kindness, censure love:

A cure his ready hand applies
For blindness, or of heart, or eyes.
Though with a look, a touch, a word,
The long-lost vision he restor❜d;

A casual hint may pastors seize

For those who yet

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see men as trees."

Jesus watch'd o'er th' imperfect sight,
And blest the blind with gradual light.
His saints no vain display relate,
No miracles for pomp or state;
No artful show for private ends,
But all to use and mercy tends.
His life a constant lecture reads
For minor as for greater deeds;
Not that his hunger might be fed,
He multiplies the scanty bread:
The famish'd troops in order plac'd,
He ne'er forgot to bless the feast:
Though endless stores he could produce,
He sav'd the fragments for their use.
We pass each suffering, glorious scene,
The manger and the cross between ;
All "he began to do and teach"
We pass, till calvary we reach.
The attempt almost too bold we deem,
And trembling touch the awful theme.
All eloquence, all power of speech,
Imagination's loftiest reach,

Fall short, and could but faintly prove
Th' incarnate God's last scene of love.
Abandon'd, none his woes partake;
One friend denies him, all forsake.

Yet though the sacred blood was shed, "Captivity was captive led."

The annals of mankind explore,
Did ever conqueror before

Make palpable to human eyes,

Achieve such glorious victories?

Besides the triumphs of his grace

Which only faith's purg'd eye can trace; Marvels applied to sight and sense,

Exhibit his omnipotence.

Shrouded Divinity confest,

What prodigies the Lord attest!
Things contrary, opposing creatures
Struck at the sight, forget their natures;
The human voice is mute; the dumb
And senseless eloquent become.
Things breathless, things inanimate
Renounce, nay, contradict their fate.
Things never meant to sympathise
Astonish unbelieving eyes.

The firm earth trembled at the view;
Th' indignant sun his light withdrew;
No natural cause eclips'd his face,
He would not witness man's disgrace.
Asunder torn, the rocks proclaim
Their sympathies with loud acclaim.
The yawning sepulchres unclose;
To life their sleeping tenants rose;
The Temple's vail is seen to rend,
And with it all distinctions end!
All various nature takes a part,
All, save the obdurate human heart.
The soldier, and th' expiring thief
Alone, proclaim their firm belief.

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Lord, "IT IS FINISHED:" here we meet, Promise and prophecy complete.

Shall death the Lord of life detain?

No! he but dies to rise again.

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Then come the APOSTLES' wondrous facts, Their travels, miracles, and AcTS.

The Holy Spirit from above,
Given as the Messenger of Love.
The various languages once sent,
To Babel as its punishment,
Here take a diff'rent nature quite,
Not meant to scatter, but unite;
That every nation here below

In its own tongue God's word might know.
Ye, who to idols long confin'd,

Are blind in heart, and dark in mind;
Half quench'd the intellectual ray,
While we withheld the moral day;
To the strong hold, ye prisoners, turn,
Prisoners of hope! no longer mourn.
See Christ extended empire gains,
See mountains sinking into plains!
The Builders on the CORNER-stone,
Cease not like Babel's they work on,
Till Saba and Arabia bring
Due tribute to th' Eternal King;
The living WORD shall life impart,
Unseal the eye, and change the heart;
Till Jew and Gentile, bond and free,
Greek and Barbarian, truth shall see.
Not by man's might, nor deed, nor word,
But by the Spirit of the Lord.

Hear martyr'd Stephen, as he dies,
Pray for his murd'rous enemies!
Then bring from Greek or Roman story
So pure an instance of true glory!

And is the furious bigot Saul
Become, indeed, the humble Paul?
Strange pow'r of all transforming grace,
The lamb assumes the lion's place!
So blind, when persecution's rod

He held, he thought 'twas serving God:
But now so meek himself he paints,
"Less than the least of all the saints!"
Stephen! thy prayer in death, preferr'd
To save thy enemies, is heard;
And Paul, perhaps, the earliest fruit
Of the first martyr's dying suit.
Forgive the Muse if she recall
So oft to mind the sainted Paul.
We pass the awful truths he tells,
His labours, woes, and miracles;
We pass the pow'rs his cause who heard ;
How Felix trembled, Festus fear'd;
Pass, how the Jewish king receiv'd
The truth, half doubted, half believ'd;
We pass the different works of grace
In Lydia and the gaoler's case;
We pass the perils Paul endur'd

From stripes; in prisons how immur'd;
In nakedness and hunger groan'd;
Betray'd, thrice beaten, shipwreck'd, ston'd!
In every varying state, we see

Only a change in misery.

How oft has admiration hung

On the great lyric bard, who sung
The warrior fam'd in Punic story,

Who swell'd the tide of Roman glory!

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