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THE ETERNAL PURPOSE.

REDEMPTION.

THE birth of Him that no beginning knew,
Yet gives beginning to all that are born,
And how the Infinite far greater grew,

By growing less, and how the rising morn,

That shot from heaven, did back to heaven return,

The obsequies of Him that could not die,

And death of life, end of eternity,

How worthily He died, that died unworthily;

How God and Man did both embrace each other,

Met in one person, heaven and earth did kiss,

And how a Virgin did become a Mother,

And bare that Son, who the world's Father is,

And Maker of His mother, and how Bliss Descended from the bosom of the High,

To clothe Himself in naked misery,

Sailing at length to heaven, in earth, triumphantly;

Is the first flame, wherewith my whiter Muse
Doth burn in heavenly love, such love to tell.
O Thou that didst this holy fire infuse,

And taught'st this breast, but late the grave of hell,
Wherein a blind and dead heart lived, to swell
With better thoughts, send down those lights that lend
Knowledge, how to begin and how to end

The love, that never was nor ever can be penned.

Giles Fletcher.

THE SONG OF MERCY.

"WHO can forget, never to be forgot,

The time, that all the world in slumber lies,
When, like the stars, the singing angels shot
To earth, and heaven awaked all his eyes,
To see another sun at midnight rise,

On earth? was never sight of pareil fame,
For God before, man like Himself did frame,

But God Himself now like a mortal man became.

"A child He was, and had not learnt to speak, That with His word the world before did make,

His mother's arms Him bore, He was so weak,

That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake, See how small room my infant Lord doth take,

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