“’T is known enow that all mankind
At first were formed for perfect bliss;
Our forefather that boon resigned,
All for an apple’s sake, I wis;
We fell condemned, for folly blind,
To suffer sore in hell’s abyss;
But One a remedy did find
Lest we our hope of heaven should miss. 
He suffered on the cross for this,
Red blood ran from His crowned brow;
He saved us by that pain of His,
For the grace of God is great enow.”

“Enow there flowed from out that well,
Blood and water from His broad wound: 
The blood bought us from bale of hell,
And from second death deliverance found. 
The water is baptism, truth to tell,
That followed-the spear so sharply ground,
And washes away the guilt most fell
Of those that Adam in death had drowned. 
Now is there nothing in earth’s great round,
To bar from the bliss wherewith God did endow
Mankind,—­restored to us safe and sound,
For the grace of God is great enow.”

XII

“Grace enow a man may get
By penitence, though he sin again;
But with long sorrow and regret,
He must bear punishment and pain;
But righteous reason will not let
The innocent be hurt in vain;
God never gave His judgment yet,
That they should suffer who show no stain. 
The sinful soul of mercy fain
Finds pardon if he will repent,
But he who sinless doth remain
Is surely saved, being innocent.”

“Two men are saved of God’s good grace,
Who severally have done His will: 
The righteous man shall see His face,
The innocent dwells with Him still. 
In the Psalter thou may’st find a case: 
’Lord, who shall climb to Thy high hill,
Or rest within Thy Holy Place?’
The psalmist doth the sense fulfill: 
’Who with his hands did never ill,
His heart to evil never lent,
There to ascend he shall have skill;’
So surely saved is the innocent.”

“That the righteous is saved I hold certain;
Before God’s palace he shall stand
Who never took man’s life in vain,
Who never to flatter his fellow planned. 
Of the righteous, the Wise Man writeth plain
How kindly our King doth him command;
In ways full strait he doth restrain,
Yet shows him the kingdom great and grand,
As who saith:  ’Behold! yon lovely land! 
Thou may’st win it, if so thy will be bent.’ 
But with never peril on either hand,
Surely saved is the innocent.”

“Of the righteous saved, hear one man say—­
David, who in the Psalter cried: 
’O Lord, call never Thy servant to pay,
For no man living is justified.’ 
So thou, if thou shalt come one day
To the court that each cause must decide,
For mercy with justice thou may’st pray
Through this same text that I espied. 
But may He on the bloody cross that died,
His holy hands with hard nails rent,
Give thee to pass when thou art tried,
Saved, not as righteous, but innocent.”