From brooding on her doubtful lot,
Now fix’d for ever sure;
His mind now turn’d its every thought,
To his sick soul and cure.
“How shall I flee from wrath to come,
Where hide my guilty head?
Should I next go to my long home,
Where shall I be?” he said.
He bade adieu to sinful joy,
And trac’d the moral page;
The fine clad sentiment could cloy,
But not his grief assuage.
No, he had tried all these in vain,
All “empty, void, and waste;”
They serv’d but to increase his pain,
Involving ruin fast.
Thus, baffled, wearied, and distress’d,
He did a Bible see;
There found a prayer for one oppress’d,
“Lord, undertake for me.”
To church on Sundays he had been,
As others come and go;
But ne’er by faith had Jesus seen,
Or heard what Christ could do.
Until, with circumcised ear,
He when at church one day,
Found mercy to his soul draw near,
Which to his heart did say:
“Come unto me, thou weary soul,
Laden with num’rous sins;
No case so bad that can controul
My grace where it begins.
Why so disquieted art thou,
With sins, and fears, and care?
Lo th’ accepted time is now,
Tho’ lost, do not despair.
Lost in yourself, in Christ there’s hope,
And never till you’re lost,
Relinquish ev’ry other prop,
And then you’ll prize him most.