Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739) — Part I

THE PREFACE

Some verses, it may be observed, in the following Collection, were wrote upon the scheme of the Mystic divines. And these, ‘tis owned, we had once in great veneration, as the best explainers of the Gospel of Christ. But we are now convinced that we therein greatly erred, not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power of God. And because this is an error which many serious minds are sooner or later exposed to, and which indeed most easily besets those who seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity; we believe ourselves indispensably obliged in the presence of God, and angels, and men, to declare wherein we apprehend those writers not to teach the truth as it is in Jesus.

And first, we apprehend them to lay another foundation. They are careful indeed to pull down our own works, and to prove, that by the Deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. But why is this? Only, to establish our own righteousness in the place of our own works. They speak largely and well against expecting to be accepted of God for our virtuous actions; and then teach, that we are to be accepted for our virtuous habits or tempers. Still the ground of our acceptance is placed in ourselves. The difference is only this Common writers suppose we are to be justified for the sake of our outward righteousness. These suppose we are to be justified for the sake of our inward righteousness: whereas, in truth, we are no more justified for the sake of one than of the other. For neither our own inward nor outward righteousness is the ground of our justification. Holiness of heart, as well as holiness of life, is not the cause, but the effect of it. The sole cause of our acceptance with God (or, that for the sake of which, on the account of which, we are accepted) is the righteousness and the death of Christ, who fulfilled God’s law, and died in our stead. And even the condition of it is not (as they suppose) our holiness either of heart or life but our faith alone; faith contradistinguished from holiness as well as from good works. Other foundation therefore can no man lay, without being an adversary to Christ and His Gospel, than faith alone, faith, though necessarily producing both, yet not including either good works or holiness.

But supposing them to have laid the foundation right, the manner of building thereon which they advise is quite opposite to that prescribed by Christ. He commands to build up one another. They advise, “To the desert, to the desert, and God will build you up.” Numberless are the commendations that occur in all their writings, not of retirement intermixed with conversation, but of an entire seclusion from men, (perhaps for months or years,) in order to purify the soul. Whereas, according to the judgment of our Lord, and the writings of His apostles, it is only when we are knit together, that we have nourishment from Him, and increase with the increase of God. Neither is there any time when the weakest member can say to the strongest, or the strongest to the weakest, “I have no need of thee.” Accordingly our blessed Lord, when His disciples were in their weakest state, sent them forth, not alone, but two by two. When they were strengthened a little, not by solitude, but by abiding with Him and one another, He commanded them to wait, not separate, but being assembled together, for the promise of the Father. And they were all with one accord in one place, when they received the gift of the Holy Ghost. Express mention is made in the same chapter, that when there were added unto them three thousand souls, all that believed were together, and continued steadfastly not only in the apostles’ doctrine, but also in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in praying with one accord. Agreeable to which is the account the great apostle gives of the manner which he had been taught of God, for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ, even to the end of the world. And, according to St. Paul, all who will ever come, in the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, must together grow up into Him from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted (or strengthened) by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15, 16.)

So widely distant is the manner of building up souls in Christ taught by St. Paul, from that taught by the Mystics Nor do they differ as to the foundation, or the manner of building thereon, more than they do with regard to the superstructure. For the religion these authors would edify us in is solitary religion. If thou wilt be perfect, say they, “trouble not thyself about outward works. It is better to work virtues in the will. He hath attained the true resignation, who hath estranged himself from all outward works, that God may work inwardly in him, without any turning to outward things. These are the true worshippers, who worship God in spirit and in truth.” For contemplation is with them the fulfilling of the law, even a contemplation that “consists in a cessation of all works.”

Directly opposite to this is the Gospel of Christ. Solitary religion is not to be found there. “Holy solitaries” is a phrase no more consistent with the Gospel than holy adulterers. The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness, but social holiness. Faith working by love is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection. This commandment have we from Christ, that he who loves God, love his brother also; and that we manifest our love by doing good unto all men, especially to them that are of the household of faith. And, in truth, whosoever loveth his brethren not in word only, but as Christ loved him, cannot but be zealous of good works. He feels in his soul a burning, restless desire of spending and being spent for them. My Father, will he say, worketh hitherto, and I work and, at all possible opportunities, he is, like his Master, going about doing good.

This then is the way: walk ye in it, whosoever ye are that have believed in His name. Ye know, other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ. Ye feel that by grace ye are saved through faith; saved from sin, by Christ formed in your hearts, and from fear, by His Spirit bearing witness with your spirit, that ye are the sons of God. Ye are taught of God, not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is; but to instruct, admonish, exhort, reprove, comfort, confirm, and every way build up one another. Ye have an unction from the Holy One, that teacheth you to renounce any other or higher perfection, than faith working by love, faith zealous of good works, faith as it hath opportunity doing good unto all men. As ye have therefore received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk ye in Him rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, and abounding therein more and more. Only, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For ye are complete in Him. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. Only continue in Him, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear, with Him in glory.

Solitude

From the Latin.

Solitude! where shall I find
Thee, pleasing to the thoughtful mind?
Sweet delights to thee belong,
Untasted by the vulgar throng.
Weary of vice and noise I flee,
Sweetest comforter, to thee.
Here the mild and holy dove
Peace inspires and joy and love.
Thy unmolested, silent shade
No tumultuous sounds invade:
No stain of guilt is seen in thee,
To soil thy spotless purity.
Here the smiling fields around
Softest harmony resound.
Here, with angel choirs combined,
The lord of his own peaceful mind
Glides through life, from business far,
And noisy strife, and eating care.
Here, retired from pomp and state,
(The envied torment of the great,)
Innocent he leads his days,
Far from giddy thirst of praise.
Here, his accounts with studious care
Preparing for his last great bar,
He weeps the stains of guilt away,
And ripens for eternal day.

Hoarded wealth desire who please,
Towers and gilded palaces.
Fraudless silence may I find,
Solitude and peace of mind;
To all the busy world unknown,
Seen and loved by God alone.

Ye rich, ye learn’d, ye great, confess
This in life is happiness,
To live (unknown to all abroad)
To myself only and my God.

The Mystery of Life

By the Rev. John Gambold.

So many years I’ve seen the sun,
And call’d these eyes and hands my own,
A thousand little acts I’ve done,
And childhood have and manhood known:
O what is Life! and this dull round
To tread, why was a spirit bound?

So many airy draughts and lines,
And warm excursions of the mind,
Have fill’d my soul with great designs,
While practice grovell’d far behind:
O what is Thought! and where withdraw
The glories which my fancy saw?

So many tender joys and woes
Have on my quivering soul had power;
Plain life with heightening passions rose,
The boast or burden of their hour:
O what is all we feel! why fled
Those pains and pleasures o’er my head?

So many human souls divine,
Some at one interview display’d,
Some oft and freely mix’d with mine,
In lasting bonds my heart have laid:
O what is Friendship! why imprest
On my weak, wretched, dying breast?

So many wondrous gleams of light,
And gentle ardours from above,
Have made me sit, like seraph bright,
Some moments on a throne of love:
O what is Virtue! why had I,
Who am so low, a taste so high?

Ere long, when Sovereign Wisdom wills,
My soul an unknown path shall tread,
And strangely leave, who strangely fills
This frame, and waft me to the dead:
O what is Death?—’tis life’s last shore,
Where vanities are vain no more;
Where all pursuits their goal obtain,
And life is all retouch’d again;
Where in their bright result shall rise
Thoughts, virtues, friendships, griefs, and joys.

Epitaph

On Gambold. By Himself.

Ask not, who ended here his span?
His name, reproach, and praise, was Man.
Did no great deeds adorn his course?
No deed of his but show’d him worse:
One thing was great, which God supplied,
He suffer’d human life—and died.
What points of knowledge did he gain?
That life was sacred all—and vain:
Sacred how high, and vain how low?
He knew not here, but died to know.

Virtue

Altered from Herbert.

Sweet Day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou with all thy sweets must die!

Sweet Rose, so fragrant and so brave,
Dazzling the rash beholder’s eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou with all thy sweets must die!

Sweet Spring, so beauteous and so gay,
Storehouse, where sweets unnumber’d lie:
Not long thy fading glories stay,
But thou with all thy sweets must die!

Only a sweet and virtuous mind,
When Nature all in ruins lies,
When earth and heaven a period find,
Begins a life that never dies.

Upon Listening to the Vibrations of a Clock

By Gambold.

Instructive sound! I’m now convinced by thee,
Time in its womb may bear infinity.
How the past moment dies, and throbs no more!
What worlds of parts compose the rolling hour!
The least of these a serious care demands;
For though they’re little, yet they’re golden sands:
By some great deeds distinguish’d all in heaven,
For the same end to me by number given!
Cease, man, to lavish sums thou ne’er hast told!
Angels, though deathless, dare not be so bold.

Doomsday

From Herbert.

“Come to Judgment, come away!”
(Hark, I hear the angel say,
Summoning the dust to rise;)
“Haste, resume, and lift your eyes;
Hear, ye sons of Adam, hear;
Man, before thy God appear!”

Come to Judgment, come away!
This the last, the dreadful day.
Sovereign Author, Judge of all,
Dust obeys Thy quickening call,
Dust no other voice will heed:
Thine the trump that wakes the dead.

Come to Judgment, come away!
Lingering man, no longer stay;
Thee let earth at length restore,
Prisoner in her womb no more;
Burst the barriers of the tomb,
Rise to meet thy instant doom!

Come to Judgment, come away!
Wide dispersed howe’er ye stray,
Lost in fire, or air, or main,
Kindred atoms meet again;
Sepulchred where’er ye rest,
Mix’d with fish, or bird, or beast.

Come to Judgment, come away!
Help, O Christ, Thy work’s decay:
Man is out of order hurl’d,
Parcell’d out to all the world;
Lord, Thy broken concert raise,
And the music shall be praise.

Spiritual Slumber

From the German.

O Thou, who all things canst control,
Chase this dead Slumber from my soul;
With joy and fear, with love and awe,
Give me to keep Thy perfect law.

O, may one beam of Thy blest light
Pierce through, dispel the shades of night
Touch my cold breast with heavenly fire,
With holy, conquering zeal inspire.

For zeal I sigh, for zeal I pant;
Yet heavy is my soul and faint:
With steps unwavering, undismay’d,
Give me in all Thy paths to tread.

With outstretch’d hands, and streaming eyes,
Oft I begin to grasp the prize;
I groan, I strive, I watch, I pray:
But ah! how soon it dies away!

The deadly Slumber soon I feel
Afresh upon my spirit steal:
Rise, Lord; stir up Thy quick’ning power.
And wake me that I sleep no more.

