Think deeply: through grace unto glory
This ransomed regenerate earth
Tells out an unendable story
Begun with - Eternity's birth:
Jehovah, the Greatest, the Highest,
Alone is unsullied in light,
And even archangels, the nighest,
Were never quite pure in His sight.

For, some imperfection in creatures
Is still the true law of their life,
Unequal, of opposite natures,
With matter and spirit at strife;
And thus, from all earliest beginning,
Benevolence wrought in full strength
To rescue creation from sinning
Established in pureness at length,-

Established on God The Redemption,
As grafted in Him yet again,
By destined and suffered preemption
Through future temptation and pain:
And still as a sacrifice showeth
The God in His phase as a Son,
For ever henceforth,- and, who knoweth?
From the date of Creation begun.

Since, never hath been the sad season
When sternly in solitude deep
(Revelation so whispers to reason)
Love's energy languish'd asleep:
For, even the Great Divine Essence
Though One was companion'd as Three,
Ubiquity's focussing Presence,
The spark-seed of beings to be.

And when, as it pleased the Creator
This lowlier universe grew
Through æons of oldtime, or later
When Earth with its Adam was new,
Redemption to perfect Creation
Was still the Good Father's behest,
That matter might shine in high station
Of Spirit's own pureness possest.

Thus, Saviour and Lover and Brother!
We welcome in God being man
From reason and scripture none other
Than God's philosophical plan,
As adding Himself to the creature
He made in His infinite love
And lightening and lifting its nature
To cleanse it for glories above!

These planet-worlds rolling outside us
So lightsome and glorious and great
May well be the homes that abide us
When come to the heavenly state;
Many mansions are there, many treasures,
Which Christ The Redeemer prepares
For spurners of sin and its pleasures
The children of God and His heirs!