Sepulchre
A Lodging of Stone
The speaker laments that Christ's blessed body finds no welcome in human hearts, only a cold stone tomb.
O blessed body! Where have you been cast aside? Is there no lodging for you but a cold, hard stone?✦1 With so many hearts on earth, does not even one receive you?✦
The Heart's Unfitness
The speaker observes that hearts are large enough for sins but leave Christ outside, and contrasts their impurity with the innocent rock that holds Him.
Surely there is room enough in our hearts—plenty of it. For they can house transgressions by the score: thousands of trifles live there, yet they leave you outside the door.2 But what makes them look large also reveals them to be unfit. What sin did this pure rock ever commit—the rock that holds you now?✦ Who has indicted it of murder?3
Love Beyond the Stone
The speaker describes how hard hearts stone Christ while the stone receives Him, and how the Word written on stone finds no heart, yet God's love persists.
Where our hard hearts have taken up stones to dash out your brains, and missing that, most falsely put you on trial—only these stones quietly receive you, and keep order.✦4 And just as long ago the Law was written on stone by heavenly craft, so you, who are yourself the letter of the Word, find no fit heart to hold you.✦✦ Yet we still go on as we began, and so we would perish — except that nothing, however cold, hard, or foul, can keep you from loving us.
Read the original English
O Blessed bodie! Whither art thou thrown? No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone? So many hearts on earth, and yet not one Receive thee?
Sure there is room within our hearts good store; For they can lodge transgressions by the score: Thousands of toyes dwell there, yet out of doore They leave thee.
But that which shews them large, shews them unfit. What ever sinne did this pure rock commit, Which holds thee now? Who hath indited it Of murder?
Where our hard hearts have took up stones to brain thee, And missing this, most falsly did arraigne thee; Onely these stones in quiet entertain thee, And order.
And as of old, the Law by heav'nly art Was writ in stone; so thou, which also art The letter of the word, find'st no fit heart To hold thee.
Yet do we still persist as we began, And so should perish, but that nothing can, Though it be cold, hard, foul, from loving man Withhold thee.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.2.7 — And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
- ↩John.1.11 — He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
- ↩Matt.27.60;Mark.15.46;Luke.23.53 — and he laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out in the rock; and having rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, he departed. Mark.15.46 — And Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Luke.23.53 — And he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had yet been laid.
- ↩John.8.59 — So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
- ↩Exod.31.18;Deut.9.10 — And when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets written with the finger of God. Deut.9.10 — And the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the LORD spoke with you from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
- ↩Jer.31.33;2Cor.3.3;Heb.8.10;John.1.1 — But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2Cor.3.3 — being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. Heb.8.10 — For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. John.1.1 — In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Notes
- 1 ↩'Lodging' keeps Herbert's hospitality image: the tomb is the only shelter left for Christ's body, while human hearts refuse him room.
- 2 ↩Early modern 'toys' means trifles, vanities, and idle diversions, not children's playthings alone; rendered as 'trifles' for that sense.
- 3 ↩Source 'indited' is the Early Modern spelling of 'indicted' (formally charged); rendered with the modern legal sense.
- 4 ↩Source 'brain thee' means to kill by dashing out the brains (stoning); 'entertain' means receive/lodge as a guest, not amuse; hanging 'And order' is read with 'in quiet' as the manner of that reception.
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