Single of heart! O may I be,
Nothing may I desire but Thee:
Far, far from me the world remove,
And all that holds me from Thy love.

Zeal

Dead as I am, and cold my breast,
Untouch’d by thee, Celestial Zeal,
How shall I sing the unwonted guest?
How paint the joys I cannot feel?

Assist me Thou, at whose command
The heart exults, from earth set free!
’Tis Thine to raise the drooping hand,
Thine to confirm the feeble knee.

’Tis Zeal must end this inward strife,
Give me to know that warmth Divine!
Through all my verse, through all my life
The active principle shall shine.

Where shall we find its high abode?
To heaven the sacred ray aspires,
With ardent love embraces God,
Parent and Object of its fires.

There its peculiar influence known
In breasts seraphic learns to glow;
Yet, darted from the eternal throne,
It sheds a cheering light below.

Through earth diffused, the active flame
Intensely for God’s glory burns;
And, always mindful whence it came,
To heaven in every wish returns.

Yet vain the fierce Enthusiast’s aim
With this to sanctify his cause;
To screen beneath this awful name
The persecuting sword he draws.

In vain the mad Fanatic’s dreams
To this mysteriously pretend;
On fancy built, his airy schemes
Or slight the means, or drop the end.

Where Zeal holds on its even course,
Blind rage and bigotry retires;
Knowledge assists, not checks its force,
And prudence guides, not damps its fires.

Resistless then it wins its way;
Yet deigns in humble hearts to dwell:
The humble hearts confess its sway,
And pleased the strange expansion feel.

Superior far to mortal things,
In grateful ecstasy they own,
(Such antedated heaven it brings,)
That Zeal and Happiness are one.

Now varied deaths their terrors spread,
Now threat’ning thousands rage—in vain!
Nor tortures can arrest its speed,
Nor worlds its energy restrain

That energy, which quells the strong,
Which clothes with strength the abject weak,
Looses the stammering infant’s tongue,
And bids the sons of thunder speak.

While Zeal its heavenly influence sheds,
What light o’er Moses’ visage plays!
It wings the immortal prophet’s steeds,
And brightens fervent Stephen’s face.

Come then, bright flame, my breast inspire;
To me, to me be thou but given,
Like them I’ll mount my car of fire,
Or view from earth an opening heaven.

Come then, if, mighty to redeem,
Christ purchased thee with blood Divine:
Come, holy Zeal! for thou through Him,
Jesus Himself through thee is mine!

On Reading M. de Renty’s Life

We deem the saints from mortal flesh released,
With brighter day and bolder raptures blest:
Sense now no more precludes the distant thought,
And naked souls now feel the God they sought.
But thy great soul, which walk’d with God on earth,
Can scarce be nearer by that second birth:
By change of place dull bodies may improve,
But spirits to their bliss advance by love.
Thy change insensible brought no surprise,
Inured to innocence and paradise:
For earth, not heaven, thou through a glass didst view;
The glass was love; and love no evil knew,
But in all places only heaven did shew.

Canst thou love more, when from a body freed,
Which so much life, so little had of need?
So pure, it seem’d for this alone design’d,
To usher forth the virtues of the mind!
From nature’s chain, from earthly dross set free,
One only appetite remain’d in thee:
That appetite it mourn’d but once denied;
For when it ceased from serving God, it died.

Vanity

From Herbert.

The fleet Astronomer travels o’er
The spheres with his sagacious mind,
Their stations views from door to door,
As if to purchase he design’d;
Through all their circling orbs he goes,
And all their mazy wanderings knows.

The nimble Diver with his side
Cuts through the working waves his way,
To fetch the pearl which God did hide
On purpose from the view of day,
That he might save his life, and hers
Whose pride the costly danger wears.

The subtle Chemist can divest
Gay Nature of her various hue;
Stript of her thousand forms, confest
She stands, and naked to his view:
At distance other suitors stand;
Her inmost stores wait his command.

What has not man sought out and found,
But God? Who yet His glorious law
Plants in us; mellowing the ground
With showers and frost, with love and awe.
Poor, busy, foolish man! For Death
In fire, and air, and sea, and land,
Through heaven above, and earth beneath
Thou seek’st; but missest Life at hand.

Farewell to the World

From the French.

World, adieu, thou real cheat!
Oft have thy deceitful charms
Fill’d my heart with fond conceit,
Foolish hopes, and false alarms:
Now I see as clear as day
How thy follies pass away.

Vain thy entertaining sights,
False thy promises renew’d,
All the pomp of thy delights
Does but flatter and delude:
Thee I quit for Heaven above,
Object of the noblest love.

Farewell Honour’s empty pride!
Thy own nice, uncertain gust,
If the least mischance betide,
Lays thee lower than the dust:
Worldly honours end in gall,
Rise to-day, to-morrow fall.

Foolish Vanity, farewell,
More inconstant than the wave!
Where thy soothing fancies dwell,
Purest tempers they deprave:
He, to whom I fly, from thee,
Jesus Christ, shall set me free,

Never shall my wandering mind
Follow after fleeting toys,
Since in God alone I find
Solid and substantial joys;
Joys that, never overpast,
Through eternity shall last.

Lord, how happy is a heart
After Thee while it aspires!
True and faithful as Thou art,
Thou shalt answer its desires:
It shall see the glorious scene
Of Thy everlasting reign.

Giddiness

From Herbert.

O, what a thing is man! from rest
How widely distant, and from power!
Some twenty several men at least
He seems, he is, each several hour.

Heaven his sole treasure now he loves;
But let a tempting thought creep in,
His coward soul he soon reproves,
That starts to admit a pleasing sin.

Eager he rushes now to war,
Inglorious now dissolves in ease:
Wealth now engrosses all his care;
And lavish now he scorns increase.

A stately dome he raises now:
But soon the dome his change shall feel;
See, level lies its lofty brow,
Crush’d by the whirlwind of his will.

O, what were man, if his attire
Still varied with his varying mind;
If we his every new desire
Stamp’d on his altering form could find!

Could each one see his neighbour’s heart,
Brethren and social made in vain,
All would disband and range apart,
And man detest the monster man.

If God refuse our heart to turn,
Vain will His first creation be:
O, make us daily! or we spurn
Our own salvation, Lord, and Thee!

To a Friend in Love

By Gambold.

Accept, dear youth, a sympathizing lay,
The only tribute pitying love can pay.
Though vain the hope thine anguish to assuage,
Charm down desire, or calm fierce passion’s rage:
Yet still permit me in thy griefs to grieve,
Relief to offer, if I can’t relieve;
Near thy sick couch with fond concern to attend,
And reach out cordials to my dying friend.

Poor hapless youth! what words can ease thy pain,
When reason pleads, and wisdom cries in vain!
Can feeble verse impetuous nature guide,
Or stem the force of blind affection’s tide?
If reason checks, or duty disallows,
“Reason,” you cry, “and duty are my foes:
Religion’s dictates ineffectual prove,
And God Himself’s impertinence in love.”

What art thou, Love? thou strange mysterious ill,
Whom none aright can know, though all can feel.
From careless sloth thy dull existence flows,
And feeds the fountain whence itself arose:
Silent its waves with baleful influence roll,
Damp the young mind, and sink the aspiring soul,
Poison its virtues, all its powers restrain,
And blast the promise of the future man.
To thee, curst fiend, the captive wretch consign’d,
“His passions rampant, and his reason blind,”
Reason, Heaven’s great vicegerent, dares disown,
And place a foolish idol in its throne;
Or wildly raise his frantic raptures higher,
And pour out blasphemies at thy desire.
At thy desire he bids a creature shine,
He decks a worm with attributes Divine;
Hers to angelic beauties dares prefer,
“Angels are painted fair to look like her!”
Before her shrine the lowly suppliant laid,
Adores the idol that himself has made:
From her almighty breath his doom receives,
Dies by her frown, as by her smile he lives.
Supreme she reigns in all-sufficient state,
To her he bows, from her expects his fate,
“Heaven in her love, damnation in her hate.”
He rears unhallow’d altars to her name,
Where lust lights up a black polluted flame;
Where sighs impure, as impious incense rise,
Himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice:
And thus God’s sacred word his horrid prayer supplies.

“Centre of all perfection, source of bliss,
In whom thy creature lives and moves and is,
Save, or I perish! hear my humble prayer;
Spare thy poor servant:—O, in mercy spare!
Thou art my joy, on thee depends my trust;
Hide not thy face, nor frown me into dust.
Send forth thy breath, and, raised again, I see
My joy, my life, my final bliss in thee.
For thee I am; for thee I all resign;
Be thou my one thing needful, ever mine!”

But O, forbear, presumptuous Muse, forbear,
Nor wound with rant profane the Christian ear:
A just abhorrence in my friend I see,
He starts from love, when love’s idolatry.
“Give Me thy heart,” if the Creator cries,
“’Tis given the creature,” what bold wretch replies?
Not so my friend: he wakes, he breathes again,
And “reason takes once more the slacken’d rein.”
In vain rebellious nature claims a part;
When Heaven requires, he gives up all his heart:
(“For Love Divine no partnership allows,
And Heaven averse rejects divided vows:”)
Fixt though she be, he rends the idol thence,
Nor lets her power exceed Omnipotence.
Commands his God, “Cut off the offending hand?”
He hears, obedient to his God’s command.
“’Pluck out thine eye,” let the Redeemer say;
He tears, and casts the bleeding orb away.
Victorious now to nobler joys aspires,
His bosom touch’d with more than earthly fires;
He leaves rough passion for calm virtue’s road,
Gives earth for heaven, and quits a worm for God.

1 Timothy 5:6

“She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”

How hapless is the applauded virgin’s lot,
Her God forgetting, by her God forgot!
Stranger to truth, unknowing to obey,
In error nursed, and disciplined to stray;
Swoll’n with self-will, and principled with pride,
Sense all her good, and passion all her guide:
Pleasure its tide, and flattery lends its breath,
And smoothly waft her to eternal death!

A goddess here, she sees her votaries meet,
Crowd to her shrine, and tremble at her feet;
She hears their vows, believes their life and death
Hangs on the wrath and mercy of her breath;
Supreme in fancied state she reigns her hour,
And glories in her plenitude of power:
Herself the only object worth her care,
Since all the kneeling world was made for her.

For her, creation all its stores displays,
The silkworms labour, and the diamonds blaze:
Air, earth, and sea conspire to tempt her taste,
And ransack’d nature furnishes the feast.
Life’s gaudiest pride attracts her willing eyes.
And balls, and theatres, and courts arise:
Italian songsters pant her ear to please,
Bid the first cries of infant reason cease,
Save her from thought, and lull her soul to peace.

