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ON THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SCRIPTURE TERMS 'LIFE AND DEATH,', by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: True life, according to the scripture plan
Last Line: Immortal life is that of christ in us.
Subject(s): Bible; God; Holy Ghost; Jesus Christ; Holy Spirit


TRUE life, according to the scripture plan,
Is God's own likeness in his image, man;
This was the life that Adam ceas'd to live,
Or lost by sin; and therefore could not give:
So that his offspring, all the born on earth,
What a new parent of this heav'nly birth.

This, Christ alone, God's Image most express,
The Second Adam, gives them to possess;
Becoming man, reversing human fall,
And raising up the first, true life in all;
Healing our nature's deadly wound within,
And quenching wrath, or death, or hell, or sin;

For all such words describe one evil thing,
Or want of good; that has one only spring,
The love of God, in Christ, which form'd at first
A blessed Adam, and redeem'd a curst
By his own act—good only was design'd
For Adam, and, in him, for all mankind.

He fell from good, misusing his free-will,
Into this world, this life of good and ill;
From whence the willing to be sav'd revive
Thro' faith and penitence, in Christ alive;
A second death succeeds, if they refuse;
For choosing creatures must have what they choose.

Not bare existence, when we go from hence,
Is Immortality, in scripture sense;
For thus, alike immortal, are confess'd
The good, the bad, the ruin'd, and the blest;
Whose inbred tempers hint the reason, why
They live for ever, or for ever die.

God's likeness, light, and Spirit in the soul,
Make, as at first, its blest immortal whole;
'Tis death to want them; vain is all dispute;
The gospel only reaches to the root:
All the inspir'd have understood it thus;
Immortal life is that of CHRIST in us.





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