When evil-doers came upon me
To eat up my flesh,
Even mine adversaries and my foes,
They stumbled and fell.
Though an host should encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise against me,
Even then will I be confident.
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
That will I seek after;
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in his temple.
For in the day of trouble he shall keep me secretly in his pavilion,
In the covert of his tabernacle shall he hide me;
He shall lift me up upon a rock.
And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me;
I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy;
I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.
"Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice:
Have mercy also upon me and answer me.
"My heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face from me;
Put not thy servant away in anger.
"Thou hast been my help, cast me not off:
Neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
The Lord will take me up.
"Teach me thy way, O Lord,
And lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies;
Deliver me not over to the will of mine adversaries:
For false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty."
I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the
In the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord: be strong and let thine heart take courage; Yea, wait thou on the Lord.
JEHOVAH'S IMMOVABLE THRONE
The Lord reigneth; he is apparelled with majesty;
The Lord is apparelled, he hath girded himself with strength.
The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved:
Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.
Above the voices of many waters,
The mighty breakers of the sea,
The LORD on high is mighty.
Thy testimonies are very sure:
Holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, forevermore.
From Paradise Lost, Bk. III
(Speech of the Almighty)
O thou in heaven and earth the only peace
Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou
My sole complacence! well thou know'st how dear
To me are all my works, nor man the least,
Though last created, that for him I spare
Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save,
By losing thee awhile, the whole race lost.
Thou therefore whom thou only can'st redeem
Their nature also to thy nature join;
And be thyself Man among men on earth,
Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed,
By wondrous birth: be thou in Adam's room
The head of all mankind, though Adam's son.
As in him perish all men, so in thee,
As from a second root, shall be restored,
As many as are restored, without thee none.
His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit
Imputed shall absolve them who renounce
Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,
And live in thee transplanted, and from thee
Receive new life. So man, as is most just,
Shall satisfy for man, be judged and die;
And dying rise, and rising with him raise
His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.
So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroyed, and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.
Nor shalt thou by descending to assume
Man's nature lessen or degrade thine own. Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition, quitted all to save
A world from utter loss, and hast been found
By merit more than birthright, Son of God,
Found worthiest to be so by being good,
Far more than great or high; because in thee
Love hath abounded more than glory abounds;
Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt
With thee thy manhood also to this throne;
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,
Anointed universal king; all power
I give thee, reign for ever, and assume
Thy merits; under thee as head supreme
Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce:
All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide
In heaven, or earth, or under earth in hell.
When thou, attended gloriously from heaven,
Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send
The summoning archangels to proclaim
Thy dread tribunal, forthwith from all winds
The living, and forthwith the cited dead
Of all past ages, to the general doom
Shall hasten, such a peal shall rouse their sleep.
Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge
Bad men and angels; they arraigned shall sink
Beneath thy sentence; hell, her numbers full,
Thenceforth shall be forever shut. Meanwhile
The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
New heaven and earth, wherein the just shall dwell,
And after all their tribulations long
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and love triumphing, and fair truth:
Then thou thy regal sceptre shalt lay by,
For regal sceptre then no more shall need,
God shall be All in All. But all ye Gods
Adore Him, who to compass all this dies,
Adore the Son, and honour him as me.
Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses; while earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, O Lord, THOU ART.
Thou art to give and to confirm
For each his talent and his term;
All flesh thy bounties share:
Thou shalt not call thy brother fool;
The porches of the Christian school
Are meekness, peace, and pray'r.
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers' smell,
That watch for early pray'r.
Sweet the young nurse with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets
The choicest flow'rs to hive.
Sweeter in all the strains of love,
The language of thy turtle dove,
Pair'd to thy swelling chord;
Sweeter with ev'ry grace endued,
The glory of thy gratitude,
Respir'd unto the Lord.
Strong is the lion-like a coal
His eye-ball-like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes:
Strong the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide, th' enormous whale
Emerges, as he goes.
But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide;
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open side.
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