Deep sunk in sense the imprison’d soul remains,
Nor knows its fall from God, nor feels its chains:
Unconscious still, sleeps on in error’s night,
Nor strives to rise, nor struggles into light:
Heaven-born in vain, degenerate cleaves to earth,
(No pangs experienced of the second birth,)
She only fall’n, yet unawaken’d found,
While all the enthrall’d creation groans around.

John 15:18,19

Where has my slumbering spirit been,
So late emerging into light?
So imperceptible, within,
The weight of this Egyptian night!

Where have they hid the WORLD so long,
So late presented to my view?
Wretch! though myself increased the throng,
Myself a part I never knew.

Secure beneath its shade I sat,
To me were all its favours shown:
I could not taste its scorn or hate;
Alas, it ever loved its own!

Jesus, if half-discerning now,
From Thee I gain this glimmering light,
Retouch my eyes, anoint them Thou,
And grant me to receive my sight.

O, may I of Thy grace obtain
The world with other eyes to see;
Its judgments false, its pleasures vain,
Its friendship enmity with Thee!

Delusive world, thy hour is past,
The folly of thy wisdom shew!
It cannot now retard my haste,
I leave thee for the holy few,

No! thou blind leader of the blind,
I bow my neck to thee no more;
I cast thy glories all behind,
And slight thy smiles, and dare thy power.

Excluded from my Saviour’s prayer,
Stain’d, yet not hallow’d, with His blood,
Shalt thou my fond affection share,
Shalt thou divide my heart with God?

No! though it rouse thy utmost rage,
Eternal enmity I vow:
Though hell with thine its powers engage,
Prepared I meet your onset now.

Load me with scorn, reproach, and shame:
My patient Master’s portion give:
As evil still cast out my name,
Nor suffer such a wretch to live.

Set to thy seal that I am His;
Vile as my Lord I long to be:
My hope, my crown, my glory this,
Dying to conquer sin and thee!

Hymn to Contempt

Welcome, Contempt! stern, faithful guide,
Unpleasing, healthful food!
Hail, pride-sprung antidote of pride;
Hail, evil turn’d to good!

Thee when with awful pomp array’d
Ill-judging mortals see,
Perverse they fly with coward speed,
To guilt they fly from thee.

Yet if one haply longing stands
To choose a nobler part,
Ardent from sin’s ensnaring bands
To vindicate his heart:

Present to end the doubtful strife,
Thy aid he soon shall feel;
Confirm’d by thee, though warm in life,
Bid the vain world farewell.

Through thee he treads the shining way
That saints and martyrs trod,
Shakes off the frailty of his clay,
And wings his soul for God.

His portion thou, he burns no more,
With fond desire to please;
The fierce, distracting conflict’s o’er,
And all his thoughts are peace.

Sent by Almighty Pity down,
To thee alone ’tis given
With glorious infamy to crown
The favourites of Heaven.

With thee Heaven’s favourite Son, when made
Incarnate, deign’d to abide;
To thee He meekly bow’d His head,
He bow’d His head, and died.

And shall I still the cup decline,
His sufferings disesteem,
Disdain to make this portion mine
When sanctified by Him?

Or, firm through Him and undismay’d,
Thy sharpest darts abide?
Sharp as the thorns that tore His head,
The spear that pierced His side.

Yes; since with thee my lot is cast,
I bless my God’s decree,
Embrace with joy what He embraced,
And live and die with thee!

So when before the angelic host
To each his lot is given,
Thy name shall be in glory lost,
And mine be found in heaven!

The Agony

From Herbert.

Vain man has measured land and sea,
Fathom’d the depths of states and kings,
O’er earth and heaven explored his way:
Yet there are two vast spacious things,
To measure which doth more behove,
Yet few that sound them!—Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair
To Calvary: there shall he see
A Man so pain’d, that all His hair,
His skin, His garments bloody be!
Sin is that rack, which forces pain
To hunt its food through every vein.

Wouldst thou know Love? behold the God,
The Man, who for thy ransom died:
Go taste the sacred fount that flow’d
Fast-streaming from His wounded side!
Love is that liquor most divine,
God feels as blood, but I as wine.

The Thanksgiving

From the same.

O King of grief! (how strange and true
The name, to Jesus only due!)
How, Saviour, shall I grieve for Thee?
Who in all griefs preventest me.

Then let me vie with Thee in love,
And try who there shall conqueror prove.
Giv’st Thou me wealth? I will restore
All back unto Thee by the poor.

Giv’st Thou me honour? All shall see
The honour doth belong to Thee:
A bosom-friend? If false he prove
To Thee, I will tear thence his love.

Thee shall my music find: each string
Shall have his attribute to sing;
And every note accord in Thee,
To prove one God, one harmony.

Giv’st Thou me knowledge? It shall still
Search out Thy ways, Thy works, Thy will:
Yea, I will search Thy Book, nor move
Till I have found therein Thy love.

Thy love I will turn back on Thee
O my dear Saviour, victory!
Then for Thy passion, I for that
Will do—alas, I know not what!

The Reprisal

From the same.

Well have I weigh’d it, Lord, and find
Thy mighty Passion mocks my skill:
Though I die for Thee, I’m behind;
My sins deserve the death to feel.

O were I innocent, that I
Might bring Thee offerings pure and free!
Still my attempt Thy wounds defy,
For they require me dead for Thee.

Yet will I share the conquest too:
Though I can do against Thee nought,
In Thee, O Lord, I will subdue
The man that once against Thee fought!

Matins

From the same.

I cannot open, Lord, mine eyes,
But Thou art ready still to claim
My morning soul in sacrifice:
Thine then the following day I am.

My God, what is a human heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or star, or rainbow; or a part
Of all, or all Thy world in one?

My God, what is a human heart?
Thou softenest it with heavenly dew,
Thou pour’st upon it all Thy art,
As all Thy business were to woo.

To serve his God is man’s estate;
This glorious task asks all his care:
He did not earth and heaven create,
But may know Him by whom they are.

Teach me at last Thy love to know;
That this new light which now I see
May both the work and Workman show:
A sunbeam lifts me then to Thee!

Employment

From the same.

The flower now blooms, now hangs its head:
So fleets my short-lived day!
O, may my useful fragrance spread
Before I fade away!

What though the throne I then should fill
At the great day, were mine?
The sweetness, which Thy gracious skill
Diffused, its praise were Thine.

Let me not languish, then, and spend
A life dead to Thy praise,
As is the dust to which I tend
By sure though slow decays!

All things are busy round but I
Nor honey with the bees,
Nor scent with flowers, nor husbandry
Have I to water these.

I am no link of Thy great chain,
A cumbrous, fruitless weed:
O, mend my music! Give one strain
Even to my useless reed!

The Elixir

From the same.

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see;
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for Thee!

To scorn the senses’ sway,
While still to Thee I tend:
In all I do, be Thou the Way;
In all, be Thou the End.

A man that looks on glass,
On that may fix his eye;
Or unopposed may through it pass
And heaven behind descry.

All may of Thee partake
Nothing so small can be,
But draws, when acted for Thy sake,
Greatness and worth from Thee.

If done to obey Thy laws,
Even servile labours shine;
Hallow’d is toil, if this the cause,
The meanest work divine.

The elixir this, the stone
That all converts to gold:
For that which God for His doth own
Cannot for less be told.

Grace Before Meat

Fountain of Being, Source of Good!
At whose almighty breath
The creature proves our bane or food,
Dispensing life or death:

Thee we address with humble fear;
Vouchsafe Thy gifts to crown;
Father of All, Thy children hear,
And send a blessing down.

O, may our souls for ever pine
Thy grace to taste and see;
Athirst for righteousness Divine,
And hungry after Thee!

For this we lift our longing eyes,
We wait the gracious word:
Speak, and our hearts from earth shall rise,
And feed upon the Lord.

Another

Enslaved to sense, to pleasure prone,
Fond of created good;
Father, our helplessness we own,
And trembling taste our food.

Trembling, we taste for ah! no more
To Thee the creatures lead;
Changed, they exert a fatal power,
And poison while they feed.

Cursed for the sake of wretched man,
They now engross him whole;
With pleasing force on earth detain,
And sensualise his soul.

Grov’ling on earth we still must lie
Till Christ the curse repeal;
Till Christ, descending from on high,
Infected nature heal.

Come, then, our Heavenly Adam, come!
Thy healing influence give;
Hallow our food, reverse our doom,
And bid us eat and live.

The bondage of corruption break!
For this our spirits groan;
Thy only will we fain would seek;
O, save us from our own.

Turn the full stream of nature’s tide
Let all our actions tend
To Thee, their Source; Thy love the guide,
Thy glory be the end.

Earth then a scale to heaven shall be,
Sense shall point out the road;
The creatures then shall lead to Thee,
And all we taste be God!

Grace After Meat

Being of beings, God of Love,
To Thee our hearts we raise;
Thy all-sustaining power we prove,
And gladly sing Thy praise.

Thine, wholly Thine, we pant to be;
Our sacrifice receive;
Made, and preserved, and saved by Thee,
To Thee ourselves we give.

Heavenward our every wish aspires:
For all Thy mercy’s store
The sole return Thy love requires
Is, that we ask for more.

For more we ask; we open then
Our hearts to embrace Thy will:
Turn, and beget us, Lord, again,
With all Thy fulness fill!

Come, Holy Ghost, the Saviour’s love
Shed in our hearts abroad;
So shall we ever live, and move,
And be, with Christ, in God.

On Clemens Alexandrian’s Description of a Perfect Christian

Here from afar the finish’d height
Of holiness is seen:
But, O! what heavy tracts of toil.
What deserts lie between?

Man for the simple life Divine
What will it cost to break;
Ere pleasure soft and wily pride
No more within him speak?

What lingering anguish must corrode
The root of nature’s joy?
What secret shame and dire defeats
The pride of heart destroy?

Learn thou the whole of mortal state
In stillness to sustain;
Nor soothe with false delights of earth
Whom God has doom’d to pain.

Thy mind now multitude of thoughts,
Now stupor shall distress;
The venom of each latent vice
Wild images impress.

Yet darkly safe with God thy soul
His arm still onward bears,
Till through each tempest on her face
A peace beneath appears.

’Tis in that peace we see and act
By instincts from above;
With finer taste of wisdom fraught,
And mystic powers of love.

Yet ask not in mere ease and pomp
Of ghostly gifts to shine:
Till death the lownesses of man,
And decent griefs are thine.

