Reason profoundly; send conjecture forth;
Let fancy fly; stoop down; ascend; all length,
All breadth explore; all moral, all divine;
Ask prudence, justice, mercy ask, and might;
Weigh good with evil, balance right with wrong,
With virtue vice compare—hatred with love;
God's holiness, God's justice, and God's truth,
Deliberately and cautiously compare
With sinful, wicked, vile, rebellious man,
And see if thou can'st punish sin, and let
Mankind go free. Thou fail'st—be not surpris'd,
I bade thee search in vain. Eternal love—
Harp lift thy voice on high—Eternal love,
Eternal, sovereign love, and sovereign grace,
Wisdom, and power, and mercy infinite,
Devised the wondrous plan—devised, achieved;
And in achieving made the marvel more.
Attend, ye heavens! ye heaven of heavens, attend!
Attend, and wonder! wonder evermore!
When man had fallen, rebelled, insulted God;
Was most polluted, yet most madly proud;
Indebted infinitely, yet most poor;
Captive to sin, yet unwilling to be bound;
To God's incensed justice and hot wrath
Exposed; due victim of eternal death
And utter wo—Harp lift thy voice on high!
Ye everlasting Hills!—ye angels bow!
Bow ye redeemed of men! God was made flesh,
And dwelt with man on earth! the Son of God,
Only begotten, and well beloved, between
Men and his Father's justice interposed;
Put human nature on; His wrath sustained;
And in their name suffered, obeyed, and died,
Making his soul an offering for sin;
Just for unjust and innocence for guilt,
By doing, suffering, dying unconstrained,
Save by omnipotence of boundless grace,
Complete atonement made to God appeased;
Made honorable his insulted law,
Turning the wrath aside from pardoned man.
Thus Truth with Mercy met, and Righteousness,
Stooping from highest heaven, embraced fair Peace
That walked the earth in fellowship with Love.
[Pollok.