All hail the SON- now view the promis'd feed For whom the lamb, prophetic, us'd to bleed ! See from the ALTAR, lowing heifers turn, And offer'd incenfe cease at length to burn. The wounded victim, gasping, pants for breath, And half recovered struggles hard with death! The reeking blood, reluctant life bestows, Now feels restraint and ftagnates as it flows. No more the RITES Levitic priefts began, When CHRIST, their fubftance, laid the myftic plan; Now view the types, the darksome shadows gone †, And brighter day, hail DAVID'S ROYAL SON! In humble guise behold the babe appear! Nor crowns, nor fceptres, hail him welcome here. importance; a fubject which ought to be well underflood, and, becaufe clearly revealed, implicitly believed by every perfon who makes the BIBLE a ftandard of faith and practice. † As the facrifices under the ceremonial dispensation had their full accomplishment in CHRIST; it is hoped that this fhort defcription, though not accurate as to time, will be excufed. During his life, the Jewish ritual, which had long been in a declining state, was still obferved: probably the abolition of thofe rites and ceremonies was fignified at his death, by the rending of the veil between the holy place and the moft holies. Brief, thou my foul, his life progressive scan, See blameless poverty-fee want prefides! Nor grief, nor pity, impious hands restrain, -th' infulted SAVIOUR dreft. · [torn, And by the rabble, in bafe triumph borne ; TO CALVARY next direct thy mournful view, And feeling nature rock from pole to pole. See See all -but MAN, for whom the SAVIOUR came, Express their forrow, or perhaps their shame! Or, fee the power of that expiring JEW, Both DAVID's root, and DAVID's offspring tooThe troubled earth heaves with convulfive breath, And quakes, prophetic, of its Maker's death! Graves, once tenacious, now forc'd open wide, Expose the corpfe, which they were meant to hide. Wide yawning chafms-fhock the starting foul! And rending rocks from their firm bafis roll. Yon western fun beholds the mournful fight, Holds back his luftre, and withdraws his light! Struck with the crime-in fable guife retires, Nor dares to fhine while NATURE'S GOD EXPIRES. Say, thou my foul, whence this unbounded love, Why left the SAVIOUR yon bright realms above! Why leave the bofom, where he once reclin'd, Where glory triumph'd, where perfection shin'd! Where pureft pleasures, confcious virtue charms, And love, feraphic, each chafte bosom warms. With joy I fee EXPERIENCE points to man, The fav'rite fubject of this mystic plan! For him, the FATHER gave his ONLY SON, For Not by OFFICE, nor in an improper and figurative fenfe, as fome without any fcripture authority confidently affirm, but A SON by NAThe ingenious DR. ERSKINE obferves," he is the SON OF GOD in a fenfe incommunicable to any creature, and which has not, yea, cannot have any thing parallel to it in univerfal nature." This TURE. For MAN he liv'd, for MAN his life he gave, 'Tis MAN he ransom'd, and 'tis MAN he'll fave. His LIFE his DEATH- -his agonies unknown, Aton'd for hellifh crimes but not his own! O! wond'rous GRACE-unafk'd-divine and free, Lodg'd in the womb of vast eternity! Maturing time unfolds th' amazing plan, Nor height, nor depth, thy unknown bounds prescribe! While fenfual pleafures charm the heedlefs throng, Ye happy SAINTS, with circling glory crown'd, important fubject is difcuffed with great accuracy and precision by the late very learned and judicious DR. GILL. Body Divin: vol. I. page 236.- See alfo his doctrine of the TRINITY vindicated, a pamphlet (of no great expence) worthy the perufal of every ferious and candid enquirer after TRUTH, Ere |