Affliction

From Herbert.

When first Thou didst entice my heart
To Thee, I thought the service brave;
So many joys I for my part
Set down; besides what I might have
Out of my stock of natural delights,
Augmented by Thy gracious benefits.

I view’d Thy furniture so fine,
So gay, so rich; and all for me!
Strongly it spoke the hand Divine,
And lured my ravish’d soul to Thee.
Such stars I counted mine: both Heaven and Earth
Paid me my wages in a world of mirth.

What pleasures could I want who served
A King, where joys my fellows were?
Still my fond hopes no place reserved
For pining grief, or anxious fear:
Thus did my simple soul Thy yoke embrace,
And made her youth and fierceness seek Thy face.

At first Thou gav’st me sweetnesses,
And strew’dst with flowers the narrow way:
Smoothly my soul sunk down to peace,
My every joyous month was May.
But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,
And made a party unawares for woe.

My flesh chastised with torturing pain
My soul, and sickness clave my bones;
Pale agues dwelt in every vein,
And sadly tuned my breath to groans.
Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce perceived,
But by the pains I suffer’d, that I lived.

Health’s slowly-lingering, vain return
A far severer loss attends;
Sudden my ravish’d life I mourn,
I lose it in my dying friends.
Defenceless now, my every comfort fled,
While grief’s whole sea is emptied on my head.

How Thou wilt now Thy servant use,
Not one of all my books can say.
On Thy ignobler works I muse,
And wish like them my God to obey:
Blest, could I emulate the lifeless mass,
Flow like the stream, or flourish like the grass.

Yet must I, though oppress’d, submit
Strongly my misery to sustain;
Or I will now the service quit,
And straight some other master gain.
Ah! my dear Lord, though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love Thee, if I love Thee not!

Frailty

From the same.

Lord, how in silence I despise
The giddy worldling’s snare!
This beauty, riches, honour, toys
Not worth a moment’s care.
Hence, painted dust, and gilded clay!
You have no charms for me:
Delusive breath, be far away!
I waste no thought on thee.

But when abroad at once I view
Both the world’s hosts and Thine!
Those simple, sad, afflicted, few;
These numerous, gay, and fine:
Lost my resolves, my scorn is past,
I boast my strength no more;
A willing slave they bind me fast
With unresisted power.

O, brook not this; let not Thy foes
Profane Thy hallow’d shrine:
Thine is my soul, by sacred vows
Of strictest union Thine!
Hear then my just, though late request,
Once more the captive free;
Renew Thy image in my breast,
And claim my heart for Thee.

The Collar

From the same.

No more, I cried, shall grief be mine,
I will throw off the load;
No longer weep, and sigh, and pine
To find an absent God.

Free as the Muse, my wishes move,
Through Nature’s wilds they roam:
Loose as the wind, ye wanderers, rove,
And bring me pleasure home!

Still shall I urge, with endless toil,
Yet not obtain my suit?
Still shall I plant the ungrateful soil,
Yet never taste the fruit?

Not so, my heart!—for fruit there is:
Seize it with eager haste;
Riot in joys, dissolve in bliss,
And pamper every taste.

On right and wrong thy thoughts no more
In cold dispute employ;
Forsake thy cell, the bounds pass o’er,
And give a loose to joy.

Conscience and Reason’s power deride,
Let stronger Nature draw;
Self be thy end, and Sense thy guide,
And Appetite thy law.

Away, ye shades, while light I rise,
I tread you all beneath!
Grasp the dear hours my youth supplies,
Nor idly dream of death.

Whoe’er enslaved to grief and pain,
Yet starts from pleasure’s road,
Still let him weep, and still complain,
And sink beneath his load.—

But as I raved, and grew more wild
And fierce at every word,
Methought I heard One calling, “Child!”
And I replied, “My Lord!”

Grace

From the same.

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Does Thy past gifts improve:
O, let Thy graces without cease
Drop gently from above.

If still the sun should hide his face,
Earth would a dungeon prove,
Thy works night’s captives: O, let grace
Drop gently from above.

The dew unsought each morning falls:
Less bounteous is Thy dove?
The dew for which my spirit calls
Drop gently from above.

Death is still digging like a mole
My grave, where’er I move;
Let grace work too, and on my soul
Drop gently from above.

Sin is still spreading o’er my heart
A hardness void of love;
Let suppling grace, to cross her art,
Drop gently from above.

O, come; for Thou dost know the way!
Or, if Thou wilt not move,
Translate me, where I need not say
Drop gently from above.

Gratefulness

From the same.

Thou, who hast given so much to me,
O, give a grateful heart:
See how Thy beggar works on Thee
By acceptable art!

He makes Thy gifts occasion more;
And says, if here he’s crost,
All Thou hast given him heretofore,
Thyself and all, is lost.

But Thou didst reckon, when at first
Our wants Thy aid did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
Such needy worms to save.

Perpetual knockings at Thy door,
Tears sullying all Thy rooms;
Gift upon gift; much would have more,
And still Thy suppliant comes.

Yet Thy unwearied love went on;
Allow’d us all our noise;
Nay, Thou hast dignified a groan,
And made a sigh Thy joys.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again,
Nor canst Thou quiet be,
Till my repeated suit obtain
A thankful heart from Thee.

Hear then, and thankfulness impart
Continual as Thy grace;
O, add to all Thy gifts a heart
Whose pulse may be Thy praise!

The Method

From the same.

Lament, unhappy heart, lament!
Since God refuses still
To hear thy prayer, some discontent
Unknown must cool His will.

Doubtless thy heavenly Father could
Give all thy suit does move;
For He is power and sure He would
Give all; for He is Love.

Go then the secret cause explore,
Go search thy inmost soul:
Let earth divide thy care no more,
Since heaven requires the whole.

Ha! what do I here written see?
It tells me “Yesterday
Cold I preferr’d my careless plea,
And only seem’d to pray.”

But stay—What read I written there?
“Something I would have done;
His Spirit moved me to forbear,
Yet boldly I went on.”

Then bend once more thy knees and pray,
Once more lift up thy voice:
Seek pardon first; and God will say,
“Again, glad heart, rejoice.”

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit”

From the same.

And art Thou grieved, O sacred Dove,
When I despise or cross Thy love?
Grieved for a worm; when every tread
Crushes, and leaves the reptile dead!

Then mirth be ever banish’d hence,
Since Thou art pain’d by my offence:
I sin not to my grief alone,
The Comforter within doth groan.

Then weep, my eyes, for God doth grieve!
Weep, foolish heart, and weeping live:
Tears for the living mourner plead,
But ne’er avail the hopeless dead.

Lord, I adjudge myself to grief,
To endless tears without relief:
Yet O! to exact Thy due forbear,
And spare a feeble creature, spare!

Still if I wail not, (still to wail
Nature denies, and flesh would fail,)
Lord, pardon; for Thy Son makes good
My want of tears, with store of blood.

The Sigh

From the same.

My heart did heave, and there came forth “O God!”
By that I knew that Thou wast in the grief,
(Making a golden sceptre of Thy rod,)
To guide and govern it to my relief.
Hadst Thou not had a more than equal part,
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.

But since Thy will my bounds of life assign’d,
Thou know’st my frame and if a single sigh
Ask so much breath, what then remains behind?
Why! if some years of life together fly,
The swiftly-wafting sigh then only is
A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss!

Thy life on earth was grief: to this Thou still
Art constant, while Thy suffering Majesty,
Touch’d with my misery, feels whate’er I feel,
Adopts my woes, and daily grieves in me.
Thy death was but begun on Calvary;
Thou every hour dost in Thy members die!

The Flower

From the same.

While sad my heart, and blasted mourns,
How cheering, Lord, are Thy returns,
How sweet the life, the joys they bring!
Grief in Thy presence melts away.
Refresh’d I hail the gladsome day,
As flowers salute the rising spring.

Who would have thought my wither’d heart
Again should feel Thy sovereign art,
A kindly warmth again should know?
Late like the flower, whose drooping head
Sinks down, and seeks its native bed
To see the mother-root below.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickening! One short hour
Lifts up to heaven, and sinks to hell:
Thy will supreme disposes all;
We prove Thy justice in our fall,
Thy mercy in our rise we feel.

O that my latest change were o’er!
O were I placed where sin no more,
With its attendant grief, could come!
Stranger to change, I then should rise
Amidst the plants of paradise,
And flourish in eternal bloom.

Many a spring since here I grew,
I seem’d my verdure to renew,
And higher still to rise and higher:
Water’d by tears, and fann’d by sighs,
I pour’d my fragrance through the skies,
And heavenward ever seem’d to aspire.

But while I grow, as heaven were mine,
Thine anger comes, and I decline;
Faded my bloom, my glory lost:
Who can the deadly cold sustain,
Or stand beneath the chilling pain
When blasted by Thine anger’s frost?

And now in age I bud again,
Once more I feel the vernal rain;
Though dead so oft, I live and write:
Sure I but dream! It cannot be
That I, my God, that I am he
On whom Thy tempests fell all night!

These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
Thy mercy thus delights to prove
We are but flowers that bloom and die!
Soon as this saving truth we see,
Within Thy garden placed by Thee,
Time we survive, and death defy.

Desertion

From the same.

Joy of my soul, when Thou art gone,
And I (which cannot be) alone;
(It cannot, Lord! for I on Thee
Depend, and Thou abid’st in me;)—

But when Thou dost the sense repress,
The ecstatic influence of Thy grace;
Seem to desert Thy loved abode,
And leave me sunk beneath my load:

O, what a damp and deadly shade,
What horrors then my soul invade!
Less ghastly lours the gloomiest night
Than the eclipse that veils Thy light.

O! do not, do not thus withdraw,
Lest sin surprise me void of awe,
And when Thou dost but shine less clear,
Say boldly, that Thou art not here.

Thou, Lord, and only Thou canst tell
How dead the life which then I feel;
Pursued by sin’s insulting boast,
That “I may seek—but Thou art lost!”

I half believe (the deadly cold
Does all my powers so fast infold)
That sin says true. But while I grieve,
Again I see Thy face, and live!

A True Hymn

From the same.

My Joy, my Life, my Crown of bliss,
My heart was musing all the day,
Fain would it speak; yet only this,
“My Joy, my Life, my Crown,” could say.

Few as they are, and void of art,
Yet slight not, Lord, these humble words:
Fine is that hymn which speaks the heart,
The heart that to the lines accords.

