Of parent-care His people-ward; and wills
45 All flesh to live in holy wise, and wills
His people to appear before Him pure
Without a crime. With such zeal, by a law
Guards He our safety; warns us loyal be;
Chastens; is instant. So, too, has the same
50 Apostle (when Galatian brethren
Chiding)—Paul—written that such zeal hath he.
The fathers’sins God freely rendered, then,
Slaying in whelming deluge utterly Parents alike with progeny, and e’en
55 Grandchildren in “fourth generation” now
Descended from the parent-stock, when He
Has then for nearly these nine hundred years
Assisted them. Hard does the judgment seem?
The sentence savage? And in Sodom, too,
60 That the still guiltless little one unarmed
And tender should lose life: for what had e’er
The infant sinned? What cruel thou mayst think,
Is parent-care’s true duty. Lest misdeed
Should further grow, crime’s authors He did quench,
65 And sinful parents’ brood. But, with his sires,
The harmless infant pays not penalties
Perpetual, ignorant and not advanced
In crime: but lest he partner should become
Of adult age’s guilt, death immature
70 Undid spontaneous future ills.
Why, then,
Bids God libation to be poured to Him
With blood of sheep? and takes so stringent means
By Law, that, in the People, none transgress
Erringly, threatening them with instant death
75 By stoning? and why reprobates, again,
These gifts of theirs, and says they are to Him
Unwelcome, while He chides a People prest
With swarm of sin? Does He, the truthful, bid,
And He, the just, at the same time repel?
80 The causes if thou seekst, cease to be moved
Erringly: for faith’s cause is weightier
Than fancied reason. Through a mirror—shade
Of fulgent light!—behold what the calf’s blood,
The heifer’s ashes, and each goat, do mean:
85 The one dismissed goes off, the other falls
A victim at the temple.
With calf’s blood
With water mixt the seer (thus from on high