Lord, unto Solomon Thy judgments render,
Give to the Son of David righteousness,
Clothe him with majesty and kingly splendour,
Crown him with light amid the proud noblesse,
Say to the nations of the earth, Surrender!
Right he shall recompense, and wrong redress.
Friend of the friendless, the oppressed and needy,
Succour to bring to broken spirits speedy.
Like to the rain upon the grass, when showers
Water the wastes, and drench the desert plain
(Which like a thirsty ox the draught devours),
Nature refreshing till she bloom again,
And by the quickening of her latent powers
Incense exhaling, let his righteous reign
Gentle, yet just be; glorious, God-fearing,
Souls sore disheartened in their sorrows cheering.
Son he shall stand before his God and Father!
Who shall be like him on the wide earth? None
Broken and beaten are his foes, yea, rather,
Like to the fallen when the field is won!
Unto His wisdom shall the princes gather,
Wisdom resplendent as the noon-day sun!
Sages, superlatively great, excelling;
Darkness and dread from the depressed dispelling.
Shadow of Him who yet shall come, revealing
Glory supreme to our adoring eyes,
Mysteries hitherto concealed, unsealing;
Yea, for the Sun of Righteousness shall rise,
Radiant with glory, and with health and healing,
Earth with His favour to rejuvenise.
King everlasting! Mighty Legislator!
Greater than Solomon! Than David greater!
Fairer than mortals, the Adored forever!
Greater in battle than the Bethlehemite.
Greater than Solomon in wisdom; never
Lesser in knowledge than the Infinite.
Dare the proud mortal from the Servant sever
Godhead, omniscience, or eternal might?
Mystery greater than our understanding,
Yet all the worship of our heart’s commanding.
Men have forgotten Him, though the afflicted
Found Him a wondrous healer of their woes.
Yet by their blindness was His work restricted
More than by all the malice of His foes.
Slighted and slandered was He, contradicted,
Judged as a felon, set at naught by those
Who had been rescued by His gracious healing
When to destruction they were helpless reeling.
Nor have they wished that to their recollection
He who so utterly was set at naught,
Should, in His death, or in His resurrection,
As the Redeemer of our souls, be brought.
Still must He meet with resolute rejection,
Where with self-confidence the heart is fraught:
Where with the wisdom of this generation
Sated the heart is to intoxication.
Let His name perish, let Him die and leave us.
How has He realised the right to reign?
Wherefore consent that He should gall and grieve us?
Let Him be crucified, let Him be slain.
Nor let His visionary friends deceive us,
None can recall Him out of death’s domain.
Once on a gibbet there need be no fearing
That from His followers we shall be hearing.
Son of the highest! Who on earth believes it?
Death has refused His claim to vindicate.
Risen! What cultivated mind receives it?
Wise men of miracles no longer prate.
Glorified! Reason at this juncture leaves it;
This let insanity asseverate.
Truth lifts her head above such notions serried;
Jesus is crucified and dead and buried!
Who in the resurrection state beheld Him?
Which of the leaders of this world below?
Which of the rulers who from earth expelled Him
Saw with His glory great the grave aglow?
Why should the iron to the tree have held Him?
Why was His visage so agloom with woe,
If His lone path the resurrection morning
Was by the brightness of its beams adorning?
This, should you wish to know its awful meaning,
This was the sacrifice for guilty man;
Here was God mercifully intervening
Sinners to liberate from sin’s dread ban.
Here on this sacrifice my soul is leaning
Viewing the vastness of redemption’s plan.
His was the suffering, the God-forsaking,
Mine the felicity with Him partaking.
Have ye forgotten how He died to gather
Souls from the folly of their foolish ways,
Back to the bosom of His God and Father,
Filled with the passion of His holy praise?
Not only ransomed by His blood, but rather,
Set as sons blameless in the glorious blaze
Of the Invisible declared in Jesus,
Who from death’s terrors and from darkness frees us.