He who requires His creature’s time,
And all his soul, and strength, and mind,
Complains, if heartless flows the rhyme,
What makes the hymn is still behind:

The scanty verse himself supplies,
But let the fervent heart be moved;
And when it says with longing sighs,
“O, could I love!” God writeth, “Loved!”

The Temper

From the same.

O Lord, how gladly would my rhymes
Engrave Thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!

Though there were forty heavens or more,
Sometimes I mount them all;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.

Rack me not to such vast extent;
These lengths belong to Thee;
The world’s too little for Thy tent,
A grave too big for me.

O, mete not arms with man, nor stretch
A worm from heaven to hell!
Strive not with dust, nor let a wretch
Thy power almighty feel.

Yet take Thy way: Thy way is best;
Grant or deny me ease:
This is but tuning of my breast,
To make the music please.

Rise I to heaven, or sink to dust,
In both Thy hands appear;
Thy power and love, my love and trust
Make one place everywhere!

The Same

It cannot be! Is this the heart
That swell’d so late with mighty joy?
Lord, if Thou needs must use Thy dart,
Spare Thy own gifts, and sin destroy.

The greater world knows no decay;
But Thy diviner world of grace
A new Creator every day
Thou suddenly dost rear or rase.

Set up Thy kingdom in my heart,
That all my powers Thy sway may own:
For ah! my Lord, if Thou depart,
Straight rebel Nature mounts Thy throne.

Though heaven be moved, may I remain
Steadfast, and centred firm on Thee:
Here fix Thy court, and still maintain
A standing Majesty in me!

Bitter-Sweet

From the same.

Ah, my dear, angry Lord,
Since Thou dost love, yet strike,
Cast down, and yet Thy help afford,
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise,
Bewail, and yet approve,
And all my mournful, joyful days
I will lament, and love.

A Hymn for Midnight

While midnight shades the earth o’erspread,
And veil the bosom of the deep,
Nature reclines her weary head,
And care respires and sorrows sleep:
My soul still aims at nobler rest,
Aspiring to her Saviour’s breast.

Aid me, ye hovering spirits near,
Angels and ministers of grace;
Who ever, while you guard us here,
Behold your Heavenly Father’s face!
Gently my raptured soul convey
To regions of eternal day.

Fain would I leave this earth below,
Of pain and sin the dark abode;
Where shadowy joy, or solid woe,
Allures, or tears me from my God:
Doubtful and insecure of bliss,
Since death alone confirms me His.

Till then, to sorrow born, I sigh,
And gasp, and languish after home;
Upward I send my streaming eye,
Expecting till the Bridegroom come
Come quickly, Lord! Thy own receive;
Now let me see Thy face, and live.

Absent from Thee, my exiled soul
Deep in a fleshly dungeon groans;
Around me clouds of darkness roll,
And labouring silence speaks my moans:
Come quickly, Lord! Thy face display,
And look my midnight into day.

Error, and sin, and death are o’er,
If Thou reverse the creature’s doom;
Sad Rachel weeps her loss no more,
If Thou, the God, the Saviour come:
Of Thee possest, in Thee we prove
The light, the life, the heaven of love.

After Considering Some of his Friends

Why do the deeds of happier men
Into a mind return,
Which can, oppress’d by bands of sloth,
With no such ardours burn?

God of my life and all my powers,
The Everlasting Friend!
Shall life so favour’d in its dawn
Be fruitless in its end?

To Thee, O Lord, my tender years
A trembling duty paid,
With glimpses of the mighty God
Delighted and afraid.

From parents’ eye, and paths of men,
Thy touch I ran to meet;
It swell’d the hymn, and seal’d the prayer,
Twas calm, and strange, and sweet!

Oft when beneath the work of sin
Trembling and dark I stood,
And felt the edge of eager thought,
And felt the kindling blood:

Thy dew came down—my heart was Thine,
It knew nor doubt nor strife;
Cool now and peaceful as the grave,
And strong to second life.

Full of myself, I oft forsook
The now, the truth, and Thee,
For sanguine hope, or sensual gust,
Or earthborn sophistry.

The folly thrived, and came in sight
Too gross for life to bear;
I smote the breast for man too base,
I smote—and God was there!

Still will I hope for voice and strength
To glorify Thy Name;
Though I must die to all that’s mine,
And suffer all my shame.

Religious Discourse

By Gambold.

To speak for God, to sound Religion’s praise,
Of sacred passions the wise warmth to raise;
To infuse the contrite wish to conquest nigh,
And point the steps mysterious as they lie;
To seize the wretch in full career of lust,
And soothe the silent sorrows of the just:
Who would not bless for this the gift of speech,
And in the tongue’s beneficence be rich?

But who must talk? Not the mere modern sage
Who suits the soften’d Gospel to the age;
Who ne’er to raise degenerate practice strives,
But brings the precept down to Christians’ lives:
Not he, who maxims from cold reading took,
And never saw himself but through a book:
Not he, who hasty in the morn of grace,
Soon sinks extinguish’d as a comet’s blaze:
Not he, who strains in Scripture phrase to abound,
Deaf to the sense, who stuns us with the sound:
But he, who silence loves, and never dealt
In the false commerce of a Truth unfelt.

Guilty you speak, if subtle from within
Blows on your words the self-admiring sin;
If, unresolved to choose the better part,
Your forward tongue belies your languid heart:
But then speak safely, when your peaceful mind,
Above self-seeking blest, on God reclined,
Feels Him at once suggest unlabour’d sense,
And ope a sluice of sweet benevolence.
Some high behests of Heaven you then fulfil,
Sprung from His light your words, and issuing by
His will.

Nor yet expect so mystically long,
Till certain inspiration loose your tongue:
Express the precept runs, “Do good to all;”
Nor adds, “Whene’er you find an inward call.”
’Tis God commands: no farther motive seek,
Speak or without, or with reluctance speak:
To love’s habitual sense by acts aspire,
And kindle, till you catch the Gospel fire.
Discoveries immature of truth decline,
Nor prostitute the Gospel pearl to swine.
Beware, too rashly how you speak the whole,
The vileness, or the treasures of your soul.
If spurn’d by some, where weak on earth you lie;
If judged a cheat or dreamer, where you fly;
Here the sublimer strain, the exerted air
Forego; you’re at the bar, not in the chair.

To the pert reasoner if you speak at all,
Speak what within his cognizance may fall:
Expose not truths Divine to reason’s rack,
Give him his own beloved ideas back;
Your notions, till they look like his, dilute;
Blind he must be—but save him from dispute!
But when we’re turn’d of reason’s noontide glare,
And things begin to show us what they are,
More free to such your true conceptions tell;
Yet graft them on the arts where they excel.
If sprightly sentiments detain their taste;
If paths of various learning they have traced;
If their cool judgment longs, yet fears to fix:
Fire, erudition, hesitation mix.

All rules are dead: ’tis from the heart you draw
The living lustre, and unerring law.
A state of thinking in your manner show,
Nor fiercely soaring, nor supinely low:
Others their lightness and each inward fault
Quench in the stillness of your deeper thought,
Let all your gestures fix’d attention draw,
And wide around diffuse infectious awe;
Present with God by recollection seem,
Yet present, by your cheerfulness, with them.

Without elation, Christian glories paint,
Nor by fond amorous phrase assume the saint.
Greet not frail men with compliments untrue,
With smiles to peace confirm’d and conquest due.
There are who watch to adore the dawn of grace,
And pamper the young proselyte with praise:
Kind, humble souls! They with a right good will
Admire his progress—till he stands stock still.

Speak but to thirsty minds of things Divine,
Who strong for thought, are free in yours to join.
The busy from his channel parts with pain,
The languid loathes an elevated strain:
With these you aim but at good-natured chat,
Where all, except the love, is low and flat.

Not one address will different tempers fit,
The grave and gay, the heavy and the wit.
Wits will sift you; and most conviction find
Where least ’tis urged, and seems the least design’d.
Slow minds are merely passive, and forget
Truths not inculcated to these repeat,
Avow your counsel, nor abstain from heat.

Some gentle souls, to gay indifference true,
Nor hope, nor fear, nor think the more for you.
Let love turn babbler here, and caution sleep;
Blush not for shallow speech, nor muse for deep:
These to your humour, not your sense attend;
’Tis not the advice that sways them, but the friend.
Others have large recesses in their breast,
With pensive process all they hear digest:
Here well-weigh’d words with wary foresight sow,
For all you say will sink, and every seed will grow.

At first acquaintance press each truth severe,
Stir the whole odium of your character:
Let harshest doctrines all your words engross,
And Nature bleeding on the daily cross.
Then to yourself the ascetic rule enjoin,
To others stoop surprisingly benign;
Pitying, if from themselves with pain they part,
If stubborn Nature long holds out the heart.
Their outworks now are gain’d; forbear to press,
The more you urge them, you prevail the less;
Let speech lay by its roughness to oblige,
Your speaking life will carry on the siege
By your example struck, to God they strive
To live, no longer to themselves alive.

To positive adepts insidious yield,
To ensure the conquest seem to quit the field:
Large in your grants; be their opinion shown
Approve, amend—and wind it to your own.
Couch in your hints, if more resign’d they hear,
Both what they will be soon, and what they are:
Pleasing these words now to their conscious breast,
The anticipating voice hereafter blest.

In souls just waked the paths of light to choose,
Convictions keen, and zeal of prayer infuse.
Let them love rules; till freed from passion’s reign,
Till blameless moral rectitude they gain.

But lest, reform’d from each extremer ill,
They should but civilize old Nature still,
The loftier charms and energy display
Of virtue modell’d by the Godhead’s Ray;
The lineaments Divine, Perfection’s plan,
And all the grandeur of the inner man.
Commences thus the agonizing strife
Previous to Nature’s death, and second life:

Struck by their own inclement piercing eye,
Their feeble virtues blush, subside, and die;
They view the scheme that mimic Nature made,
A fancied goodness, and religion’s shade;
With angry scorn they now reject the whole,
Unchanged their heart, undeified their soul;
Till indignation sleeps away to faith,
And God’s own power and peace take root in sacred
wrath.

Aim less to teach than love. The work begun
In words, is crown’d by artless warmth alone.
Love to your friend a second office owes,
Yourself and him before Heaven’s footstool throws:
You place his form as suppliant by your side,
(A helpless worm, for whom the Saviour died,)
Into his soul call down the eternal beam,
And longing ask to spend and to be spent for him.

Man’s Medley

From Herbert.

Hark how the woods with music ring,
How sweet the feather’d minstrels sing!
They have their joys, and man has his:
Yet, if we judge our state aright,
The present is not man’s delight;
Hereafter brings his perfect bliss.

