45 Discern the Spirit’s drift. Dull as they are,
Seek they congenial animals!
But ye
Who have not yet, (false deity your guide,
Reprobate in your very mind,) to death’s
Inmost caves penetrated, learn there flows
50 A stream perennial from its fount, which feeds
A tree, (twice sixfold are the fruits, its grace!)
And into earth and to the orb’s four winds
Goes out: into so many parts doth flow
The fount’s one hue and savour. Thus, withal,
55 From apostolic word descends the Church,
Out of Christ’s womb, with glory of His Sire
All filled, to wash off filth, and vivify
Dead fates. The Gospel, four in number, one
In its diffusion ’mid the Gentiles, this,
60 By faith elect accepted, Paul hands down
(Excellent doctor!) pure, without a crime;
And from it he forbade Galatian saints
To turn aside withal; whom “brethren false,”
(Urging them on to circumcise themselves,
65 And follow “elements,” leaving behind
Their novel “freedom,”) to “a shadow old
Of things to be” were teaching to be slaves.
These were the causes which Paul had to write
To the Galatians: not that they took out
70 One small part of the Gospel, and held that
For the whole bulk, leaving the greater part
Behind. And hence ’tis no words of a book,
But Christ Himself, Christ sent into the orb,
Who is the gospel, if ye will discern;
75 Who from the Father came, sole Carrier
Of tidings good; whose glory vast completes
The early testimonies; by His work
Showing how great the orb’s Creator is:
Whose deeds, conjoined at the same time with words,
80 Those faithful ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Recorded unalloyed (not speaking words
External), sanctioned by God’s Spirit, ’neath
So great a Master’s eye!
This paschal Lamb
Is hung, a victim, on the tree: Him Paul,
85 Writing decrees to Corinth, with his torch,
Hands down as slain, the future life and God
Promised to the fathers, whom before