By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room

The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.

As in him perish all men, so in thee,

As from a second root, shall be restored

As many as are restored, without thee none.

His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit,

Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce

Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,

And live in thee transplanted, and from thee

Receive new life. So Man, as is most just,

Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die,

And dying rise, and rising with him raise

His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.

So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,

Giving to death, and dying to redeem,

So dearly to redeem what hellish hate

So easily destroyed, and still destroys

In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume

Man’s nature, lessen or degrade thine own.

Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss

Equal to God, and equally enjoying

God-like fruition, quitted all, to save

A world from utter loss, and hast been found

By merit more than birthright Son of God,

Found worthiest to be so by being good,

Far more than great or high; because in thee

Love hath abounded more than glory abounds;

Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt

With thee thy manhood also to this throne:

Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign

Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,

Anointed universal King; all power

I give thee; reign for ever, and assume

Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme,

Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce:

All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide

In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.

When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven,

Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send

The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaim

Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds,

The living, and forthwith the cited dead

Of all past ages, to the general doom

Shall hasten; such a peal shall rouse their sleep.

Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge

Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink

Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full,

Thenceforth shall be for ever shut. Meanwhile

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And, after all their tribulations long,

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.

Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by,

For regal scepter then no more shall need,

God shall be all in all. But, all ye Gods,

Adore him, who to compass all this dies;

Adore the Son, and honour him as me.”

No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all

The multitude of Angels, with a shout

Loud as from numbers without number, sweet

As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung

With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled

The eternal regions: Lowly reverent

Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground