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THE REPRISAL.
I have considered it, and find
There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion;
- For
- though I die for thee, I am behind:
My sins deserve the condemnation.
O make me innocent, that I
May give a disentangled state and free;
And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy,
For by thy death I die for thee.
Ah! was it not enough that thou
By thy eternal glory didst outgo me?
Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow,
But in all victories overthrow me?
Yet by confession will I come
Into the conquest: though I can do nought
Against thee, in thee I will overcome
The man who once against thee fought.
Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must
rise and go forth to do his will.
It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have
preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual
conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if
I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but
of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may
be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will
burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only
path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the
will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions,
and leave God free to work his perfection in him--free, that is, of the
interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this
perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body
of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father,
caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should
judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things.
Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for
the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a
higher bliss.
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