Wesley Corpus

I see him sweat great drops of blood, I see him faint beneath my load! The thorns his temples tear! He bows his bleeding head, and dies! He lives! He mounts above the skies, He claims my Eden there! "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." Gen. iii. 17. Why should a mortal man complain, When sentenc'd to a life of pain? Why should a saint by grace restor'd Expect to be above his Lord? There's no immunity from woe, No perfect paradise below, Not holiness itself can save A saint, a sinner, from the grave. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. iii. 19. I bow me to my God's decree, I own the sentence just, (The sentence of mortality) And dust return to dust: Yet quicken'd by the trumpet's sound, This dust again shall rise, Beyond the old creation bound, And shine above the skies. Page 12 "Unto Adam, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and cloathed them." Gen. iii. 21. Cloath'd with the skins of victims slain, Our parents turn'd on Christ their eyes, The Lamb whom God did then ordain, The grand vicarious sacrifice: By faith they knew the blood was shed, For them, and all their race t' atone, And trusting in his merits, made His perfect righteousness their own. "Unto Adam, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and cloathed them." Gen. iii. 21. O thou slaughter'd Lamb of God, From the world's foundations slain, By thy sacrificial blood Wash out all my guilty stain, Cloathe my spirit's nakedness With a covering from above, Put me on my spotless dress, Wrap me up in heavenly love. "God drove out the man: and he placed ... Cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Gen. iii. 24. Spoil'd of the bliss to Adam given, Out of my Maker's presence driven, My fallen state I mourn; But fondly sigh my Eden lost; The flaming sword, and angel-host Prohibit my return. A fallen, sinful child of man, By innocence I seek in vain That Eden to retrieve, I cannot find the blissful place, Or, banish'd from Jehovah's face, Behold my God, and live. Page 13