XXX. THE CIRCUMCISION, OR NEW

SORE

YEAR'S DAY.

ORROW betide my fins! Must smart fo foon
Sise on my Saviour's tender flesh scarce grown
Unto an eighth days' age?

Can nothing else affuage

The wrath of heaven, but his infant-blood?
Innocent infant, infinitely good!

Is this thy welcome to the world great God!
No fooner born, but fubject to the rod
Of fin-incenfed wrath?

Alas, what pleasure hath

Thy Father's juftice to begin thy paffion,
Almoft together with thine incarnation ?

Is it to antedate thy death? To indite
Thy condemnation himself, and write
The copy with thy blood,

Since nothing is so good?

Or, is't by this experiment to try,

Whether thou beeft born mortal, and canft die?

If man must needs draw blood of God, yet why
Stays he not till thy time be come to die?

Didft thou thus early bleed

For us to fhow what need

We have to haften unto thee as faft;

And learn that all the time is loft that's paff'd?

"Tis true, we should do fo: Yet in this blood There's fomething else, that must be understood; It feals thy covenant,

That fo we may not want

Witness enough against thee, that thou art
Made fubject to the Law, to act our part.

The facrament of thy regeneration
It cannot be; it gives no intimation
Of what thou wert, but we:
Native impurity;

Original corruption, was not thine,
But only as thy righteousness is mine.

In holy Baptism this is brought to me,
As that in Circumcifion was to thee:
So that thy lofs and pain
Do prove my joy and gain.

Thy Circumcifion writ thy death in blood:
Baptifm in water seals my livelihood.

O bleffed change! Yet, rightly understood, That blood was water, and this water's blood. What shall I give again,

To recompenfe thy pain?

Lord, take revenge upon me for this smart:
To quit thy fore-fkin, circumcife my heart.

XXXI.

THE EPIPHANY, OR TWELFTH-DAY.

G

REAT, without controversy great,

They that do know it will confess
The mystery of godliness;

Whereof the Gospel doth intreat.

God in the flesh is manifest,

And that which hath for ever been

Invisible, may now be seen,

The eternal deity new drest.

Angels to fhepherds brought the news:
And Wife men, guided by a Star,
To feek the fun, are come from far:
Gentiles have got the start of Jews.

The ftable and the manger hide

His glory from his own; but these
Though ftrangers, his refplendent rays

Of Majesty divine have spied.

Gold, frankincenfe, and myrrh, they give;
And worshipping him plainly show,
That unto him they all things owe,

By whose free gift it is they live.

Though clouded in a veil of flesh,

The fun of righteousness appears, Melting cold cares, and frofty fears, And making joys fpring up afresh.

O that his light and influence,
Would work effectually in me
Another new Epiphany,
Exhale, and elevate me hence:

That, as my calling doth require,
Star-like I may to others shine;

And guide them to that fun divine,
Whofe day-light never shall expire.

XXXII. THE PASSION, OR GOOD FRIDAY.

TH

HIS day my Saviour died: and do I live?
What, hath not forrow flain me yet?

Did the immortal God vouchsafe to give
His life for mine, and do I fet

More by my wretched life, than he by his,
So full of glory, and of bliss?

Did his free mercy, and mere love to me,
Make him forfake his glorious throne,
And mount a cross, the stage of infamy,
That fo he might not die alone;

But dying fuffer more through grief and shame,
Than mortal men have power to name?

And can ingratitude fo far prevail,

To keep me living still? Alas!

Methinks fome thorn out of his crown, fome nail, At least his fpear, might pierce, and pafs Thorough, and thorough, till it rived mine heart, As the right death-deserving part.

And doth he not expect it should be fo?
Would he lay down a price so great,
And not look that his purchases should grow
Accordingly? Shall I defeat

His juft defire? O no, it cannot be:
His death muft needs be death to me.

My life's not mine, but his : for he did die
That I might live: yet died fo,
That being dead he was alive; and I
Thorough the gates of death muft go
To live with him: yea, to live by him here
Is a part in his death to bear.

Die then, dull foul, and if thou canst not die,
Diffolve thyself into a sea

Of living tears, whose streams may ne'er go dry.
Nor turned be another way,

Till they have drown'd all joys, but those alone, Which forrow claimeth for its own.

For forrow hath its joys: and I am glad
That I would grieve, if I do not:
But, if I neither could, nor would, be fad
And forrowful, this day, my lot

Would be to grieve for ever, with a grief
Uncapable of all relief.

No grief was like that, which he grieved for me,
A greater grief than can be told :

And like my grief for him no grief should be,
If I could grieve fo, as I would:

But what I would, and cannot, he doth fee,
And will accept, that died for me.