2 In vain we tune our formal songs;
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies.
3 Dear Lord! and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate?
Our love so faint, so cold to thee,
And thine to us so great?
4 Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening powers;
Come, shed abroad a Saviour's love,
And that shall kindle ours.
COME, Holy Ghost, all-quickening fire,
Come, and in me delight to rest;
Drawn by the lure of strong desire,
O come, and consecrate my breast;
The temple of my soul prepare,
And fix thy sacred presence there.
2 If now thy influence I feel,
If now in thee begin to live,
Still to my heart thyself reveal;
Give me thyself, for ever give:
A point my good, a drop my store;
Eager I ask, I pant for more.
3 Eager for thee I ask and pant,
So strong the principle divine
Carries me out with sweet constraint,
Till all my hallow'd soul is thine;
Plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea,
And lost in thy immensity.
4 My peace, my life, my comfort thou,
My treasure and my all thou art;.
True witness of my sonship, now
Engraving pardon on my heart:
Seal of my sins in Christ forgiven,
Earnest of love, and pledge of heaven.
5 Come, then, my God, mark out thy heir;
Of heaven a larger earnest give:
With clearer light thy witness bear:
More sensibly within me live:
Let all my powers thy influence feel,
And deeper stamp thyself the seal.
BLESS'D with the joys of innocence
Adam our father stood,
Till he debased his soul to sense,
And ate the unlawful food.
2 Now we are born a sensual race,
To sinful joys inclined;
Reason has lost its native place,
And flesh enslaves the mind.
3 While flesh, and sense, and passion reign,
Sin is the sweetest good:
We fancy music in our chain,
And so forget the load.
4 Great God! renew our ruin'd frame;
Our broken powers restore;
Inspire us with a heavenly flame,
And flesh shall reign no more.
5 Eternal Spirit! write thy law
Upon our inward parts:
And let the second Adam draw
His image on our hearts.
ENSLAVED to sense, to pleasure prone,
Fond of created good;
Father, our helplessness we own,
And trembling taste our food.
2 Trembling we taste; for ah! no more
To thee the creatures lead;
Changed they exert a baneful power,
And poison while they feed.
3 Curs'd for the sake of wretched man,
They now engross him whole;
With pleasing force on earth detain,
And sensualize his soul.
4 Grov❜ling on earth we still must lie,
Till Christ the curse repeal:
Till Christ, descending from on high,
Infected nature heal.
5 Come, then, our heavenly Adam, come;
Thy healing influence give;
Hallow our food, reverse our doom,
And bid us eat and live.
6 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."
7 Earth then a scale to heaven shall be;
Sense shall point out the road;
The creatures all shall lead to thee,
And all we taste be God.
WHEN Adam sinn'd, through all his race
The dire contagion spread;
Sickness, and death, and deep disgrace,
Sprang from our fallen head.
2 Corruption flows through all their veins: Our moral beauty's gone;
The gold is fled, the dross remains;
O sin! what hast thou done:
3 Jesus, reveal thy pardoning grace,
And draw our souls to thee;
Thou art the only hiding-place,
Where ruin'd souls can flee.
O GOD! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
2 Under the shadow of thy throne,
Still may we dwell secure;
Sufficient is thy arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
3 Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received its frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.
4 A thousand ages, in thy sight,
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night,
Before the rising sun.
5 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their cares and fears,
Are carried downward by the flood,
And lost in following years.
6 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away:
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
7 O God! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Be thou our guard while life shall last,
And our perpetual home.
THEE we adore, eternal Name,
And humbly own to thee,
How feeble is our mortal frame;
What dying worms we be.
2 Our wasting lives grow shorter still,
As days and months increase;
And every beating pulse we tell,
Leaves but the number less.
3 The year rolls round, and steals away
The breath that first it gave:
Whate'er we do, where'er we be,
We're travelling to the grave.
4 Dangers stand thick thro' all the ground, To push us to the tomb;
And fierce diseases wait around,
To hurry mortals home.
5 Great God, on what a slender thread
Hang everlasting things!
The eternal state of all the dead
Upon life's feeble strings!
6 Infinite joy, and endless woe,
Attend on every breath;
And yet, how unconcern'd we go
Upon the brink of death!
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