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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Give Me a New, A Perfect Heart by Charles Wesley

This is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley. The Cyberhymnal has posted over 100 hymns by him. I had never heard this one, but it is on a theme which was central to the message of John and Charles Wesley.

Give me a new, a perfect heart,
From doubt, and fear, and sorrow free;
The mind which was in Christ impart,
And let my spirit cleave to Thee.

O take this heart of stone away!
Thy sway it doth not, cannot own;
In me no longer let it stay;
O take away this heart of stone!

Cause me to walk in Christ my Way;
And I Thy statutes shall fulfill,
In every point Thy law obey,
And perfectly perform Thy will.

Within me Thy good Spirit place,
Spirit of health, and love, and power;
Plant in me Thy victorious grace,
And sin shall never enter more.

O that I now, from sin released,
Thy Word may to the utmost prove!
Enter into the promised rest,
The Canaan of Thy perfect love.

Now let me gain perfection’s height;
Now let me into nothing fall,
Be less than nothing in Thy sight,
And feel that Christ is all in all.

The original, which was written in 1742, and hence is in the public domain, had 28 verses. I believe that this poem could be sung to familiar tunes such as "Old Hundredth," or "Duke Street," which have 8.8.8.8 meter.

3 comments:

Cliff Martin said...

Indeed! In his new book Beyond the Firmament, Gordon Glover looks at this in reverse. He suggests that we exclude the possibility of common decent, and biological evolution. Then try to make sense of the mountains of evidence. While it is true, we might imagine other explanations, they stretch credibility.

Thank you, Martin, for this post and the quote.

Banshee said...

How can we be in Christ, and have a heart free of _sorrow_??!?

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks.

However, Cliff, I suspect that you commented on the wrong post.

Maureen, I'm not sure, but, after all, it's poetry. Perhaps he meant being free from the sorrow of an unforgiven heart.