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FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.
* * * * *
Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed
In native light on human breast,
That their Creator all
Mankind should Father call:
A father's love all mortals know,
And the love filial which they owe.
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-damnation 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.
God'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 God's paternal cares;
Submission which chastisement 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 God's children shine,
Reflections of the love divine.
* * * * *
God'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 |
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| 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 God my Father I revere,
Nor all hell 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.
God'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 God 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 incumbents 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.
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