Till the new Birth of JESUS from above
Reveal'd below the Mystery of Love.

VIII.

His Virgin Birth, Life, Death and Re-ascent
Explain what all God's Dispensations meant.
God give me Grace to shun the doubting Crime,
Since nothing follows intermediate Time
But Life or Death, eternally to rule

A blessed Christian, or a cursed Fool!

45.

The doubting Crime. The crime of doubt.

A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF THE NATURE AND

DESIGN OF TRUE RELIGION.

[There are thoughts in this Plain Account which might perhaps be paralleled from Law's Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (Works, vol. iii.), especially from the passages (pp. 167 seqq.) commenting on the text "Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (St. Matthew, v. 3). What precedes the concluding stanza is one more reproduction of Law's teaching on Regeneration.]

I.

HAT is Religion?"-Why, it is a Cure

WHAT

Giv'n in the Gospel gratis to the Poor

By Jesus Christ, the Healer of the Soul;
Which all who take are sure to be made whole;
And they who will not, all the Art of Man

May strive to cure them, but it never can.

II.

"Care for what Malady?"-For that of Sin,
From whence all other Maladies begin.

It had its Rise in Adam first of all;
And all his Sons, partaking of his Fall,
Want a new Adam to beget them free
From Sin and Death; and Jesus Christ is He.

III.

"How it is giv'n?"-By raising a new Birth
Of Heav'nly Life, surviving that of Earth;
Which may at any Time,—at some it must,—
Return its mortal Body to the Dust;
And then the Born of God in Christ again
Will rise immortal, true angelic Men.

IV.

"Why in the Gospel?"—Gospel is, indeed,
In its true living Sense, the Holy Seed,
By God's great Mercy first in Adam sown,
And first in Christ to full Perfection grown,—
Fulness, from which all holy Souls derive,
And Bodies too, the Pow'r to be alive.

V.

Why GRATIS giv'n?"-Because the Love-desire

Of God, in Christ, can never work for Hire.

20 seqq. The HOLY SEED, &c. (See fully expressed in some of Jacob Böhme's 1 Corinthians, xv. 42 seqq.)

25. "Why GRATIS giv'n?" The thought of this stanza, which savours of the essence of mysticism, is very power

sayings concerning the nature of true faith. Cf. Hamberger, Die Lehre des deutscher Philosophen Jakob Böhme (1844), p. 255.

Its Nature is to love for Loving's Sake,

To give itself to ev'ry Will to take;

To them it brings amidst the darkest Night

Its Life and Immortality to Light.

VI.

Why to the Poor?"-Because they feel their Want, Which Trust in Riches is so loth to grant.

The Rich have something which they call their own;

The Poor have nothing, but to Christ alone

They owe Themselves, and pay Him what they owe,
And what Religion is They only know.

30

ON THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SCRIPTURE TERMS "LIFE" AND "DEATH," WHEN APPLIED TO MEN.

[These stanzas are designed to recall Law's teaching as to the true significance of the Fall and the Redemption for Adam and his posterity. Adam, created in the likeness of the Tri-une God, lost "that Tri-une Life, in which alone the Holy Trinity of Divine Love can dwell" (Appeal to all that Doubt, p. 177; Law's Works, vol. vi.). When Adam fell, he lost "both the conditions of his created State," viz. "to be himself a glorious, living, eternal Image of the Holy Tri-une God, and to be a Father of a new World of like Beings." Therefore, "that which was to be undone and altered, both in himself and his Posterity, was this, it was to part with a Life that he had raised up into Being, and to get another Life, which he had quite extinguished" (ib., pp. 183-4). Christ is accordingly "the Regenerator or Raiser of a new Birth in us, because he enters a second Time into the Life of the Soul, that his own Nature and Likeness may be again generated in it" (ib., P. 45; see also The Spirit of Love, Part I. p. 12, Works, vol. viii. : "Christ had never come into the World as

a Second Adam to redeem it, had he not been originally the Life, and Perfection, and Glory of the First Adam;" and cf. ib., Part ii. pp. 97 seqq., the comment on the text (1 Corinthians, xv. 22): "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.")]

I.

TRUE according tess Man.

RUE Life, according to the Scripture Plan,

Is God's Own Likeness in His Image,

This was the Life that Adam ceas'd to live,
Or lost by Sin, and therefore could not give ;
So that his Offspring, all the born on Earth,
Want a New Parent of this Heav'nly Birth.

II.

This, Christ alone, God's Image Most Express,
The Second Adam, gives them to possess,—
Becoming Man, reversing human Fall,

And raising up the First, True Life in all;

Healing our Nature's deadly Wound within,
And quenching Wrath, or Death, or Hell, or Sin.

III.

For all such Words describe one evil Thing,
Or Want of Good, that has one only Spring,-
The Love of God in Christ, which form'd at first.

A blessed Adam and redeem'd a curst

By his own Act; Good only was design'd
For Adam, and in him for all Mankind.

IV.

He fell from Good, misusing his free Will,

16-17. A CURST by his OWN Act. One whom his own act had made to be accursed. 19. Misusing his free Will. "Had he

ΙΟ

fix'd his Will to be absolutely and eternally what he was, had he desired only to eat of the Tree of Life, to live by the Word

Into this World, this Life of Good and Ill;
From whence the willing to be sav'd revive,
Thro' Faith and Penitence in Christ alive.
A second Death succeeds, if they refuse;
For choosing Creatures must have what they choose.

V.

For bare Existence, when we go from hence,

Is Immortality in Scripture Sense;

For thus alike immortal are confest

The good, the bad,-the ruin'd and the blest;
Whose inbred Tempers hint the Reason why
They live for ever, or for ever die.

VI.

God's Likeness, Light and Spirit in the Soul
Make, as at first, its blest, immortal Whole.
'Tis Death to want them. Vain is all Dispute;
The Gospel only reaches to the Root.
All the inspir'd have understood it thus:
"Immortal Life is that of CHRIST in Us."

of God, he had been establish'd and con-
firm'd to be an eternal Angel, or divine
Man. But... . . his own strong Will
(a Spark of the Divine Omnipotence) was
to be his Maker; for he could not be an
Angel of Light with less Freedom. What
he desired, that he had: as his Imagina-
tion work'd, so he became to be."
(Answer to Dr. Trapp, pp. 31-2; Law's
Works, vol. vi. ; cf. Overton, William
Law, p. 255).

20. Into this World. "Adam, not aspiring to be above, or without God, by his own proud strength, but only lusting to enter into a Sensibility of the Good and Evil of the bestial Life of this World, he found only That which he sought, and fell into no other State or Misery than that

20

30

bestial Life, which his own Actions and desires had opened to him." (The Spirit of Prayer, Part I. p. 34; Law's Works, vol. vii.) 21. The willing. Those willing.

66

36. Immortal LIFE is that of CHRIST in us." Cf. Romans, viii. 10: "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness;" and Colossians, iii. 3: "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Byrom's reference is, however, probably more directly to the one Scripture Truth, which the blessed Behmen prefixed as a Motto to most of his Epistles, viz. That our Salvation is in the Life of Jesus Christ in us." (See Law's Humble Address to the Clergy, p. 29 in vol. ix. of his Works.)