This life belongs to things of sense,
Justly to this they make pretence;
Angels possess the next by birth:
Man, groveling, glorious man alone,
Angel and brute unites in one,
While this hand heaven, that touches earth.

Glorious in soul, he mounts and flies;
Grovelling in flesh, he sinks and dies:
His treasure holds in earth confined:
The body’s calls forbid to hear,
Born to regard with listening ear
The dictates of his nobler mind.

Not but his gracious Master here
Allows and bids him taste the cheer:
As birds, that drinking lift their head,
Thankful like them He bids him drink,
And of those streams of pleasure think
That ever cheer the immortal dead.

His joys are double—and his pains;
While of two winters he complains,
The brute creation feels but one:
Round, and within him, tempests roll;
Frost chills his veins, and thought his soul;
Two deaths he fears, and he alone.

Yet even the sharpest, heaviest grief
May with it bring its own relief,
If right his state the sufferer weighs:
Happy the man who finds the art
To turn, by thankfulness of heart,
His double pains to double praise!

Misery

From the same.

Lord, let the angels praise Thy name;
Man is a feeble, foolish thing!
Folly and sin play all his game;
Still burns his house, he still doth sing:
To-day he’s here, tomorrow gone,
The madman knows it—and sings on.

How canst Thou brook his foolishness?
When heedless of the voice Divine,
Himself alone he seeks to please,
And carnal joys prefers to Thine;
Eager through Nature’s wilds to rove,
Nor awed by fear, nor charm’d by love.

What strange pollutions does he wed,
Slave to his senses and to sin!
Naked of God, his guilty head
He strives in midnight shades to screen:
Fondly he hopes from Thee to fly,
Unmark’d by Thine all-seeing eye.

The best of men to evil yield,
If but the slightest trial come;
They fall, by Thee no more upheld:
And when affliction calls them home,
Thy gentle rod they scarce endure,
And murmur to accept their cure.

Wayward they haste, while Nature leads,
To escape Thee; but Thy gracious Dove
Still mildly o’er their folly spreads
The wings of His expanded love:
Thou bring’st them back, nor sufferest those
Who would be, to remain Thy foes.

My God, Thy Name man cannot praise,
All brightness Thou, all purity!
The sun in his meridian blaze
Is darkness, if compared to Thee.
O, how shall sinful worms proclaim?
Shall man presume to speak Thy Name?

Man cannot serve Thee: all his care,
Engross’d by grovelling appetite,
Is fix’d on earth; his treasure there,
His portion, and his base delight:
He starts from Virtue’s thorny road,
Alive to sin, but dead to God!

Ah, foolish man, where are thine eyes?
Lost in a crowd of earthly cares:
Thy indolence neglects to rise,
While husks to heaven thy soul prefers:
Careless the starry crown to seize,
By pleasure bound, or lull’d by ease.

To God, through all creation’s bounds,
The unconscious kinds their homage bring;
His praise through every grove resounds,
Nor know the warblers whom they sing;
But man, lord of the creatures, knows
The Source from whence their being flows.

He owns a God—but eyes Him not;
But lets his mad disorders reign:
They make his life a constant blot,
And Blood Divine an offering vain.
Ah, wretch! thy heart unsearchable,
Thy ways mysterious who can tell!

Perfect at first, and blest his state,
Man in his Maker’s image shone;
In innocence divinely great
He lived; he lived to God alone:
His heart was love, his pulse was praise,
And light and glory deck’d his face.

But alter’d now, and fall’n he is,
Immersed in flesh, and dead within;
Dead to the taste of native bliss,
And ever sinking into sin:
Nay, by his wretched self undone.
Such is man’s state—and such my own!

The Sinner

From the same.

When all the secrets of my heart
With horror, Lord, I see,
Thine is, I find, the smallest part,
Though all be due to Thee.
Thy footsteps scarce appear within,
But lusts a countless crowd;
The immense circumference is sin,
A point is all my good.

O, break my bonds, let sin enthrall
My struggling soul no more;
Hear Thy fall’n creature’s feeble call,
Thine image, O, restore!

And though my heart, senseless and hard,
To Thee can scarcely groan,
Yet O, remember, gracious Lord,
Thou once didst write in stone!

Repentance

From the same.

Lord, I confess my sin is great
Great is my sin O, gently treat
Thy tender flower, Thy fading bloom,
Whose life’s still aiming at a tomb.

Have mercy, Lord! Lo, I confess,
I feel, I mourn my foolishness.
O, spare me, whom Thy hands have made,
A withering leaf, a fleeting shade.

Sweeten at length this bitter bowl
Which Thou hast pour’d into my soul!
O, tarry not! If still Thou stay,
Here sets in death my short-lived day.

When Thou for sin rebukest man,
His drooping heart is fill’d with pain;
Blasted his strength, his beauty too
Consumes away as morning dew.

When wilt Thou sin and grief destroy,
That all the broken bones may joy;
And at Thy all-reviving word
Dead sinners rise, and praise the Lord?

Complaining

From the same.

Thou, Lord, my power and wisdom art;
O, do not then reject my heart!
Thy clay that weeps, Thy dust I am
That calls; O, put me not to shame!

Thy glories, Lord, in all things shine,
Thine is the deed, the praise is Thine:
A feeble, helpless creature, I
Do at Thy pleasure live or die.

Art Thou all Justice?—shows Thy Word
Through every page an angry Lord?
Am I all tears?—Is this to live?
Is all my business here to grieve?

Fill not my life’s short hour with pain;
Or, O! contract the wretched span:
So shall I mount from sorrow free,
And find relief and heaven in Thee.

Home

From the same.

Faint is my head, and sick my heart,
While Thou dost ever, ever stay!
Fix’d in my soul I feel Thy dart,
Groaning I feel it night and day.
Come, Lord, and show Thyself to me,
Or take, O, take me up to Thee!

Canst Thou withhold Thy healing grace,
So kindly lavish of Thy blood;
When swiftly trickling down Thy face,
For me the purple current flow’d!
Come, Lord, and show, &c.

When man was lost, love look’d about.
To see what help in earth or sky:
In vain; for none appear’d without,
The help did in Thy bosom lie!
Come, Lord, &c.

There lay Thy Son; but left His rest
Thraldom and misery to remove
From those, who glory once possess’d,
But wantonly abused Thy love.
Come, Lord, &c.

He came—O, my Redeemer dear!
And canst Thou after this be strange?
Not yet within my heart appear?
Can love like Thine or fail or change?
Come, Lord, &c.

But if Thou tarriest, why must I?
My God, what is this world to me?
This world of woe—hence let them fly,
The clouds that part my soul and Thee.
Come, Lord, &c.

Why should this weary world delight,
Or sense the immortal spirit bind?
Why should frail beauty’s charms invite,
The trifling charms of womankind?
Come, Lord, &c.

A sigh Thou breath’st into my heart,
And earthly joys I view with scorn:
Far from my soul, ye dreams, depart,
Nor mock me with your vain return!
Come, Lord, &c.

Sorrow and sin, and loss and pain,
Are all that here on earth we see;
Restless we pant for ease in vain,
In vain—till ease we find in Thee.
Come, Lord, &c.

Idly we talk of harvests here;
Eternity our harvest is:
Grace brings the great sabbatic year,
When ripen’d into glorious bliss.
Come, Lord, &c.

O, loose this frame, life’s knot untie,
That my free soul may use her wing;
Now pinion’d with mortality,
A weak, entangled, wretched thing!
Come, Lord, &c.

Why should I longer stay and groan?
The most of me to heaven is fled:
My thoughts and joys are thither gone;
To all below I now am dead.
Come, Lord, &c.

Come, dearest Lord! my soul’s desire
With eager pantings gasps for home:
Thee, Thee my restless hopes require;
My flesh and spirit bid Thee come!
Come, Lord, and show Thyself to me,
Or take, O, take me up to Thee!

Longings

From the same.

With bended knees, and aching eyes,
Weary and faint, to Thee my cries,
To Thee my tears, my groans I send:
O, when shall my complainings end?

Wither’d my heart, like barren ground
Accursed of God; my head turns round,
My throat is hoarse: I faint, I fall,
Yet falling still for pity call.

Eternal streams of pity flow
From Thee their Source to earth below:
Mothers are kind, because Thou art,
Thy tenderness o’erflows their heart.

Lord of my soul, bow down Thine ear,
Hear, Bowels of Compassion, hear!
O, give not to the winds my prayer:
Thy Name, Thy hallow’d Name is there!

Look on my sorrows, mark them well,
The shame, the pangs, the fires I feel:
Consider, Lord; Thine ear incline!
Thy Son hath made my suff’rings Thine.

Thou, Jesu, on the accursed tree
Didst bow Thy dying head for me:
Incline it now! Who made the ear,
Shall He, shall He forget to hear?

See Thy poor dust, in pity see;
It stirs, it creeps, it aims at Thee!
Haste, save it from the greedy tomb!
Come!—every atom bids Thee come!

Tis Thine to help! Forget me not!
O, be Thy mercy ne’er forgot!
Lock’d is Thy ear? Yet still my plea
May speed; for Mercy keeps the key.

Thou tarriest, while I sink, I die,
And fall to nothing! Thou on high
Seest me undone. Yet am I styled
By Thee (lost as I am) Thy child!

Didst Thou for this forsake Thy throne?
Where are Thy ancient mercies gone?
Why should my pain my guilt survive,
And sin be dead, yet sorrow live?

Yet sin is dead; and yet abide
Thy promises; they speak, they chide.
They in Thy bosom pour my tears,
And my complaints present as theirs.

Hear, Jesu! hear my broken heart!
Broken so long, that every part
Hath got a tongue that ne’er shall cease,
Till Thou pronounce, “Depart in peace.”

My Love, my Saviour, hear my cry;
By these Thy feet at which I lie!
Pluck out Thy dart! regard my sighs;
Now heal my soul, or now it dies.

The Search

From the same.

Whither, O whither art Thou fled,
My Saviour and my Love?
My searches are my daily bread,
Yet unsuccessful prove.
My knees on earth, on heaven mine eye
Is fix’d; and yet the sphere,
And yet the centre both deny
That Thou, my God, art there.

Yet can I mark that herbs below
Their fragrant greens display,
As if to meet Thee they did know,
While wither’d I decay.
Yet can I mark how stars above
With conscious lustre shine,
Their glories borrowing from Thy love,
While I in darkness pine.

I sent a sigh to seek Thee out,
Drawn from my heart in pain,
Wing’d like an arrow; but my scout
Return’d, alas! in vain.
Another from my endless store
I turn’d into a groan,
Because the search was dumb before
But all, alas! was one.

