Bidden) besprinkled People, vessels all,
Priests, and the written volumes of the Law.
90 See here not their true hope, nor yet a mere
Semblance devoid of virtue: but behold
In the calf’s type Christ destined bodily
To suffer; who upon His shoulders bare
The plough-beam’s hard yokes, and with fortitude
95 Brake His own heart with the steel share, and poured
Into the furrows water of His own
Life’s blood. For these “temple-vessels” do
Denote our bodies: God’s true temple He,
Not dedicated erst; for to Himself
100 He by His blood associated men,
And willed them be His body’s priests, Himself
The Supreme Father’s perfect Priest by right.
Hearing, sight, step inert, He cleansed; and, for a “book,”
Sprinkled, by speaking words of presage, those
105 His witnesses: demonstrating the Law
Bound by His holy blood.
This cause withal
Our victim through “the heifer” manifests
From whose blood taking for the People’s sake
Piacular drops, them the first Levite bare
110 Within the veil; and, by God’s bidding, burned
Her corse without the camp’s gates; with whose ash
He cleansed lapsed bodies.
Thus our Lord (who us
By His own death redeemed), without the camp
Willingly suffering the violence
115 Of an iniquitous People, did fulfil
The Law, by facts predictions proving; who
A people of contamination full
Doth truly cleanse, conceding all things, as
The body’s Author rich; within heaven’s veil
120 Gone with the blood which—One for many’s deaths—
He hath outpoured.
A holy victim, then,
Is meet for a great priest; which worthily
He, being perfect, may be proved to have,
And offer. He a body hath: this is
125 For mortals a live victim; worthy this
Of great price did He offer, One for all.
The semblance of the “goats” teaches that they
Are men exiled out of the “peoples twain”
As barren; fruitless both; (of whom the Lord