Christian Songs, Song IV

Praise ye JEHOVAH'S love and grace To Adam's guilty wretched race; Sing of this love, the spring and rise Of all his counsels, great and wise.

2 For all his works, his creatures all, Their being and original Owe to this love; and there, again, They tend, as rivers to the main.

3 What else is evil but the shade, By wisdom in the picture laid, To make this grace arise, and shew Its brightest glory to our view?

4 Our GOD is love; his wrath, be sure, Is flaming love, which shines most pure; And stands oppos'd, as mid-day light To gloomy darkness of the night.

5 This goodness, as a deep abyss, All working outward, full of bliss, Was making for itself a vent Well suited to its vast extent;

6 By which it might with freedom flow, And all its fulness there bestow, Where it should have an endless rest: God's wisdom here prevents our quest.

7 What is capacious to receive Unbounded love, if bounds it have? Or where is found an object meet For grace and mercy infinite?

8 Not all the things which could be made, A proper match among them had For boundless love, which goes not forth To objects limited in worth.

9 Neither can all created things Pass for its fruit (the gift it brings) When the intention is to shew, By giving, all that grace can do:

10 Nor yet could sin-forgiving grace, 'Mong all the creatures find a place, While all was good, no room could be For mercy's aid to misery.

11 But Love, which is the only God, Had always being and abode, Whole in each one of loving Three, All bless'd in Love's society.

12 One of these Three, with all his worth, To union near with men goes forth; So join'd to them, that, in his name, A right to all this love they claim.

13 But, first, they're doom'd for sin to wo, That he for them might undergo Their curse, and so might fully prove Th' infinite jealousy of Love:

14 And at the same time manifest Mercy relieving the distrest; Mercy, all sov'reign, and all free, Saving from boundless misery.

15 He's unto them the fruit of love, The gift which can its greatness prove; And ev'ry gift which grace bestows Is GOD-like as from him it flows.

16 And he's the object; it goes forth On them made perfect in his worth; All built in him, one mansion meet, Where God's love ever dwells complete.

17 Let Wisdom, therefore, be his name; The spring of wisdom him proclaim: Call him the Word, who can express God's goodness all, and fully bless.

18 Call him the Father's only Son, Son of his love; in him alone The Spirit's fulness all can dwell, Who is our great Immanuel.