Where is my God? What secret place
Still holds, and hides Thee still?
What covert dares eclipse Thy face?—
Is it Thy awful will?
O, let not that Thy presence bound:
Rather let walls of brass,
Let seas and mountains gird Thee round,
And I through all will pass.

Thy will so vast a distance is,
Remotest points combine,
East touches west, compared to this,
And heaven and hell conjoin.
Take then these bars, these lengths away,
Turn and restore my soul
Thy love omnipotent display,
Approach! and make me whole.

When Thou, my Lord, my God art nigh,
Nor life, nor death can move,
Nor deepest hell, nor powers on high
Can part me from Thy love.
For as Thy absence passes far
The widest distance known,
Thy presence brings my soul so near,
That Thou and I are one!

Discipline

From the same.

O, throw away Thy rod,
O, throw away Thy wrath!
My gracious Saviour and my God,
O, take the gentle path!

Thou seest, my heart’s desire
Still unto Thee is bent:
Still does my longing soul aspire
To an entire consent.

Not even a word or look
Do I approve or own,
But by the model of Thy Book,
Thy sacred Book alone.

Although I fail, I weep;
Although I halt in pace,
Yet still with trembling steps I creep
Unto the throne of grace.

O, then, let wrath remove
For love will do the deed!
Love will the conquest gain; with love
Even stony hearts will bleed.

For love is swift of foot,
Love is a man of war;
Love can resistless arrows shoot.
And hit the mark from far.

Who can escape his bow?
That which hath wrought on Thee,
Which brought the King of Glory low,
Must surely work on me.

O, throw away Thy rod;
What though man frailties hath?
Thou art my Saviour and my God!
O, throw away Thy wrath!

Divine Love

From the German.

Thou hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathom’d no man knows,
I see from far Thy beauteous light,
Inly I sigh for Thy repose.
My heart is pain’d, nor can it be
At rest, till it finds rest in Thee.

Thy secret voice invites me still
The sweetness of Thy yoke to prove;
And fain I would but though my will
Be fix’d, yet wide my passions rove.
Yet hindrances strew all the way;
I aim at Thee, yet from Thee stray.

’Tis mercy all, that Thou hast brought
My mind to seek her peace in Thee;
Yet while I seek, but find Thee not,
No peace my wandering soul shall see.
O, when shall all my wanderings end,
And all my steps to Thee-ward tend?

Is there a thing beneath the sun
That strives with Thee my heart to share?
Ah, tear it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there:
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it has found repose in Thee.

O, hide this SELF from me, that I
No more, but CHRIST in me may live!
My vile affections crucify,
Nor let one darling lust survive.
In all things nothing may I see,
Nothing desire or seek but Thee!

O LOVE, Thy sovereign aid impart,
To save me from low-thoughted care:
Chase this self-will through all my heart,
Through all its latent mazes there.
Make me Thy duteous child, that I
Ceaseless may, “Abba, Father,” cry.

Ah no! ne’er will I backward turn:
Thine wholly, Thine alone I am!
Thrice happy he who views with scorn
Earth’s toys, for Thee his constant flame.
O, help, that I may never move
From the blest footsteps of Thy love!

Each moment draw from earth away
My heart, that lowly waits Thy call
Speak to my inmost soul, and say,
“I am thy Love, thy God, thy All!”
To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,
To taste Thy love is all my choice!

Written in the Beginning of a Recovery from Sickness

Peace, fluttering soul! the storm is o’er,
Ended at last the doubtful strife:
Respiring now, the cause explore
That bound thee to a wretched life.

When on the margin of the grave,
Why did I doubt my Saviour’s art?
Ah! why mistrust His will to save?
What meant that faltering of my heart?

’Twas not the searching pain within
That fill’d my coward flesh with fear;
Nor conscience of uncancell’d sin;
Nor sense of dissolution near.

Of hope I felt no joyful ground,
The fruit of righteousness alone;
Naked of Christ my soul I found,
And started from a God unknown,

Corrupt my will, nor half subdued,
Could I His purer presence bear?
Unchanged, unhallow’d, unrenew’d
Could I before His face appear?

Father of mercies, hear my call!
Ere yet returns the fatal hour,
Repair my loss, retrieve my fall,
And raise me by Thy quickening power.

My nature re-exchange for Thine;
Be Thou my life, my hope, my gain;
Arm me in panoply Divine,
And Death shall shake his dart in vain.

When I Thy promised Christ have seen,
And clasp’d Him in my soul’s embrace,
Possest of my salvation, then—
Then, let me, Lord, depart in peace!

After a Recovery from Sickness

And live I yet by power Divine?
And have I still my course to run?
Again brought back in its decline
The shadow of my parting sun?

Wondering I ask, Is this the breast
Struggling so late and torn with pain?
The eyes that upward look’d for rest,
And dropt their weary lids again?

The recent horrors still appear:
O, may they never cease to awe!
Still be the King of Terrors near,
Whom late in all his pomp I saw.

Torture and sin prepared his way,
And pointed to a yawning tomb!
Darkness behind eclipsed the day,
And check’d my forward hopes of home.

My feeble flesh refused to bear
Its strong redoubled agonies:
When Mercy heard my speechless prayer,
And saw me faintly gasp for ease.

Jesus to my deliverance flew,
Where sunk in mortal pangs I lay:
Pale Death his ancient Conqueror knew,
And trembled, and ungrasp’d his prey!

The fever turn’d its backward course,
Arrested by Almighty power;
Sudden expired its fiery force,
And anguish gnaw’d my side no more.

God of my life, what just return
Can sinful dust and ashes give?
I only live my sin to mourn,
To love my God I only live!

To Thee, benign and saving Power,
I consecrate my lengthen’d days;
While mark’d with blessings, every hour
Shall speak Thy co-extended praise.

How shall I teach the world to love,
Unchanged myself, unloosed my tongue?
Give me the power of faith to prove,
And mercy shall be all my song.

Be all my added life employ’d
Thy image in my soul to see:
Fill with Thyself the mighty void;
Enlarge my heart to compass Thee!

O, give me, Saviour, give me more!
Thy mercies to my soul reveal:
Alas! I see their endless store,
Yet, O! I cannot, cannot feel!

The blessing of Thy love bestow:
For this my cries shall never fail;
Wrestling, I will not let Thee go,
I will not, till my suit prevail.

I’ll weary Thee with my complaint;
Here at Thy feet for ever lie,
With longing sick, with groaning faint:
O, give me love, or else I die!

Without this best, divinest grace
’Tis death, ’tis worse than death to live;
’Tis hell to want Thy blissful face,
And saints in Thee their heaven receive.

Come then, my Hope, my Life, my Lord,
And fix in me Thy lasting home!
Be mindful of Thy gracious word,
Thou with Thy promised Father, come!

Prepare, and then possess my heart;
O, take me, seize me from above:
Thee do I love, for God Thou art;
Thee do I feel, for God is love!

A Prayer Under Convictions

Father of Lights, from whom proceeds
Whate’er Thy every creature needs;
Whose goodness providently nigh
Feeds the young ravens when they cry;
To Thee I look: my heart prepare;
Suggest, and hearken to my prayer.

Since by Thy light myself I see
Naked, and poor, and void of Thee,
Thine eyes must all my thoughts survey,
Preventing what my lips would say:
Thou seest my wants; for help they call;
And ere I speak, Thou know’st them all.

Thou know’st the baseness of my mind,
Wayward, and impotent, and blind;
Thou know’st how unsubdued my will,
Averse to good, and prone to ill;
Thou know’st how wide my passions rove,
Nor check’d by fear, nor charm’d by love.

Fain would I know, as known by Thee,
And feel the indigence I see;
Fain would I all my vileness own,
And deep beneath the burden groan;
Abhor the pride that lurks within,
Detest and loathe myself and sin.

Ah, give me, Lord, myself to feel;
My total misery reveal:
Ah, give me, Lord, (I still would say,)
A heart to mourn, a heart to pray:
My business this, my only care,
My life, my every breath be prayer.

Scarce I begin my sad complaint,
When all my warmest wishes faint;
Hardly I lift my weeping eye,
When all my kindling ardours die;
Nor hopes nor fears my bosom move,
For still I cannot, cannot love.

Father, I want a thankful heart;
I want to taste how good Thou art;
To plunge me in Thy mercy’s sea,
And comprehend Thy love to me,—
The breadth, and length, and depth, and height
Of Love divinely infinite.

Father, I long my soul to raise,
And dwell for ever on Thy praise;
Thy praise with glorious joy to tell,
In ecstasy unspeakable;
While the full power of FAITH I know,
And reign triumphant here below.

The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah

Who hath believed the tidings? Who?
Or felt the joys our words impart?
Gladly confess’d our record true,
And found the Saviour in his heart?
Planted in nature’s barren ground,
And cherish’d by Jehovah’s care,
There shall the Immortal Seed be found,
The Root Divine shall flourish there.

See the Desire of Nations comes,
Nor outward pomp bespeaks Him near:
A veil of flesh the God assumes,
A servant’s form He stoops to wear.
He lays His every glory by;
Ignobly low, obscurely mean,
Of beauty void, in reason’s eye,
The Source of Loveliness is seen.

Rejected and despised of men,
A Man of griefs, inured to woe;
His only intimate is pain,
And grief is all His life below.
We saw, and from the irksome sight
Disdainfully our faces turn’d;
Hell follow’d Him with fierce despite,
And earth the humble Object scorn’d.

Surely for us He humbled was,
And grieved with sorrows not His own:
Of all His woes were we the cause,
We fill’d His soul with pangs unknown.
Yet Him the Offender we esteem’d,
Stricken by Heaven’s vindictive rod,
Afflicted for Himself we deem’d,
And punish’d by an angry God.

But, O! with our transgressions stain’d,
For our offence He wounded was;
Ours were the sins that bruised and pain’d
And scourged, and nail’d Him to the cross.
The chastisement that bought our peace,
To sinners due, on Him was laid:
Conscience, be still! Thy terrors cease!
The debt’s discharged, the ransom’s paid.

What though we all as wandering sheep
Have left our God, and loved to stray,
Refused His mild commands to keep,
And madly urged the downward way?
Father, on Him Thy bolt did fall,
The mortal law Thy Son fulfill’d,
Thou laid’st on Him the guilt of all,
And by His stripes we all are heal’d.

Accused, His mouth He open’d not;
He answer’d not, by wrongs oppress’d.
Pure though He was from sinful spot,
Our guilt He silently confess’d.
Meek as a lamb to slaughter led,
A sheep before His shearers dumb,
To suffer in the sinner’s stead
Behold the Spotless Victim come!

