Phillis Wheatley and the "mercy in the Son of God."

Thabiti M. Anyabwile in his book, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity writes of Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Although a slave from the age of six, she was highly educated and a Reformed Christian. Anyabwile writes that, "Her most famous collection, simply entitled Poems, reflects a rather sophisticated knowledge of Scripture and theology."

-

I am posting a poem she wrote entitled, "To the University of Cambridge, in England." Wheatley wrote it when she was about thirteen years old. I believe it is a fitting poem for this Holy Week.

-

Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights

-

Above, to traverse the ethereal space,

-

And mark the systems of revolving worlds.

-

Still more, ye sons of science ye receive

-

The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,

-

How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.

-

See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;

-

He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:

-

What matchless mercy in the Son of God!

-

When the whole human race by sin had fall'n,

-

He deign'd to die that they might rise again,

-

And share with him in the sublimest skies,

-

Life without death, and glory without end.

-

The picture above is the "Frontispiece from Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral