hope

Love to God.

Happy the heart where graces reign,
Where love inspires the breast;
Love is the brightest of the train,
And strengthens all the rest.

Knowledge, alas! 'tis all in vain,
And all in vain our fear;
Our stubborn sins will fight and reign,
If love be absent there.

'Tis love that makes our cheerful feet
In swift obedience move;
The devils know and tremble too,
But Satan cannot love.

This is the grace that lives and sings
When faith and hope shall cease;

Christ's humiliation, exaltation, and triumph.

Phil. 2:8,9; Mark 15:20,24,29; Col. 2:15.

The mighty frame of glorious grace,
That brightest monument of praise
That e'er the God of love designed,
Employs and fills my lab'ring mind.

Begin, my soul, the heav'nly song,
A burden for an angel's tongue:
When Gabriel sounds these awful things,
He tunes and summons all his stungs.

Proclaim inimitable love:
Jesus, the Lord of worlds above,
Puts off the beams of bright array,

None excluded from hope.

Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:24.

Jesus, thy blessings are not few,
Nor is thy gospel weak;
Thy grace can melt the stubborn Jew,
And bow th' aspiring Greek.

Wide as the reach of Satan's rage
Doth thy salvation flow;
'Tis not confined to sex or age,
The lofty or the low.

While grace is offered to the prince,
The poor may take their share;
No mortal has a just pretence
To perish in despair

Be wise, ye men of strength and wit,

The gospel the power of God to salvation.

Rom. 1:16.

What shall the dying sinner do
That seeks relief for all his woe?
Where shall the guilty conscience find
Ease for the torment of the mind?

How shall we get our crimes forgiv'n?
Or form our natures fit for heav'n?
Can souls all o'er defiled with sin
Make their own powers and passions clean?

In vain we search, in vain we try,
Till Jesus brings his gospel nigh;
'Tis there such power and glory dwell
As save rebellious souls from hell.

The Christian's hidden life.

Col. 3:3.

O happy soul that lives on high
While men lie grov'lling here
His hopes are fixed above the sky,
And faith forbids his fear.

His conscience knows no secret stings,
While peace and joy combine
To form a life whose holy springs
Are hidden and divine.

He waits in secret on his God,
His God in secret sees;
Let earth be all in arms abroad,
He dwells in heav'nly peace.

His pleasures rise from things unseen,

Hope of heaven by the resurrection of Christ.

1 Pet. 1:3-5.

Blest be the everlasting God,
The Father of our Lord;
Be his abounding mercy praised,
His majesty adored.

When from the dead he raised his Son,
And called him to the sky,
He gave our souls a lively hope
That they should never die.

What though our inbred sins require
Our flesh to see the dust,
Yet as the Lord our Savior rose,
So all his followers must.

There's an inheritance divine
Reserved against that day;

Christ the eternal life.

Rom. 9:5.

Jesus, our Savior and our God,
Arrayed in majesty and blood,
Thou art our life; our souls in thee
Possess a full felicity.

All our immortal hopes are laid
In thee, our surety and our head;
Thy cross, thy cradle, and thy throne,
Are big with glories yet unknown.

Let atheists scoff, and Jews blaspheme
Th' eternal life and Jesus' name;
A word of thy almighty breath
Dooms the rebellious world to death.

But let my soul for ever lie

Spiritual apparel.

Isa. 61:10.

Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue,
Prepare a tuneful voice;
In God, the life of all my joys,
Aloud will I rejoice.

'Tis he adorned my naked soul,
And made salvation mine;
Upon a poor polluted worm
He makes his graces shine.

And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior wrought,
And cast it all around.

How far the heav'nly robe exceeds
What earthly princes wear

The song of Simeon; or, Death made desirable.

Luke 2:27ff

Lord, at thy temple we appear,
As happy Simeon came,
And hope to meet our Savior here;
O make our joys the same!

With what divine and vast delight
The good old man was filled,
When fondly in his withered arms
He clasped the holy child!

"Now I can leave this world," he cried,
"Behold, thy servant dies;
I've seen thy great salvation, Lord,
And close my peaceful eyes.

"This is the light prepared to shine

Unfruitfulness, ignorance, and unsanctified affections.

Long have I sat beneath the sound
Of thy salvation, Lord;
But still how weak my faith is found,
And knowledge of thy word!

Oft I frequent thy holy place,
And hear almost in vain;
How small a portion of thy grace
My memory can retain!

[My dear Almighty, and my God,
How little art thou known
By all the judgments of thy rod,
And blessings of thy throne!]

How cold and feeble is my love!
How negligent my fear!