The Gospel in Poetry

Excerpt from "Christ's Victory and Triumph Part III. Christ's Triumph Over Death"

And yet the Son is humbled for the slave,
And yet the slave is proud before the Son:
Yet the Creator for his creature gave
Himself, and yet the creature hastes to run
From his Creator, and self-good doth shun;
And yet the Prince, and God himself doth cry
To man, his traitor, pardon not to fly:
Yet man is God, and traitor doth his Prince defy.

Who is it sees not that he nothing is,
But he that nothing sees? What weaker breast,
Since Adam's armour fail'd, dares warrant his?
That, made by God of all his creatures best,
Straight made himself the worst of all the rest:
If any strength we have, it is to ill;
But all the good is God's, both power and will:
The dead man cannot rise, though he himself may kill.

A tree was first the instrument of strife,
Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute;
A tree is now the instrument of life,
Though ill that trunk, and this fair body suit:
Ah cursed tree, and yet O blessed fruit!
That death to Him, this life to us doth give:
Strange is the cure, when things past cure revive,
And the Physician dies to make the patient live.

Giles Fletcher