Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the judgment is reveal’d,
And that open’d which was seal’d,
When to Thee I have appeal’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!”
Although Richard Baxter has been always so renowned as a prose writer, his poetry was for a long time neglected; but of late one of his lyrical compositions has obtained a very extensive popularity. There is in it a quaint beauty, which evokes our admiration of the author’s piety, beyond the praise which we bestow upon the freshness and originality of his mind. It is a specimen of that devout confidence in God which so thoroughly inspired the best religiousness of the seventeenth century; it furnishes an incentive to pure and hallowed affections, in every bosom, and it possesses some of the best qualities of a Christian hymn:—
“Lord, it belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live:
To live and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.