Classic Poem

Being a Dialogue wherein the Speakers are Spirit and Flesh.

Spirit

1

My Soul what aileth thee
Thus heavily to droop,
And under thine Affliction
Dejectedly to stoop?
Art thou the onely man
That hath Affliction seen?
And have not better men then thou
As much afflicted been?

2

Hast thou no part in God?
Or doth he cease to love thee?
If neither this, nor that be so,
What can so greatly move thee?
Flesh . I heretofore did hope
My sins were pardoned
Through God's free-grace, that all my debts
were wholly cancelled:

3

That Christ had satisfy'd
For me, and clear'd the score;
That God was therefore reconcil'd
And would be wroth no more:
Yet now he hides his face
And on me seems to frown;
He will not hear my suit for grace,
But wounds and casts me down.

4

He writeth bitter things,
And makes me to possess
My sins of youth: to mind he brings
My faults and trespasses.
Will God cast off from ay?
And Anger still retain?
Will he depart ev'n quite away,
And not return again?

Spirit.

5

Where Christ once sets his love
He loveth to the end,
And nothing can him change or move
From being still our Friend
God cannot cease to love,
Where once he did begin:
Although he may with stripes reprove
And chasten thee for sin.

6

Be humbled for thy falls,
My Soul, and turn to God,
Who from thy wandrings thee recalls
By this his gentle Rod
Attend unto his voice,
Return to him that smites
For good; who every child corrects
In whom his Soul delights.

7

Fathers may chide and whip
Their Children till they smart:
But whil'st their hand inflicteth stripes,
They pitty with their heart.
They cast not off a Child,
Although they angry be:
Nor doth thy Heav'nly Father mild
Reject and cast off thee.