Book I, 90: On the Sinners Refuge

He that shall shed, with a presumptuous hand,
The blood of Man; must, by thy just command
Be put to death: The Murtherer must dye;
Thy Law denyes him refuge where to flye:
Great God Our hands have slain a man; nay further,
They have commited a presumptuous murther,
Vpon a guiltles Man; Na, what is worse,
They have betraid our Brother to the Curse
Of a reproachfull death Nay, what exceeds,
It is our Lord, our dying Saviour bleeds:
Nay more; It is thy Son; thy only Son;
All this have we, all this our hands have done:
On what deare Obiects shall we turne our eye?
Looke to the Law? O, by the Law, we dye:
Is there no Refuge, Lord? No place that shall
Secure our Soules from Death? A, none at all?
What shall poore Mortals do? Thy Lawes are jst,
And most irrevocable: Shall we trust
Or flye to our owne Merits, and e freed
By our good Workes? I; there were helpe indeed!
Is there no City for a Soule to flye,
And save it selfe: Must we resolve to dye?
O Infinite! O (not to be exprest?)
Nay, not to be conceived by the brest
Of Men or Angels! O transcendent Love!
Incomprehensible! as farre above
The reach of Man, as mans deserts are under
The sacred Benefit of so lest a Wonder!
That very Blood our sinfull hands have shed,
Cryes loud for Mercy, and those Wounds do plead
For those that made them: he that pleades, forgives;
And is both God and Man; both dead, and lives;
He, whom we murther'd, is become our Garden;
Hee's Man, to suffer; and hee's God to pardon:
Here's our Protection; Here, our Refuge City,
Whose living springs run Piety and Pitty:
Goe then, my Soule, and passe the common Bounds
Of Passion, Goe, and kneele before his Wounds;
Go touch them with thy lips: thou needst not feare;
They will not bleed afresh, though Thou be there:
But if they doe, that very Blood, thou spilt,
Beleev't, will plead thy Pardon, not thy Guil.