Not to my pen has it been relegated
Slander to sever from His sacred name;
God shall take care that He is vindicated,
And in the spot in which He suffered shame.
Where He was humbled, mocked, humiliated,
And where of sin He bore the bitter blame,
There shall His name be great, renowned and glorious,
There over rebels shall He ride victorious.
Nor has the service been to men committed
Jesus to classify among the great,
Men by mentality and school-craft fitted,
Glibly of ethics with the proud to prate;
Men by a spiritual power outwitted,
And whose philosophy is reprobate:
Lone stands the Christ amid the whole creation,
Guides of this world to Him bear no relation.
Shall we with Buddha or his fellows place Him?
Name Him together with the best of men?
Down to their level shall our souls debase Him?
Perish the thought ere it hath stained the pen!
Better with criminals once more disgrace Him,
Better with robbers gibbet Him again,
Than with a mockery of veneration
Craftily prosecute this profanation.
Ye who imagine that we all believe you,
Ye who with kisses would the Christ betray,
Truth I must tell you, though it gall and grieve you,
Best of your praise of Him is blasphemy;
And for my eagerness to undeceive you,
Do not against me the indictment lay
That I have animus: I speak with candour,
Styling your eulogy of Him a slander.
Better a boisterous calumniator,
Bold as a foe than one who flatters well,
Better an enemy avowed than traitor,
Better the devil in the dress of hell,
Than as the messenger of the Creator
Veiling with piety a visage fell.
Pilate’s poltroonery might have been pardoned,
Never the traitor in his treason hardened.
Welcome was Jesus to the weary hearted,
Precious to all who felt the power of sin,
Who underneath the curse of Sinai smarted
Deep to the centre of the soul within;
Solace to such His words of grace imparted,
Life for those toiling endless life to win,
Life as the gift of the Eternal Father,
Not by man’s merit, but by favour rather.
There gleamed the glory of a sphere supernal,
There was the heart of heaven brought to light,
There beamed the brightness of the king eternal,
There the sun rose upon our native night,
There was the tree of life in fruit and vernal,
There lay the manna on the desert white:
God in this godless world, God incarnated!
God in His grace to be appropriated.
What an occasion for a death doomed nation!
What an occasion for a ruined race!
What an arrival! What a revelation!
God with His creatures in His love and grace!
God making manifest His great salvation,
Bidding the wanderer his steps retrace,
Met by man’s insolence and insubjection,
Ending in murderous and mad rejection.
And is it otherwise today? I trow not.
Still is the Saviour of the world despised,
Still are the critics of the Christ, who know not
God, in the darkness and diabolised.
Him they may tolerate as leader, tho’ not
If His sin-offering be eulogised.
Speak of Him only as a harmless teacher,
Like any ordinary prophet, preacher.
Hear we the wisdom of this world of sages,
Stand in the temple of their gods of clay.
Christ they think good enough for bygone ages,
Not for the brightness of the present day.
Babes, even now, if given easy stages,
Might the world scan, and never miss their way.
Yea, they could tell us of the starry regions,
And wake the spirits of the bygone legions.
What knew Jesus of the world’s creation?
Surely He must have thought the fiction true
Why did He give the fable confirmation?
Why with His influence the lie endue?
See how His knowledge had its limitation;
Less than some others it is plain He knew.
Should we then follow one who could deceive us?
Or knowing nothing in the darkness leave us?
Deeming the Pentateuch by Moses written,
Manna He fancied had the Twelve Tribes fed;
Thought that the people who were serpent-bitten
Had by Nehushtan into life been led;
That He for sinners must by God be smitten,
And that for blessing must His blood be shed.
What are these blind and baseless aberrations?
Nought but the chatter of the lisping nations.
Could He have known the men that would come after,
Could He have seen the sages that would rise,
Could He have heard the levity and laughter
Words such as His would wake among the wise,
Men who creation would, from floor to rafter,
Search, sift, investigate, and analyse,
Would He have been so bold as to have stated
Things since by scientists annihilated?
Freely He speaks of rising sun and setting,
Night, He concluded, did the earth enrobe.