Who could His heavenly birth declare,
When bound by man He silent stood;
When worms arraign’d Him at their bar,
And doom’d to death the Eternal God!
Patient the sufferings to sustain,
The vengeance to transgressors due,
Guiltless He groan’d and died for man:
Sinners, rejoice, He died for you!

For your imputed guilt He bled,
Made sin a sinful world to save;
Meekly He sunk among the dead:
The rich supplied an honour’d grave!
For, O! devoid of sin, and free
From actual or entail’d offence,
No sinner in Himself was He,
But pure and perfect innocence.

Yet Him the Almighty Father’s will
With bruising chastisements pursued,
Doom’d Him the weight of sin to feel,
And, sternly just, required His blood.
But, lo! the mortal debt is paid,
The costly sacrifice is o’er;
His soul, for sin an offering made,
Revives, and He shall die no more.

His numerous seed He now shall see,
Scatter’d through all the earth abroad,
Blest with His immortality,
Begot by Him, and born of God.
Head to His Church o’er all below,
Long shall He here His sons sustain;
Their bounding hearts His power shall know,
And bless the loved Messiah’s reign.

’Twixt God and them He still shall stand,
The children whom His Sire hath given;
Their cause shall prosper in His hand,
While RIGHTEOUSNESS looks down from heaven:
While pleased He counts the ransom’d race,
And calls and draws them from above;
The travail of His soul surveys,
And rests in His redeeming love.

’Tis done! My justice asks no more,
The satisfaction’s fully made
Their sins He in His body bore,
Their Surety all the debt has paid.
My Righteous Servant and My Son
Shall each believing sinner clear;
And all who stoop to abjure their own,
Shall in His righteousness appear.

Them shall He claim His just desert,
Them His inheritance receive,
And many a contrite humble heart
Will I for His possession give.
Satan He thence shall chase away,
Assert His right, His foes o’ercome;
Stronger than hell, retrieve the prey,
And bear the spoil triumphant home.

For charged with all their guilt He stood,
Sinners from suffering to redeem;
For them He pour’d out all His blood,
Their Substitute, He died for them.
He died, and rose His death to plead,
To testify their sins forgiven:
And still I hear Him intercede,
And still He makes their claim to heaven.

Hebrews 12:2

“Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.”

Weary of struggling with my pain,
Hopeless to burst my nature’s chain,
Hardly I give the contest o’er,
I seek to free myself no more.

From my own works at last I cease,
God that creates must seal my peace;
Fruitless my toil and vain my care,
And all my fitness is despair.

Lord, I despair myself to heal:
I see my sin, but cannot feel;
I cannot, till Thy Spirit blow,
And bid the obedient waters flow.

’Tis Thine a heart of flesh to give;
Thy gifts I only can receive:
Here then to Thee I all resign;
To draw, redeem, and seal is Thine.

With simple faith, to Thee I call,
My Light, my Life, my Lord, my All:
I wait the moving of the pool;
I wait the word that speaks me whole.

Speak, gracious Lord, my sickness cure,
Make my infected nature pure;
Peace, righteousness, and joy impart,
And pour Thyself into my heart.

Galatians 3:22

“The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

Jesu, the Sinner’s Friend, to Thee,
Lost and undone, for aid I flee,
Weary of earth, myself, and sin;
Open Thine arms, and take me in.

Pity and heal my sin-sick soul;
’Tis Thou alone canst make me whole:
Fall’n, till in me Thine image shine,
And cursed I am, till Thou art mine.

Hear, Jesu, hear my helpless cry;
O, save a wretch condemn’d to die!
The sentence in myself I feel,
And all my nature teems with hell.

When shall concupiscence and pride
No more my tortured heart divide!
When shall this agony be o’er,
And the old Adam rage no more!

Awake, the woman’s conquering Seed,
Awake, and bruise the serpent’s head!
Tread down Thy foes, with power control
The beast and devil in my soul.

The mansion for Thyself prepare;
Dispose my heart by entering there!
’Tis this alone can make me clean,
’Tis this alone can cast out sin.

Long have I vainly hoped and strove
To force my hardness into love,
To give Thee all Thy laws require;
And labour’d in the purging fire.

A thousand specious arts essay’d,
Call’d the deep Mystic to my aid:
His boasted skill the brute refined,
But left the subtler fiend behind.

Frail, dark, impure, I still remain,
Nor hope to break my nature’s chain:
The fond self-emptying scheme is past,
And, lo! constrain’d, I yield at last.

At last I own it cannot be
That I should fit myself for Thee:
Here then to Thee I all resign;
Thine is the work, and only Thine.

No more to lift my eyes I dare,
Abandon’d to a just despair;
I have my punishment in view;
I feel a thousand hells my due.

What shall I say Thy grace to move?
Lord, I am sin,—but Thou art Love:
I give up every plea beside,
“Lord, I am damn’d,—but Thou hast died!”

While groaning at Thy feet I fall,
Spurn me away, refuse my call,
If love permit, contract Thy brow,
And, if Thou canst, destroy me now!

Hoping for Grace

From the German.

My soul before Thee prostrate lies,
To Thee, her Source, my spirit flies;
My wants I mourn, my chains I see:
O, let Thy presence set me free!

Lost and undone, for aid I cry;
In Thy death, Saviour, let me die!
Grieved with Thy grief, pain’d with Thy pain,
Ne’er may I feel self-love again.

Jesu, vouchsafe my heart and will
With Thy meek lowliness to fill;
No more her power let Nature boast,
But in Thy will may mine be lost.

In life’s short day let me yet more
Of Thy enlivening power implore:
My mind must deeper sink in Thee,
My foot stand firm, from wandering free.

Ye sons of men, here nought avails
Your strength; here all your wisdom fails
Who bids a sinful heart be clean?
Thou only, Lord, supreme of men.

And well I know Thy tender love;
Thou never didst unfaithful prove:
And well I know Thou stand’st by me,
Pleased from myself to set me free.

Still will I watch, and labour still
To banish every thought of ill;
Till Thou in Thy good time appear,
And sav’st me from the fowler’s snare.

Already springing hope I feel;
God will destroy the power of hell:
God from the land of wars and pain
Leads me where peace and safety reign.

One only care my soul shall know,—
Father, all Thy commands to do:
Ah! deep engrave it on my breast,
That I in Thee even now am blest.

When my warm’d thoughts I fix on Thee,
And plunge me in Thy mercy’s sea,
Then even on me Thy face shall shine,
And quicken this dead heart of mine.

So even in storms my zeal shall grow;
So shall I Thy hid sweetness know;
And feel (what endless age shall prove)
That Thou, my Lord, my God, art Love!

The Dawning

From Herbert.

Awake, sad heart, whom sorrows drown,
Lift up thine eyes, and cease to mourn,
Unfold thy forehead’s settled frown;
Thy Saviour and thy joys return.

Awake, sad drooping heart, awake!
No more lament, and pine, and cry:
His death thou ever dost partake,
Partake at last His victory.

Arise; if thou dost not withstand,
Christ’s resurrection thine may be:
O, break not from the gracious Hand,
Which, as it rises, raises thee.

Cheer’d by thy Saviour’s sorrows rise;
He grieved, that thou may’st cease to grieve:
Dry with His burial-clothes thine eyes;
He died Himself, that thou may’st live!

Psalm 139:23

“Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart.”

Jesu! my great High-Priest above,
My Friend before the throne of Love!
If now for me prevails Thy prayer,
If now I find Thee pleading there;
If Thou the secret wish convey,
And sweetly prompt my heart to pray;
Hear, and my weak petitions join,
Almighty Advocate, to Thine!

Fain would I know my utmost ill,
And groan my nature’s weight to feel;
To feel the clouds that round me roll,
The night that hangs upon my soul,
The darkness of my carnal mind,
My will perverse, my passions blind,
Scatter’d o’er all the earth abroad,
Immeasurably far from God.

Jesu! my heart’s desire obtain,
My earnest suit present and gain,
My fulness of corruption show,
The knowledge of myself bestow;
A deeper displacence at sin,
A sharper sense of hell within,
A stronger struggling to get free,
A keener appetite for Thee.

For Thee my spirit often pants,
Yet often in pursuing faints;
Drooping it soon neglects to aspire,
To fan the ever-dying fire:
No more Thy glory’s skirts are seen,
The world, the creature steals between;
Heavenward no more my wishes move,
And I forget that Thou art Love.

O sovereign Love, to Thee I cry;
Give me Thyself, or else I die.
Save me from death, from hell set free;
Death, hell, are but the want of Thee.
Quicken’d by Thy imparted flame,
Saved, when possest of Thee, I am;
My life, my only heaven, Thou art:
And, lo! I feel Thee in my heart!

The Change

From the German.

Jesu, whose glory’s streaming rays,
Though duteous to Thy high command,
Not seraphs view with open face,
But veil’d before Thy presence stand:
How shall weak eyes of flesh, weigh’d down
With sin, and dim with error’s night,
Dare to behold Thy awful throne,
Or view Thy unapproached light?

Restore my sight! let Thy free grace
An entrance to the holiest give!
Open my eyes of faith! Thy face
So shall I see; yet seeing live.
Thy golden sceptre from above
Reach forth: see, my whole heart I bow:
Say to my soul, “Thou art my love,
My chosen ’midst ten thousand, thou.”

O Jesu, full of grace! the sighs
Of a sick heart with pity view!
Hark how my silence speaks; and cries,
“Mercy, Thou God of mercy, shew!”
I know Thou canst not but be good!
How shouldst Thou, Lord, Thy grace restrain?
Thou, Lord, whose blood so largely flow’d
To save me from all guilt and pain.

Into Thy gracious hands I fall,
And with the arms of faith embrace:
King of Glory, hear my call!
O, raise me, heal me by Thy grace!
—Now righteous through Thy wounds I am;
No condemnation now I dread;
I taste salvation in Thy Name,
Alive in Thee my living Head!

Still let Thy wisdom be my guide,
Nor take Thy light from me away;
Still with me let Thy grace abide,
That I from Thee may never stray.
Let Thy word richly in me dwell;
Thy peace and love my portion be;
My joy to endure and do Thy will,
Till perfect I am found in Thee.

Arm me with Thy whole armour, Lord,
Support my weakness with Thy might;
Gird on my thigh Thy conquering sword,
And shield me in the threatening fight.
From faith to faith, from grace to grace,
So in Thy strength shall I go on,
Till heaven and earth flee from Thy face,
And glory end what grace begun.

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Contents · Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739) — Part II →