HOW weak the thoughts, and vain,
Of self-deluding men;
Men, who, fixed to earth alone,
Think their houses shall endure,
Fondly call their lands their own,
To their distant heirs secure.
How happy, then, are we,
Who build, O Lord, on Thee!
What can our foundation shock?
Though the shattered earth remove,
Stands our city on a rock,
On the rock of heavenly Love.
A house we call our own,
Which cannot be o'erthrown:
In the general ruin sure,
Storms and earthquakes it defies;
Built immovably secure;
Built eternal in the skies.
High on Immanuel's land
We see the fabric stand;
From a tottering world remove
To our steadfast mansions there:
Our inheritance above.
Cannot pass from heir to heir.
5 Those amaranthine bowers (Unalienably ours)
Bloom, our infinite reward,
Rise, our permanent abode;
From the founded world prepared;
Purchased by the blood of God.
O might we quickly find,
The place for us designed;
See the long-expected day
Of our full redemption here:
Let the shadows flee away,
Let the new-made world appear.
High on Thy great white throne,
O King of Saints, come down;
In the new Jerusalem
Now triumphantly descend;
Let the final trump proclaim
Joys begun which ne'er shall end.
459 (160) 4-8s & 2-6s.
HOW happy is the pilgrim's lot!
How free from every anxious thought,
From worldly hope and fear!
Confined to neither court nor cell,
His soul disdains on earth to dwell,
He only sojourns here.
2 His happiness in part is mine,
Already saved from low design,
From every creature-love;
Blest with the scorn of finite good,
My soul is lightened of its load,
And seeks the things above.
3 The things eternal I pursue;
A happiness beyond the view
Of those that basely pant
For things by nature felt and seen:
Their honours, wealth,and pleasures mean,
I neither have nor want.
4 (I have no babes to hold me here;
But children more securely dear
For mine I humbly claim,
Better than daughters or than sons,
Temples divine of living stones,
Inscribed with Jesu's name.)
5 (No foot of land do I possess,
No cottage in this wilderness;
A poor wayfaring man,
I lodge awhile in tents below,
Or gladly wander to and fro,
Till I my Canaan gain.)
6 Nothing on earth I call my own;
A stranger, to the world unknown,
I all their goods despise;
I trample on their whole delight,
And seek a country out of sight,
A country in the skies.
7 There is my house and portion fair;
My treasure and my heart are there,
And my abiding home;
For me my elder brethren stay,
And angels beckon me away,
And Jesus bids me come.
8 (I come, thy servant, Lord, replies ;-
I come to meet Thee in the skies,
And claim my heavenly rest!
Now let the pilgrim's journey end:
Now, O my Saviour, Brother, Friend,
Receive me to Thy breast!)
THERE is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign:
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
2 There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers:
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.
3 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.
4 But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shivering on the brink,
And fear to launch away.
5 O! could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love,
With unbeclouded eyes;
6 Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood, Should fright us from the shore.
Lord, on whom I still depend,
That keep me faithful to the end:
I trust Thy truth, and love, and power,
Shall save me till my latest hour;
And when I lay this body down,
Reward with an immortal crown.
2 Jesus, in Thy great name I go
To conquer death, my final foe!
And when I quit this cumbrous clay,
And soar on angels' wings away,
My soul the second death defies,
And reigns eternal in the skies.
3 Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
What Christ hath for His saints prepared,
Who conquer through their Saviour's might,
Who sink into perfection's height,
And trample death beneath their feet,
And gladly die their Lord to meet.
4 Dost thou desire to know and see,
What thy mysterious name shall be ?
Contending for thy heavenly home,
Thy latest foe in death o'ercome;
Till then thou searchest out in vain,
What only conquest can explain.
LONG to behold Him arrayed
With glory and light from above,
The King in His beauty displayed,
His beauty of holiest love:
I languish and sigh to be there,
Where Jesus hath fixed His abode;
O when shall we meet in the air,
And fly to the mountain of God!
2 With Him I on Sion shall stand,
(For Jesus hath spoken the word,)
The breadth of Immanuel's land
Survey by the light of my Lord;
But when, on Thy bosom reclined,
Thy face I am strengthened to see,
My fulness of rapture I find,
My heaven of heavens, in Thee.
3 How happy the people that dwell
Secure in the city above!
No pain the inhabitants feel,
No sickness or sorrow shall prove.
Physician of souls, unto me
Forgiveness and holiness give;
And then from the body set free,
And then to the city receive!
JERUSALEM,
ERUSALEM, my happy home!
When shall my labours have an end,
In joy, and peace, and thee?
2 When shall these eyes thy heaven-built walls
And pearly gates behold?
Thy bulwarks, with salvation strong,
And streets of shining gold?
3 O, when, thou city of my God,
Shall I thy courts ascend,
Where evermore the angels sing,
Where Sabbaths have no end?
4 There happier bowers than Eden's bloom, Nor sin nor sorrow know:
Blest seats! through rude and stormy scenes I onward press to you.
5 Why should I shrink from pain and woe! Or feel at death dismay?
I've Canaan's goodly land in view,
And realms of endless day.
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