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Meditation on 2 Cor. 5:14 by Edward Taylor
Oh! Good, Good, Good, my Lord. What more Love yet.
Thou dy for meet What, am I dead in thee?
What did Deaths arrow shot at me thee hit?
Didst slip between that flying shaft and mee?
Didst make thyselfe Deaths marke shot at for nice?
So that her Shaft shall fly no far than thee?
Di'dst dy for mee indeed, and in thy Death
Take in thy Dying thus my death the Cause?
And lay I dying in thy Dying breath,
According to Graces Redemption Laws?
If one did dy for all, it needs must bee
That all did dy in one, and from death free.
Infinities fierce firy arrow red
Shot from the splendid Bow of justice bright
Did smite thee down, for thine. Thou art their head.
They di'de in thee. Their death did on thee light.
They di'de their Death in thee, thy Death is theirs.
Hence thine is mine, thy death my trespass clears.
How sweet is this: my Death lies buried
Within thy Grave, my Lord, deep under ground,
It is unskin'd, as Carrion rotten Dead:
For Grace's hand gave Death its deadly wound.
Deaths no such terrour on th'Saints blesst Coast.
Its but a harmless Shade: No walking Ghost.
The Painter lies: the Bellfrey Pillars weare
A false Effigies now of Death, alasl
With empty Eyeholes, Butter teeth, bones bare
And spraggling arms, having an Hour Glass
In one grim paw. Th'other a Spade doth hold
To shew deaths frightfull region under mould.
Whereas its Sting is gone: its life is lost.
Though unto Christless ones it is most Grim
Its but a Shade to Saints whose path it Crosst,
Or Shell or Washen face, in which she sings
Their Bodies in her lap a Lollaboy
And sends their Souls to sing their Masters joy.
Lord let me finde Sin, Curse and Death that doe
Belong to me ly slain too in thy Grave.
And let thy law my clearing hence bestow
And from these things let me acquittance have.
The Law suffic'de: and I discharg'd, Hence sing
Thy praise I will over Deaths Death, and Sin.
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