Did He not know, or was He quite forgetting
Then, the diurnal motion of the globe?
There we must leave it, but afar be fretting,
Men have arisen mysteries to probe.
Newton and Galileo, more enlightened,
Have with their wisdom the creation brightened.
Back from the precincts of the temple holy!
Touch not the Ark with your unhallowed hand!
Fall as they fell before the Victim lowly,
Grouped in Gethsemane with torch and brand!
Lay on your lawless lips your hand, and so lay
Both in the dust, lest where ye proudly stand,
And while your haughtiness of heart delay you,
Fire from the Cherubim break forth and slay you.
Drivel, ye dotards, in your ignoration,
Earth’s foundations have your own hands laid!
Not the Creator knows His own creation,
Better than He ye know the things He made!
And as for sacrifice and expiation,
Notions like these your lofty thoughts degrade,
Conscience not cripples your bombast and bluster,
Since from the Scriptures ye have reaved the lustre.
Why do ye call yourselves by the Rejected?
Why when ye love Him not His name retain?
Christian! and scoffing at the resurrected!
Spiritual suicides of souls insane!
Once was Barabbas by the world elected,
Would they now welcome the Redeemer’s reign?
Nay, they would rather His dominion shatter,
Though of His lowliness they glibly chatter.
Ay, ye will prosper in your quest or perish,
Perish ye must, if ye will have it so:
Cherish the falsehood, if ye will it cherish,
Ye would another Christ than Jesus know.
Dazzled, deceived by your inventions garish,
Wisdom eternal ye would overthrow.
Dream ye have done it, it will likely, please you,
Ere with their terrors death and darkness seize you.
Hail as progenitors your first forefathers,
Orang and ape and the dog-faced baboon;
And when at eventide the darkness gathers
Get up and chatter to the silver moon.
Jeer at the Genesis of Moses! Ah! there’s
Method in madness when it truth impugn;
Madness which readily and rashly seizes
Anything likely to discredit Jesus.
Blow up the trumpet of your proud ambitions!
Gods among worms of the dust are ye!
Crazed with a frenzy of your own omniscience,
Wisdom personified ye sure must be!
What can be hidden from your dreams and visions?
What is worth seeing that ye do not see?
Wise the Messiah in His generation,
Ye of all wisdom are the incarnation!
Words from His lips were like the gentle breathing,
Fragrant of morning when the light appears,
Chasing the clouds which had been gently wreathing
Earth with their dews, their darkness and their fears;
Or like the brook from far off hills bequeathing
Life to the land that desert dryness sears,
And to the wanderer, who lost and lonely,
Longs for the life-imparting fountain only.
Thus unto those who under Sinai smarted,
Broken and bruised and by commandment slain,
Secrets were spoken which a power imparted
Sorrow to dissipate from heart and brain:
God, brought in contact with the broken-hearted,
God, to assuage the suffering and pain,
God, with His creature man, that man might know Him,
God, not to claim from us the debt we owe Him.
Not since the planting of this fair creation,
Never since chaos was to cosmos brought,
Not since the six days had their termination,
Were such words spoken or such wonders wrought.
Yet were those words as worthless vaporation
Unto the world, and all His works were naught.
Both have been trodden under feet mishallowed,
Scorned by the men who in deception wallowed.
Critics ye surely may be called, but “
Higher?”
Surely your cleverness ye too much laud.
Who for the post has been your qualifier?
Has your diploma not been gained by fraud?
Scripture opposes you, but who is liar?
Never the Word of the eternal God.
He is the living Truth, tho’ earth deny Him,
Liar is every one who would belie Him.
Like to a rock amid a raging ocean,
Beaten by billows black, and swept by storm,
Sprayed by the spume, and clasped by the commotion,
Standing unshakable, with changeless form,
Claiming by constancy my heart’s devotion,
Crowned with the sunlight of celestial charm:
This is the Word of God, and Truth eternal;
This is the Tree of Life for ever vernal.
