England's Antiphon Part 33

Our Father gives us heavenly light, And to be happy, ghostly sight; He blesses, guides, sustains; He eases us in pains; Abatements for our weakness makes, And never a true child forsakes.

He waits till the hard heart relents; Our self-d.a.m.nation he laments; He sweetly them invites To share in heaven's delights; His arms he opens to receive All who for past transgressions grieve.

My Father! O that name is sweet To sinners mourning in retreat.

G.o.d's heart paternal yearns When he a change discerns; He to his favour them restores; He heals their most inveterate sores.

Religious honour, humble awe; Obedience to our Father's law; A lively grateful sense Of tenderness immense; Full trust on G.o.d's paternal cares; Submission which chastis.e.m.e.nt bears;

Grief, when his goodness we offend; Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; Will, from the world refined, To his sole will resigned: These graces in G.o.d's children s.h.i.+ne, Reflections of the love divine.

G.o.d's Son co-equal taught us all In prayer his Father ours to call: With confidence in need, We to our Father speed: Of his own Son the language dear Intenerates the Father's ear. _makes tender._

Thou Father art, though to my shame, I often forfeit that dear name; But since for sin I grieve, Me father-like receive; O melt me into filial tears, To pay of love my vast arrears.

O Spirit of Adoption! spread Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; O Filial love immense!

Raise me to love intense; O Father, source of love divine, My powers to love and hymn incline!

While G.o.d my Father I revere, Nor all h.e.l.l powers, nor death I fear; I am my Father's care; His succours present are.

All comes from my loved Father's will, And that sweet name intends no ill.

G.o.d's Son his soul, when life he closed, In his dear Father's hands reposed: I'll, when my last I breathe, My soul to G.o.d bequeath; And panting for the joys on high, Invoking Love Paternal, die.

Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with how many inc.u.mbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley.

Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves very prominently. There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the region half-spiritual, half-material.

THE ASPIRATION.

How long, great G.o.d, how long must I Immured in this dark prison lie; My soul must watch to have intelligence; Where at the grates and avenues of sense Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, Like doubtful moons.h.i.+ne in a cloudy night?

When shall I leave this magic sphere, And be all mind, all eye, all ear?

How cold this clime! And yet my sense Perceives even here thy influence.

Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, And pant and tremble like the amorous steel.

To lower good, and beauties less divine, Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, But yet, so strong the sympathy, It turns, and points again to thee.

I long to see this excellence Which at such distance strikes my sense.

My impatient soul struggles to disengage Her wings from the confinement of her cage.

Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, How would she hasten to be linked to thee!

She'd for no angels' conduct stay, But fly, and love on all the way.

THE RETURN.

Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy!

When I thy sacred mount ascend, What heavenly sweets my soul employ!

Why can't I there my days for ever spend?

When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, What pity 'tis that I must down again!

And yet I must: my pa.s.sions would rebel Should I too long continue here: No, here I must not think to dwell, But mind the duties of my proper sphere.

So angels, though they heaven's glories know, Forget not to attend their charge below.

The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of contemplation.

We find ourselves now in the zone of _hymn_-writing. From this period, that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn whose literary excellence makes it worthy.

It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once a household treasure in a mult.i.tude of families,[156] the _Spiritual Songs_ of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book:

A GENERAL SONG OF PRAISE TO ALMIGHTY G.o.d.

How shall I sing that Majesty Which angels do admire?

Let dust in dust and silence lie; Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.

Thousands of thousands stand around Thy throne, O G.o.d most high; Ten thousand times ten thousand sound Thy praise; but who am I?

Thy brightness unto them appears, Whilst I thy footsteps trace; A sound of G.o.d comes to my ears; But they behold thy face.

They sing because thou art their sun: Lord, send a beam on me; For where heaven is but once begun, There hallelujahs be.

Enlighten with faith's light my heart; Enflame it with love's fire; Then shall I sing and bear a part With that celestial choir.

I shall, I fear, be dark and cold, With all my fire and light; Yet when thou dost accept their gold, Lord, treasure up my mite.

How great a being, Lord, is thine.

Which doth all beings keep!

Thy knowledge is the only line To sound so vast a deep.

Thou art a sea without a sh.o.r.e, A sun without a sphere; Thy time is now and evermore, Thy place is everywhere.

How good art thou, whose goodness is Our parent, nurse, and guide!

Whose streams do water Paradise, And all the earth beside!

Thine upper and thy nether springs Make both thy worlds to thrive; Under thy warm and sheltering wings Thou keep'st two broods alive.

Thy arm of might, most mighty king Both rocks and hearts doth break: My G.o.d, thou canst do everything But what should show thee weak.

Thou canst not cross thyself, or be Less than thyself, or poor; But whatsoever pleaseth thee, That canst thou do, and more.

Who would not fear thy searching eye, Witness to all that's true!

Dark h.e.l.l, and deep Hypocrisy Lie plain before its view.

Motions and thoughts before they grow, Thy knowledge doth espy; What unborn ages are to do, Is done before thine eye.

Thy wisdom which both makes and mends, We ever much admire: Creation all our wit transcends; Redemption rises higher.

Thy wisdom guides strayed sinners home, 'Twill make the dead world rise, And bring those prisoners to their doom: Its paths are mysteries.

Great is thy truth, and shall prevail To unbelievers' shame: Thy truth and years do never fail; Thou ever art the same.

Unbelief is a raging wave Das.h.i.+ng against a rock: If G.o.d doth not his Israel save, Then let Egyptians mock.