Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/329

 REDEMPTION. 323

For grief, and so proclaim th' acceptable year.'

This scripture is fulfilled in your ears.

Light cheers the people, who in darkness sat,

Brightness illumes the shado'wy vale of death.

There hath to Sion a Redeemer come,

The Pastor of his people, Shepherd, who

Doth lead his sheep to pastures ever green,

Sweetly refresh'd with pure, lifegiving streams.

Here note the words of Anathoth's bless'd son,

And learn the motive that Messias brings

1 In those days he a cov'nant new shall make.'

So saith the prophet, but what cov'nant's meant?

A covenant of mercy, truth, and love,

And worthy to enlarge in our discourse.

First ask the sum and centre of the old,

Whose sacrificial types the new portend;

See how those shadows point to one great end,

The sacrifice for primal sin ordain'd ;

Which dimly promised was, to th' erring pair,

On whom the sorrows of the world depend.

Thus, blood of bulls, of sheep, and goats, mystic

The shedding of Messias' blood foreshow,

Victims slain typical before the time;

Time well defined, when their great Antitype

Himself should come. Not that these merit had,

Or pleased the Highest, who cannot be appeased

With victims annual slain, insensate brutes.

Oblations he doth not desire, nor fat

Of bulls, nor blood of rams; burnt offerings pleased

Him not, nor morn, nor evening sacrifice;

But One to do his will; who that desired;

Who kept the law of God within his heart,

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