Gods ye would be, if pride of heart could make you
Gods, for the devil does his dupes deceive;
Gods, for the senses given men forsake you;
Gods, could ye only make the world believe;
Gods, tho’ the pains of fallen nature rake you;
Gods, tho’ the king of terrors you bereave;
Gods, ay, and pulling Truth divine to pieces;
Gods, with your vain conceits and catachresis.
No, ye will tell us ye are far from claiming
Better than other mortal men to be;
Ye are just daringly the truth defaming,
When ye should reverently bend the knee.
What is the target at which ye are aiming?
Jesus the Nazarene? is it not He?
Hence your assault upon God’s revelation;
Shakespeare is all you want for inspiration.
What of the oracles have ye now left us?
Have ye left anything in which to trust?
Since of so much of them ye have bereft us,
When is the residue to be discussed?
Deep to the soul your pen had almost cleft us,
When we remembered ye were only dust;
Then we could scoff at all your dark deceivings,
Safe from your subtle theosophic theivings.
Like Eliakim ye have cut in pieces
God’s holy Word, and burned it in the fire.
This is no wrangle over exegesis—
Should we not all concerning truth enquire?
And did we benefit by your synthesis,
Zeal which ye manifest we might admire;
But by your criticisms, keen and clever,
Ye have left nothing for our faith whatever.
Not like a man was Eliakim buried,
Not like a king in solemn regal state,
Not reverentially by subjects carried,
Mourned by the multitude compassionate;
But like a beast, despised, dishonoured, hurried,
Dragged through the streets beyond the city gate,
Cast on the field like compost, unlamented:
Thus God the insult done His Word resented.
Joab is broken, Adonijah perished,
Shimei fallen in His wickedness;
Vain was the thought those guilty nobles nourished,
Wisdom to battle with and dispossess.
Why then have ye the fell chimera cherished,
In this encounter to have good success?
Down with the shears with which ye have been shearing
That revelation ye should be revering.
Is it not madness to engage in battle
Him who collects the lightnings in His hand,
Under whose feet the fearful thunders rattle,
Who can the universal powers command?
Better ye had been cattle with the cattle
Than with His enemies be found to stand
In that dread moment when the Judge shall call you,
And when the sorrows of the lost befall you.
When in their nakedness and shame appearing
Men shall be massed before His judgment seat,
Helpless, and hopeless, faltering, and fearing,
Leaders and led, the priest and people meet,
Stripped of their varnish and their thin veneering,
Void of their vanity and vain conceit:
When He shall speak, and all the world shall hear Him,
When He shall reign and all the world revere Him.
Those who their dwelling have in desert places
Bow in the presence of Messiah must,
Prone at His footstool then upon their faces
Princes and peasants shall embrace the dust.
Kings shall before Him fall, and tribes and races
Under His sceptre shall in safety trust.
Like to the sun and moon, His throne enduring,
Stand shall for ever, lasting peace ensuring.
Praise ye King Solomon, ye priests, for ever
Standing in presence of His face unveiled;
Brightness of everlasting love, which never
Could in its purposes profound have failed:
Love from which creature powerless is to sever
One of its objects, even when assailed
By all the forces of the powers infernal,
Yea, by the critics higher, hodiernal.
Praise ye the Lord! His wisdom is victorious,
Wisdom inadequately brought to light
By the creation, innocent and glorious,
Ere sank the earth into its primal night;
Ere the fell cherub in revolt notorious,
E’en in the presence of the jasper bright,
Dazed by his beauty and his splendour, falling,
Struck at his Maker in his pride appalling.
Praise ye the Lord! With ceaseless adoration
Wisdom eternal worship on the throne!
Praise ye the Lord! Let the redeemed creation
Solomon sovereign of the nations own!
Praise ye the Lord! Give Him a grand ovation!
Let His magnificence the earth enzone!
PRAISE YE THE LORD! LET EVERY CREATURE LIVING
JOIN IN THE THUNDER OF THE WORLD’S THANKSGIVING!